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Muslims Killing in Burma and our Social Media
Published on August 15, 2012 by Akashma Online News
Re-blogged from FarazAhmed.com
Muslims Killing in Burma and our Social Media
Muslims Slaughter by Buddhist Debunked – Fake Pictures exposed
Faraz Ahmed July 14, 2012 328
In now a days people are posting pictures with captions like Muslims killing in burma, Muslims slaughted by Buddhists in Burma..
I have search reality of few pics and found following:
A picture shared on facebook:
I have found original version here:
http://www.tibetancommunity.be/news/chinaquake.html
This picture was taken in 2010 regarding Earthquake in China and tibetians community help and rescue in China. Now Islamic political parties and some other elements are sharing this image as Muslims killing / slaughter in Burma.
A view of another widely spreaded picture with caption of “More then 1000 people killed in Burma” which also has a fake caption.
Original Image and Website:
This picture is of year 2004 nearly 8 years old about riots in Thailand.
http://tarikh100.blogspot.com/2011/11/blog-post_5836.html
One more image is spreading on social media with logo of Jamat-e-Islami having caption “terrorists of Budhism of Burma kills 500 Muslims”
Well this image is also one of incident occur in Thiland (2nd January 2009)
A view of images shared in this article:
One more image spreaded on Social Media regarding Muslims Killing in Burma
This picture is also misleading original picture was from Riots in Thailand and taken in 2003:
http://www.islammemo.cc/zakera/moslimoon-mansioon/2003/01/30/1134.html?lang=en-us
One more misleading image shared on facebook with caption “A Muslim was burned in Burma and Journalist are Taking pictures instead of saving him “
The original image was taken when Chinese president visit India:
By sharing all these doesn’t mean that Muslims aren’t killed in Burma but what I mean is we are sharing everything without verification and authenticity of image.
Added: 07-18-2012
I have found more more picture (07-18-2012) so Iam sharing it here.
The real image was regarding 9/11 attacks and arrests of Tajikis and Uzbiks.
Again I Like to mention that POSTING THESE FAKE IMAGES DOESN’T MEANS THAT MUSLIMS ARE NOT KILLED IN BURMA, THE ONLY REASON OF SHARING THOSE IMAGES IS TO SHOW HOW SOCIAL MEDIA AND POLITICAL PARTIES ARE MANIPULATING IMAGES.
Sinai Peninsula conflict Zone-Israel Egypt Treaty at Stake
Posted on August 11, 2012 by Akashma Online News
Before you make your mind be sure to look the map of the Sinai Peninsula, which situated very strategically so Israel can not lose control of it, even thought officially gave it back to Egypt in the famous treaty of 1979, where there were conditions that Egypt has to comply with; like not to have military presence in the area, only Israel could patrol the Sinai peninsula. Also the commerce between Egypt and Israel has to stay active.
Masked Gunmen killed Egyptian soldiers
Sometimes our activism and our Passion for Palestine takes to take Palestine’s side. –I ‘m looking a different picture here.
At the beginning when the news got published, I immediately thought of Israel–We know that in conflicts of this nature Israel is the one country that gets the benefit most of the time, well that’s what we–Palestinian supporters think most of the time.
There are other elements into the Palestine resistance side of the conflict: the armed wings or militias that, on one instance we praise for their courage to stand up against Israel trying sometimes almost suicide missions, on other, we see them as an obstacle for peace.
There are many groups not aligned with Hamas nor with Fatah and they act independently, and diplomacy does not work for them. They see diplomacy as a waste of time.
One of those groups in 2007 carried the attack in the Israel base that captured the IDF soldier Gilda Shilat. Hamas was not in control of the situation but after many underground talks with the leaders of the group Hamas consolidated the famous exchange of prisoners for Shilat few months ago.
Also do not forget that the Israel-Egypt treaty was due to security, Israel nor Egypt could control the Bedouins and the constant attacks to Israel so Israel exchange peace and security and gave back the Sinai Peninsula. Those same tribes that now control and profit from the tunnels in the Egyptian Side.
So it is premature to say that Israel did it, or say that Palestinians factions did it crossing to Israel knowing that they will be killed, kind of suicide mission.
Every one have motives to create conflict between Israel-Palestine, Palestine-Egypt and Egypt-Israel, there are many in Egypt that oppose the peace treaty with Israel, so they could be the ones, to make believe that Israel did it, to take advantage of the animosity of the Egyptians against Israel, because after all Egyptian and Palestinians are like brothers united by ancestral ties and religion.
Could be possible that Egyptian tribes could have done it, making sure to looks like Israel prints to keep the tunnels open, do not forget they control and profit from them. They do not want Rafah crossing to be officially and permanently to be open to commerce and transit, is not good for business.
Or could be any of the groups, the armed militia that act independently from the central government …all of them have motives to create conflict…But something for sure..if it was a Palestinian group, they usually take responsibility for their acts, or maybe they are learning deceit and treason as Israel do, and do it under the veil of the doubt …..
Before you make your mind, be sure to look the map of the Sinai Peninsula, situated very strategically so Israel can not lose control of it, even thought officially gave it back to Egypt in the famous treaty of 1979, where there are conditions that Egypt has to comply with; like not to have military presence in the area, only Israel could patrol the Sinai peninsula. Also the commerce between Egypt and Israel has to stay active.
Another important aspect if the Red Sea, the Suez Canal , the Gulf of Aden.
It’s quite simple: Israel needs an outlet to the Red Sea for its shipping. The only Israeli presence on the islands is military to ensure that the shipping lanes are kept clear for its imports and exports, including military hardware to fight against Arab states. By international agreement, a multinational UN force is also stationed on the islands which “monitors the compliance of all parties” with this agreement. In reality, this means that American and Egyptian troops help to protect Israel’s shipping lanes through the Straits of Tiran, Saudi Arabia’s occupied sovereign territory. What would the people of Saudi Arabia say if they knew?
You be the judge..
What ever the truth is will emerge eventually but off course not before thousands of lives and maybe millions of innocent lives are lost.
Plan Is Opposed as Source of dissension
Plan Is Opposed as Source of dissension
To the Editor of the NYT-March 23, 1944
At the annual meeting of the American Palestine Association Senator Taft announced it as the primary purpose of his bill “to find a place of refuge for the 4,000,000 surviving Jews of Europe”. To achieve this end extraordinary means are proposed. Our congress is asked to exert pressure on the British government to revise its White Paper of 1939. In my judgment, Senator Taft and American public need to weigh carefully to what extent the proposed means will serve the humanitarian end, and to what extent it will serve other ends.
On the humanitarian objective; places of refuge for Jews driven from Europe must be provided. This is an imperative international responsibility. It is easy to run from this axiom to the conclusion that Palestine ought to be thrown open at once to freer immigration, and without the terminus proposed in the white paper. This conclusion would follow if Palestine were the only place, or the best place, or even a possible place for more than a limited number; and if there were no substantial obstacles in the way.
Agricultural possibilities are limited.’ Only half of the total area of this New Hampshire-size country can be cultivated. The best parts are occupied.
The Industrial Possibilities
What of a program of intensive industrialization? Each must judge for himself the lasting promise of forced industrializing of a land so little favored by nature for this purpose. In any case there can be no industry without market outlets and lines of supply. And these cannot be developed on any but a local scale prior to a general world settlement. As a immediate resource for Jewish refuge this program has no extensive contribution to make.
It is not as a place of refuge, but as a “National Home” for the Jews, that Palestine is all-important. On one ground, Palestine is not only the best place but the only place for a National Home-the ground of religious association.
Not only are these two purposes distinct-the place of refuge and the national Home-they are to some extent at odds with each other. For the Jews who are in Palestine because of a burning and historical piety are not at easy with the recent influx of refugees from Europe, pregnant with nationalism and animated by visions of social futures rather than by devotion to the historic sacred law and the return to Mount Zion.
New, the Balfour Declaration was concerned with the National Home, not primarily with the place of refuge.
The declaration (issued November, 1917) held out no engagement for “the reconstitution of Palestine as the National Home of the Jews”, although it is now being frequently so represented.
It committed Great Britain to “view with favor the establishment in Palestine of a National Home for the Jewish people. “it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine”. There is a world of difference between building a Home within Palestine and reconstituting Palestine as a Jewish commonwealth.
When, therefore, one of the groups now pressing for these bills announces that the Jews of Palestine “did not come to form a new minority”, they are in effect not appealing for enforcement of the Balfour Declaration but for its replacement.
In 1919 (to use the figures of the Palestine Partition Commission of 1938) there were in Palestine 58,000 Jews and 642,000 Arabs (Moslem and Christian): Jews were roughly 10 percent of the total. In 1937 there were about 402,000 Jews and 990.000 Arabs.
Today we may estimate about 600,000 Jews and 1,000,000 Arabs. Allow some weight to the concentration of Jews in towns and their superior skill and practice in political action, and it would seem that a Jewish-controlled Palestine is not far out of reach. It is this which the Arabs fear.
Putting these various items together, does it not appear that the animus of the present drive is not primarily humanitarian but political?
The Arab has certainly profited by the general improvements incident to the influx of new capital and the energy of the settlers. At the same time he feels his total economic position less secure. One item, relating to farm labor, must suffice. The Jewish National fund buys land in Palestine, to “be held as the inalienable property of the Jewish people,” and leases it to Jewish farmers.
But why should not the Arabs give up a small percentage of their immense domain” (chiefly desert, with a thin “green crescent” around the rim) and even accept an exchange of population, if it will make for the realization of the Jewish dream?
Those who are now urging this view do not explain what they propose to do with the detail that to the Moslems also Jerusalem is a sacred city; that the very site of the former Jewish Temple is now occupied by the great El Aksa Mosque (began in 690 AD);
And that to maintain these and other religious establishments in Palestine a considerable local Moslem population is required as well as a free flow of worshipers and pilgrims. The entire Moslem world is concerned in this.
But look at the matter from the national and economic point of view. The material advantages of Palestine come largely from its position on the Mediterranean coast.
Commercially it belongs to the European area. Though its natural harbors are few and poor, it stands in a strategic position between Europe and the building industrial development-not of Palestine so much as of the Arab lands behind Palestine, as far as Iraq and the Nedj, which will need the aid of outside finance. A direct face on the Mediterranean is as important for the Arabs as for the Zionist; and the important Northern harbors are in Lebanese or Turkish hands.
Cultural relations with Europe, too, will be increasingly important for the new Arab life. Surrender of Palestine to exclusive Zionist control would amount to the surrender of an eye toward Europe.
Arabian Cultural Status
The disconcerting thing about these proposals, to which the United States is asked to become a party, is not the rivalry of interest but the silence of political-Zionist spokesmen in regard to the existence of any such Arab interest. They tend to backwash the cultural status of the Arab peoples, to ignore their new university life, their new literature, their new economic prowess and their wonderful museums.
It is not the bad effendis, it is the entire Arab population of the Near East which protest. And we are asked to make a national commitment whose consequences would be not only a new tension in a situation already strained with the demands of war but a revulsion against everything Anglo-American on the part of the Moslem world.
I speak with all consideration when I say that I believe the political Zionists at this moment, as distinct from the cultural Zionists who have built the noble Hebrew university on Mount Scopus and who know what a National Home must be, these political Zionists are the chief enemies of the Jewish interest in the world of tomorrow. What can they hope to gain by extricating their brethren from the prejudices of Europe only to build a community in Palestine which has to be protected by Western force because it is cradled in an environment of sedulously cultivated distrust and fear?
WILLIAM ERNEST HOCKING
Cambridge, Mass, March 23, 1944
British White Paper 1939
Published on Akashma Online News
First Published May 17, 1939
In the statement on Palestine, issued on 9 November, 1938, His Majesty‘s Government announced their intention to invite representatives of the Arabs of Palestine, of certain neighboring countries and of the Jewish Agency to confer with them in London regarding future policy. It was their sincere hope that, as a result of full, free and frank discussions, some understanding might be reached. Conferences recently took place with Arab and Jewish delegations, lasting for a period of several weeks, and served the purpose of a complete exchange of views between British Ministers and the Arab and Jewish representatives. In the light of the discussions as well as of the situation in Palestine and of the Reports of the Royal Commission and the Partition Commission, certain proposals were formulated by His Majesty‘s Government and were laid before the Arab and Jewish Delegations as the basis of an agreed settlement. Neither the Arab nor the Jewish delegation felt able to accept these proposals, and the conferences therefore did not result in an agreement. Accordingly His Majesty‘s Government are free to formulate their own policy, and after careful consideration they have decided to adhere generally to the proposals which were finally submitted to and discussed with the Arab and Jewish delegations.
The Mandate for Palestine, the terms of which were confirmed by the Council of the League of Nations in 1922, has governed the policy of successive British Governments for nearly 20 years. It embodies the Balfour Declaration and imposes on the Mandatory four main obligations. These obligations are set out in Article 2, 6 and 13 of the Mandate. There is no dispute regarding the interpretation of one of these obligations, that touching the protection of and access to the Holy Places and religious building or sites. The other three main obligations are generally as follows:
To place the country under such political, administrative and economic conditions as will secure the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish People. To facilitate Jewish immigration under suitable conditions, and to encourage, in cooperation with the Jewish Agency, close settlement by Jews on the Land.
To safeguard the civil and religious rights of all inhabitants of Palestine irrespective of race and religion, and, whilst facilitating Jewish immigration and settlement, to ensure that the rights and position of other sections of the population are not prejudiced.
To place the country under such political, administrative and economic conditions as will secure the development of self governing institutions.
The Royal Commission and previous commissions of Inquiry have drawn attention to the ambiguity of certain expressions in the Mandate, such as the expression “a national home for the Jewish people”, and they have found in this ambiguity and the resulting uncertainty as to the objectives of policy a fundamental cause of unrest and hostility between Arabs and Jews. His Majesty‘s Government are convinced that in the interests of the peace and well being of the whole people of Palestine a clear definition of policy and objectives is essential. The proposal of partition recommended by the Royal Commission would have afforded such clarity, but the establishment of self supporting independent Arab and Jewish States within Palestine has been found to be impracticable. It has therefore been necessary for His Majesty‘s Government to devise an alternative policy which will, consistent with their obligations to Arabs and Jews, meet the needs of the situation in Palestine. Their views and proposals are set forth below under three heads, Section I. “The Constitution”, Section II. Immigration and Section III. Land.
Section I. “The Constitution”
It has been urged that the expression “a national home for the Jewish people” offered a prospect that Palestine might in due course become a Jewish State or Commonwealth. His Majesty‘s Government do not wish to contest the view, which was expressed by the Royal Commission, that the Zionist leaders at the time of the issue of the Balfour Declaration recognized that an ultimate Jewish State was not precluded by the terms of the Declaration. But, with the Royal Commission, His Majesty‘s Government believe that the framers of the Mandate in which the Balfour Declaration was embodied could not have intended that Palestine should be converted into a Jewish State against the will of the Arab population of the country. That Palestine was not to be converted into a Jewish State might be held to be implied in the passage from the Command Paper of 1922 which reads as follows
“Unauthorized statements have been made to the effect that the purpose in view is to create a wholly Jewish Palestine. Phrases have been used such as that ‘Palestine is to become as Jewish as England is English.‘ His Majesty‘s Government regard any such expectation as impracticable and have no such aim in view. Nor have they at any time contemplated … the disappearance or the subordination of the Arabic population, language or culture in Palestine. They would draw attention to the fact that the terms of the (Balfour) Declaration referred to do not contemplate that Palestine as a whole should be converted into a Jewish National Home, but that such a Home should be founded IN PALESTINE.”
But this statement has not removed doubts, and His Majesty‘s Government therefore now declare unequivocally that it is not part of their policy that Palestine should become a Jewish State. They would indeed regard it as contrary to their obligations to the Arabs under the Mandate, as well as to the assurances which have been given to the Arab people in the past, that the Arab population of Palestine should be made the subjects of a Jewish State against their will.
The nature of the Jewish National Home in Palestine was further described in the Command Paper of 1922 as follows
“During the last two or three generations the Jews have recreated in Palestine a community now numbering 80,000, of whom about one fourth are farmers or workers upon the land. This community has its own political organs; an elected assembly for the direction of its domestic concerns; elected councils in the towns; and an organization for the control of its schools. It has its elected Chief Rabbinate and Rabbinical Council for the direction of its religious affairs. Its business is conducted in Hebrew as a vernacular language, and a Hebrew press serves its needs. It has its distinctive intellectual life and displays considerable economic activity. This community, then, with its town and country population, its political, religious and social organizations, its own language, its own customs, its own life, has in fact ‘national‘ characteristics. When it is asked what is meant by the development of the Jewish National Home in Palestine, it may be answered that it is not the imposition of a Jewish nationality upon the inhabitants of Palestine as a whole, but the further development of the existing Jewish community, with the assistance of Jews in other parts of the world, in order that it may become a center in which the Jewish people as a whole may take, on grounds of religion and race, an interest and pride. But in order that this community should have the best prospect of free development and provide a full opportunity for the Jewish people to display its capacities, it is essential that it should know that it is in Palestine as of right and not on sufferance. That is the reason why it is necessary that the existence of a Jewish National Home in Palestine should be internationally guaranteed, and that it should be formally recognized to rest upon ancient historic connection.”
His Majesty‘s Government adhere to this interpretation of the (Balfour) Declaration of 1917 and regard it as an authoritative and comprehensive description of the character of the Jewish National Home in Palestine. It envisaged the further development of the existing Jewish community with the assistance of Jews in other parts of the world. Evidence that His Majesty‘s Government have been carrying out their obligation in this respect is to be found in the facts that, since the statement of 1922 was published, more than 300,000 Jews have immigrated to Palestine, and that the population of the National Home has risen to some 450,000, or approaching a third of the entire population of the country. Nor has the Jewish community failed to take full advantage of the opportunities given to it. The growth of the Jewish National Home and its achievements in many fields are a remarkable constructive effort which must command the admiration of the world and must be, in particular, a source of pride to the Jewish people.
In the recent discussions the Arab delegations have repeated the contention that Palestine was included within the area in which Sir Henry McMahon, on behalf of the British Government, in October, 1915, undertook to recognize and support Arab independence. The validity of this claim, based on the terms of the correspondence which passed between Sir Henry McMahon and the Sharif of Mecca, was thoroughly and carefully investigated by the British and Arab representatives during the recent conferences in London. Their report, which has been published, states that both the Arab and the British representatives endeavored to understand the point of view of the other party but that they were unable to reach agreement upon an interpretation of the correspondence. There is no need to summarize here the arguments presented by each side. His Majesty‘s Government regret the misunderstandings which have arisen as regards some of the phrases used. For their part they can only adhere, for the reasons given by their representatives in the Report, to the view that the whole of Palestine west of Jordan was excluded from Sir Henry McMahon‘s pledge, and they therefore cannot agree that the McMahon correspondence forms a just basis for the claim that Palestine should be converted into an Arab State.
His Majesty‘s Government are charged as the Mandatory authority “to secure the development of self governing institutions” in Palestine. Apart from this specific obligation, they would regard it as contrary to the whole spirit of the Mandate system that the population of Palestine should remain forever under Mandatory tutelage. It is proper that the people of the country should as early as possible enjoy the rights of self-government which are exercised by the people of neighboring countries. His Majesty‘s Government are unable at present to foresee the exact constitutional forms which government in Palestine will eventually take, but their objective is self government, and they desire to see established ultimately an independent Palestine State. It should be a State in which the two peoples in Palestine, Arabs and Jews, share authority in government in such a way that the essential interests of each are shared.
The establishment of an independent State and the complete relinquishment of Mandatory control in Palestine would require such relations between the Arabs and the Jews as would make good government possible. Moreover, the growth of self governing institutions in Palestine, as in other countries, must be an evolutionary process. A transitional period will be required before independence is achieved, throughout which ultimate responsibility for the Government of the country will be retained by His Majesty‘s Government as the Mandatory authority, while the people of the country are taking an increasing share in the Government, and understanding and cooperation amongst them are growing. It will be the constant endeavor of His Majesty‘s Government to promote good relations between the Arabs and the Jews.
