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Free the Palestinian Journalists!

November 2, 2008

Nov 1st, 2008 by kawther.salam

Unfortunately, the Palestinian journalists who are held in the jails of Hamas and the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah and other West Bank cities are more likely to be tortured than the Palestinian journalists who are held in the Israeli military jails. The Palestinian Authority has committed crimes against journalism and the freedom of speech. They held and tortured nine journalists, and have closed two newspapers, “Palestine” and “Al-Risala”. The Hamas in Gaza has also committed crimes against journalism and journalists, they hold three Palestinian journalists from “Al-Hadath Press”, and they have caused lots of troubles for many other journalists. They also took several times illegal steps which hindered the distribution of the newspapers from Ramallah and Jerusalem.

Shame on the Palestinian Authority and shame on Hamas, who are not better than the Israeli occupation in how they deal with Palestinian journalists. I remind both the PA and the ministerial employees of Salam Fayyad in Ramallah and the Hamas Authority in Gaza that the Palestinian journalists who are held illegally in the Israeli occupation jails under administrative arrest are not tortured like the journalists who are held under your criminal power and continue being tortured for political reasons.

I add my voice to the President of International Federation of journalist, general secretary Dr. Aidan White, who issued a statement on October 31, 2008, asking both Palestinian sides to free the imprisoned journalists without conditions.

I also ask the illegal Israeli occupation to free the Palestinian journalists who they hold under administrative arrest since many years. Personally, I remind both the PA and Hamas, that holding journalists is inhuman and illegal, and puts their regimes in one group together with the criminal terrorists of the Israeli occupation. I ask the International journalist organizations to play an active to end this crime against the Palestinian journalists who are held in jails for political reasons and for pursuing their holy journalistic mission honestly. It should be possible to bring these criminal authorities before the International Criminal Court  if they do not free these journalists.

The names of the journalists who were jailed because they were exercising their work as journalists are mentioned after the Press release of the IFJ below.

Press Release of the Secretary General of the International Federation of Journalists, Dr. Aidan White.
October 31, 2008

Aidan White, the General Secretary of the International Federation of Journalists

Palestinian Journalists Held in Power Struggle Must be Freed Says IFJ
The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) today called for the immediate release of Palestinian journalists who are being held by the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Hamas as part of the political power struggle. The call comes as both sides prepare for new talks to break the political deadlock.

“For months, Palestinian journalists have been used as pawns in the ongoing dispute between the Palestinian Authority and Hamas,” said IFJ General Secretary Aidan White. “Both sides claim journalists are a “security risk” but it is little more than a device for intimidation, media control and political in-fighting.”

Currently there are 11 Palestinian journalists in prisons: eight held by the PA in the West Bank and three held by Hamas in Gaza. Most of them are being held because they worked for media organisations of rival political factions. Security forces on both sides deny this, but not one journalist has been charged or brought to trial.

At least one journalist, Osaid Amarneh from Hebron, was held and then released but only after he agreed to stop working for Hamas media in the West Bank.  He signed a document promising the PA he would stop working for Hamas media organization Al Aqsa TV. Media on both sides are also being targeted. Newspapers from the rival parties are banned on both sides and the offices of Palestine TV in Gaza and Al Aqsa TV in the West Bank are still closed.

Palestinian journalists will stand in solidarity with their colleagues and defend their freedom and right to work freely on November 5, a global day of action “Stand Up for Journalism” in defence of journalists’ rights organised by the IFJ. In the Middle East and North Africa region, journalists will mark the day with events promoting their campaign for press freedom, “Breaking the Chains.”

On November 9 a Palestinian national dialogue will start between Hamas and Fatah in Cairo. The IFJ is renewing calls for both governments to end the campaign against media and to free all journalists as part of the new dialogue.

Lists of some of the journalists who are held illegally in PA, Hamas and Israeli occupation jails follow.

Palestinian Prisoners detained in Hamas jails in Gaza are:

  • Akram Al-Llouh, director of Al-Hadath Press
  • Josef Fayad and Hani Ismael from Al-Hadath Press.
    For some time Hamas prevented the Palestinian newspapers Al-Ayyam and Al-Hayat Al-Jadidah to be distributed in Gaza. Hamas accused the PA security systems of assassinating three journalists.
  • On 15 May 2007, Suleiman Al-Ashe and Mohammad Abdo from Palestine Press and Isam Al-Jojo were killed after the PA security kidnapped them on 12 May 2007.

Some of the Palestinian journalists illegally detained by the PA are:

  • Musab Hosam Al-Din Katloni from Nablus, age 24, jailed on 5 March 2008.
  • Ala’a Al-Titi from the Al-Fawar refugee camp south of Hebron.
  • Asiad Amarneh from Hebron was arrested several times by the PA security and accused of damaging the national security through his journalistic work. After a PA court found him not guilty he was and arrested again by the PA security in May 2008.
  • Mohammad Al-Kik from Hebron was arrested several times by the PA, the last time he was arrested while exercising his journalistic duties a during a demonstration against the closure of the charities in Hebron by the Israeli occupation.
  • Mohammad Al-Halaika, Beni Neim/ Hebron
  • Mohammad Athba and Nimer Hindi, both photographers, were arrested in May 2008 by the PA security.