In the light of these considerations His Majesty‘s Government make the following declaration of their intentions regarding the future government of Palestine:
The objective of His Majesty‘s Government is the establishment within 10 years of an independent Palestine State in such treaty relations with the United Kingdom as will provide satisfactorily for the commercial and strategic requirements of both countries in the future. The proposal for the establishment of the independent State would involve consultation with the Council of the League of Nations with a view to the termination of the Mandate.
The independent State should be one in which Arabs and Jews share government in such a way as to ensure that the essential interests of each community are safeguarded.
The establishment of the independent State will be preceded by a transitional period throughout which His Majesty‘s Government will retain responsibility for the country. During the transitional period the people of Palestine will be given an increasing part in the government of their country. Both sections of the population will have an opportunity to participate in the machinery of government, and the process will be carried on whether or not they both avail themselves of it.
As soon as peace and order have been sufficiently restored in Palestine steps will be taken to carry out this policy of giving the people of Palestine an increasing part in the government of their country, the objective being to place Palestinians in charge of all the Departments of Government, with the assistance of British advisers and subject to the control of the High Commissioner. Arab and Jewish representatives will be invited to serve as heads of Departments approximately in proportion to their respective populations. The number of Palestinians in charge of Departments will be increased as circumstances permit until all heads of Departments are Palestinians, exercising the administrative and advisory functions which are presently performed by British officials. When that stage is reached consideration will be given to the question of converting the Executive Council into a Council of Ministers with a consequential change in the status and functions of the Palestinian heads of Departments.
His Majesty‘s Government make no proposals at this stage regarding the establishment of an elective legislature. Nevertheless they would regard this as an appropriate constitutional development, and, should public opinion in Palestine hereafter show itself in favor of such a development, they will be prepared, provided that local conditions permit, to establish the necessary machinery.
At the end of five years from the restoration of peace and order, an appropriate body representative of the people of Palestine and of His Majesty‘s Government will be set up to review the working of the constitutional arrangements during the transitional period and to consider and make recommendations regarding the constitution of the independent Palestine State.
His Majesty‘s Government will require to be satisfied that in the treaty contemplated by sub-paragraph (6) adequate provision has been made for:
the security of, and freedom of access to the Holy Places, and protection of the interests and property of the various religious bodies.
the protection of the different communities in Palestine in accordance with the obligations of His Majesty‘s Government to both Arabs and Jews and for the special position in Palestine of the Jewish National Home.
such requirements to meet the strategic situation as may be regarded as necessary by His Majesty‘s Government in the light of the circumstances then existing. His Majesty‘s Government will also require to be satisfied that the interests of certain foreign countries in Palestine, for the preservation of which they are at present responsible, are adequately safeguarded.
His Majesty‘s Government will do everything in their power to create conditions which will enable the independent Palestine State to come into being within 10 years. If, at the end of 10 years, it appears to His Majesty‘s Government that, contrary to their hope, circumstances require the postponement of the establishment of the independent State, they will consult with representatives of the people of Palestine, the Council of the League of Nations and the neighboring Arab States before deciding on such a postponement. If His Majesty‘s Government come to the conclusion that postponement is unavoidable, they will invite the co-operation of these parties in framing plans for the future with a view to achieving the desired objective at the earliest possible date.
During the transitional period steps will be taken to increase the powers and responsibilities of municipal corporations and local councils.
Section II. Immigration
Under Article 6 of the Mandate, the Administration of Palestine, “while ensuring that the rights and position of other sections of the population are not prejudiced,” is required to “facilitate Jewish immigration under suitable conditions.” Beyond this, the extent to which Jewish immigration into Palestine is to be permitted is nowhere defined in the Mandate. But in the Command Paper of 1922 it was laid down that for the fulfillment of the policy of establishing a Jewish National Home:
“it is necessary that the Jewish community in Palestine should be able to increase its numbers by immigration. This immigration cannot be so great in volume as to exceed whatever may be the economic capacity of the country at the time to absorb new arrivals. It is essential to ensure that the immigrants should not be a burden upon the people of Palestine as a whole, and that they should not deprive any section of the present population of their employment.”
In practice, from that date onwards until recent times, the economic absorptive capacity of the country has been treated as the sole limiting factor, and in the letter which Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, as Prime Minister, sent to Dr. Weizmann in February 1931 it was laid down as a matter of policy that economic absorptive capacity was the sole criterion. This interpretation has been supported by resolutions of the Permanent Mandates Commissioner. But His Majesty‘s Government do not read either the Statement of Policy of 1922 or the letter of 1931 as implying that the Mandate requires them, for all time and in all circumstances, to facilitate the immigration of Jews into Palestine subject only to consideration of the country‘s economic absorptive capacity. Nor do they find anything in the Mandate or in subsequent Statements of Policy to support the view that the establishment of a Jewish National Home in Palestine cannot be effected unless immigration is allowed to continue indefinitely. If immigration has an adverse effect on the economic position in the country, it should clearly be restricted; and equally, if it has a seriously damaging effect on the political position in the country, that is a factor that should not be ignored. Although it is not difficult to contend that the large number of Jewish immigrants who have been admitted so far have been absorbed economically, the fear of the Arabs that this influx will continue indefinitely until the Jewish population is in a position to dominate them has produced consequences which are extremely grave for Jews and Arabs alike and for the peace and prosperity of Palestine. The lamentable disturbances of the past three years are only the latest and most sustained manifestation of this intense Arab apprehension. The methods employed by Arab terrorists against fellow Arabs and Jews alike must receive unqualified condemnation. But it cannot be denied that fear of indefinite Jewish immigration is widespread amongst the Arab population and that this fear has made possible disturbances which have given a serious setback to economic progress, depleted the Palestine exchequer, rendered life and property insecure, and produced a bitterness between the Arab and Jewish populations which is deplorable between citizens of the same country. If in these circumstances immigration is continued up to the economic absorptive capacity of the country, regardless of all other considerations, a fatal enmity between the two peoples will be perpetuated, and the situation in Palestine may become a permanent source of friction amongst all peoples in the Near and Middle East. His Majesty‘s Government cannot take the view that either their obligations under the Mandate, or considerations of common sense and justice, require that they should ignore these circumstances in framing immigration policy.
In the view of the Royal Commission the association of the policy of the Balfour Declaration with the Mandate system implied the belief that Arab hostility to the former would sooner or later be overcome. It has been the hope of British Governments ever since the Balfour Declaration was issued that in time the Arab population, recognizing the advantages to be derived from Jewish settlement and development in Palestine, would become reconciled to the further growth of the Jewish National Home. This hope has not been fulfilled. The alternatives before His Majesty‘s Government are either (i) to seek to expand the Jewish National Home indefinitely by immigration, against the strongly expressed will of the Arab people of the country; or (ii) to permit further expansion of the Jewish National Home by immigration only if the Arabs are prepared to acquiesce in it. The former policy means rule by force. Apart from other considerations, such a policy seems to His Majesty‘s Government to be contrary to the whole spirit of Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations, as well as to their specific obligations to the Arabs in the Palestine Mandate. Moreover, the relations between the Arabs and the Jews in Palestine must be based sooner or later on mutual tolerance and goodwill; the peace, security and progress of the Jewish National Home itself requires this. Therefore His Majesty‘s Government, after earnest consideration, and taking into account the extent to which the growth of the Jewish National Home has been facilitated over the last twenty years, have decided that the time has come to adopt in principle the second of the alternatives referred to above.
It has been urged that all further Jewish immigration into Palestine should be stopped forthwith. His Majesty‘s Government cannot accept such a proposal. It would damage the whole of the financial and economic system of Palestine and thus effect adversely the interests of Arabs and Jews alike. Moreover, in the view of His Majesty‘s Government, abruptly to stop further immigration would be unjust to the Jewish National Home. But, above all, His Majesty‘s Government are conscious of the present unhappy plight of large numbers of Jews who seek refuge from certain European countries, and they believe that Palestine can and should make a further contribution to the solution of this pressing world problem. In all these circumstances, they believe that they will be acting consistently with their Mandatory obligations to both Arabs and Jews, and in the manner best calculated to serve the interests of the whole people of Palestine, by adopting the following proposals regarding immigration:
Jewish immigration during the next five years will be at a rate which, if economic absorptive capacity permits, will bring the Jewish population up to approximately one third of the total population of the country. Taking into account the expected natural increase of the Arab and Jewish populations, and the number of illegal Jewish immigrants now in the country, this would allow of the admission, as from the beginning of April this year, of some 75,000 immigrants over the next five years. These immigrants would, subject to the criterion of economic absorptive capacity, be admitted as follows:
For each of the next five years a quota of 10,000 Jewish immigrants will be allowed on the understanding that a shortage one year may be added to the quotas for subsequent years, within the five year period, if economic absorptive capacity permits.
In addition, as a contribution towards the solution of the Jewish refugee problem, 25,000 refugees will be admitted as soon as the High Commissioner is satisfied that adequate provision for their maintenance is ensured, special consideration being given to refugee children and dependents.
The existing machinery for ascertaining economic absorptive capacity will be retained, and the High Commissioner will have the ultimate responsibility for deciding the limits of economic capacity. Before each periodic decision is taken, Jewish and Arab representatives will be consulted.
After the period of five years, no further Jewish immigration will be permitted unless the Arabs of Palestine are prepared to acquiesce in it.
His Majesty‘s Government are determined to check illegal immigration, and further preventive measures are being adopted. The numbers of any Jewish illegal immigrants who, despite these measures, may succeed in coming into the country and cannot be deported will be deducted from the yearly quotas.
His Majesty‘s Government are satisfied that, when the immigration over five years which is now contemplated has taken place, they will not be justified in facilitating, nor will they be under any obligation to facilitate, the further development of the Jewish National Home by immigration regardless of the wishes of the Arab population.
Section III. Land
The Administration of Palestine is required, under Article 6 of the Mandate, “while ensuring that the rights and position of other sections of the population are not prejudiced,” to encourage “close settlement by Jews on the land,” and no restriction has been imposed hitherto on the transfer of land from Arabs to Jews. The Reports of several expert Commissions have indicated that, owing to the natural growth of the Arab population and the steady sale in recent years of Arab land to Jews, there is now in certain areas no room for further transfers of Arab land, whilst in some other areas such transfers of land must be restricted if Arab cultivators are to maintain their existing standard of life and a considerable landless Arab population is not soon to be created. In these circumstances, the High Commissioner will be given general powers to prohibit and regulate transfers of land. These powers will date from the publication of this statement of policy and the High Commissioner will retain them throughout the transitional period.
The policy of the Government will be directed towards the development of the land and the improvement, where possible, of methods of cultivation. In the light of such development it will be open to the High Commissioner, should he be satisfied that the “rights and position” of the Arab population will be duly preserved, to review and modify any orders passed relating to the prohibition or restriction of the transfer of land.
In framing these proposals His Majesty‘s Government have sincerely endeavored to act in strict accordance with their obligations under the Mandate to both the Arabs and the Jews. The vagueness of the phrases employed in some instances to describe these obligations has led to controversy and has made the task of interpretation difficult. His Majesty‘s Government cannot hope to satisfy the partisans of one party or the other in such controversy as the Mandate has aroused. Their purpose is to be just as between the two people in Palestine whose destinies in that country have been affected by the great events of recent years, and who, since they live side by side, must learn to practice mutual tolerance, goodwill and co operation. In looking to the future, His Majesty‘s Government are not blind to the fact that some events of the past make the task of creating these relations difficult; but they are encouraged by the knowledge that as many times and in many places in Palestine during recent years the Arab and Jewish inhabitants have lived in friendship together. Each community has much to contribute to the welfare of their common land, and each must earnestly desire peace in which to assist in increasing the well being of the whole people of the country. The responsibility which falls on them, no less than upon His Majesty‘s Government, to co operate together to ensure peace is all the more solemn because their country is revered by many millions of Moslems, Jews and Christians throughout the world who pray for peace in Palestine and for the happiness of her people.
In the statement on Palestine, issued on 9 November, 1938, His Majesty‘s Government announced their intention to invite representatives of the Arabs of Palestine, of certain neighboring countries and of the Jewish Agency to confer with them in London regarding future policy. It was their sincere hope that, as a result of full, free and frank discussions, some understanding might be reached. Conferences recently took place with Arab and Jewish delegations, lasting for a period of several weeks, and served the purpose of a complete exchange of views between British Ministers and the Arab and Jewish representatives. In the light of the discussions as well as of the situation in Palestine and of the Reports of the Royal Commission and the Partition Commission, certain proposals were formulated by His Majesty‘s Government and were laid before the Arab and Jewish Delegations as the basis of an agreed settlement. Neither the Arab nor the Jewish delegation felt able to accept these proposals, and the conferences therefore did not result in an agreement. Accordingly His Majesty‘s Government are free to formulate their own policy, and after careful consideration they have decided to adhere generally to the proposals which were finally submitted to and discussed with the Arab and Jewish delegations.
The Mandate for Palestine, the terms of which were confirmed by the Council of the League of Nations in 1922, has governed the policy of successive British Governments for nearly 20 years. It embodies the Balfour Declaration and imposes on the Mandatory four main obligations. These obligations are set out in Article 2, 6 and 13 of the Mandate. There is no dispute regarding the interpretation of one of these obligations, that touching the protection of and access to the Holy Places and religious building or sites. The other three main obligations are generally as follows:
To place the country under such political, administrative and economic conditions as will secure the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish People. To facilitate Jewish immigration under suitable conditions, and to encourage, in cooperation with the Jewish Agency, close settlement by Jews on the Land.
To safeguard the civil and religious rights of all inhabitants of Palestine irrespective of race and religion, and, whilst facilitating Jewish immigration and settlement, to ensure that the rights and position of other sections of the population are not prejudiced.
To place the country under such political, administrative and economic conditions as will secure the development of self governing institutions.
The Royal Commission and previous commissions of Enquiry have drawn attention to the ambiguity of certain expressions in the Mandate, such as the expression “a national home for the Jewish people”, and they have found in this ambiguity and the resulting uncertainty as to the objectives of policy a fundamental cause of unrest and hostility between Arabs and Jews. His Majesty‘s Government are convinced that in the interests of the peace and well being of the whole people of Palestine a clear definition of policy and objectives is essential. The proposal of partition recommended by the Royal Commission would have afforded such clarity, but the establishment of self supporting independent Arab and Jewish States within Palestine has been found to be impracticable. It has therefore been necessary for His Majesty‘s Government to devise an alternative policy which will, consistent with their obligations to Arabs and Jews, meet the needs of the situation in Palestine. Their views and proposals are set forth below under three heads, Section I. “The Constitution”, Section II. Immigration and Section III. Land.
Section I. “The Constitution”
It has been urged that the expression “a national home for the Jewish people” offered a prospect that Palestine might in due course become a Jewish State or Commonwealth. His Majesty‘s Government do not wish to contest the view, which was expressed by the Royal Commission, that the Zionist leaders at the time of the issue of the Balfour Declaration recognized that an ultimate Jewish State was not precluded by the terms of the Declaration. But, with the Royal Commission, His Majesty‘s Government believe that the framers of the Mandate in which the Balfour Declaration was embodied could not have intended that Palestine should be converted into a Jewish State against the will of the Arab population of the country. That Palestine was not to be converted into a Jewish State might be held to be implied in the passage from the Command Paper of 1922 which reads as follows
“Unauthorized statements have been made to the effect that the purpose in view is to create a wholly Jewish Palestine. Phrases have been used such as that ‘Palestine is to become as Jewish as England is English.‘ His Majesty‘s Government regard any such expectation as impracticable and have no such aim in view. Nor have they at any time contemplated … the disappearance or the subordination of the Arabic population, language or culture in Palestine. They would draw attention to the fact that the terms of the (Balfour) Declaration referred to do not contemplate that Palestine as a whole should be converted into a Jewish National Home, but that such a Home should be founded IN PALESTINE.”
But this statement has not removed doubts, and His Majesty‘s Government therefore now declare unequivocally that it is not part of their policy that Palestine should become a Jewish State. They would indeed regard it as contrary to their obligations to the Arabs under the Mandate, as well as to the assurances which have been given to the Arab people in the past, that the Arab population of Palestine should be made the subjects of a Jewish State against their will.
The nature of the Jewish National Home in Palestine was further described in the Command Paper of 1922 as follows
“During the last two or three generations the Jews have recreated in Palestine a community now numbering 80,000, of whom about one fourth are farmers or workers upon the land. This community has its own political organs; an elected assembly for the direction of its domestic concerns; elected councils in the towns; and an organization for the control of its schools. It has its elected Chief Rabbinate and Rabbinical Council for the direction of its religious affairs. Its business is conducted in Hebrew as a vernacular language, and a Hebrew press serves its needs. It has its distinctive intellectual life and displays considerable economic activity. This community, then, with its town and country population, its political, religious and social organizations, its own language, its own customs, its own life, has in fact ‘national‘ characteristics. When it is asked what is meant by the development of the Jewish National Home in Palestine, it may be answered that it is not the imposition of a Jewish nationality upon the inhabitants of Palestine as a whole, but the further development of the existing Jewish community, with the assistance of Jews in other parts of the world, in order that it may become a center in which the Jewish people as a whole may take, on grounds of religion and race, an interest and pride. But in order that this community should have the best prospect of free development and provide a full opportunity for the Jewish people to display its capacities, it is essential that it should know that it is in Palestine as of right and not on sufferance. That is the reason why it is necessary that the existence of a Jewish National Home in Palestine should be internationally guaranteed, and that it should be formally recognized to rest upon ancient historic connection.”
His Majesty‘s Government adhere to this interpretation of the (Balfour) Declaration of 1917 and regard it as an authoritative and comprehensive description of the character of the Jewish National Home in Palestine. It envisaged the further development of the existing Jewish community with the assistance of Jews in other parts of the world. Evidence that His Majesty‘s Government have been carrying out their obligation in this respect is to be found in the facts that, since the statement of 1922 was published, more than 300,000 Jews have immigrated to Palestine, and that the population of the National Home has risen to some 450,000, or approaching a third of the entire population of the country. Nor has the Jewish community failed to take full advantage of the opportunities given to it. The growth of the Jewish National Home and its acheivements in many fields are a remarkable constructive effort which must command the admiration of the world and must be, in particular, a source of pride to the Jewish people.
In the recent discussions the Arab delegations have repeated the contention that Palestine was included within the area in which Sir Henry McMahon, on behalf of the British Government, in October, 1915, undertook to recognise and support Arab independence. The validity of this claim, based on the terms of the correspondence which passed between Sir Henry McMahon and the Sharif of Mecca, was thoroughly and carefully investigated by the British and Arab representatives during the recent conferences in London. Their report, which has been published, states that both the Arab and the British representatives endeavoured to understand the point of view of the other party but that they were unable to reach agreement upon an interpretation of the correspondence. There is no need to summarize here the arguments presented by each side. His Majesty‘s Government regret the misunderstandings which have arisen as regards some of the phrases used. For their part they can only adhere, for the reasons given by their representatives in the Report, to the view that the whole of Palestine west of Jordan was excluded from Sir Henry McMahon‘s pledge, and they therefore cannot agree that the McMahon correspondence forms a just basis for the claim that Palestine should be converted into an Arab State.
His Majesty‘s Government are charged as the Mandatory authority “to secure the development of self governing institutions” in Palestine. Apart from this specific obligation, they would regard it as contrary to the whole spirit of the Mandate system that the population of Palestine should remain forever under Mandatory tutelage. It is proper that the people of the country should as early as possible enjoy the rights of self-government which are exercised by the people of neighboring countries. His Majesty‘s Government are unable at present to foresee the exact constitutional forms which government in Palestine will eventually take, but their objective is self government, and they desire to see established ultimately an independent Palestine State. It should be a State in which the two peoples in Palestine, Arabs and Jews, share authority in government in such a way that the essential interests of each are shared.
The establishment of an independent State and the complete relinquishment of Mandatory control in Palestine would require such relations between the Arabs and the Jews as would make good government possible. Moreover, the growth of self governing institutions in Palestine, as in other countries, must be an evolutionary process. A transitional period will be required before independence is achieved, throughout which ultimate responsibility for the Government of the country will be retained by His Majesty‘s Government as the Mandatory authority, while the people of the country are taking an increasing share in the Government, and understanding and cooperation amongst them are growing. It will be the constant endeavor of His Majesty‘s Government to promote good relations between the Arabs and the Jews.
In the light of these considerations His Majesty‘s Government make the following declaration of their intentions regarding the future government of Palestine:
The objective of His Majesty‘s Government is the establishment within 10 years of an independent Palestine State in such treaty relations with the United Kingdom as will provide satisfactorily for the commercial and strategic requirements of both countries in the future. The proposal for the establishment of the independent State would involve consultation with the Council of the League of Nations with a view to the termination of the Mandate.
The independent State should be one in which Arabs and Jews share government in such a way as to ensure that the essential interests of each community are safeguarded.
The establishment of the independent State will be preceded by a transitional period throughout which His Majesty‘s Government will retain responsibility for the country. During the transitional period the people of Palestine will be given an increasing part in the government of their country. Both sections of the population will have an opportunity to participate in the machinery of government, and the process will be carried on whether or not they both avail themselves of it.
As soon as peace and order have been sufficiently restored in Palestine steps will be taken to carry out this policy of giving the people of Palestine an increasing part in the government of their country, the objective being to place Palestinians in charge of all the Departments of Government, with the assistance of British advisers and subject to the control of the High Commissioner. Arab and Jewish representatives will be invited to serve as heads of Departments approximately in proportion to their respective populations. The number of Palestinians in charge of Departments will be increased as circumstances permit until all heads of Departments are Palestinians, exercising the administrative and advisory functions which are presently performed by British officials. When that stage is reached consideration will be given to the question of converting the Executive Council into a Council of Ministers with a consequential change in the status and functions of the Palestinian heads of Departments.
His Majesty‘s Government make no proposals at this stage regarding the establishment of an elective legislature. Nevertheless they would regard this as an appropriate constitutional development, and, should public opinion in Palestine hereafter show itself in favor of such a development, they will be prepared, provided that local conditions permit, to establish the necessary machinery.
At the end of five years from the restoration of peace and order, an appropriate body representative of the people of Palestine and of His Majesty‘s Government will be set up to review the working of the constitutional arrangements during the transitional period and to consider and make recommendations regarding the constitution of the independent Palestine State.
His Majesty‘s Government will require to be satisfied that in the treaty contemplated by sub-paragraph (6) adequate provision has been made for:
the security of, and freedom of access to the Holy Places, and protection of the interests and property of the various religious bodies.
the protection of the different communities in Palestine in accordance with the obligations of His Majesty‘s Government to both Arabs and Jews and for the special position in Palestine of the Jewish National Home.
such requirements to meet the strategic situation as may be regarded as necessary by His Majesty‘s Government in the light of the circumstances then existing. His Majesty‘s Government will also require to be satisfied that the interests of certain foreign countries in Palestine, for the preservation of which they are at present responsible, are adequately safeguarded.
His Majesty‘s Government will do everything in their power to create conditions which will enable the independent Palestine State to come into being within 10 years. If, at the end of 10 years, it appears to His Majesty‘s Government that, contrary to their hope, circumstances require the postponement of the establishment of the independent State, they will consult with representatives of the people of Palestine, the Council of the League of Nations and the neighboring Arab States before deciding on such a postponement. If His Majesty‘s Government come to the conclusion that postponement is unavoidable, they will invite the co-operation of these parties in framing plans for the future with a view to achieving the desired objective at the earliest possible date.
During the transitional period steps will be taken to increase the powers and responsibilities of municipal corporations and local councils.
Section II. Immigration
Under Article 6 of the Mandate, the Administration of Palestine, “while ensuring that the rights and position of other sections of the population are not prejudiced,” is required to “facilitate Jewish immigration under suitable conditions.” Beyond this, the extent to which Jewish immigration into Palestine is to be permitted is nowhere defined in the Mandate. But in the Command Paper of 1922 it was laid down that for the fulfillment of the policy of establishing a Jewish National Home:
“it is necessary that the Jewish community in Palestine should be able to increase its numbers by immigration. This immigration cannot be so great in volume as to exceed whatever may be the economic capacity of the country at the time to absorb new arrivals. It is essential to ensure that the immigrants should not be a burden upon the people of Palestine as a whole, and that they should not deprive any section of the present population of their employment.”
In practice, from that date onwards until recent times, the economic absorptive capacity of the country has been treated as the sole limiting factor, and in the letter which Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, as Prime Minister, sent to Dr. Weizmann in February 1931 it was laid down as a matter of policy that economic absorptive capacity was the sole criterion. This interpretation has been supported by resolutions of the Permanent Mandates Commissioner. But His Majesty‘s Government do not read either the Statement of Policy of 1922 or the letter of 1931 as implying that the Mandate requires them, for all time and in all circumstances, to facilitate the immigration of Jews into Palestine subject only to consideration of the country‘s economic absorptive capacity. Nor do they find anything in the Mandate or in subsequent Statements of Policy to support the view that the establishment of a Jewish National Home in Palestine cannot be effected unless immigration is allowed to continue indefinitely. If immigration has an adverse effect on the economic position in the country, it should clearly be restricted; and equally, if it has a seriously damaging effect on the political position in the country, that is a factor that should not be ignored. Although it is not difficult to contend that the large number of Jewish immigrants who have been admitted so far have been absorbed economically, the fear of the Arabs that this influx will continue indefinitely until the Jewish population is in a position to dominate them has produced consequences which are extremely grave for Jews and Arabs alike and for the peace and prosperity of Palestine. The lamentable disturbances of the past three years are only the latest and most sustained manifestation of this intense Arab apprehension. The methods employed by Arab terrorists against fellow Arabs and Jews alike must receive unqualified condemnation. But it cannot be denied that fear of indefinite Jewish immigration is widespread amongst the Arab population and that this fear has made possible disturbances which have given a serious setback to economic progress, depleted the Palestine exchequer, rendered life and property insecure, and produced a bitterness between the Arab and Jewish populations which is deplorable between citizens of the same country. If in these circumstances immigration is continued up to the economic absorptive capacity of the country, regardless of all other considerations, a fatal enmity between the two peoples will be perpetuated, and the situation in Palestine may become a permanent source of friction amongst all peoples in the Near and Middle East. His Majesty‘s Government cannot take the view that either their obligations under the Mandate, or considerations of common sense and justice, require that they should ignore these circumstances in framing immigration policy.
In the view of the Royal Commission the association of the policy of the Balfour Declaration with the Mandate system implied the belief that Arab hostility to the former would sooner or later be overcome. It has been the hope of British Governments ever since the Balfour Declaration was issued that in time the Arab population, recognizing the advantages to be derived from Jewish settlement and development in Palestine, would become reconciled to the further growth of the Jewish National Home. This hope has not been fulfilled. The alternatives before His Majesty‘s Government are either (i) to seek to expand the Jewish National Home indefinitely by immigration, against the strongly expressed will of the Arab people of the country; or (ii) to permit further expansion of the Jewish National Home by immigration only if the Arabs are prepared to acquiesce in it. The former policy means rule by force. Apart from other considerations, such a policy seems to His Majesty‘s Government to be contrary to the whole spirit of Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations, as well as to their specific obligations to the Arabs in the Palestine Mandate. Moreover, the relations between the Arabs and the Jews in Palestine must be based sooner or later on mutual tolerance and goodwill; the peace, security and progress of the Jewish National Home itself requires this. Therefore His Majesty‘s Government, after earnest consideration, and taking into account the extent to which the growth of the Jewish National Home has been facilitated over the last twenty years, have decided that the time has come to adopt in principle the second of the alternatives referred to above.
It has been urged that all further Jewish immigration into Palestine should be stopped forthwith. His Majesty‘s Government cannot accept such a proposal. It would damage the whole of the financial and economic system of Palestine and thus effect adversely the interests of Arabs and Jews alike. Moreover, in the view of His Majesty‘s Government, abruptly to stop further immigration would be unjust to the Jewish National Home. But, above all, His Majesty‘s Government are conscious of the present unhappy plight of large numbers of Jews who seek refuge from certain European countries, and they believe that Palestine can and should make a further contribution to the solution of this pressing world problem. In all these circumstances, they believe that they will be acting consistently with their Mandatory obligations to both Arabs and Jews, and in the manner best calculated to serve the interests of the whole people of Palestine, by adopting the following proposals regarding immigration:
Jewish immigration during the next five years will be at a rate which, if economic absorptive capacity permits, will bring the Jewish population up to approximately one third of the total population of the country. Taking into account the expected natural increase of the Arab and Jewish populations, and the number of illegal Jewish immigrants now in the country, this would allow of the admission, as from the beginning of April this year, of some 75,000 immigrants over the next five years. These immigrants would, subject to the criterion of economic absorptive capacity, be admitted as follows:
For each of the next five years a quota of 10,000 Jewish immigrants will be allowed on the understanding that a shortage one year may be added to the quotas for subsequent years, within the five year period, if economic absorptive capacity permits.
In addition, as a contribution towards the solution of the Jewish refugee problem, 25,000 refugees will be admitted as soon as the High Commissioner is satisfied that adequate provision for their maintenance is ensured, special consideration being given to refugee children and dependents.
The existing machinery for ascertaining economic absorptive capacity will be retained, and the High Commissioner will have the ultimate responsibility for deciding the limits of economic capacity. Before each periodic decision is taken, Jewish and Arab representatives will be consulted.
After the period of five years, no further Jewish immigration will be permitted unless the Arabs of Palestine are prepared to acquiesce in it.
His Majesty‘s Government are determined to check illegal immigration, and further preventive measures are being adopted. The numbers of any Jewish illegal immigrants who, despite these measures, may succeed in coming into the country and cannot be deported will be deducted from the yearly quotas.
His Majesty‘s Government are satisfied that, when the immigration over five years which is now contemplated has taken place, they will not be justified in facilitating, nor will they be under any obligation to facilitate, the further development of the Jewish National Home by immigration regardless of the wishes of the Arab population.
Section III. Land
The Administration of Palestine is required, under Article 6 of the Mandate, “while ensuring that the rights and position of other sections of the population are not prejudiced,” to encourage “close settlement by Jews on the land,” and no restriction has been imposed hitherto on the transfer of land from Arabs to Jews. The Reports of several expert Commissions have indicated that, owing to the natural growth of the Arab population and the steady sale in recent years of Arab land to Jews, there is now in certain areas no room for further transfers of Arab land, whilst in some other areas such transfers of land must be restricted if Arab cultivators are to maintain their existing standard of life and a considerable landless Arab population is not soon to be created. In these circumstances, the High Commissioner will be given general powers to prohibit and regulate transfers of land. These powers will date from the publication of this statement of policy and the High Commissioner will retain them throughout the transitional period.
The policy of the Government will be directed towards the development of the land and the improvement, where possible, of methods of cultivation. In the light of such development it will be open to the High Commissioner, should he be satisfied that the “rights and position” of the Arab population will be duly preserved, to review and modify any orders passed relating to the prohibition or restriction of the transfer of land.
In framing these proposals His Majesty‘s Government have sincerely endeavored to act in strict accordance with their obligations under the Mandate to both the Arabs and the Jews. The vagueness of the phrases employed in some instances to describe these obligations has led to controversy and has made the task of interpretation difficult. His Majesty‘s Government cannot hope to satisfy the partisans of one party or the other in such controversy as the Mandate has aroused. Their purpose is to be just as between the two people in Palestine whose destinies in that country have been affected by the great events of recent years, and who, since they live side by side, must learn to practice mutual tolerance, goodwill and co operation. In looking to the future, His Majesty‘s Government are not blind to the fact that some events of the past make the task of creating these relations difficult; but they are encouraged by the knowledge that as many times and in many places in Palestine during recent years the Arab and Jewish inhabitants have lived in friendship together. Each community has much to contribute to the welfare of their common land, and each must earnestly desire peace in which to assist in increasing the well being of the whole people of the country. The responsibility which falls on them, no less than upon His Majesty‘s Government, to co operate together to ensure peace is all the more solemn because their country is revered by many millions of Moslems, Jews and Christians throughout the world who pray for peace in Palestine and for the happiness of her people.
My nauseated Imagination that it’s sick of Zionism
Posted on July 25, 2012 on Akashma Online News
by Marivel Guzman
Zionism and NWO
Could be just my nauseated imagination that it’s sick of so much Zionism, or, I’m exhausted of witnessing so much death, destruction, and misery caused by their hand. “The chosen Ones,” and please forgive me to use those words in a sarcastic way. I am not trying to insult Judaism, which believes that the 12 tribes were chosen by God. I’m simply stating my state of mind.
Watch “London Olympics 2012 ‘ Zion’ Logo” on YouTube. All you have to do is type Olympic Logo or London Olympic Games, and you find by yourself. (Olympic logo images could not be used-they intend to sell 2 billions euros out of that image)
One Monday, 4 June 2007, the logo of the London Olympic Games was unveiled in a star-studded ceremony in London. The funny thing is that few people paid attention to the logo back then. We were too busy probably getting duped with the First Black President who will take the White House – Not trying to be racist or anything, but in the US just until few months before Obama even run for President, America was still one of the most racist societies in the world. The media played the black card for many years, when it came to black presidents.- So Obama is running for president, and winning the elections was a prime time event in US history
Soon after the 2012 London Olympic logo was released to the press, Iran- the country led by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad- protested and announced they may boycott the Games
Why? According to the representatives of Ahmadinejad’s circle, the scrambled, jagged figures within the logo don’t form ‘2012’, but rather the word ‘Zion’. The man who first unscrambled the logo’s ‘numbers’ and determined they are actually letters spelling the word ‘Zion’ did so in 2008, soon after the 2012 symbol was announced and provided to the public.
He was a 25-year-old young British man named Rik Clay, and he was a student of secret societies and their symbolism in everyday logos on the U.S. dollar bill, etc. Clay, who seemed in good spirits during interviews just subsequent to his logo revelation, allegedly committed suicide soon after coming out with his discovery. Check out the YouTube video Rik Clay & 2012- RIP 1/9.
Choosing the logo of the Olympics Games is a lengthy process. Hundreds or probably thousands of designs are submitted to the Olympic committee to choose one for this mighty global event. So we wonder what the chances are that this logo symbolizing the year London Olympics games 2012 could be moved around and spelled the word Z I O N, right?
Don’t forget that Israel was asking the London Olympic Committee to hold a minute of silence during the ceremony of the aperture of the games as a tribute to the 11 Israeli athletes sacrificed on September 6, 1972. Munich 72 left a scores of hate and spilled blood without purpose, others that satisfy the arrogance of the Apartheid State of Israel. Their unwillingness to fulfill the demands of the captors ended the life of the 11 members of the Israel Olympic Team. After all they had promised to do so, the life of the athletes was hanging out on the promise that Israel government did to the captors. There is plenty of evidence and witness testimonies that the police opened fire first without regard for the life of the Israeli athletes.

Who ever picked the Olympic logo did it with the well acknowledgement of the Israel request to hold a minute of silence, now there is not just a moment of silence but the whole event will be a remembrance of the Zionist State.
The logo was designed by Wolff Ollins at the ticket price of 400,000 Euros. According to International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge, the logo will inspire the youth. Really? how 4 letters with a dot that switches around spelling Zion will inspire the youth?. On his words
“This is a truly innovative brand logo that graphically captures the essence of the London 2012 Olympic Games – namely to inspire young people around the world through sport and the Olympic values.
If they want to inspire the youth, they should have invited the youth of United Kingdom to summit their designs, that, could have been a truly inspiration for them, second with the world entrenched in violence; the occupy movement, the Arab springs, the European Union coming to pieces, the miners fighters for rights around the world, the teachers demanding decent salaries, the workers unions asking better conditions for their workers. And in top of everything Israel and the US mingling in the business of everyone on Earth, what inspiration that logo spelling ZION will give to the youth?
The designer of the Olympic logo is a multi billion dollars company whose parent company Omnicom Group, it is in charge of the propaganda industry on almost the whole world.

Companies such as Omnicom shape our reality. It is easy to create a wonderland where we all can be controlled. Once Zbigniew Brzezinski said in an interview with CBS, it is easier to kill a million people than to control a million people. But I think that they can still control 6 billion people using the Media Propaganda Machine.
“You take the blue pill – the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill – you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes.” -Morpheus in the Matrix
The Relation between TV, News Agencies and Adverting Companies
All three companies form the real axis of evil. They are in charge of the creation of propaganda, which it is the best weapon to defeat the masses.
They all go hand and hand together. After all, in 2003, they sold to the world the Iraq War, which had killed more than one million Iraqis and counting. They did not spare lives to recreate the perfect scenario for a war of that magnitude. Even the 911 tragedy which evidence suggest to be staged by no other than the American Government was an event well sold, which case was solidified by the well advertised News and movies and documentaries purposely and conveniently made to convinced the most skeptic minds. Remember the movie Wag the Dog, where a fake war was constructed and distributed in the news to distract the electorate from a sex scandal in election time. When we see the reality and make comparative analysis of what the Media has giving us and what really had happened in Real life, we see clearly the deception where our own government is the culprit, planer and executioner of every staged event in our history.
Over the history of these 3 Machines, they have killed more than a billion people. They are as guilty as the bullets that kill the innocents they target. The government develops strategic alliances with them to sell anything they want to portray in the theater of the world. Let’s take as example Omnicom: The company oversees a global network of more than 175 marketing services companies, as well as Omnicom Media Group, and provides services for over 5,000 clients in more than 100 countries worldwide. As a strategic holding company, Omnicom manages a portfolio of global market leaders; Omnicom’s agencies provide marketing and communications services in the disciplines of advertising, customer relationship management (CRM), strategic media planning and buying, digital and interactive marketing, direct and promotional marketing, public relations (PR) and other specialty communications.
Omnicom, which Revenue $13.9 billion (2011), where all this money is coming from? Presidential Campaigners, Arms Manufactures, Energy and Pharmaceutical Lobbyist firms, and off course the governments of the world that sell wars and protection to the world, using UN and NATO as a front.
Whose Cause!? The BDS Controversy!
Posted on April 29, 2012 by Akashma Online News
By Marivel Guzman Edited by Gail Baker
BDS The Non Violent Movement That Can Change The Odds
Whose Cause!.. Gilad Atzmon, Norman Finkelstein, Ali Abunimah, Omar Barghouti or Palestine? The BDS Controversy!
What Does it mean to be a Pro Palestinian Activist?
– To be pro-Palestinian does not necessarily mean you want the state of Israel to be wiped off the map; nor does it imply that you agree with either the two-state or one- state solution. The pro-Palestinian movement embraces many ideas and offers much diversity in way of critique and pro-active solutions. For instance, some activists take a stand, drawing upon the premise of Human Rights and International Law while others pursue different strategies outside of U.N. sanctions, precisely because the legal precepts have never been enforced. Similarly, it is with this context in mind, that we can view the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement where we witness much diversity in terms of strategy and goals. The international community of peace activists has been preoccupied with boycotting Israeli products, goods, and services; and also, has taken up the campaign for Cultural/Academic Boycott. However, some blocks of the solidarity movement participate only if the products were exported from the settlements inside the occupied territories, namely the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Essentially, BDS is not a uniform or homogenous movement with a strict set of standards which would end up being restrictive and narrow in focus. Some may view this as a weakness. And yet many others put another spin on it where the BDS is seen as holding out much promise due to its open, versatile, and dynamic appeal to a diverse range of groups. It is this versatility that allows for broad-based support that can only strengthen the movement all the more. As such, it would be a mistake to think that the BDS has to strike a consensus in order to work. We really cannot expect such a consensus since the movement has so many different branches, strategies, goals, and supporters. Nonetheless, one thing is clear in the minds of all supporters: inspired by the South African BDS campaign, most people simply want to put an abrupt halt to the apartheid practices of Israel! On this, I believe, there is a consensus and so it represents the rallying point that shall galvanize the movement into a potent force.
So it is we witness various scenarios where you have Israel citizens who support BDS because they want peace and know that for this to happen, there needs to be compliance with international law to the extent that rights of Palestinians within occupied territories are upheld. Therefore, they will not engage in talks or entertain the ideas of one or two-state solution. Their main concern is to maintain stability within Israel. Meanwhile, other activists take the stance that it is morally wrong to purchase any Israeli-made products; simultaneously, they will target any companies known to have ties with the apartheid state, especially those corporations associated with providing arsenal and weaponry which are used to kill Palestinians. This in turn will weaken the financial empire that continues to support Israel. Whatever the goal of the BDS participants, I personally think that it is a moral duty of every citizen in the world to support the BDS movement! This movement is not exclusive to any one leader or faction. Even Omar Barghouti, often credited as the founder, does not claim a monopoly on BDS; he does not own the movement but prefers to follow and act on the direction of the Palestinian BDS factions. This in no way diminishes the value of the BDS movement! On the contrary, BDS has become massive and global in it’s appeal and should inspire us all the more as active participants, realizing that each and everyone of us has an important integral role to play.