Palestinian journalists under administrative arrest in the Gulag of the Israeli Occupation:

  • Sami Asi from Nablus
  • Walid Khaled, director of the “Palestine” newspaper from Salfit
  • Tariq Abu Zeed, who was arrested by the PA security
  • Mohammad Al-Halayka
  • Jihad Dawood
  • Nizar Ramadan.

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Palestinian group says Israelis killed 68 children in Gaza in year

October 21, 2008

A prominent Palestinian human rights group says it has found evidence that 68 children were killed in the Gaza Strip in the 12 months to June this year as a result of “disproportionate and excessive lethal force” by the Israeli military.

The deaths are documented, with witness testimony, in a report published today by the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights. Many of the deaths resulted from an Israeli military incursion into Jabaliya, in eastern Gaza, in late February and early March, in which more than 100 Palestinians, at least half of them civilians, died in what Israel said was an operation to stop rockets being fired into southern Israeli towns.

Others were killed in smaller strikes before a ceasefire was reached in June between Gaza’s Hamas administration and Israel. Despite occasional breaches, the truce still holds. In the year to June, another 12 children were killed by Israeli troops in the West Bank.

The rights group said many of the deaths passed without investigation, and those internal Israeli military inquiries that were held did not meet international standards of independence and transparency.

Since the start of the second intifada in late 2000, around 4,800 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli military, including nearly 900 children. More than 1,000 Israelis have been killed, including around 120 children.

The centre cited as one example an incident in April near the village of Juhor al-Dik, when a Reuters cameraman was killed by Israeli tank fire. The same tank shells killed two children: Ahmed Aaref Farajallah, 14, and Ghassan Abu Otaiwi, 17. The Israeli military said it investigated the incident and concluded that the tank crew reached a “reasonable conclusion” that the Palestinians gathered on the road were “hostile”, and said the decision to fire was “sound”.

The Israeli military did not respond to the criticisms last night, because of a Jewish religious holiday. However, it has in the past repeatedly defended its military actions in Gaza, saying it does not intentionally target civilians, and noting that Palestinian militants frequently fire from civilian areas.

The centre said the killing of unarmed civilians represented grave human rights violations, and called on Israel to establish an independent commission to investigate the deaths. It condemned Palestinian militant groups that recruited children to fight and said militants should not fire missiles from in or around residential areas.

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Israel ‘weighing Saudi peace deal’

October 20, 2008
Al Jazeera, Oct 20, 2008

Livni is scrambling to get the necessary numbers to form a coalition government [AFP]

Israel’s defence minister has said the country’s leaders are considering a dormant Saudi plan offering comprehensive peace with the Arab world.

Ehud Barak said it was time to pursue an overall peace deal because there was very little progress in individual negotiations with Syria and the Palestinians.

The peace plan – first mooted by Saudi Arabia in 2002 – offers Israel recognition by its Arab neighbours in return for its withdrawal from lands in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights captured during the 1967 Middle East war.

Barak said he had discussed the plan with Tzipi Livni, the leader of Israel’s Kadima party trying to form a coalition government, and that they were considering a response.

“There is definitely room to introduce a comprehensive Israeli plan to counter the Saudi plan that would be the basis for a discussion on overall regional peace,” he told Israel’s Army Radio.

Barak’s announcement came as Livni sought a two-week extension to form political alliances in a new government, having failed to attract the ultra-orthodox Shas party to join Kadima and Barak’s Labour party in the administration.

Coalition deadline

Livni was elected leader of Kadima last month, taking over from Ehud Olmert who resigned as prime minister in the wake of a corruption scandal but remains in office in a caretaker capacity until a new government is formed.

Livni has already won an initial agreement from Barak, the leader of the Labour party, to join a coalition under her leadership.

But her efforts to attract Shas, which is making a number of demands, have so far proved fruitless.

Al Jazeera’s Sherine Tadros, reporting from Jerusalem, said the Shas party had a strong bargaining position.

The Shas party knows that Livni really needs it in order to become prime minister and form a strong government acceptable to the Israeli public, our correspondent said.

The religious Shas party, which has long billed itself as a party that represents Israel’s poor, has been demanding increased government spending of about $270m on social welfare as a price for joining a Livni-led coalition.

Scramble for numbers

With Labour in her corner, Livni would control 48 of the 120 seats in parliament.

“She could go to the Knesset [to ratify a government] with the seats she already has, but she believes she can do it in the end,” Gil Messing, a Livni spokesman, said.

Without Shas, she could form a minority government relying on precarious support from outside the coalition of left-wing and Arab parties wary of a national election that opinion polls show Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud would win.

Shas’s membership would boost that number to 60, a wafer-thin coalition but enough to stop the opposition from toppling her government in no-confidence votes.

Winning the support of smaller factions, such as the Pensioners party, with seven Knesset members, and the left-wing Meretz, with five, would give Livni a stronger mandate to pursue policies that include peacemaking with the Palestinians.

Meanwhile, some 80 truckloads of food and medical supplies were delayed from reaching the Gaza Strip after dozens of Israelis blocked a crossing on Sunday, demanding their government seal an agreement with Hamas to release Gilad Shalit.

Hamas is demanding the release of 1,400 prisoners in exchange for Shalit, the Israeli soldier captured by Palestinian fighters more than two years ago.