We are already observing the inroads made. Not only has BDS tarnished the false image of Israel as a progressive democratic state, but it has been successful in financially crippling certain sectors of the economy. Furthermore, every time a company comes public in its support of BDS and severes its economic ties with Israel, this captures the attention of the media and serves to act as counter-propaganda to that once-well oiled Zionist machine. Every time we hear of these BDS triumphs, awareness is stepped up a notch or two so that more is known about how Israel’s apartheid system really operates. Subsequently, we cannot discount the achievements nor diminish the value of this campaign based on the opinion of one group, organization, or a handful of high profile activists. While everyone is entitled to their opinion and deserves to be heard, we should take precautions not to restrict our own perspective to one particular position when it comes to BDS, or any issue for that matter. It would help to put the movement, itself, in proper context and consider the implications. For instance, recall that in South Africa it took more than 20 years for the BDS to gain some recognition around the world until finally it did take root as to have moral effect on the conscience of the people. Compare this to the contemporary situation where, with the assistance of technology, the Palestinian BDS campaign, since it’s inception, took only 5 or 6 years to be known at a global level. By this time, the BDS already has taken on a life of its own; the ideology of the founders and/or their political aspirations have nothing to do with BDS anymore. There is no office at this point that can control or organize what people around the world do to support Palestine, so the rhetorical question of the two -state solution that some want to use against the founders or against the movement, itself, cannot undermine the global support for Palestine that BDS is awakening in the people of conscience.
WHAT IS BDS
BDS stands for Boycott and Disinvestment Sanctions and it is aimed primarily at Israel. This movement is intended to pressure Israel economically, financially, and culturally. By no means was it created with the intention to undermine Israel’s legal status as an official recognized State. But as the movement has grown and thousands of organizations and universities across the globe are being more and more involved in the BDS movement, the perception of Israel is changing rapidly and many important academic figures that have been following the development of the conflict over the years are drawing the conclusion that Israel is losing its legal status in the world.
In 2005 the Civil Society of Palestine called the attention of the world when they founded a movement that is known globally simply as BDS and every sector of the population is participating, whether on a small or a grand scale.
“Boycott – basically is a tool of the weak, who individually are weak but collectively can have some strength against overweening power. The first use of the word [originated] with tenant farmers in Ireland against their land agent. Famous cases are the Montgomery Bus boycott and, more recently, the sporting boycott and other boycotts against South Africa. There are differences between all these boycotts, and I would stress that by taking the archetypal case of that of the tenant farmers who resisted the land agent Charles Boycott, who gave his name to the whole process, in the 1880s in Ireland. Boycott was the land agent for an absentee English noble. And what they did, when he became too domineering, is they denied him labour to save the harvest, they put him into isolation -refused to talk to him under any circumstances, the shops wouldn’t serve him, the workers wouldn’t go and look after his house for him, and the person wouldn’t deliver him letters. And in reasonably short order, by the end of the year Boycott had been forced out and returned to England. So very direct.” Professor Jonathan Rosenhead, Novemeber11, 2011
Professor Jonathan Rosenhead is chair of the British Committee for the Universities of Palestine (BRICUP) which is the main organization in the UK supporting the academic and cultural boycotts of Israel, it parallels PACBI in Palestine. Professor Rosenhead is also an activist, took part in the flotilla, sailing to Gaza to break the Israeli siege.
If we take this case as an archetype, or at least one standard by which to view the BDS movement in general, it reminds us to use our own critical thinking whenever high-profile people as intellectuals, writers, emeritus, professors, Nobel Prize laureates, politicians, scholars, and internationally-acclaimed activists speak on a issue. Many of us may be tempted to automatically think and feel that our support for an issue is validated merely because someone of high stature takes a stand in favor. On the other hand, if these same people speak against a campaign that we support, we may feel betrayed and angry. Some of us even go to the extreme of doubting our own convictions and moral standing and then we prematurely switch sides. It is, at that moment, we become followers and lose our ability to think independently for ourselves. This should be taken as a precautionary note, especially when we are addressing the issue of the BDS movement since the campaign is so immense and, therefore, cannot be accepted as a uniform doctrine expected to fit all necessities. Rather it is versatile, diverse, and dynamic in appeal. What we can say in terms of technicalities, it is not a movement that necessarily seeks the liberation of Palestine, because at its CORE, it was founded on 3 main premises: rights of return for refugees, equality for Arabs in Israel, and the end of occupation. These three points, if satisfied, will comply with international law! Even as we consider this official position, it is important to realize that the movement, itself, has evolved, the ideas have evolved as well, and by natural effect, the goals have changed, at least for some.
For pro-Palestinians that seek the liberation of Palestine, it is not enough to satisfy the 3 points, because such according to their interpretation would be akin to recognizing and legalizing Israel as a one-state solution. Palestinians and non- Palestinians alike, who take this line of reasoning, refer to the partition of
Palestine as illegal and thereby, will never accept Israel as legitimate state. While we may understand this position, the concern and grievances are misplaced: the original founders of BDS and the fulfillment of the three premises, does not entail debating the one or two-state solution; nor does it imply recognition of Israel as either legal/legitimate or illegitimate. One could argue to the contrary, that the original founders of the movement, whether they accept Israel as legitimate or not, nonetheless view the BDS goals as a beginning for a broader movement with effective outcomes that perhaps could eventually lead to dissipation of Israel. Consider the various variables at work here, such that the population growth of Palestinians is on the rise and could imply the best tool to defeat Israel.
Norm Finkelstein’s Position on BDS:
On his Interview with Frank Baratta, a well known Human Rights Activist, on February 9, 2012 attended the Imperial college London, and delivered astonishing statements that left us all surprised and wondering “what got into him????”.
Norm Finkelstein is now famous for repeating The Law is Clear, and he shields his views on BDS charging the founders of the movement as dishonest that Israel it is a State and that it is the law, but sadly he forgets easily how Israel had disregarded the law thousands of times when it comes to respect the life and property of Native Palestinians.
“When the law is criminal, you must break it to be human.” – FendLOTRO youtube user responded to Norman Finkelstein
Norman G. Finkelstein received his doctorate in 1988 from the Department of Politics at Princeton University.For many years he taught political theory and the Israel-Palestine conflict. He currently writes and lectures.
The controversy arose when Professor Finkelstein slammed the BDS movement as a cult! I heard his argument and he does not mean the literal definition of a cult; but rather is referring to the centralized idea that forcing Israel to comply with the 3 points of the BDS movement will destroy Israel. He goes on to say that he will support the BDS movement if the organizers will honestly speak on their goals, because he senses that they are not being genuine due to what he considers “vague” statements made by Barghouti. In this sense, Finkelstein’s interpretation imparts a misleading and inaccurate appraisal of the BDS movement. Meanwhile, Ali Abu Nimahk, from the electronic intifada who has been a harsh critic of Finkelstein, started a campaign against him by drawing the line on disinformation coming from Finkelstain side, accusing Finkelstain on supporting Israel on the two state solution. When every body knows that it is not possible, but this point does not discredit Finkelstain as a pro-Justice man, Subsequently, Ali Abu Nimahk supporters, fell for his arguments, without question, and failed to seriously consider the words of Finkelstein where he stated “I support the BDS, but I said that it will never reach a broad public, until and unless they’re explicit on their goal, and their goal has to include recognition of Israel, or it is no starter. It won’t reach the public, because the moment it goes out there, Israel will start to say, what about us? and they won’t recognize our right, and it fact that is correct, you can’t answer the Israelis on that, because they are making a statement that is factually correct. It is not an accident and unwitting omission that BDS does not mention Israel….you know that and I know that…is not that OH! we forgot to mention Israel!” Professor Norman Finkelstein.
I highly respect the point of view of these personalities and their approach to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict because each of them have worked tirelessly for the Palestinian cause! Nonetheless, all of them have their own goals, and because their goals differ in nature, their arguments also differ. It becomes problematic, however, where this turns into a “mud-slinging” fest and divides the various supporters affiliated with each of these high-profile personalities, as those aforementioned. We all can be peace activists and be pro-Palestinians and not have an opinion on the one or two-state solution – that has been the center point for Ali Abu Minah. Yet when he criticizes Finkelstein, he ignores the position regarding the legal question of Israeli actions against occupied territories. Furthermore, he fails to pursue the probable outcome of the BDS movement where we could envision the prospect of an eventual dissipation of Israel as a legitimate state according to international law.
Ali Hasan Abunimah is a Palestinian American journalist and co-founder of Electronic Intifada, a not-for-profit, independent online publication about the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
I make mention of these disparate views above because they have played a role in disseminating rumors regarding the BDS. Furthermore, it would be unfair to give credit to or to discredit the words of any of these heavy-weights, without first analyzing their background, their profession, their nationality, and ultimately, the real motives behind the positions they promote in public forums. Take the case of Norman Finkelstein where many questions arise regarding his recent, often contradictory and confusing arguments. What goals does he have in mind? He has been a peace activist for years and out of moral duty has stood firmly behind the Palestinian cause to defend truth, justice, and law. He has in the past taken enormous professional risks to do this. But now he is in the process of selling his image as a writer, political scientist, scholar, and activist, as well as his books. This means his integrity is at stake and once again he is taking a risk and has to step cautiously into the Mid East arena regarding BDS. When he bashes Israel, we give him credit for his courage. And yet, we must be skeptical here since, of recent, he has taken the position that “the law, it is clear. We cannot be selective with the law”. Moreover, he slams the BDS for not staying within the bounds of the law because the movement doesn’t explicitly give recognition to the state of Israel.
Did Finkelstein forget the stipulations placed on Israel by the League of Nations during the time that Palestine was partitioned to create Israel? And it isn’t it true that Israel, in order to have legitimacy, would have to respect the rights of the inhabitants of the land with particular emphasis on all groups including Palestinians Muslims, and Palestinians Christians? Now it is obvious to human rights watch groups and it should be obvious to Finkelstein, himself, that since the moment of it’s inception, Israel has violated every international law in the books and was never held accountable! Due to this violations, it’s status as a legitimate/legal state should be considered dubious, at best. Ironic it is, then, that Finkelstein criticizes the BDS movement due to it’s failure to make an official statement in recognition of Israel. Why should the founder/s be pressured to do so, in the first place? especially when Finkelstein stresses the idea that “the law is clear and is not selective”? What he fails to address is the obvious – why when it comes to Palestine, is the law selective and why are those legally-binding resolutions (in favor of Palestinians rights) NOT enforced? Disturbing about this is the fact that he takes a legal stance against BDS, but in this case he appears to use it selectively in favor of Israel. Below I provide two screen shots of the original documents of the United Nations – Resolution 194-8 and 194-11 agreed and signed
All things being equal, the truth will prevail. When given a fair chance, the truth should survive, because it is more natural, more attractive, and less contrived than falsehood. In a democracy, certain rights are inalienable, so that all men are equal before the law. On that assumption we must pressure Israel to adhere to it’s own propagated idea that as “the only democracy in the Middle East”, it must abide by the law. Since this stands as a fundamental principle of democracy, defending the truth will reach a conclusion. The anti-BDS propaganda must be challenged at it’s source. The fact that such heavy-weights as Ali Abu Nimah, Omar Barghouti, Norm Finkelstein, and Gilad Atzman have all entered the fray and media frenzy, opinions have likely been taken out of context and the issues have been blown out of proportion.
Gilad Atzmon’s Position on the BDS:
“Gilad Atzmon: “For more than a while, myself and others are very suspicious of the BDS. For some peculiar reason the BDS in the West is dominated by Jewish activists. Though the BDS’ principle is valid and worth a fight, it has become clear to many of us that something went wrong along the way. Last month we have seen BDS calls to stop Norman Finkelstein; this month we see BDS calls to stop me. Great, isn’t it. The BDS is now used to stifle freedom within the solidarity discourse.”
I m not blaming Gilad Atzmon for the anti-BDS sentiment that is circulating! Rather, I am quoting those words that were picked up by media and likely contributed to the the controversy that arose following the interview of Norman Finkelstein, as well as, Ali Abu Nimah‘s heated debate on the issue. I think we can trace the roots here. In addition, the people pushing hard on the surface of the BDS movement, are hijacking the campaign where we observe attempts to silence the dissident Jews as Gilad Atzmon and Norman Finkelstein. Because they are taking center stage in the Palestine Justice Movement, many people followed the line being pushed by an anonymous group that seems to operate behind the scenes, implying that there may well be a few spy rings. (Where these spy rings arise, they can do damage because they plant “ideas” that are hurting the BDS). Many of the same dynamics mentioned above were also witnessed during the Jewish global boycott of Germany goods to weaken Hitler’s economic power during WWII, as well, to force the government to finance the Jewish Transfer to Palestine. Additionally, we saw similar factors at work in South Africa during the horrible apartheid era.
I agree with Gilad Atzmon where he criticizes certain groups that have infiltrated the BDS and have been used to silence Jewish dissidents as himself. Unfortunately, though, his defensive position has become offensive and imparts a false impression that the BDS campaign in general is not trustworthy. Sadly, I have seen good friends and pro-Palestinian activists write against BDS, without considering the consequences of doing so. We must put this in a broader perspective and push aside the infighting upon realizing that this is an immense movement in which millions of people are doing their level best to keep up the campaign against apartheid. Meanwhile, I can only hope that those people of high-profile who have great influence over public opinion reflect upon the damage that could be done to Palestine whenever they overgeneralize their personal opinions in attempt to defend themselves against rogue BDS elements/agents.
With this in mind, I cite Gilad’s own words to remind us to stay focused on the real issues:
“For more than ten years I have been writing about Israel, Zionism and Jewish identity. I am engaged in a process of deconstruction and critique of different Jewish texts, ideas, politics and practice. My intent is aiming towards some deeper realization of what Zionism is. In my opinion, Zionism is one of the most dangerous political movements. It is a global operation that threatens world peace on a daily basis.” Gilad Atzmon
When citing any position, it is important to keep in mind that the BDS movement is not the property of few persons. This is a global campaign of awareness, to pressure Israel to end her apartheid practices inside the occupied territories and to force Israel to respect the human rights of Palestinians that live in West Jerusalem, Gaza and West Bank.
“Boycott is a real complicated issue. For years we’ve been arguing in favour of divestment and boycott. At the time I supported any form of boycott in Israel, its products and its culture.There are some elements in the boycott that are obviously very welcome. For instance, the fact that UK unions are standing up against Zionist evil is a major shift in the very right direction. The Boycott is certainly bad news for Israel and this is wonderful news in itself. Yesterday, I went to a reading of a play, it was actually a theatrical adaptation my latest book. The producer is Jewish, and at a certain stage when we were discussing the meaning of the play he stood up and said. “You see, we had a Jewish State, it is now sixty years later, and it is a very horrible place, it is so horrible that it has now been boycotted. And this is there to make us think, where did it go wrong?” This is the most positive impact of the boycott. It makes people reflect.” Gilad Atzmon July 2007
Gilad Atzmon is an Israeli-born British jazz saxophonist, novelist, political activist, Pro Palestinian Peace Activist, and writer. Atzmon’s album Exile was BBC jazz album of the year in 2003.
When Gilad Atzmon refers to the Jewish, you have to understand his philosophy and point of view regarding the modern Jewish sentiment of ” the chosen ones”. This mentality is more intrinsic and is best exemplified by the Jewish Only political spectrum in Israel, as well as, powerful Jewish lobby groups around the world. But let us not confuse Israel Jewish Only Policies with Judaism. “Jewish” refers primarily to ethnicity while “Judaism” refers to religion. For instance, those who support “Jewish only” policies in line with apartheid, play upon the concept “the chosen few”, not as a matter of religious principles, but more so, a matter of political arrogance. Furthermore, it is notable that there are a number of Jewish groups of orthodox faith who take offense to Israeli Zionist practices of apartheid and occupation. Neturei Karta Orthodox Jews are but an example.
Recently a group of intellectuals, and pro-Palestinians endorsed Ali Abu Minah in a letter against Gilad Atzmon. I think that some people are using the spotlight of others to upstage their popularity within the Palestinian movement. Meanwhile, there are thousands of pro-Palestinians who have invested their time and sometimes their money without thinking twice. Additionally, there are those who have and continue to make a profession out of the Palestinian cause, dedicating much of their life to this. Such is to be respected where and when these people are clearly focused on the objectives to serve justice. Moreover, it is only fair that they be paid for their time and service since they, as anyone else, need money to live and support themselves and families. Sometimes the tasks do involve various campaigns for private donations, or setting up Non-Profit Organizations where the structure is similar to the official NGO’s that participate in charities (unlike many NGO’s, this participation in charities is not merely a means to deduct taxes). Then, too, there is a group of individuals who have thrown their support behind Palestine, not out of love for Palestine, but more so as a matter of fighting injustice due to violation of human rights. Chomsky and Finkelstein may very well fall into this camp since they do not want to see Israel wiped off the map; rather, they would prefer to see an Israel that behaves democratically by working inside the parameters of international law. Like Professor Horowitz, Finkelstein engages in discussions with pro-Israeli supporters. BUT UNLIKE Horowitz, Finkelstein cites factual information regarding atrocities against Palestinians and also clearly recognizes the need for Israel to put an end to human rights abuses. As mentioned earlier, the argument may initially sound appealing. However, delving further into Finkelstein’s various discussions and interviews, many contradictions arise and are worthy of further examination if we are to assess his position on BDS.
Assessing the Implications of the Key Players Involved in the Controversy:
On February 2012 a video clip was released on youtube entitled “Arguing the BDS Movement: Interview with Frank Barata and political Scientist, Writer, and Activist Norman Finkelstein“. According to Finkelstein, international law is unambiguous and could be used as a tool to compel Israel to adhere to human rights. Meanwhile, he sees little value in the so called Palestinian Authority’s efforts to conduct peace talks and negotiations that have led nowhere, and also implies that the P.A. is a collaborator of Israel since the leaders often strike bargains that actually come at the expense of the Palestinians, themselves. In a sense, he is right! This rather cozy relationship became more evident especially after Abbas’ presidency. For instance, corruption is observed in many instances, among all things, the criminalization of protests against the occupation. Given the P.A.’s collaboration with Israel, along with U.S. aid to the Zionist entity, it is hard to envision the possibility of a peaceful outcome. According to Finkelstein, Palestine will never win the conflict since it is inconceivable that Israel will give an inch. Not only is it equipped with one of the most technologically advanced military and powerful armies, Israel too has the moral and financial backing of the United Sates, as well as other nations. The fact that the U.S. provides more than 3 billion dollars a year in military aid and loan guarantees makes the prospects for Palestine look all the more bleak, especially considering this one-sided war, if it can even can be called a war. In reality this is unprecedented and unwarranted aggression against the virtually defenseless Palestinian population. As such, Israel would have to be extracted by force, either through the Palestinians use of militancy or through strict judicial procedures within the bounds of international law.
It is on the point of international law that Finkelstein makes his case for Palestine, but in the meantime, also applies the argument to undermine the legitimacy of the BDS campaign. What unravels in his position, is an argument replete with serious flaws, contradictions, assumptions, and confusion. It is no wonder then that many of his own supporters have been left bewildered. The major criticism regards the three strategies put forth by the BDS. To Finkelstein, while these may be “ideologically possible”, on pragmatic terms and according to international law, the three-pronged approach can’t work since it excludes Israel as a viable state. Even if these strategies did have effect, eventually this would culminate in the end of Israel. This is particularly problematic to Finkelstein because the scenario is feasible given that the return of 6 to 7 million Palestinian refugees will shift the balance of power due to disproportionate representation in terms of a diminished Israeli population. This prospect, accompanied by the BDS’ call for equal rights to Arabs within Israel will quite likely result in a panorama view where Palestinians as majority will be the major political players. On these grounds, Finkelstein accuses the BDS of being dishonest since it does not acknowledge this possibility nor officially claim it as a goal. Subsequently, he believes the campaign will never take root because the international community simply will not accept these terms, whether they are explicitly stated or not.
The bewilderment and confusion arising out of Finkelstein’s stance can be traced to the manner in which he takes comfort in citing the 1967 borders that are supposedly the legal borders of Israel! Disturbing about this argument is the failure on behalf of Finkelstein to acknowledge those disenfranchised Palestinians who were illegally driven and forced out of their homeland prior to 1967. Did he forget the history, the Nakba for instance, which violated international law prior to 1967? Did he forget how the so The State of Israel was created through war crimes when it was violently inserted into the heart of the Middle East? There is reason for concern insofar he draws scarce attention to and virtually ignores the atrocities and plight forced upon Palestinians who became refugees in neighboring countries where they are not accepted as citizens, and on the other hand Majority of Israelis enjoyed double Nationality. If it is so as Finkelstein reiterates over and over that “the law is clear”, why is it that he ignores the resolutions adopted by the General Assembly at it’s third session on November 27, 1948? (refer to illustration 1 and 2). Moreover, if he is going to use the stance that “the law is clear”, it is incumbent on him as a political scholar, to admit that Israel violated most of the U.N. resolutions and was never held accountable since the moment of it’s inception.
Yes, the law in this case is clear, but it is unfair and unjust, because it has not been enforced!!!! By all standards then, Israel’s legitimacy as a state, is dubious and up for question. So we are left to ponder why Finkelstein places the burden of proof upon the Palestinians rather than on Israel. And why does he uses such a flawed argument to slam the BDS campaign? If anything, one could turn the tables here and apply “the law is clear” premise to work in favor of the BDS. Finkelstein’s argument would be far more credible had he used it to acknowledge that, by all international standards/UN resolutions, Israel technically is not a legal nor legitimate state. In this sense, the BDS movement, could satisfy the three pillars, and could very well become a potent force enough to garner the attention of the international and global community. It could reach a climax of mass proportions in which the international players will no longer have the luxury of appeasing Israel. The world will soon become weary and tired of Israel arrogance and impunity. Sooner or later, Israel will be forced to follow the path of South Africa!
Upon revisiting controversy surrounding Gilad Atzmon’s position, it is important to note that he is very critical of the Zionist ideology, insisting with reason, that the state of Israel has instilled exclusivity of “the chosen few” in the minds of Jewish citizens to advance colonial rule in Palestine.
Meanwhile, Atzmon’s detractors are working hard to undo the work that he has done on behalf of Palestine. They are using the wrong arguments for the wrong reasons for the right cause, that is Palestine. Some of these people get entangled in the criticism, some are genuine pro-Palestinians, and some are misled by the well- oiled Zionist propaganda that is trying to destroy the career of Gilad Atzmon, that it is being cemented on the Palestine Conflict and Zionism. It is no secret, after all, that
has published in favor of the Palestinian cause and due to his fame and popularity, has much influence. Subsequently, Zionist groups have an obvious motive for bashing his work. But the move to do so may be premature, ill-conceived, and in fact, may backfire. As with any issues that come under the spotlight due to controversy, the media attention can serve both sides of the divide: on one hand it reinforces arguments by the detractors, and on the other, it inspires greater interest and curiosity in Atzmon’s work. The same could be said of Finkelstein as well. So the question comes to mind, whether or not this anti-BDS campaign is actually a stunt employed to sell books, or at the very least, an opportunistic ploy conveniently playing in the hands of the authors and publishers.
The claims articulated by both Finkelstein and Atzmon, strongly suggest both are pro-justice, pro-peace, and ultimately, pro-Palestine.
“For me to be Jewish is, above all, to be preoccupied with overcoming injustice and thirsting for justice in the world, and that means being respectful toward other peoples regardless of their nationality or religion, and empathetic in the face of human suffering whoever and wherever victimization is encountered” (Gilad Atzmon, “On Jewish Identity,” 1/15/2011).
In Atzmon’s words, we find credibility in his cause and struggle for justice. However, if this trumped up anti-BDS campaign has been used as a propaganda scheme to gain free advertizement for books recently published, then this is disturbing, to say the least. To attack the BDS campaign as a means of serving one’s own interests is beyond irresponsible and irreproachable since authors of high stature have great influence on the pro-Palestinians. I would hope that these are not the motives here. Whatever the case, there is no doubt that the controversy did have spin-off effects that have undermined BDS proponents and, meanwhile, divided the solidarity movement. For instance, I recently heard some statements against the BDS movement asserting that the strategies have not worked since Israel’s economy is more “economically solvent than ever”. Yet pursuing this at greater length, tells us that nothing can be farther from the truth – the economic meltdown is a global phenomenon and it’s to a point where even Israel is not immune. Taken in this context, we can quite confidently assume that certain sectors of the economy will inevitably be hurt, as some already have suffered losses. Add to this, the Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel. Many high-profile personalities, as internationally-acclaimed author and activist Alice Walker, have already entered the fray, inspiring the BDS campaign once again with enthusiasm and optimism; meanwhile, striking fear into the heart of Zionist lobby groups. Indeed Zionist Israel has reason for concern; and it is high time that the key political players are shaken enough to take note! Economic collapse may be more imminent than they are willing to admit! And if this is what it takes to put an end to apartheid, occupation, and genocide; then we owe at least some credit to the BDS movement.
Consider too, how the average Israeli citizen is impacted by the government’s heavy investment into security and weaponry used against Palestinians. Simultaneously, the middle class is beginning to feel the crunch as elsewhere in the world. Growing inequality, in terms of both socioeconomic status and political policies, is the first sign spotted by the ordinary citizen. The Occupy movement has actually reached the Holy Land and has stirred up protests. Change is on the horizon. Even Israel can no longer afford it’s own arrogance. Moreover, there is no magical wand that can grant them immunity from global or economic evolution where society is evermore awakening to mass consciousness. The conditions exist and the time is ripe for the BDS to make inroads and impact enough to dismantle apartheid Israel. On this optimistic note, it is relevant to examine the ideas of Omar Barghouti.
Revisiting the Controversy Surrounding Omar Barghouti’s Position on BDS:
It would be remiss not to assess the credibility of Omar Barghouti also, since he too has become central to this BDS debate and as mentioned earlier, he did emerge on the scene to espouse the values and the 3 main objectives of the campaign against apartheid Israel: right of return for refugees, equal rights for Arabs within Israel, and termination of the occupation. Barghouti, also emphasizes that the direction of this movement is to be in the hands of the Palestinians themselves. While other affiliated groups and participants across the globe are recognized as major players, the movement must not be monopolized by any set of elites. It belongs to the grassroots people, particularly guided by the Palestinians. While statements have been embraced by most in the BDS movement, he too has come under attack by both Finkelstein and Atzmon. According to Finkelstein, the goals are too vague and cannot work. Atzmon makes similar claims but stepped it up a notch when he unfairly referred to Barghouti as a racist against whites . Such an accusation, however, should not be taken seriously since Atzmon took Barghouti’s words out of context without giving accurate representation to the postmodern argument from which Barghouti implied that those of Euro centric ethnicity/background have no right to dictate the terms or set the agenda for the Palestinians. Here, Barghouti was making reference to the colonial mentality where white supremacy is still very much a denominator in international relations between the imperialistic “colonizers/occupiers” and the “colonized/occupied”.
In yet another instance, March 7/2011, the London Review Bookshop was host to Barghouti’s launch of the work entitled “BDS: Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions – The Global Struggle for Palestinian Rights”. Here Barghouti again came under attack, accused of taking a “hypocritical position on academic boycott” simply because he had attended an “Israeli University” to obtain his Ph.D.. Even so, Barghouti’s rebuttal was swift, to the point, and “very rational” which according to staff of Inminds.com suggests “that unless someone is being dishonest with themselves, they will have no choice but to accept the arguments”. The integrity with which Barghouti replied is nicely captured in the following excerpt:
Audience Question: Omar, you are living in Israel, you are doing a PhD, you are
studying in an Israeli university. How does that equate with your boycott campaign, isn’t that hypocritical to live in Israel and consume everything Israeli, then call for a boycott of Israel? And secondly, if God forbid, you ever needed a life saving medicine, or a member of your family in Israel, would you accept that medicine or would you reject that life saving medicine?
Omar Barghouti: I think Mandela went to an apartheid university, when you are living under apartheid you have no choice. You pay taxes to the apartheid regime, you accept services from the apartheid regime, how else can you survive? You go to hospitals, you go to universities, you go to the post office, you go to government offices in the apartheid regime. You are a ‘subject’ of that colonial system, there is no other way. Gandhi studied at a British university as well. The point is that when you are under occupation, when you are under apartheid, you have no moral choice. There is no choice. We ask people from outside to boycott because they have a moral choice. Responsibility comes with choice. Germans under Nazi rule who couldn’t open their mouths were cowards; but we can perhaps forgive them for not opening their mouths when you think you would be shot by the Nazi genocidal regime if they opened their mouths. Israelis that stay silent are far more cowardly because they do have a choice and they wont get shot if they stand up against the occupation. So we measure this with how much choice you have. When you have no choice what do you do? So there is absolutely no double standard for people under oppression to call on people who are not under oppression, standing in solidarity with them, to oppose and boycott a completely the oppressive regime. What we cannot do, you can do in the UK. The second part of your question.. of course we do not boycott Israeli medicines in Israel. What else can we buy? We are not irrational. I don’t know your view of the Arabs.. but you know we are not suicidal..
A Q. [interrupts]: Why do you live there if you don’t like it there?
Omar Barghouti: Its my country, I’m a Palestinian.
A Q: You were brought up in Egypt
Omar Barghouti: I’m a refugee. Refugee’s have a right to go home. I’m a Palestinian. The two-state solution, besides having passed its expiry date, it was never a moral solution to start with. In the best-case scenario, if UN resolution 242 were meticulously implemented, it would have addressed most of the legitimate rights of less than a third of the Palestinian people over less than a fifth of their ancestral land. More than two thirds of the Palestinians, refugees plus the Palestinian citizens of Israel, have been dubiously and shortsightedly expunged out of the definition of the Palestinians. Such exclusion can only guarantee the perpetuation of conflict.”
If Israel doesn’t want to obey international law then why should Israel be recognized as a legitimate state? Israel can’t have it both ways! The Case for BDS:
Reflecting upon the controversies, debates, and the infighting, we are left to assess and evaluate the merits of the BDS campaign. Essentially, we need to do some of our own soul-searching, put aside petty disputes, and ask the key question: What variables should we consider in using our discretion either in favor or against the BDS? Because Omar Barghouti says we should? because Ali Abu Minah says it is the right thing to do? because Gilad Atzmon has been unfairly accused of anti-Semitic by some rogue boycott members? or because Gilad Atzmon has unfairly accused Barghouti of racism? or because the highly respected Norman Finkelstein suggests that the boycott has no clear goals and is unworkable? Do these questions make your head spin, and confuse the issue rather than clarify it? If so, then we need to get beyond the ambiguity and propaganda that the infighting and divisiveness has created. If we really are focused on the goal of serving the interests of Palestine, then it is necessary to put an end to the “mudslinging” and dirty politicking. After all, this is playing into the hands of Zionist tactics of divide and conquer. Wouldn’t we fair much better if we refused to be followers, used our own critical thinking, and put an abrupt stop to the ungrounded attacks that deflect from the goal to end injustice? The BDS campaign, in a sense, has become a battleground, a war zone. And now is the time when we can refuse to enlist in that war and instead, become conscientious objectors as we collaborate under the banner of BDS to restore justice to Palestinians. By doing so, we shall partake in the movement, doing so for Palestine only for Palestine! To restore their rights, to help them to be heard by a world that for years has turned its back and failed to listen.
Letter from Palestinians To the World
“The goal of the Palestinian people has always been clear: self determination. And we can only exercise that inalienable right through liberation, the return of our refugees (the absolute majority of our people) and achieving equal rights to all through decolonization. As such, we stand with all and any movements that call for justice, human dignity, equality, and social, economic, cultural and political rights. We will never compromise the principles and spirit of our liberation struggle. We will not allow a false sense of expediency to drive us into alliance with those who attack, malign, or otherwise attempt to target our political fraternity with all liberation struggles and movements for justice.
As Palestinians, it is our collective responsibility, whether we are in Palestine or in exile, to assert our guidance of our grassroots liberation struggle. We must protect the integrity of our movement, and to do so we must continue to remain vigilant that those for whom we provide platforms actually speak to its principles.
When the Palestinian people call for self-determination and decolonization of our homeland, we do so in the promise and hope of a community founded on justice, where all are free, all are equal and all are welcome”.
Until Liberation and Return
Signed:
- Ali Abunimah, Naseer Aruri, Professor Emeritus, University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, Omar Barghouti, human rights activist
- Hatem Bazian, Chair, American Muslims for Palestine, Andrew Dalack, National Coordinating Committee, US Palestinian Community Network, Haidar Eid, Gaza. Nada Elia, US Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel. Toufic Haddad, Kathryn Hamoudah
- Adam Hanieh, Lecturer, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), London, Mostafa Henaway, Tadamon! Canada
- Monadel Herzallah, National Coordinating Committee, US Palestinian Community Network, Nadia Hijab, author and human rights advocate. Andrew Kadi, Hanna Kawas, Chair person, Canada Palestine Association and Co-Host Voice of Palestine
- Abir Kobty, Palestinian blogger and activist, Joseph Massad, Professor, Columbia University, NY, Danya Mustafa, Israeli Apartheid Week US National Co-Coordinator & Students for Justice in Palestine- University of New Mexico
- Dina Omar, Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine, Haitham Salawdeh, National Coordinating Committee, US Palestinian Community Network, Sobhi Samour, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), London
- Khaled Ziada, SOAS Palestine Society, London, Rafeef Ziadah, poet and human rights advocate
Other Voices
It is my hope that the non-violent BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) movement, of which I am part, will have enough of an impact on Israeli civilian society to change the situation. In that regard, I offer an earlier example of THE COLOR PURPLE’s engagement in the world-wide effort to rid humanity of its self-destructive habit of dehumanizing whole populations. When the film of The Color Purple was finished, and all of us who made it decided we loved it, Steven Spielberg, the director, was faced with the decision of whether it should be permitted to travel to and be offered to the South African public. I lobbied against this idea because, as with Israel today, there was a civil society movement of BDS aimed at changing South Africa’s apartheid policies and, in fact, transforming the government. Alice Walker
Israelis have many other ways to show their dissatisfaction with the status quo: They can boycott institutions that profit or take part in the occupation, avoid the draft, take part in Palestinian-led protests or lead their own demonstrations. Ultimately, this debate will also lead to dealing with the question of BDS, though it’s clear that actual support for BDS will remain very marginal in Israeli society. Still, as long as no real alternative for the occupation is brought from the Israeli side, I think it’s very important not to oppose any form of Palestinian non-violent resistance, even if one is not taking part in it personally. Noam Sheizaf
In the frenzy to discredit BDS, it’s perversely easy for critics to forget these facts, to get lost in the abstraction (and sometimes distraction) of arguments about the uplifting effects of transnational corporations, the benevolence of 1948 Israel and the lurking anti-Semitism of the BDS agenda. These arguments are not just misleading but often downright dangerous and offensive; the anti-Semitism charge in particular is probably the most often cited and potent. So let’s be clear: vile and frightening anti-Semitism certainly exists, but BDS is not an example of it. As a nonviolent movement dedicated to human rights and nondiscrimination it is, in many ways, its opposite: the lesson of “Never Again” interpreted universally, a reminder that in the face of extreme horror, it is incumbent upon people of conscience to rally around the inalienable rights of the abused. Lizzy Ratner
Some BDS Triumphs
250 European academics call for exclusion of Ahava and Israeli arms companies from EU research projects – Article 3 of the Treaty on European Union obliges the EU to uphold human rights and to strictly observe and support the development of international law in all of its external
relations.
The largest Presbyterian group in the US is considering divesting from three major global companies over the Israeli military’s use of their products in the Palestinian territories.Pension funds in Norway and Sweden have divested themselves of holdings in some firms involved in building settlements or helping to erect Israel’s contentious West Bank separation barrier. European activists have stepped up pressure on companies by exposing their West Bank ties and picketing stores that sell goods produced in Israeli settlements.
Last week, the US investment firm MSCI Inc. announced it had removed Caterpillar from three of its popular indexes that track socially responsible investments, leading mutual fund giant TIAA-CREF to divest $72 million in Caterpillar stock.
Israel cited in Caterpillar’s delisting from influential investment index – The sale of Caterpillar tractors to Israel was a factor, but not the determining one, in the delisting of the company from an influential index that prioritizes good governance and human rights.The move, however, is poised to further complicate the difficult ongoing conversation about Israel taking place between American Jewish gruops and the Presbyterian Church (USA).
BDS it is the Only Hope For Palestine to Become Independent
Palestine Treasure Land; Holy Land Economic Independence
Do you know that Palestine will be self sufficient if Israel stopped stealing the natural resources?
Palestine will be rich if allowed access and control over the minerals in the Dead Sea or the Natural Gas recently discovered in Gaza Shores?
If Israel would stop uprooting The Olive Trees that have been one of the sources of income for Palestinians – they have commercialized the olive oil and olives for hundreds of years.
If Israel would would remove the physical barrier that separated Palestinians from their farms and business, this alone will save them thousands of hours that are wasted on walking great distances to cross the check points illegally installed by Israel in Palestine.
Just the time saved in removing barriers and checkpoints, itself means money. Ultimately, efforts and resources to be fighting a worthless occupation will be employed to restore people’s properties and revive the Palestinian economy. Just Imagine the possibilities!!!! These are just some of the issues that the BDS is trying to resolve for Palestinians. Of course, there are more pressing issues yet that need to be acknowledged by the international community; but we should not underestimate the capacity of BDS to play a pivotal role in these very factors.
Right now under apartheid Israel, Palestine loses close to 7 billion dollars every year:
“The economy of the Palestinian suffers annual losses of seven billion dollars because of the occupation, which has turned these territories into one of the most aid-dependent economies in the world. In this respect, the ambassador of PNA in the UN, Riyad Mansour, said in an interview with Prensa Latina that the cost of domination is easily quantifiable, so that if this policyends, “we will be able to be self-sufficient and not need external help.”The seven billion dollars lost to the Palestinian economy in 2010 amounts to almost the entire Gross Domestic Product (GDP) annually, and this damage was produced by depriving the residents in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza from using their natural resources.” Correspondent for Prensa Latina in Egypt.Palestinian numbers, a despicable occupation – Translated from the Portuguese version by: Lisa
Follow your conscience. Follow what you feel is right. Propaganda is cheap and costs great division. Use your own mind, heart, judgement on this matter and try not pin your hopes and faith exclusively on one source or person of influence. What ever works to create awareness counts; any efforts aimed to let the world know that Palestine has been suffering under apartheid for 60 plus years. We know BDS is working. We know that boycotting Israel is one means of reigning in this rogue state! It is a human duty and obligation to rally together against any state that continually uses brutality and violates human rights and international law, in the manner that Israel has done, to the point of genocide. The BDS is beyond reproach, and trying to stop us from exercising a rightful humanitarian cause is a treason against our own human nature.
“The end of the Cold War, moreover, changed the West’s attitudes towards Africa. Western governments no longer had strategic interests in propping up repressive regimes merely because they were friendly to the west. Along with the World Bank, they concluded that one party regimes lacking popular participation constituted a serious hindrance to economic development and placed new emphasis on the need for democratic reform” The Struggles for Democracy- Martin Meredith -The Fate of Africa
At The End The US and Britain were forced to Boycott South Africa Apartheid: Library of Congress 1987
References
The Fate of AFRICA – Martin Meredith -Public Affairs Series – 2005
How Israel was won – – June 17, 1999
Palestinians Civil Society Calls for BDS- BDS National Committee- July 9, 2005 –
BDSmovement.net
Gilad Atzmon Interviewed: Each Village is a Reminder by Brian Lenzo- July 13. 2010 –
Palestine Chronicle
Why Is BDS a Moral Duty Today? A Response to Bernard-Henri Levy – Omar Barghouti
– January 11, 2011- Huffington Post The Blog
Boycott Divides Jews In Britain, The New York Times, March 26, 1983 -0 Pasadena Library
Opening Chris Hedges-Norman Finkelstein, Talk, 6 December 2011 – Video-Cultural
Freedom,Nonfiction,Video-Recorded at the James A. Little Theater in Santa Fe, New
Mexico on December 6, 2011.