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The settlers’ war with Israel

October 16, 2008

In any peace deal with the Palestinians, Israel will also have to tackle the problem of militant Jewish settlers

Paul Raymond | guardian.co.uk, Thursday October 16 2008 08.00 BST

While it is not unusual for events on the Temple Mount to trigger renewed Israeli-Palestinian conflict – the second Palestinian intifada (uprising) was triggered in 2001 by then Israeli defence minister Ariel Sharon’s controversial visit to the site – the latest events also have much to say about the current political situation in Israel itself. A growing current of hardline neo-Zionist militancy is terrorising Palestinians, leftwing Israelis and state authorities alike. As the Israeli government desperately tries to come to an agreement with the Palestinian Authority and undermine Hamas, the problem of evacuating settlements inhabited by violent ultra-nationalists will be near the top of a list of thorny challenges for the next Israeli administration.

There is plenty of evidence that the right wing radical fringe is growing. In mid-September, over 200 vigilantes from the illegal West Bank settlement of Yitzhar invaded the nearby Palestinian village of Asira al-Qibliyyah with guns and slingshots, in response to the stabbing of a Jewish boy from the settlement.

But settler violence is not limited to attacks against Palestinians. Two weeks after the assault on Asira, leftwing Israeli professor Ze’ev Sternhell, a staunch critic of the settlement movement, was injured by a pipe bomb on his doorstep. It was widely assumed that rightwing activists placed it there, although the settlers’ supporters were quick to accuse Israeli intelligence forces of launching a sinister leftwing conspiracy to discredit them. Later, prominent settler leader Daniela Weiss was arrested for attacking Israeli police officers during the evacuation of the illegal settlement of Shvut Ami, giving a further indication of the gulf between Israeli state authorities and the radical right.

It is clear that the rift has implications for the current round of talks with the Palestinians. Ehud Olmert, the outgoing Israeli prime minister, has argued that Israelis should abandon the Zionist utopia of the Greater Land of Israel, resorting instead to a territorial compromise in order to achieve peace with the Palestinians. After the events of September 13, Yitzhar’s rabbi, David Dudkevich, who claims that the Arabs should emigrate from the “Land of Israel”, launched a public tirade against the idea. Among other things, he endorsed the proposal of a separate state, Judea, which would be established alongside Israel should the latter decide to abandon the Zionist dream.

“It’s obvious that a great many people who are secure in their Judaism feel emotionally distant from the state, which is in another place altogether,” he told Haaretz newspaper. “The state of Israel is not the be-all and end-all. If it decides it does not want to be in the hereditary lands of our forefathers, then other Jews have the right to organise themselves in order to live there, even without a link to the state. When there’s talk about another expulsion, then on the ideological level, the ‘State of Judea’ is no worse than expulsion.”

The irony is that settler radicalism was nurtured by the Israeli state in the first place. Over the years, Likud governments in particular encouraged non-ideological Israelis to settle in the West Bank in the hope that they would adopt views that fitted the rightwing agenda of that party. It was also an effective strategy for gaining control of the Occupied Territories and guaranteeing that the maximum possible territory would be ceded to Israel should the US force her into a deal with the Palestinians.

However, the 2005 Israeli withdrawal from Gaza placed the state authorities charged with implementing government policy – namely the police – at loggerheads with those settlers. The image of Israeli police forcibly evicting Jews from their homes created a wound in Israeli society that has been festering ever since. Several thousand young people who lived their entire childhoods in Gaza settlements now feel abandoned by the state and are willing to take out their frustration, often violently, against both Palestinians and the Israeli authorities.

Thus the Israeli government now faces huge dilemmas in the context of the current round of Israeli-Palestinian talks and also in how it deals with its own citizens. If the implication of Olmert’s comments is that more settlement evacuations are on the cards, and forcing that past a group of armed, radical settlers who have sworn their enmity to the state will be every bit as hard as negotiating an agreement with the Palestinians.

No religious festival in Jerusalem would be complete without a controversial political incident, and this year’s Yom Kippur was no exception. A group of nearly a hundred rightwing radicals forced their way on to the plaza of the Dome of the Rock, one of the most sacred sites in Islam. Entering the precinct on Yom Kippur was a symbolic way of claiming Jewish sovereignty over the site many consider to be the location of the second temple, destroyed by the Romans in AD 70.

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Licence to kill

October 15, 2008
Jewish settler fanatics continue to kill and steal from Palestinians without censure from Israel, writes Khaled Amayreh in the West Bank
Al- Ahram Weekly, 9-15 October 2008

Israeli security circles have warned recently that “organised Jewish terror” against Palestinians (and also against peace-oriented Jews) is on the rise and that steps must be taken to “nip that terror in the bud”.

However, Israeli officials, including Defence Minister Ehud Barak, have admitted that “confronting the settlers” is an uphill struggle, given the wide support they receive in Israeli-Jewish society and the strong political backing they enjoy from powerful government circles.

Barak also alluded to the shocking laxity shown by the Israeli justice system towards the settlers, which effectively allows them to commit acts of murder and vandalism, especially against unprotected and near helpless Palestinian villagers, with virtual impunity.

The ultimate goal of the settler terrorists is to intimidate and terrorise indigenous Palestinians into leaving their land so that more settlers can take it over. However, despite years of permanent terror and harassment, very few Palestinians if any have left their villages and land, prompting the mostly religious terrorists to intensify their attacks against Palestinians and their property.

In recent days, armed settler terrorists have stepped up acts of arson and vandalism targeting Palestinian olive groves throughout the West Bank. In the Nablus and Salfit region, settlers set fire to olive groves, destroying large swathes of the crop upon which the livelihood of numerous impoverished Palestinian families depends.