Alice Walker Stand on BDS: She has visited many places that have suffered injustices like Post Apartheid South Africa and knows of the terrible life the Afrikaans had it, and because she knows thru her own experiences the real story, she adds her voice to the people of Palestine, which sufferings are very similar to the blacks of the south where she grew up, or the South Africans of the Apartheid Era.
On Gilad Atzmon-Disavowal: “…a mental act that consists in rejecting the reality of
a perception.”–by William A. Cook
Celebrities for Palestine – Alice Walker Stands Tall Against Israel Apartheid State
Posted On June 20, 2012 on Akashma Online News
On February 9, 1944, in the small farming community of Eatonton, GA, Willie Lee and Minnie Grant gave birth to their eighth and final child, a girl, they named Alice. Little did her parents know that their youngest daughter would become one of the most prolific, controversial and respected African-American novelists of the later-half of the 20th Century. But the potential in Willie Lee and Minnie Grant’s baby may not have been recognized early on by others living in their farming community. Alice would have to overcome a number of difficulties in her lifetime that would profoundly influence the way she pictured herself and the world around her and would later help shape her views as a writer.
Poet, Writer and Activist Alice Walker makes her position clear on BDS and Cultural Boycott Against Israel Apartheid State. She does not give her permission to Israeli Publisher House to publish “The Color Purple” , even thought that it was published in Hebrew Language before , Now She adds her voice to the BDS Campaign, her Moral Standing it is stronger than her Ego as an Author
“The Color Purple,” which won the 1983 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, was adapted into a movie in 1985 directed by the American filmmaker Steven Spielberg.
She born in the State of Georgia, one of the more racist states of the US, that fact could have contributed to her formation as a writer, “The Color Purple” Book explore the situation of the blacks in the South, the exploitation of the black woman by the black males and the white society.
Alice Walker has lived the injustice of being black in a white ruled society, she grew up with the sores of racism and even being lived the Racist American Period and survived it, she does not show any signs of hate against this White Society, on the contrary if you read her books, and you hear her experiences that she kindly shares on her interviews, you notice her beautiful soul, how she thanks God for the transformation of our society and sees some of the changes, she reveals herself as a revolutionary mind offering to us with her writing the thought process that keeps evolving, and we can say now, that some blocks of our society are civilized in their ideas and their behavior
She has visited many places that have suffered injustices like Post Apartheid South Africa and knows of the terrible life the Afrikaans had it, and because she knows thru her own experiences the real story, she adds her voice to the people of Palestine, which sufferings are very similar to the blacks of the south where she grew up, or the South Africans of the Apartheid Era.
She has the courage to stand tall against Israel Bully of the Middle East, she was part of the Gaza Flotilla last year, unfortunately Israel Political pressure made the voyage impossible to reach Palestinians Waters, but the awareness keeps sparking out, and sees Hope for a Non Violent transition to peace.
I bow to this amazing lady that puts her name to use for a good cause without minding the professional risk.
“Alice Walker! She has absolutely nothing to gain in terms of ego, popularity, power, or Money. Her stance comes from her heart, conscience, compassion, and genuine concern for justice.” Professor Gail Baker
“Walker’s use of Celie’s own voice, however underdeveloped, allows Walker to tell the history of black women in the rural South in a sympathetic and realistic way. Unlike a historian’s perspective, which can be antiseptic and overly analytical, Celie’s letters offer a powerful first-person account of the institutions of racism and sexism. Celie’s simple narrative brings us into her isolated world with language that reveals both pain and detached numbness: “My momma dead. She die screaming and cussing. She scream at me. She cuss at me.”
Like her voice, Celie’s faith is prominent but underdeveloped. Celie relies heavily on God as her listener and source of strength, but she sometimes blurs the distinction between God’s authority and that of Alphonso. She confesses that God, rather than Alphonso, killed her baby, and she never makes any association between the injustice she experiences in her life and the ability of God to overturn or prevent this injustice.”
The Color Purple, 1982
Letter from Alice Walker to Publishers at Yediot Books
Published Originally on PACBI
June 9, 2012
Dear Publishers at Yediot Books,
Thank you so much for wishing to publish my novel THE COLOR PURPLE. It isn’t possible for me to permit this at this time for the following reason: As you may know, last Fall in South Africa The Russell Tribunal on Palestine met and determined that Israel is guilty of apartheid and persecution of the Palestinian people, both inside Israel and also in the Occupied Territories. The testimony we heard, both from Israelis and Palestinians (I was a jurist) was devastating. I grew up under American apartheid and this was far worse. Indeed, many South Africans who attended, including Desmond Tutu, felt the Israeli version of these crimes is worse even than what they suffered under the white supremacist regimes that dominated South Africa for so long.
It is my hope that the non-violent BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) movement, of which I am part, will have enough of an impact on Israeli civilian society to change the situation.
In that regard, I offer an earlier example of THE COLOR PURPLE’s engagement in the world-wide effort to rid humanity of its self-destructive habit of dehumanizing whole populations. When the film of The Color Purple was finished, and all of us who made it decided we loved it, Steven Spielberg, the director, was faced with the decision of whether it should be permitted to travel to and be offered to the South African public. I lobbied against this idea because, as with Israel today, there was a civil society movement of BDS aimed at changing South Africa’s apartheid policies and, in fact, transforming the government.
It was not a particularly difficult position to hold on my part: I believe deeply in non-violent methods of social change though they sometimes seem to take forever, but I did regret not being able to share our movie, immediately, with (for instance) Winnie and Nelson Mandela and their children, and also with the widow and children of the brutally murdered, while in police custody, Steven Biko, the visionary journalist and defender of African integrity and freedom.
We decided to wait. How happy we all were when the apartheid regime was dismantled and Nelson Mandela became the first president of color of South Africa.
Only then did we send our beautiful movie! And to this day, when I am in South Africa, I can hold my head high and nothing obstructs the love that flows between me and the people of that country.
Which is to say, I would so like knowing my books are read by the people of your country, especially by the young, and by the brave Israeli activists (Jewish and Palestinian) for justice and peace I have had the joy of working beside. I am hopeful that one day, maybe soon, this may happen. But now is not the time.
We must continue to work on the issue, and to wait.
In faith that a just future can be fashioned from small acts,
Alice Walker
“Whereas international institutions and governments fail to take action in support of justice and equality for the Palestinian people, the Russell Tribunal will raise awareness about the urgency of holding Israel accountable for its violations of international law,”
“This tribunal will serve as an effective tool with which to educate a wider public about the nature of Israel’s system of oppression of Palestinians and will help to mobilise support for popular resistance and the BDS movement,” Juma Juma – Representative of the Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC)
Alice Walker
Alice Walker in Berkeley, California, April 1983. Walker uses a variety of narrative forms and levels of diction to create vivid, memorable, and larger-than-life characters.
Walker’s novels include :
THE THIRD LIFE OF GRANGE COPELAND (1970),
Set in Georgia between 1920 and 1960, Alice Walker‘s first novel The Third Life of Grange Copeland describes the economic oppression African-Americans suffered under the share-cropping system and its tragic effects on black families and the black community. Walker asks to what degree blacks themselves have been accomplishes in their victimization by the white power structure, which destroys their dignity and dreams. She also explores the intersection of racism and sexism in the oppression of African American families, depicting black men who vent their anger and frustration, not on the whites who exploit them, but on their wives and children. The two main male characters, Grange and Brownfield Copeland, both try to prove their manliness through methods endorsed by white patriarchy: through assertions of power over women in the form of sexual conquests and wife abuse.
MERIDIAN (1976),
The Difficulty of Idealism
Meridian is energized by a younger generation coming into its full power and raising its voice in dissent against the institutional racism that prevailed through the 1960s. Through occasionally violent protests and demonstrations, Meridian and other activists attempt to institute change and alter perceptions. Idealistic as they are, they ultimately find various degrees of satisfaction with the goals and ideals of the civil rights movement. Meridian feels that she will always stand on the fringes of the movement since she is unprepared to take her dissent to a radical, if not murderous, level. Lynne struggles with adapting and applying her own idealism to meaningful change in the lives of southern blacks. Truman eventually sours to the movement, having lost sight of its intentions in his self-absorption. In the end, Meridian realizes the fatuousness of dying or killing for the movement, concluding that the battle is won in small ways, such as getting blacks registered to vote and improving the lives of people victimized by the unchecked expression of racism.
THE TEMPLE OF MY FAMILIAR (1989),
POSSESSING THE SECRET OF JOY (1992),
BY THE LIGHT OF MY FATHER’S SMILE (1998),
NOW IS THE TIME TO OPEN YOUR HEART (2004),
OVERCOMING SPEECHLESSNESS (2012).
Her poetry is collected in ONCE: POEMS (1968),
REVOLUTIONARY PETUNIAS & OTHER POEMS (1973),
ABSOLUTE TRUST IN THE GOODNESS OF THE EARTH:
NEW POEMS (2003).
Some of her short fiction has been published in:
IN LOVE & TROUBLE: STORIES OF BLACK WOMEN (1973).
She became a major figure in feminism — which she called “womanism” — through such writings as IN SEARCH OF OUR MOTHERS’ GARDENS: WOMANIST PROSE (1983) and LIVING BY THE WORD (1988). These collections of essays, speeches, and letters focus on Walker’s experiences as a black woman in America, and on racial and class inequality.
How Alice Walker become Palestinian Activist: In her interview with Amy Goodman in Democracy Now she explains how the lost of her sister and the story of a woman in Palestine that lost everything and everyone in her family made her be more out spoken about the Palestinian Issue.
ALICE WALKER: Well, I was actually mourning the death of my own sister, and I thought that, oh, she was, you know, much older, and she was sick, and she died, and we’d had a horrible five or six years before she died. And so I thought, you know, when she dies, I won’t be devastated. And I was completely devastated. It was so painful.
And I was out trying to deal with my own devastation, when I learned about a woman in Palestine, during the bombing, who had been — who had lost five of her daughters, and she herself was unconscious. And it just instantly connected me to her. I felt, what will this be like? Who will tell her? Who will tell this woman when she wakes up that “your five daughters are dead”?
And so I felt that I had to go and present myself to this situation and to be attentive to it in a way that I had started being many years before, except that at the time I was married to and then related to, in many ways, to a Jewish person who always said, well, if you see the Palestinian side, almost anything, you know, positive about the Palestinian side, then it means that you are anti-Semitic. And so, this was so shocking to me that it silenced me for a while. I mean, I said a few things, I wrote a few things. But I felt that I had left something undone. And I realize at this point in my life, and years earlier, actually, that there are things in life that call to us, and they’re ours to do. And this was one of the things that was mine to finish.
And so I went to Gaza, and I met with women who had lost everything, and their children, their houses. You know, I sat on the rubble, even though there was the phosphorus powder, because it was just overwhelming to see the injury and the damage that had been done to these people by the Israeli government. And I knew that it was my responsibility as a writer and as a human being to witness this and to write about it. I mean, why else was I — why else am I a writer? You know, why else do I have a conscience? I think that all people who feel that there is injustice in the world anywhere should learn as much of it as they can bear. That is our duty.
“I speak a little about this American history, but it isn’t history that these women know.” These are the women, the Palestinian women, I’m with. “They’re too young. They’ve never been taught it. It feels irrelevant. Following their example of speaking of their families, I talk about my Southern parents’ teachings during our experience of America’s apartheid years, when white people owned and controlled all the resources and the land, in addition to the political, legal, and military apparatus, and used their power to intimidate black people in the most barbaric and merciless ways. These whites who tormented us daily were like Israelis who have cut down millions of trees planted by Arab Palestinians, stolen Palestinian water, even topsoil. Forcing Palestinians to use separate roads from those they use themselves, they have bulldozed innumerable villages, houses, mosques, and in their place built settlements for strangers who have no connection whatsoever with Palestine: settlers who have been the most rabidly anti-Palestinian of all, attacking the children, the women, everyone, old and young alike, viciously.”
AMY GOODMAN: Alice, I wanted to go back to March 2009 -—
ALICE WALKER: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: — when you were in Gaza, to a video of you there.
ALICE WALKER: It’s shocking beyond anything I have ever experienced. And it’s actually so horrible that it’s basically unbelievable, even though I’m standing here and I’ve been walking here and I’ve been looking at things here. It still feels like, you know, you could never convince anyone that this is actually what is happening and what has happened to these people and what the Israeli government has done. It will be a very difficult thing for anyone to actually believe in, so it’s totally important that people come to visit and to see for themselves, because the world community, that cares about peace and cares about truth and cares about justice, will have to find a way to deal with this. We cannot let this go as if it’s just OK, especially those of us in the United States who pay for this. You know, I have come here, in part, to see what I’m buying with my tax money.
AMY GOODMAN: That was Alice Walker in 2009, interviewed by my colleague here at Democracy Now!, Anjali Kamat. When you look back at you walking through the rubble of Gaza, your thoughts?
ALICE WALKER: My thought is that I am so glad I was there. I am so glad that I managed to gather myself and present myself to this situation, because it is my responsibility, you know, as a person, as an elder, as someone who cares about the planet, who really wants us all to thrive, you know, or just survive. This is a very thorny issue, and it takes all of us looking at it as carefully as we can to help solve it. It’s not that it’s impossible to solve. But what will help a lot is the insistence by all of us on fairness and on people actually understanding what they’re looking at.
AMY GOODMAN: You say that the Middle East solution is beyond the two-state solution, and you also talk about restorative justice.
ALICE WALKER: Yes, I do, because I believe in restorative justice. I think we could use that here. I mean, I don’t feel great about the past leaders here not being brought to trial, actually, you know. But if we can’t have trial, we could at least have council. I mean, but to let people, any people, just go, after they’ve murdered lots of people and destroyed a lot, is not right. It destroys trust. So — what was the rest of the question?
AMY GOODMAN: And you believe in a one-state solution.
ALICE WALKER: Oh, the one-state solution. Yes, I do. I mean, when I think about my tax money, and I think about, well, you know, given that I’ve already given, and we as a country have given over a trillion dollars to Israel in the last — since, I don’t know, ‘48 or something, but a lot of money that we could have used here, where would I be happiest to see, you know, my money spent? Well, I would be happy seeing my money spent for all the people who live in Palestine. And that means that, you know, the Palestinians who are forced out of their houses, forced off of their land, should come back and share the land, all of it, including the settlements. You know, if I am going to be asked to help pay for settlements, I would like to be, you know, permitted to say who gets to live in them. And I would like the women and children, the Palestinian women and children that I saw, I would like to say — take them by hand and say, “You know what? Look at this. We built this for you. You’re home now.”
The following link contain Alice Walker entire interview with Amy Goodman from Democracy now
http://www.democracynow.org/embed/story/2010/4/13/alice_walker_on_overcoming_speechlessness_a
Drones
Drones should be ruled illegal war gadgets.
They are not conventional weapons, and violate the rules of war set on the Geneva Convention treaties and the rules of engagement of war.
The loss of innocent civilian lives specially woman, children and elderly people should not be considered collateral damage.
They are war crimes.
At the Museum of Tolerance Intolerance Flourishes
Posted on June 17, 2012 by Akashma Online News
by MacKenzie Paine
Dear Mr. Brenner Debunking Zionists Lies
Posted on June 17, 2012 by Akashma Online News
| MacKenzie Paine |
April 11, 2001
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Dear Mr. Brenner,
My two sons were working outside the other day, helping a neighbor in his yard. It was cold and blustery so one of my sons had tied a scarf around his face and had his parka hood up, so all one could see were his eyes. Another neighbor passed by and jokingly told him that he looked like a terrorist. The neighbor meant Arab, of course, but for most Americans the two terms have now become melded into one — thanks to Zionist propaganda. The same Zionist media pressure has caused the same distortion of the realities of historical revisionist works. Mention historical revisionists and Americans think of Nazis. Terrorists and Nazis — labels that strike fear and loathing in the hearts of millions.
You have posted to this list a message which discredits and maligns historical revisionists without providing a single verifiable detail or pointing out any error of fact published by a revisionist scholar, thereby unwittingly promoting the same Zionist propaganda. Once and for all, dear sir, historical revisionists in general and the Institute for Historical Review in particular, are not “Nazi-nutsies.” After all, neo-Nazis are the ones who espouse censorship and it’s the revisionists who are being censored. Revisionists are specialists in their respective scientific and scholarly fields and their works HAVE been reviewed by their peers, much to the dismay of Zionists around the world. Just as the only political defense for genocide against the Palestinians must be supported by terrorist propaganda, the only defense of the holocaust story must be supported by censoring, libeling, maligning, persecuting, prosecuting and even assassinating historical revisionists. If their works do not, as you say, rise above the level of “whale sh_t,” why are the Zionists so busy trying to keep world opinion from exploring the ocean floor? Surely the King of Jordan, the Prime Minister of Lebanon, the United States Congress, international ambassadors and sovereign governments need not be pressured into preventing the world’s intellectuals from mucking around in “whale sh_t.” These same intellectuals wouldn’t be defying their own governments for such a worthless enterprise.
As the Jordanian Writers Association pointed out in their statement On the Cancellation of the Conference on Zionism and Historical Revisionism, forty-five million people died during WWII. You accuse the revisionists of attempting to “hijack” the Palestinian revolution, when in fact the Zionists have hijacked an entire world war, have put Jewish suffering at front and center and have done so without physical evidence, historical proof or allowance of discussion of either or both. They have shaped a world war into the finest Zionist weapon of mass brainwashing, resulting in the collective guilt of hundreds of millions of Americans and Europeans who feel the need to support Israel at all cost. In today’s world the holocaust serves only the Zionists. Making it into a Sacred Cow with no room for discussion or debate can serve only Zionist interests.
You mention the need for some to develop “fantasy solutions to real problems.” Here I couldn’t agree with you more. While the Allies needed to be able to justify the mass destruction and wholesale slaughter of German and Japanese civilians to their citizens, it became necessary to promote the fantasy that the Nazis had been even more despicable than the British, US and Soviet military forces. Allow me to quote the first eyewitness account of Auschwitz after its liberation by the Red Army. The article “The Factory of Death at Auschwitz” was written by Boris Polevoi and published in Pravda on February 2, 1945. It contains the following quote:
“Last year, when the Red Army revealed to the world the terrible and abominable secrets of Majdanek, the Germans in Auschwitz began to wipe out the traces of their crimes. They leveled the mounds of the so-called “old” graves in the Eastern part of the camp, tore up and destroyed the traces of the electric conveyor belt, on which hundreds of people were simultaneously electrocuted, their bodies falling onto the slow moving conveyor belt which carried them to the top of the blast furnace where they fell in, were completely burned, their bones converted to meal in the rolling mills, and then sent to the surrounding fields. In retreat were taken the special transportable apparatuses for killing children. The stationary gas chambers in the eastern part of the camp were restructured, even little turrets and other architectural embellishments were added so that they would look like innocent garages.”
This little bit of fantasy suggests quite clearly that upon first inspection of Auschwitz there was no homicidal weapon, there was no evidence that anyone was gassed and there were no mass graves. Neither the “weapon” nor the “scene of the crime” were thoroughly and knowledgeably investigated until historical revisionists visited the site — and found nothing to support Zionist claims of mass murder with any weapon. There was, and still remains, only wild rumor and vicious wartime propaganda. It has only been through the due diligence and sacrifice of historical revisionists that most of these fantasies have been brought to light. At the Nuremberg Trials German officers and German civilians were tortured, assassinated, falsely imprisoned, denied defense witnesses or cross examination of prosecution witnesses, and some were executed based on accusations of the following: Killing Jews with portable brain-bashing machines, by electrocution, steaming, roasting, burning and gassing, by having them climb trees and then having the tree cut down, gassing children in “gas vans,” etc., etc., etc. As for the Nazi gassings, according to affidavits produced in court, this was carried out in gas chambers and shower rooms with both diesel exhaust and Zyklon-B. If you are curious enough to read the other fanciful undocumented, unsupported claims they are all in the Court records of the Nuremberg Trials.
Please, dear sir, do not dissuade anyone who abhors Zionism and racism from researching for themselves the works of historical revisionists. They do not deny the holocaust — they define it — using scientific evidence, proven facts, demographic data, the latest technology and sound reason. Historical revisionists could free the Palestinians. By providing the proof that Jewish suffering was real, but not unique, during WWII they might induce the Western world to rise up and denounce Zionism in all its horrific glory. Mr. Brenner, you need to cast your nets much closer to the surface, where the light still penetrates, and you will find the truth about historical revisionists.
I look forward to your reply, should you be so inclined.
Kind regards,
MacKenzie Paine
A Tale Of A Rape A Death Sentence
Posted on June 6, 2012 by Akashma Online News
Rape is a very difficult and complex Issue
Rapists do not belong to any social status, religious denomination, nationality or race group, we e find them every where, the difference in the numbers are in the reported cases, as most of the statistics are compiled from court cases denominated as rapes.
Only Some countries publish their Data on Rape cases so it is difficult to know the real numbers to make the statistics by countries.
For western societies where rape it is openly discussed in forums and some chapters of the Penal Code is dedicated to punish sexual harassment, domestic violence and rape victims violators, the numbers showing in statistics are alarmingly high. We have very strict laws to punish sexual predators, and even with all the protection in place, women are still victims of rapes and domestic violence.
In the more complicated issues of domestic violence and systematic rape of women with their husbands, or domestic partners it is very difficult to find the exact numbers other than isolated cases heard in courts of domestic violence cases, where the rape is exposed. Most of the cases that are known thru shelter for abused women stories are kept confidentially for the women protection, but at the same time most of these cases are not prosecuted for fear to reprisals from part of the male violator.
According to some psychologists that have studied the behavior of Rapists and his/her victims, they conclude that Rape is a violent crime that is motivated by power, not by sex, but I think there are both types; power abuse to show superiority and sexual behavior to satisfy mental states.
Usually women are afraid to report their husbands, the fear from their husbands it is bigger than their desire to be free from the abuse. Even with all the protection guarantee for women against rape and domestic violence the numbers are growing in the US and elsewhere in the world.
Some women are hesitant to report their husbands and put them in jail, they do not want see themselves without economical support, a lot women prefer the mental and physical abuse and rape instead to navigate in life working or asking for public welfare.
The cases we heard off in the media are known only because the victims are brave enough to report the predators, being husband, family or strangers, but it is not the case in conservative societies where religious tabus invite and condone the abuse.
In some countries where are majority Muslim, they treat rape victims in different way that in western countries. In remote Muslims places where tribal government is still the law, male members of a rape victim’s family will prefer to treat rape victims as guilty persons instead of going to the shame of presenting their cases in the tribal council, they will do what it is called honor killings, off course this practice is less and less used for fear to prosecution, but the rape victims still are forced to be silenced in shame or fear.
Sexual issues are still considered tabus in many communities, even in the United States that we consider ourselves “Modern Society”, we the parents still need to sign consent for our children to be taught subjects about sexually and Aids related issues.
This article is not to engage in religious arguments,or to hurt sensitivities, but to expose the perpetrators and the cultural bound that exhibit some countries when the issue of rape is addressed.
The Rapist that use physical superiority to get control of the victims which it is the most common type of rape, but also there are many cases where mental abuse it is used to exercise control on the victims, like in the case of domestic partners and husbands rape and domestic violence cases.
The following story developed in front of the cameras of journalist in March 26, 2011 in the five-star Rixos Hotel in Tripoli exposed a common practice from part of the authorities to subjugate and humiliate women as a way to punish the male family members.
Al-Obaidi is the woman who pushed her way, weeping, into the five-star Rixos Hotel in Tripoli last weekend. That’s where the Libyan regime keeps international journalists penned up under the supervision of government “minders.” The minders try to ensure the journalists see only those things that may assist the regime’s propaganda efforts.
Bruises are seen on the face of Iman al-Obaidi as she cries at the Rixos Hotel in Tripoli on March 26. Zohra Bensemra/Reuters
(Not that I blame the journalists, having been penned up and minded myself on more than one occasion. You do what you can do to be where you have to be.)
Anyway.
Al-Obaidi confronted journalists eating their breakfasts with a pretty harrowing story. She said she had been detained by a gang of “militiamen” earlier in the day and gang-raped.
Why? Almost certainly because she’s from Benghazi, the rebel-held city in eastern Libya/
So intent was al-Obaidi on convincing reporters of her story that she lifted up her black robe, which goes against the grain of nearly any woman in Arab society, and displayed the trauma inflicted on her thigh. There were also, reporters at the scene wrote, marks on her face, and on her wrists and ankles, indicating she’d been tied up.
“They defecated on me,” she told the reporters who scrambled with cameras and notebooks. “They urinated on me. They violated my honor.”
Rape rarely reported in Arab world
In places like Libya, Syria, or, until recently, Egypt or Iraq, a public act like al-Obaidi’s is not just incredibly courageous but near-suicidal, which is why rape is almost never reported in the Arab world, even though it is routinely used as a punishment by security forces.
Even in less repressive countries like Jordan, the rape itself is often less hurtful than what can come next. There is a case a young woman in Amman who had the misfortune of being raped by an uncle.
When her family found out about it, the stain on their honor was so unbearable that they locked the door, turned the music up loud, drew the curtains and shot her. When she had the nerve to recover in hospital, she was sold off to an old man who was willing to lend his name to the bastard child who resulted from the rape. All the girl had to do was agree to a life of indentured servitude scrubbing her saviour’s floors. She was rescued by a group of women’s advocates.
In Libya these days, you can add the viciousness of the regime’s enforcers to the day-to-day misogyny Arab women face.
According to reporters on the scene, al-Obaidi was instantly set upon by waitresses in the restaurant, who grabbed knives and attacked her. One threw a coat over her head to shut her up. And these were the women who responded. The male “minders” from the government just grabbed al-Obaidi and began dragging her away.
Al-Obaidi reacts as she is grabbed by a Libyan official, left, preventing members of the foreign media from reaching her. As reporters gathered to hear her story, security guards grabbed al-Obaidi, bundled her into a car and drove her away. Several journalists were beaten during the scuffle. Zohra Bensemra/Reuters
Journalists who tried to protect her were beaten. One “minder” pulled a gun. Another one smashed the camera of a CNN cameraman who’d filmed the scene.
But, finally, the international press had a real story, and the damage control began, in the ham-fisted, dull-witted manner that only officials of regimes like the one in Tripoli can manage.
Government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim immediately announced that al-Obaidi was drunk and mentally deranged.
Subsequently, when reporters insisted on speaking with her again, Ibrahim announced she may not have been deranged and drunk after all and assured the media her allegations were being investigated. Indeed, four men had been questioned, he declared. Al-Obaidi, he said, was safely back in the bosom of her family.
Except her family told reporters their daughter remained locked up. Her mother said the regime had told her that if her daughter would just change her story, there would be a reward of cash and new accommodations for the family.
Her mother not only said her daughter stands by her story, she dispensed with the family-honour nonsense. She declared her pride at her daughter’s courage and denounced Gadhafi and his thugs as “dogs.”
Now, the regime has changed its story again. Ibrahim now claims that al-Obaidi is a prostitute, a “sharmuta,” to use the nasty Arabic invective. Further, the men she accused of raping her are now so offended at this slight to their dignity that they’ve filed a lawsuit against their victim.
And, of course, they will win, if Gadhafi’s regime lasts long enough for it to get to court, even though al-Obaidi is, according to her mother, a lawyer. She will be punished further.
Story rings true
Now, a word: Beyond a certain point, reporters cannot do normal due diligence on al-Obaidi’s story. It may, indeed, be that she will turn out to be crazy. As noted, you’d almost have to be to challenge a regime.
But her family confirms her account. To anyone who has worked in an Arab country, it has the ring of truth. I have watched Arab policemen brutalize a helpless woman.
Plus, al-Obaidi took the extraordinary step of publicly acknowledging rape in an Arab society. And most importantly, the regime has tried to shut her up. So, I’m just going to go ahead here and give her the benefit of the doubt.
Women hold a picture of al-Obaidi during a protest in Benghazi, Libya, on March 27. Women’s groups abroad have not been so quick to take up her cause. Suhaib Salem/Reuters
But here’s my question. The reporters whom she confronted are clearly outraged. Libyan women, at least in Benghazi, are outraged and protesting. So, where is all the outrage here in the West?
As far as I can tell, there has been no comment from organizations such as the U.S. National Organization for Women, despite the eyewitness dispatches from Tripoli. Shouldn’t Iman al-Obaidi be a symbol of something?
I can only hope it’s not a matter of opposition to U.S. militarism trumping support for women victimized in the Arab world.
I know, I know: the West intervenes selectively against tyrants, and yes, America and its allies have supported some pretty disgusting sociopaths over the years, and sure, there’s hypocrisy everywhere.
Heaven knows what has become of al-Obaidi. But if she survives, and there is justice, she should be sitting next to the first lady next February.
Saudi rape victim gets 90 lashes
–RIYADH: A Saudi court has sentenced a gang rape victim to 90 lashes of the whip because she was alone in a car with a man to whom she was not married. The sentence was passed at the end of a trial in which the Al Qateef high criminal court convicted four Saudis convicted of the rape, sentencing them to prison terms and a total of 2,230 lashes.
Rape Culture in France – Rape has been recognized as a crime in France since 1980 (you can get up to 15 years in prison). The legal definition is as follows: “Any sexual penetration (otherwise it’s categorized as assault and not as rape) imposed upon another person through violence, constraint, threat, or surprise, is a rape.”
Canada Rape Culture – In Canada, there have been discussions as to whether or not we live in a “rape culture”. Although difficult to define, this term refers to a society in which sexual assaults are ignored, legitimized, or blamed on the victim. Proponents of the existence of a rape culture claim that factors such as the clothes the victim was wearing, how much she had to drink, the relationship she had with the perpetrator and whether or not she appeared interested in sex, become the main focus of rape cases.
Mass Rape, Rape as a Weapon of War, and Women in War Zones – Rape is a form of gender-based violence against women. The Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women stated in its General Recommendation No. 19 that gender-based violence is a form of discrimination which the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) requires its states parties to eliminate in all its forms. …
Marital Rape: New Research and Directions – Raquel Kennedy Bergen With contributions from Elizabeth Barnhill
Rape in marriage is a serious and prevalent form of violence against women. While the legal definition varies within the United States, marital rape can be defined as any unwanted intercourse or penetration (vaginal, anal, or oral) obtained by force, threat of force, or when the wife is unable to consent (Bergen, 1996; Pagelow, 1992; Russell, 1990). Most studies of marital rape have included couples who are legally married, separated, divorced, or cohabiting with the understanding that the dynamics of sexual violence in a long-term cohabiting relationship are similar to those of a married couple (Mahoney & Williams, 1998). While no published studies of marital rape could be located which included cohabiting gay and lesbian couples, there is a slowly growing body of literature that addresses sexual violence in same sex relationships (see Girshick, 2002).
Global Social Dissease Child Abuse
Posted on June 06, 2012 by Akashma Online News
Originally posted on Metropolis Japan Magazine
Thanks to increased government involvement and greater public exposure, child abuse is gradually emerging from the shadows. But Japan’s youngest citizens remain vulnerable to violence at the hands of those who care for them. Tama Miyake reports.
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Kenji* bears the scars of a battle lost years before. The 5-year-old has been burned and beaten, held underwater, and singled out as the youngest boy in a family of five children. He is emotionally troubled, panics easily, and is still afraid to take a bath. But this little boy is one of the lucky ones.
Kenji has spent the past three years living with his two sisters in a residential care center run by the prefectural government in northern Saitama. Today, he gets regular counseling, a hot meal at the end of every day, and the affectionate attention of a troop of care workers.
Kenji is a survivor, a battle-hardened victim of what is now being recognized as one of Japan’s greatest social ills: child abuse. His mother is in jail; his father is out of the picture. His grandparents want nothing to do with them, and one of his older siblings is dead. Care workers suspect that child died from abuse inflicted by the parents, but no evidence was ever uncovered.
Yet for all the hardship Kenji has faced in his short life, his is just one story of out of thousands. In the last fiscal year alone, consultation centers around the country received 25,000 reports of suspected child abuse, an increase of nearly 25 percent over the previous year and testimony to what experts say is a breakdown in the traditional family unit, a rise in the number of single and young parents, and the growing tendency toward isolation from friends, family and the community at large.
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Despite efforts by the government and volunteer organizations to halt the cycle of violence, many Japanese children never live to see the inside of a care center. Earlier this month, a 3-year-old boy was beaten to death by his father and a 14-month-old boy starved to death under his mother’s care, adding to the more than 60 children who have already died of abuse since the enactment in November 2000 of the Child Abuse Prevention Law.
As more and more children become victims, the Japanese government is finding itself increasingly involved in issues long considered private, and struggling to protect the very people who represent its future. But with the country’s care centers bursting at the seams and resources stretched ever thinner, the question remains: Is it enough to save them?
Warning signs
Here, as in most developed countries, child abuse encompasses physical, sexual and psychological abuse, as well as neglect. And in keeping with most other countries, it’s the mothers who are most often the perpetrators of abuse. But there are several factors that make the situation in Japan far different, and at times far more troubling, than the rest of the world.
According to reports issued by the Health, Welfare and Labor Ministry, the number of suspected abuse cases reported to consultation centers around the country in fiscal 2000 reached 18,804, a rise of 60 percent over the previous year and a 17-fold increase over 10 years earlier. The actual number of cases is believed to be much higher, with the ministry’s release last month of a research study showing an estimate of 35,000 for that year.
The startling increase was attributed in part to the enactment of the prevention law, which obliges doctors, teachers and child welfare officers to report suspected abuse to the consultation centers, and a new system of counting all reported cases rather than only those in which action was taken. But it was also a reminder that, like the bruises and burns that mark so many of its victims, child abuse had become a problem Japan could no longer ignore.
Indeed, the number of cases and the fact that 85 percent of abusers reported in 2000 were the victims’ parents—with mothers making up 60 percent—highlighted the precarious state of the Japanese family, which many say faces unprecedented strain.
“The family is a very stressful unit when you stop and think about it,” says Yuko Kawanishi, a sociologist and professor at Temple University. “And there’s really no period in human history that only the mother and the nuclear family were raising the children.”
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With the tendency of Japanese husbands to focus on climbing the corporate ladder and the nation’s rapid development post-WWII, the past 40-50 years have seen the burden of child rearing fall ever more heavily on the mother. “The husband is always busy, he’s almost married to the company. So more and more, the wife gets isolated,” explains Kawanishi, who notes that just one generation ago Japanese families shared child rearing responsibilities among extended relatives and close neighbors.
It’s this growing isolation combined with the immense pressure that many Japanese mothers feel to raise well-behaved, well-groomed and well-adjusted children that experts say can make for a deadly combination. “Typically they are excessively serious about rearing their children and strict about teaching manners so their kids can behave in front of other people,” says Yasuko Takahashi, a clinical psychologist and counselor to abusive mothers in Saitama, of the women she sees in her group therapy sessions. “They believe they are doing it for their children’s sake.”
Another factor adding to the strain felt by many Japanese parents is the increasing lack of communication with the outside world. “I think a lot of it has to do with urbanization,” says Kawanishi. “Nowadays, it’s basically like living with a bunch of strangers. I’ve never even talked to my neighbors. And the worst is this apartment-complex life; it’s not helping lonely mothers at all.”
Isolation, whether in the form of separation from concerned relatives and friends, or in the secluded apartments of high-rise Japanese cities, is in fact a prime factor in most cases of abuse.
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Child abuse expert Dr. Eli Newberger cites the issues surrounding discipline and punishment as among the most confused in childcare
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“Most severe cases of abuse, in virtually every instance, were in homes where there were no lines of connection to family or professional support,” notes Dr. Eli Newberger, a professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School with 32 years of experience dealing with abuse as founder of the Child Protection Team at Children’s Hospital in Boston.
The past few decades have seen the rise of another trend relatively new to the Japanese family dynamic: dekichatta kekkon (shotgun marriages). “Most shotgun marriages are among very young people,” says Kawanishi, who attributes this to a loosening of sexual practices and a lack of birth control options. “So we’ve seen this kind of polarization between sexually educated women who are waiting longer and longer on the one hand and on the other hand this very different group of very young, uneducated women who are getting pregnant very early.”
Lacking much life experience outside their own homes, these young parents also have the potential to join another group that’s at high risk of becoming abusers: single parents. Forced to support themselves and their children in a depressed economy, Japan’s single parents have been identified by the government as needing particular support.
“Since single parenthood is one of the causes of child abuse, people should extend a helping hand to single-parent families,” says Mr Ohta, head of the children’s consultation division at the health ministry.
Breaking the chain
Having established child abuse as a rapidly growing social problem, the Japanese government is now charged with finding ways to stop it. In addition to the recently enacted prevention law, which allows it to challenge custody rights by banning abusive parents from having contact with their children, the federal government has strengthened support services by allotting subsidies to municipalities, distributing manuals on detection and treatment of abuse to childcare workers and police officers, and conducting studies on the handling of abuse cases.
“We must work on manuals designed to respond to cases, and as far as deaths are concerned, quick discovery is necessary, so the involvement of police and other related authorities is necessary,” says Ohta. “Comprehensive involvement is necessary, as has been carried out until now.”
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But those on the front lines say these efforts are far from enough. “Right now the governmental eye goes more to the older generation and their care,” says Chizuko Yaita, the sole therapist at the residential care center housing Kenji and his sisters. “I know you can’t compare, but they have to realize that kids are also very important for Japan’s future.”
Yaita has been counseling abused children for the past two years at a center housing 80 children from 3 to 18 years old. But the US-trained therapist says the salary the government offers is so low she can only afford to work at the center three days a week. Meanwhile, the care workers who deal with the children on a daily basis are stretched to the limit.
“The hardware is getting better, but the software is not enough,” Yaita says, noting that almost every care center has had to turn children away because they’re already full. “We need more care workers for the situation to get better. Sometimes it’s impossible to do even the simple things because they don’t have enough time or hands.”
According to a survey conducted by the health ministry, many prefectures and large cities have only one child consultation center, the first point of contact for intervention in abuse cases. Even more troubling, most workers at these centers receive only one or two days of training. With local governments controlling these centers as well as elementary schools and day-care facilities, the level of protection for young Japanese can vary widely from city to city and prefecture to prefecture.
Volunteer organizations have made efforts to fill in where government support runs out, staffing emergency hotlines for children and parents, offering local childcare services, and reaching out to isolated families. But old habits can be hard to break, particularly in Japan, where psychological care is still in its relative infancy.
“The word counseling scares people,” says the psychologist Takahashi, adding that it has taken her a year to establish a level of trust with the mothers she counsels. “There has to be some kind of unique cultural adaptation of counseling.”
According to Yaita, the concept of counseling was only introduced to most residential care centers two years ago, when the government made funding available to hire therapists. But with budgets still stretched, most care centers cannot afford more than two therapists for up to 80 residents. Perhaps more worrisome, outside of volunteer groups and the efforts of concerned care workers, there is no established system to counsel the abusers.
“The parents are the problem, right?” says Yaita. “This is very bad; because of a lack of number of care workers, they don’t have time for [the parents]. In the States, those parents must do something, like group therapy, but we don’t have those regulations.”
Adding to this is the fact that while there are strong grassroots efforts as well as newly enacted laws, including one obliging medical workers to look for signs of child abuse at mandatory health checks for children aged 18 months to 3 years, there are no penalties for not reporting suspected abuse. The handling of child abuse in the courts is also relatively new, with convicted offenders receiving widely varying jail terms—or, as was the case with a Fukui Prefecture couple convicted of causing the death of their 11-month-old daughter early this month, suspended sentences.
Therefore, as the country struggles to come to grips with abuse and all its elements, it appears unlikely to most that the situation will improve anytime soon. “Judging from the past,” says Ohta, “it does not look like cases will decrease this year or next.”
To learn more about child abuse, report a suspected case, or get involved in its prevention, contact any of the following organizations.
Main child consultation center in Tokyo
Report a suspected case, talk to counselors, and receive information from the local government. Tel: (03) 3208-1121. In case of emergency, call police at 03-3212-2111 (English) or 110 (Japanese).
Center for Child Abuse Prevention
Call the hotline, learn about prevention, and volunteer for events and other services. Tel: 03-5374-2990 (Japanese).