In one incident, the head of a settlement council took part in an arson attack that Palestinians contend happened in full view of Israeli army troops.

“I think there is a sort of collusion between the army and the settlers. Do you believe that the mighty Israeli army can’t control a few thugs who are terrorising Palestinian communities here?” asked Ibrahim Ahmed of Salem near Nablus.

“The world is often under the false impression that the settlers are a few unruly fanatics in an otherwise civilised society,” Ahmed continued. “The truth of the matter, however, is that the settlers are a key tool of the Israeli state and army to terrorise and torment the Palestinians. It is the state and the army that give them money, housing, weapons and protection. So it is naïve to buy the claim that the settlers are acting against the will of the Israeli state and army.”

Last week, a young Palestinian shepherd was found murdered next to a Jewish colony, also in the Nablus region. Eyewitnesses reported that they saw a white van chasing the 19-year-old man. The Israeli army denied that the boy was murdered by settlers, saying it was more likely that he was killed by unexploded ordnance left by the Israeli army.

Last month, dozens of armed Jewish settler terrorists committed a virtual pogrom at the Palestinian village of Asira Al-Qibliya south of Nablus, shooting into Palestinian homes and vandalising property. Ten Palestinians were injured, including one sustaining serious gunshot wounds. A videotape of the wild rampage showed Israeli soldiers looking on and doing virtually nothing to stop the settlers. When the “story” died down, the settlers resumed their violence and vandalism.

In recent years, settlers have resorted to stealing Palestinian olive crops in broad daylight. Settlers have also begun to bring in foreign workers to harvest Palestinian groves in the vicinity of their settlements. In doing so, settlers act on religious edits issued by local and national rabbis allowing them to steal crops in the West Bank, which the settlers call Judea and Samaria, believing that the land belongs to the Jews by a divine decree.

Until recently, rabbis issued their edicts publicly, drawing bad publicity from the press. Now, however, the edicts are issued and circulated quietly through local synagogues in the settlements.

In addition, the Israeli army seems to always find new ways to make life more difficult for Palestinian farmers. Many olive groves surrounding illegal Jewish settlements are declared closed military zones (only for non-Jews), which in effect is a green light for settlers to come and to steal Palestinian olives.

Last week, the Israeli army said it would provide “protection” to Palestinian olive-pickers from settler violence. However, the army said the duration of protection would only last three days.

The Israeli army claims it is unable to rein in terrorist settlers. This claim, however, is starkly mendacious and hypocritical. The truth is that the army lacks the will and inclination to confront the settlers.

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz this week commented: “Military jails are packed with young Palestinians convicted of far less serious crimes than the violent acts of which the settlers are accused.” Yet generally speaking, the Israeli public is indifferent to the terror, murder and harassment wreaked by army-backed Jewish settlers in the West Bank.

Now, however, settler terror is boomeranging back on Israeli-Jewish society. Last month, suspected Jewish terrorists placed a bomb at the doorstep of 73-year-old Zeev Sternhell, a political science professor at Hebrew University in West Jerusalem. Sternhell, an expert on the evolution of European fascism, was slightly injured in the incident that sent shockwaves across the Israeli political establishment and public.

Sternhell, a prominent supporter of the centre-left group “Peace Now”, warned that the attempt on his life might mark the “collapse of democracy” in Israel. However, it is unlikely that the attempted assassination of Sternhell will introduce a qualitative change into the way the Israeli army and public relate to settler terrorists. Something much more would be required to break down the institutionalised, studied racism and violence at the core of the state of Israel.

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Former British foreign secretary warns Israel may attack Iran

October 13, 2008

The News International, Monday, October 13, 2008
 News Desk

LONDON: Former British foreign secretary David Owen warned on Sunday that Israel could attack Iran in the near future. In an article in The Sunday Times, he wrote that some key decision makers in Israel were convinced that it was the most suitable time to attack Iran when Bush was in office.

“Some key Israel decision makers fear unless they attack Iranian nuclear enrichment facilities in the next few months, while George W Bush is still president, there will not be another period when they can rely on the United States as being anywhere near as supportive in the aftermath of a unilateral attack,” he said.

Owen, who served as the British foreign secretary from 1977 to 1979, observed the Israel-Iran conflict would involve the whole world, economically. “In the past 40 years there have been few occasions when I have been more concerned about a specific conflict escalating to involve, economically, the whole world,” he said.

Owen further warned that if Iran was attacked, it would be supplied with arms by China and Russia, adding Iran’s one immediate reaction would be blocking the Strait of Hormuz. “In the narrow strait just one oil tanker sunk would halt shipping for months,” he added.

The former diplomat is convinced that the Revolutionary Guards of Iran are committed to a war against Israel and prepared to take on the rest of the world. “They have good equipment and operate from the land, sea and air. They will be suicide soldiers, seamen and airmen,” he said. Owen said that after Israel attacked Iran, the American military would be bound to follow Bush’s orders. “The experience of Georgia has given an amber, if not a green light to Israel and only Bush can switch that to red,” he said.

Owen advised Bush to publicly warn Israel that the United States will use its air power to prevent it bombing Iran, while announcing that he was sending Rice to Tehran to start negotiating a grand bargain whereby all sanctions would be lifted if Iran forgoes the nuclear weapons option.

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America Must Plumb Olmert’s “Depths of Reality”

October 11, 2008

Robert Weitzel, Oct 10, 2008

“I was the first who wanted to impose Israeli sovereignty . . . I admit it . . . I was not ready to look into all the depths of reality.”
– Incumbent Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert –

In a September 30 article in the Israeli newspaper, Yedioth Ahronot, Israel’s incumbent Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, a former member of the right-wing Likud party, said that Israel must withdraw “from almost all of the territories, if not from all the territories. We shall keep in our hands a percentage of these territories, but we shall be compelled to give the Palestinians a similar percentage, because without that there will be no peace.”

He went on to say, “We can perhaps take an historic step in our relations with the Palestinians . . . the decision we must make is the decision we have refused to face with open eyes for 40 years . . . What I am telling you was never said by any previous Israeli leader, it’s time to lay everything on the table.”

The reality that Olmert was willing to lay before the Israeli people, “which exposed him to criticism from all quarters,” according to Yedioth Ahronot interviewers Nahum Barnea and Shimon Shiffer, is one that no Democratic or Republican politician who aspires to national office has the chutzpa to tell the American electorate.

This lack of chutzpah has been nowhere more evident than in the presidential and vice-presidential “debates.” These prime-time events, which are really nothing more than 90 minutes of vacuous one-upmanship, could serve as a reality check for the 70 million-plus viewers if the moderators were willing to challenge the candidates’ evasions, half truths, exaggerations and outright lies . . . or if Ralph Nader were allowed to participate.

During the vice-presidential debate, both Joe Biden and Sarah Palin professed their undying love and support for Israel, “our strongest and best ally in the Middle East (Palin).”

“No one in the United States Senate has been a better friend to Israel . . . (Biden).”

“I’m so encouraged to know that we both love Israel (Palin).”

One-upping Palin, Biden boldly claimed, “I would have never, ever joined this ticket were I not absolutely sure Barack Obama shared my passion [for Israel].” Obviously, Obama does.

Moderator Gwen Ifill might have taken this opportunity to inquire as to the source of Palin’s “love” and Biden’s “passion” for Israel. Ifill might have pointed out to the 70 million-plus viewers that a candidate does not make it to a national “debate” without first being pronounced kosher by Israel’s shadow government on K Street.

Both Ifill and Tom Brokaw, the moderator of the recent town hall presidential “debate,” might have challenged the candidates’ assertions that Israel is a hairs’ breath away from annihilation by its Arab neighbors.

“An armed, nuclear armed . . . Iran is so extremely dangerous to consider. They cannot be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons period. Israel is in jeopardy . . . (Palin).”

“We cannot allow Iran to get a nuclear weapon . . . it [would] threaten Israel, our strongest ally in the region and one of our strongest allies in the world . . . (Obama).”

Keep in mind that U.S. intelligence estimates that Iran is years away from developing even one nuclear device, while Israel has over 200 nuclear warheads targeted and minutes away from any Arab or Persian country foolish enough to attack it.

Keep in mind also what Olmert told Yedioth Ahronot, “Israel is the strongest country in the Middle East, it can win any war against any regional country, it can even win a war against all of them together.”

All four candidates took the opportunity during the “debates” to once again assure Israelis in the Holy Land and Jews on K Street that their administrations would continue the annual $6 billion in direct and indirect economic and military aid . . . even as Americans are losing their homes and jobs and retirement savings.

Ifill and Brokaw might have challenged the candidates’ promise of continued economic and military aid to Israel considering:

Israel is one of the most economically and industrially advanced countries in Southwest Asia.

Israel ranks second among foreign countries in the number of companies on U.S. stock exchanges.

Israel has the second largest number of startup companies in the world and the largest number of NASDAQ-listed companies outside North America.

Israel’s GDP per capita is $31,767

Israel’s economic growth in 2006 was the fastest of any Western nation.

Israel has the best armed and trained military in the region and is the fourth largest weapons exporter in the world ($2 billion annually)

And the United States’ taxpayers are expected to finance Israel?

But the “depth of reality” check of utmost salience to the 70 million-plus “debate” viewers is why the candidates and most members of Congress consider Israel our “strongest ally in the world.”

In 1982 Israel invaded Lebanon, igniting a civil war. America’s support for Israel cost the lives of 241 servicemen who were blown apart as they slept in their Beirut barracks.

Israel did not fight in the first Gulf War, neither did its soldiers die in Afghanistan or Iraq—a war its cooked intelligence helped to bring about. This year our “strongest ally” pushed the Bush administration to the brink of war with Iran—a war whose catastrophic reverberations would have been on a par with the current global economic meltdown.

Israel’s regional aggression and its repressive—often brutal— domestic policies regarding the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and occupied West Bank inflames its Arab neighbors and cinches tight the explosive vest to the chests of Arab youths.

Predictably, the United States’ irrational and unconditional support of Israel makes it equally culpable and equally target-worthy in the eyes of Arabs and Persians in the Middle East and Muslims worldwide. An ally that causes more insecurity than succor can hardly be considered the strongest ally in the world—unless that ally is also the only way to the White House.

Gwen Ifill and Tom Brokaw might have challenged the candidates in a way that exposed him or her to criticism from the Israeli quarter. Unfortunately for the 70 million-plus viewers Israel is a “depth of reality” the American political system and mainstream media are unwilling to plumb.

But as a right-wing Israeli Prime Minister says, “it’s time to lay everything on the table.”

Robert Weitzel is a contributing editor to Media With a Conscience. His essays regularly appear in The Capital Times in Madison, WI. He can be contacted at: robertweitzel@mac.com

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JOEL BRINKLEY: Evidence grows that Israel, with U.S. aid, is preparing to attack Iran

October 11, 2008
McClatchy-Tribune News Service | bnd.com, Oct 9, 2008

Month after month, the nation’s attention seems to ping-pong back and forth between the world’s two egregious nuclear malefactors, North Korea and Iran.

For the last few weeks, all eyes have been on North Korea, as the nation’s idiosyncratic leadership began reopening a plant that manufactures weapons-grade plutonium. Christopher Hill, an assistant secretary of state, met, to no effect, with North Korea’s leaders in Pyongyang last week – a visit that would have been inconceivable while hawks still dominated the Bush administration.

But, as anyone might guess, the problems in Iran did not suddenly freeze while everyone looked east. In fact several recent developments leave the strong suggestion that Israel is preparing to attack Iran – with significant help from the United States.

The likelihood of an American attack has diminished. American commanders “think it would complicate the situation in Iraq and the region,” John Bolton, the former U.N. ambassador, told me. He favors an attack but says “the Bush administration was much more inclined to do it a few years ago.” Secretaries Condoleezza Rice and Robert Gates, at State and Defense – relative moderates within the Bush administration – now dominate discussion of issues like this.

Would Washington support an Israeli attack? Recently, the administration has given clear signals that it would not. But then, why did the Pentagon announce last month that it planned to sell Israel 1,000 new GBU-39 bunker-busting bombs? They are small weapons that can be dropped from the wings of the fighter jets in Israel’s air force. Each can penetrate 6 feet of reinforced concrete. If several aircraft hit the same target the total penetration could be much deeper.

Why does Israel need those bombs? Israeli military analysts have been saying they are for attacking underground weapons depots in Gaza or southern Lebanon. Perhaps.

But then, why about the same time did the Pentagon agree to sell Israel sophisticated upgrades for the country’s Patriot anti-missile missiles – and send more than 100 technicians to install them? If Israel attacked, Iran has warned that it would fire volleys of ballistic missiles in response.

And there’s more: Just last week came the news that the United States has deployed an advanced early-warning radar system in Israel for detecting incoming missiles. It is so sophisticated that, for now, U.S. Army crews will be stationed there to operate it.

Bolton and others advised against “reading all of that into this,” as he put it. The United States continually sells military equipment to Israel. Most years the United States gives Israel about $2 billion in military aid, and it must be spent on American arms.

What is more, Abbas Milani, an expert on Iran at Stanford University, told me that the Iranian press of late has been saying “the time is past” when the United States might attack. And while there is some concern about Israel, the Iranian papers correctly note that the country is locked in negotiations to form a new government that aren’t likely to be settled for several weeks. Israel would not attack before a new government forms.

At the same time, though, Israelis certainly saw Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, the Iranian president, telling the United Nations last month that “the Zionist regime is on a definite slide toward collapse, and there is no way for it to get out of this cesspool.”

Still, all of this may be a hall of mirrors. The United States may be arming Israel purely for defensive reasons. Israel’s military exercises and blustery threats may simply be the state’s way of warning Iran. On the other hand, the Bush administration’s statements cautioning Israel may simply be an attempt to prevent Iran from blaming Washington if Israel does attack.

In any case, Bolton said, “Israel’s decision will not be based on what the Pentagon wants.” And if Israel does attack, Iran will consider Washington responsible, no matter what the administration has said.

“So if the U.S. is going to be blamed anyway,” Bolton offered, “we ought to go ahead and assist them.”


Joel Brinkley is a former Pulitzer Prize-winning foreign correspondent for The New York Times and now a professor of journalism at Stanford University. Readers may send him e-mail at: brinkley@foreign-matters.com

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Palestinians Must Unite against Racist Israel

October 10, 2008

Dr Abdul Ruff Colachal

There is a striking similarity in the anti-Muslim policies of the so-called “democracies” like basically conservative India, Israel and USA, both at home and abroad. The anti-Islamic chord has worked quite well to the regimes in covering up their state corrupt and criminal activities in the country and abroad. Practices of anti-Islamism have kept these regimes in good stead at least outwardly. These racist and fascist trends continue to dominate the national politics and, as a result, have resulted in genocide, and torture and insults to Islam and Muslims. Leader after leader, Israel keeps its flock together on an emphatic anti-Arab platform. So much so, any move towards peace with Palestinians evokes loudest protest and regime change in Israel.

ONE:  Israel Racism and Terrorism

In 1948 Israel came into being on lands annexed from Palestine. Palestinians in the West Bank, including east Jerusalem, have lived under Israeli occupation since 1967. The settlements that Israel has built in the West Bank are home to around 400,000 people and are deemed to be illegal under international law. Leaders like Yasser Arafat sacrificed their lives for the establishment of Palestine state and safeguard the lives of innocent Palestinians living at the mercy of a terrorist Israel.  Israel under Ariel Sharon evacuated its settlers from the Gaza Strip in 2005 and withdrew its forces, ending almost four decades of military occupation. But after his disappearance form public scene, things have gone worse for the Palestinians. USA and Israel worked over night to split the Palestinians and they succeeded. After the Islamic group Hamas seized control of Gaza in June 2007 following the dismissal of its elected government by PLO President Mahmoud Abbas at the behest of the USA and Israel, Israel intensified its economic blockade of the Strip.

While Kadima is embroiled in peace talks with the Palestinians, Likud says it will wait until there is a stronger negotiating partner on the other side and try to boost the West Bank economy in the meantime. The Kadima party was formed nearly three years ago when then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon split from Likud in what has been described as a “big bang” of Israeli politics. Instead of throwing out the rebel leaders from his Likud party, he himself came out to float a new party Kadima and came to power in the next poll.  The issue that tore Likud apart was Sharon’s plan to withdraw, or “disengage”, Israeli troops and settlers, first from the Gaza Strip, and then from parts of the West Bank.  It was an abrupt U-turn from a man who had urged Israelis to “settle every hilltop”.

Israel considers the Palestinians as ‘terrorists” because they have been struggling to get back their lands form the terrorist Israel. Racist Jews have been cruel to the Palestinians. More evidence is available to show how shabbily Israel treats the Palestinians whose lands it occupies. An Israeli civil rights group, the Association for Civil Rights, has said racism against Arab citizens of Israel has risen sharply in the past year. In a report, it said expression of anti-Arab views had doubled, and racist incidents had increased by 26%. Christian or Muslim Arab citizens of Israel make up 20% of the population. But the civil rights quoted polls suggesting half of Jewish Israelis do not believe Arab citizens of Israel should have equal rights. About the same amount said they wanted the government to encourage Arab emigration from Israel.

TWO: Human Rights Evasions

Israel considers Arabs less clean and less intelligent than themselves and Americans. Anti-Arab policies being pursued by Israel for decades have created a wedge between them and Arabs. A prominent Israeli Arab politician, Mohammed Barakeh, said the poll results were the natural outcome of what he called the anti-Arab policies of successive Israeli governments. Commenting on the findings of the report, the association’s president Sami Michael warned: “We live in a democratic regime whose foundations are constantly weakening.”

Occupied territories Part of the group’s annual report is dedicated to the situation in Gaza and the West Bank. The report says: “Most of the human rights violations in the occupied territories are by-products of the establishment of settlements and outposts.” Restrictions on the movement of Palestinians designed to allow settlers “free and secure movement”, have virtually split the West Bank into six separate parts. The organization says that the West Bank barrier “does not separate Palestinians from Israelis, but Palestinians from other Palestinians”. The report also asserts that despite its withdrawal from Gaza in 2005, Israel retains “moral and legal responsibility” for the Palestinians there because Israel controls access to the coastal territory.

As usual, a government spokesman Mark Regev responded that the Israeli government was “committed to fighting racism whenever it raises its ugly head and is committed to full equality to all Israeli citizens, irrespective of ethnicity, creed or background, as defined by our declaration of independence”. As Israel keep expanding its illegal settlement projects in Palestine, Israel’s Construction and Housing Minister Zeev Boim said the rights group’s report was biased and without credibility.

THREE: Palestine Unity

The success of the fascist and racist terror forces of India, USA and Israel has much to do with the global “terrorism” trend and inability of the Muslims under siege and tortures to unite against the global enemies. There are many freedom groups in Kashmir, though they have just one point program of gaining sovereignty back from occupying India. Similarly Fatah and Hamas have been waging a mutual war, instead of fighting the enemy tooth and nail. Islamic world is hopelessly divided amongst themselves and unable to fight the global terrorists USA, and its “allies” Israel and Hindu India.

Palestine Authority President Mahmoud Abbas – who is also leader of Fatah – ends his term in office on 8 January 2009. The parliament – which is controlled by Hamas – is currently scheduled to remain in power until January 2010. Hamas MPs have demanded Abbas hold presidential elections before 8 January, and said they would no longer recognize his legitimacy after that time. Many feel this would deepen the already-protracted rift.

There have been strenuous efforts from several quarters to bring about a unity among the Palestinian groups to force Israel to come up with a final settlement plan. Egypt, the mediator in the dispute, has proposed establishing a government of technocrats acceptable to all factions, re-organization of the Palestinian security forces, and new parliamentary and presidential elections. Hamas official Moussa Abu Marzouk said the factions would form technical committees to discuss the issues. The committees will take their time, one or two or three months, these are issues that cannot be resolved in days or weeks. Another official from Gaza said: “We in Hamas accept that elections are on the table for discussion.” However, he expressed opposition to simultaneous presidential and parliamentary elections for the Palestinian Authority.

Israel will finally concede and surrender the Palestinian lands only if they see the need and they are under international pressure to do so and a united force in Palestine. This writer had suggested way back for creating a Islamic Security Organization ISO (ref: Middle East Online) to defend the Islamic states and Muslims the world over from the anti-Islamic forces. Meanwhile the peace move from concerned Muslim nations could continue. Hamas officials in Cairo say they will meet representatives of the rival Fatah movement this month to discuss the timing of fresh Palestinian elections. Hamas leaders, the popular “militant” movement in control of Gaza, made the announcement after talks with Egypt’s intelligence chief in Cairo. Egypt hopes the Palestinian groups will reach a reconciliation agreement including elections and other reforms. But some analysts say there are few signs of a narrowing of their differences. Abbas should, without worrying about reactions form USA and Israel, take bold initiatives to unite the Hamas Fatah factions and form a government or hold the elections for smooth functioning of an elected government. As the senior most leader of Palestine, it is his duty– and has obligation — to take all factions into confidence in whatever he does about the establishment of Palestine state.

Dr Abdul Ruff Colachal has been a university teacher, and worked in various Indian institutions like JNU, Mysore University, Central Institute of English FL, etc. He is also a political commentator, researcher, and columnist. He has widely published in India and abroad, and has written about state terrorism.

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Israel: wedded to war?

October 9, 2008

Far from learning the lessons of past conflict, the country’s military seem ever more willing to resort to brute force


For Israel, the aftermath of the 2006 Lebanon war was all about questions. What mistakes were made, and who made them? What could be done to restore the Israeli military’s “deterrence” after a widely perceived defeat? In general, what lessons could be learned from the confrontation with Hizbullah in order that next time, there would be no question of failure?

Unfortunately, it seems that entirely the wrong kinds of conclusions are being reached, at least in the military hierarchy and among the policy shaping thinktanks. On Friday, Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper published comments made by Israeli general Gadi Eisenkot, head of the army’s northern command. Eisenkot took the opportunity to share the principles shaping plans for a future war.

The general promised “disproportionate” force to destroy entire villages identified as sources of Hizbullah rocket fire, the reasoning being that they are “not civilian villages” but rather “military bases” – the kind of reasoning that can land you in a war crimes tribunal.

Eisenkot pointed to how Israel levelled the Dahiya neighbourhood of Beirut in 2006 and confirmed that this would be the fate of “every village from which Israel is fired on”. In case there was any doubt, he added: “This is not a recommendation. This is a plan. And it has been approved.”

The frank promise of “disproportionate” force will be chilling for the Lebanese, who even last time round were subjected to indiscriminate attack, the targeted destruction of civilian infrastructure, and carpet cluster-bombing. But what Ha’aretz dubbed the “Dahiya Doctrine” received enthusiastic support in some quarters, such as veteran Israeli TV and print journalist Yaron London.

London seemed highly pleased with Eisenkot’s determination to “destroy Lebanon”, undeterred “by the protests of the ‘world'”. London, while looking forward to Israel “pulverising” some “160 Shi’ite villages” made the implications of Eisenkot’s thinking clear: “In practical terms, the Palestinians in Gaza are all Khaled Mashaal, the Lebanese are all Nasrallah, and the Iranians are all Ahmadinejad.” The meaning of “practical terms” did not need repeating.

The Ha’aretz report also described how similar conclusions were being reached in reports by military-academic institutions. One such paper, published by the Institute of National Security Studies (INSS) at Tel Aviv University, and unambiguously titled “Disproportionate Force”, details the author’s (reserve Colonel Gabriel Siboni) understanding of the lessons of 2006:

With an outbreak of hostilities, the IDF will need to act immediately, decisively, and with force that is disproportionate to the enemy’s actions and the threat it poses. Such a response aims at inflicting damage and meting out punishment to an extent that will demand long and expensive reconstruction processes.

Siboni urges the Israeli military to strike disproportionately at “the enemy’s weak points”, and only afterwards to go after the missile launchers themselves. Devastating “economic interests”, “centres of civilian powers”, and “state infrastructure” will “create a lasting memory among Syrian and Lebanese decision makers” and thus increase “Israeli deterrence” and tie up “enemy” resources in reconstruction.

A further new INSS publication by a former head of the National Security Council, urges Israel to guarantee that next time around, the Lebanese army and civilian infrastructure “will be destroyed”. Or as the author pithily puts it, “People won’t be going to the beach in Beirut while Haifa residents are in shelters”.

This determination to “create a lasting memory” in the minds of the Syrian and Lebanese is reminiscent of previous Israeli declarations of intent. In 2003, the IDF’s chief of staff, Lieutenant General Moshe Ya’alon, said that the war being waged in the occupied territories would “sear deep into the consciousness of Palestinians that they are a defeated people”.

In 2006 in fact, the likes of Dr Reuven Erlich, head of the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Centre at the Centre for Special Studies in Tel Aviv, also recommended “searing” into the “Lebanese consciousness” the “steep price they will pay for provoking and harassing us”.

Using brute force to “sear” certain truths into the consciousness of Arabs of varying descriptions has a certain heritage in Israeli and Zionist thought, going all the way back to Jabotinsky’s theory of the “iron wall”. In the 1920s he wrote candidly that “every indigenous people will resist alien settlers as long as they see any hope of ridding themselves of the danger of foreign settlement”. The need then was for an “iron wall” of force to bring the Palestinians to the point of giving up “all hope”.

While the brutal logic of settler-colonial domination has been a guiding principle for Israeli military strategists through the decades, it has been complemented by the racist “anthropological” cliche that the “Arabs only understand force”. Interestingly, such tropes are now commonplace in US military discourse, as the Pentagon is also now in the position of directly occupying a Middle East country and facing resistance.

Thus it seems Israel is learning entirely the wrong lessons from the 2006 conflict. Wrong, of course, from a moral point of view (though that only seems to enter the picture in terms of an anticipated international backlash). The conclusion could also be seen as flawed from the perspective of the kind of response it could invite. Fundamentally though, these pledges of disproportionate devastation show that the Israeli military leadership suffers from tunnel-vision policymaking, wedded to the idea that Israel will gain acceptance in the Middle East through force of arms.

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