Child Research Net
Read articles on all aspects of child development, share ideas, and attend conferences.
www.childresearch.net
Tokyo English Life-Line
Talk to counselors, receive support, and volunteer as a counselor.
Tel: 03-5774-0992.
The Truth From Inside Out
Posted on June 04, 2012 by Akashma Online News
The Inside Out Truth.
If you have been long time Peace Activist you know that the Truth it is impossible to prove because that truth “It is”. On the other hand lies are continuously being “Proven” in the News, Radio, Movies, Magazines, Books, and Social Networks and the people is easily mislead to believe what it is in “Vogue” – the Propaganda Machine it is a tool of war but also, it works the other way around if we know how to attack it, how to debunk it, how to untangle every lie that surface.
It is not an easy task, but remember humanity has been fighting the “evil doers”. More than 2300 years ago wise men and their followers were already in this task.
In the Trial and Death of Socrates, in his dialogue with Euthyphro you can elucidate how the Elite it is always trying to protect themselves from wise people, that can make the others understand their reality and perhaps revolt against the arbitrary rules and the Rulers.
“Euthyphro: I understand Socrates. It is because you say that you always have a divine guide. So he (Meletious) is prosecuting you for introducing religious reforms; and he is going into court to arouse prejudice against you, knowing that the multitude are easily prejudiced about such matters. Why, they laugh even at me, as if I were out of my mind, when I talk about divine things in the assembly and tell them what is going to happen; and yet I have never foretold anything which has not come true. But they are resentful of all people like us. We must not worry about them; we must meet them Boldly
Socrates: My Dear Euthyphro, their ridicule is not very serious matter. The Athenians, it seems to me, may think a man to be clever without paying him much attention, so long as they do not think that he teaches his wisdom to others. But as soon as they think that he makes other people clever, they get angry, whether it be from resentment, as you say, or for some other reason.”
As you can see religious card was already being used to people subjugate people’ ideas and their ability to perform freely in society. And using ridicule and dishonest arguments was the way that the Elite have been controlling society.
“In most moral disputes it’s impossible to declare a line between those who willfully deceive and those who chronically fail to understand. It’s hard to say who is an intentional Zionist mole and who simply remains confused- but such moral distinctions and judgments are not our business. Those who don’t operate by ordinary logic and courtesy are, no offense to them, simply out of place in political discussions, just as they would be in a corporate boardroom. My first belief is in the spirit of truth itself; less rational, less courteous approaches are not ok on behalf of a good cause; they can only harm it. The only Good Cause is kind reason itself. If Zionism is the main current political problem, it’s only because it incorporates and orchestrates the largest accumulation of deceptions and dodges, bringing them to bear on Palestine and banking. That mass of evil includes, at one pole of the spectrum, the internal moral deceptions and dodges required to pull triggers and fire rockets at innocent people. At the other end of the spectrum are those who repetitiously – almost innocently – fail to understand the need to stop Zionism. I have watched for long time. I have seen that most discussion dissipate into endless finicky nonsense. We know that the Zionist are spending quite a few millions of dollars to train internet Zionist. It’s safe to say that very small percentage of that training is the old kind – teaching the standard lies – all of which are easily debunked nowadays and (more important) overruled by an elementary rejection of racism. Surely, the bulk of the training is toward posting as anti-Zionists or newly-interested people, yet endlessly failing to be satisfied with crystal-clear and repeated explanations- creating a false impression of complexity, wasting our time, and exploiting and dishonoring the sincerity found in genuine activists for peace and human equality”. Dave Kersting
Clean Energy and It’s Dangerous Waste
Executives join business students on Mideast trip
When Qamar Ahmed embarks on a trip to Israel and Jordan as part of an Edwards School of Business course, he will also be on a personal journey of discovery.
“My great-grandfather has a mosque named after him in (Haifa) Israel and I just got confirmation we will be visiting that mosque,” said Ahmed, who is originally from Pakistan.
“That will be really meaningful for me because no one from my close or extended family has ever visited the mosque, so I’ll be the first.”
Ahmed is one of 16 students accepted for the Mining & Entrepreneurship in Israel and Jordan course — a 10-day tour (May 2-12) where students will cover an array of topics, including conducting international business, opportunities and entrepreneurship in the Middle East and Saskatchewan’s role in global-food security.
They will be visiting educational, industrial, environmental and cultural sites across Israel and Jordan.
“The goal of the trip is to look at the business side of Israel and see the success they have in terms of the culture they have created … how such a small country has made itself such a big player within international technology market as well as natural resources, which is potash,” Ahmed said.
Edwards Dean Daphne Taras said the three-credit course helps give a more global focus to the undergraduate curriculum.
“We should be going to a country or countries in which there is a substantial synergy between the trip and our own interests,” Taras said.
Potashcorp. has come on board as a major sponsor of the trip, and the students will visit two companies they have a stake in — Israel Chemicals Ltd. (14 per cent) and Arab Potash Company (28 per cent).
Taras said a unique part of the trip is having business leaders accompany the group.
Potashcorp’s CFO Wayne Brownlee will be with the group for the first week of the tour as will Lionel Labelle, president and CEO of Saskatchewan Trade and Export Partnership (STEP), along with other business leaders.
Kate Simpson, a third-year marketing student, said seeing how different cultures address entrepreneurship will be educational. “I come from a family of entrepreneurs. It’s in my blood so I’m really excited to explore the entrepreneurship in the Middle East,” Simpson said. “Im looking forward to visiting the startup companies as well as experiencing the culture and visiting the historical landmarks and sites.”
Ahmed agreed looking at issues from another viewpoint will be invaluable. “To get that first-hand perspective from someone else will be pretty interesting.”
Other highlights of the tour include visiting Better Place, a leading global provider of electric-car networks, business around the Dead Sea and students and professors at the University of Jordan and business school in Israel.
“Every minute on the trip will be a teachable moment,” said Taras.
Once they return home the students will write a paper. They will also give a presentation on a topic they have chosen while on the trip.
Kate Simpson
Qamar Ahmed
United Nations – Agenda 21: Centralized Power
Published On May 30, 2012 by Akashma Online News
By Marivel Guzman

UN-United Nations- Centralized Government

Agenda 21 is a comprehensive plan of action to be taken globally, nationally, and locally by organizations of the United Nations System, Governments, and Major Groups in every area in which human impacts on the environment.
For over 60 years, ‘The Men Behind the curtain’ had been working diligently to establish a one central office of power, a centralized body, where they can manage the ‘Affairs of Earth.’ For this reason they created the United Nations in 1945, which is an offshoot of the League of Nations which was an organization imposed to the losers of the World World II as a requisite to sign into the Treaty of Versailles that ended the war. They also created the International Monetary Fund in 1945, Israel in 1948, NATO in 1949.
All conveniently sold to the world with an specific purpose: NATO is the armed branch of the global elite, UN being the diplomatic branch, IMF the financier, Monsanto the world’s seed controller, and Israel the brat-idiosyncrasy branch-wrapped- religiously-pity-package that stats civil wars, revolutions and global conflicts at will. (Before Israel was invented and inserted in the Middle East, The Zionist Organization was the stirring force)
For years, the use of the New World Order (NWO) was sounding more like a conspiracy theory than any other thing. In addition, the propaganda machine (Controlled Media/MainstreamMedua) that controls what gets out to the people had the project under wraps.
By now, the centralized office of the United Nations is at full control of Earth, and little can be said that had not been said before regarding their aims for the human race.
Well, if I tell you that they want to enslave the human race, I will sound too radical, and maybe I would sound a little bit lunatic, and most probably, everyone will laugh. If you believe me or not, it does not change the situation.
It calls Agenda 21- known as “Sustainable Development”.
Sustainable Development views the American way of life as wasteful and greedy and teaches that man is living beyond the Earth’s carrying capacity. While often promoted as environmental stewardship or simply “going green” the true nature of Sustainable Development is actually about controlling the Earth’s resources, – Think Monsanto, Seed Vault, IMF’s rapacious measures, oil companies- just to name the few more important.
Understand that humans have the tendency to day-dreaming and believe what make them feel comfortable with. It is natural. Centuries of mental abuse have forced humanity to shield itself in a type of narcotic state of uncomfortably numbness like Pink Floyd called it.
It is easy to let the world roll in front of us. As long as we don’t get caught up in the avalanche of worldly affairs, we get to live another day.
I mean, it is easy just to wake up and go to work waiting for the paycheck to arrive so we can buy our food and keep us alive for another day.
Who wouldn’t want to have a stable job that guarantees a plate of food in their table? Right?! No one wants to see himself digging in the trash cans for leftovers. It isn’t a nice sight, so we maintain the Status Quo, and we ignore what happens to the majority of humanity.
Starvation is an engineered social disease.
We must think that life is not that simple for billions of beings around the world. Surviving for millions is not just having something to fill their stomach with, and maybe digging in a trash can to find food it is a simple trill to survive. For millions, there are no trash cans to dig up for food, not even the smell of food for miles around.
There are serious starvation issues in many countries around the world. Even thought there are millions of warehouses filled with seeds of many kinds, and preserved foods that can feed millions of people and still keep 90 percent of their supplies.
Know that thousands of tons of vegetables is thrown out to the animals for the only reason to keep their prices high in the stock market.
There are millions of people dying regularly as a result of structured wars planned and officially stamped by the Security Council of the United Nations.
All it takes is a big fish like United States, France, China, Russia or Piranha like Israel to tell the Security Council they need to bring a country to order immediately
If you have kept up with the latest news of the last 30 years at least you will notice what “order” means for the globalists.
Control of all countries’s leaders, and control of their natural resources, including people as a slave labor”
If a president is very popular in his country and populist with its internal policies-remember Hugo Chavez- if he is implementing social reforms that are intended to bring social changes, that undoubtedly will bring equality and social justice to his country immediately the bells ring in the higher spheres of the United Nations Cabal and the president is summon to one the UN offices which are placed somewhere around the world to warn the individual, to stop those actions of goodness to the people.
If the president refuses to comply, the cabal has the means to bring it to its knees. coups, embarrassment, harassment, isolation, or assassinations.
Cuba, Iran, Venezuela, and by now every country of South America have been targeted by the cabal using sanctions, and sadly after creating chaos, they are forced to take Internation Monetary Fund’s loans. As you should know, these loans come attached with policy reforms like austery measures.
The warnings come in different colors and flavors: First, the propaganda machine at full blown starts its campaign of misformation, full spin, and debunking information against the president in question policies.
We are familiar with these stunts of propaganda. We have seen it over and over throughout the years. They are vicious, and sometimes they had ended in coups, the destruction of whole countries, and disintegration of their societies.
Libya is the latest example of the reach of the United Nations War Arm, NATO troops destroyed the infrastructure of Libya and killed thousands of innocent civilians.
Iraq and Afghanistan were destroyed. Syria was closed, but survived.
Structured Wars that serve to maintain fear in the population.
The following Bold sections recapitulate UN branches of control.
From seeds, food production, food control, water rights and distribution, housing, forestry, agricultural rights, and security.
UN has achieved the total control with the help of a few giants. Monsanto is in charge of controlling food supplies. IMF in charge of controlling the money influx and internal policies of various nations.
NATO enforcing the policies of the UN, and Israelplaysg the stirrer of conflicts.
Read United States-Israel Enhance Security Cooperation Act 2012.
This document is signed every year since 1948-You will understand why Israel gets away with crimes every time.
Security Council
UN charter is to keep global peace and security.. They do the opposite
Read The Role of the General Assembly of the United Nations vs the Security Council Arbitrary Practices
The Security Council has the primary responsibility, under the UN Charter, of maintenance of international peace and security. A reform of the Security Council, including its membership, is under consideration.
The Security Council takes the lead in determining the existence of a threat to the peace or an act of aggression. It calls upon the parties to a dispute to settle it by peaceful means and recommends methods of adjustment or terms of settlement.
Under Chapter VII of the Charter, the Security Council can take enforcement measures to maintain or restore international peace and security. Such measures range from economic sanctions to international military action. The Council also establishes UN Peacekeeping Operations and Special Political Missions.
Security Council Subsidiary Bodies
Well all that only in paper. Ask Palestine, how many times it has requested peacekeeping troops to deter Israel from irs continues aggressions.
The capitalist system that rules our world is like a cancer that grows inside a society. When the good tissue dies, the infected tissue grows without benefit for the body where it lives.
The corporate structure that makes possible this capitalist system to survive is a pariah entity that lives out of other structures that support the pariah with their work.
The base of every country is their society , which is structured also in a pyramid scheme, where the belief system in place control everything that it is taught, believed, and done. They use education, family, religion, and the judiciary systems to maintain the control of society.
“The Elite networ, in general, can manipulate and deceive most of its own membership because it is structured like a pyramid. If you look at any organization, from a small business to a multinational corporation, you will see the same pyramid structure. At the top will be a very few people who know everything there is to know about the organisation, its motivation, agenda, and the direction it wishes to go. The further you descend from the peak, you meet more and more people who know less and less about that overall picture. They are only aware of their part in the organization and not everyone else’s. This is a manipulator’s dream, and it is the means through which the Elite can control so many people and organizations across the world.” David Icke
The globalist agenda of the Elite is set up in such a web, that their corporations are inserted in every country in a way that society/people do not notice the structures, because they become part of the governments that they control, and they rule the government through many organizations which work in behalf of these corporations.
The higher up structures of this pyramid scheme are controlled by the judiciary bodies of every country, and they all coordinate their activities directly from the United Nations Inter regional Crime and Justice Research Institute.
According to their documentation, the World Criminological Directory covers almost 500 institutes in some 90 countries, including academic institutions, governmental institutes, NGOs, private institutes, and international organizations.
It is a very scary thought that the UN controls what happens in my city. They use shadowy NGO’s and umbrella institutions that collect all the information that feed their database.
Crime Prevention Network
The network of institutes was established by the Secretariat of the United Nations, in cooperation with the Mlmember states. It has been developed to assist the international community in strengthening international cooperation in the crucial area of crime prevention and criminal justice in the global, regional, and sub-regional levels.
Interested yet?
The Institutions and organizations that comprise the Crime Prevention Network of the United Nations looks benign and probably too complicated to understand at first sigh. You need to search in all their branches and dig deep in their structure and find out that the rabbit hole goes deeper than we can even imagine.
“Its easier to kill a million people…than it is to control them” Zbigniew Brzezinski
One of their institutions, the Basel Institute on Governance based in Basel Switzerland, supposedly find corruption and find money that it is illicit generated, and when they find the money, what happen to that money?
Did Cuba got all the money stolen by the American Corporations during the United States take over of Cuban Economy, the money stolen by the Corrupt Mexican Presidents that ruled Mexico and run with the money to US banks or Switzerland banks. The billions of dollars stolen from Libya by American banks, where it is that money?
Where are the trillions of dollars stolen to the North American (US) citizens using the House Market as bait. Is the Basel Institute working to bring the money back to the people?
According to the United Nations Basel Institute, The International Center for Asset Recovery of the Institute is specialized in the training and assistance of developing countries on the practical issues of tracing, confiscating and repatriating the proceeds of corruption, money laundering and related crimes.
Basel Institute on Governance · Basel, Switzerland
The Basel Institute on Governance is an independent and non-profit institution associated with the University of Basel. The main responsibilities of the Institute include the conduct of scientific research, policy advice and the support of capacity building in the area of public, corporate, and global governance. Its primary objective evolves around the fight against corruption and money laundering. These aims are pursued through assistance in the establishment of regulation mechanisms and compliance systems.
They present themselves as a Righteous Office to find criminals and fight crime, but in reality, what do they do? Maybe they cripple prospering economies, who knows if they use Drug Administration Organizations Cartels to create illicit business under the radar of the local eye of the population, but they generate a booming business that finance big global projects, but on the surface they are Fighting Crime Organizations.
Some Wars Aren’t Meant to Be Won
The Corruption and Crime in the higher levels of government have grown up in the last 30 years.
The War on Drugs that have taken so many lives and resources of the countries involved, have not worked.
United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and their branches around the world with all their fancy offices and high paid officers and employees have done nothing to help with the Drug Addiction which it is considered a disease by the American Medical Association and many Medical Association around the world, and with all the criminalization on drug use, society is crippled because people it is being incarcerated instead to being treated in a rehabilitation clinic.
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations works to alleviate poverty and hunger by promoting agricultural development, improved nutritio, and the pursuit of food security. The organizationn offers direct development assistance, collects, analyses, and disseminates information, provides policy and planning advice to governments, and acts as an international forum for debate on food and agriculture issues.
If the United Nations have the control and security of food supplies to feed the people, then what it is the role of local organizations funded by the various governments, like the Department of Agriculture of the US, Agriculture Department of any other country?
Who control who?
The Codex Alimentarius, or the food code, has become the global reference point for consumers, food producers and processors, national food control agencies, and the international food trade. The code has had an enormous impact on the thinking of food producers and processors as well as on the awareness of the end users – the consumers. Its influence extends to every continent, and its contribution to the protection of public health and fair practices in the food trade is immeasurable.
I can analyze this this Codex Alimentarius several times, and when I go to the market and I do not have enough money to buy my grocery list, what good does it do?
I look at the starving children in the above picture. I doubt. they even read.
What a waste of money invested in crafting this Codex, I wonder how much does it costs to keep this Codex Updated, it is ludicrous when we have millions of people starving.
MONSANTO comes to mind. This entity has been left to manipulate the production of seeds, cattle, and vegetation around the world. It has become so powerful that Monsanto it is as dangerous as War Itself.
Monsato it is so sinister in their aims of controlling the food production that have been called The Evil Empire. They sold their idea to the world with their Seed Gene Modification invention. They said, they will create a New World, where there never be any shortage of food,
They promise great harvest and never ending production of food. But as we move along in history, and since Monsanto came to control the food supplies, the world has entered a new type of war.
Does Monsanto operate outside of United Nations mandate, or United Nations serve the Interest of Monsato.
So we wonder what it is the role of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United nations.
FAO, which operates multiple networks of satellites and Global Imagery Sensors that map the whole world.
The Codex Alimentarius Goals is to control globally what it food id produced, and supplemental intakes such vitamins and herbals.
Obama EXECUTIVE ORDER
ESTABLISHING THE NATIONAL PREVENTION, HEALTH PROMOTION, AND PUBLIC HEALTH COUNCIL
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including section 4001 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Public Law 111-148), it is hereby ordered as follows:
“Section 6 (g) contains specific plans to ensure that all prevention programs outside the Department of Health and Human Services are based on the science-based guidelines developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention under subsection (d) of this section.” Entire Executive Order
In other words, ALL prevention programs, even those outside of the umbrella of the Department of Health and Human Services, must align with CDC guidelines, which are “science-based.”
What do we understand for prevention? Herbs and vitamins. Herbs that you grow in your backyard and vitamins that are not approved by your doctor do not fall under these “science-based” guidelines, and are not allowed. Therefore, this will effectively open the door to outlawing ALL disease prevention practices that use herbs and vitamins not prescribed by a doctor, and implement CODEX ALIMENTARIUS right here in theU.S.A. !
Eyes in the Sky – Satellites
Who own them? Who are they watching?
United Nations Operates Some and Participate in the Management of others.
I’m confused about the United Nations . Is Global Entity more powerful than the Nations that comprised it?
Isn’t the United Nations created by the goodwill of the nations that wanted global peace?…
GeoNetwork
Through the application of multitemporal low and high resolution satellite imagery, and GIS map services
AsiaCover
through the application of GIS maps and high resolution satellite imagery:generation of consistent, timely high resolution land cover and supplemental information for seven countries in South East Asia; collection of detailed metadata on existing datasets in compliance with ISO 19115 standard, using the GeoNetwork technology
AFRICOVER – Land Cover Mapping and Global Land Cover Network (GLCN) Initiative
through the application of high resolution satellite data (Landsat TM/ETM)
Establishment of a digital georeferenced database on land cover and a geographic referential for the whole of Africa; being extended to global level under the GLCN initiative.
Global Terrestrial Observing System (GTOS) through the application of integrated ground and space-based environmental observations:
observations, modelling, and analysis of terrestrial ecosystems to support sustainable development;
access to information on terrestrial ecosystems so that researchers and policy makers can detect and manage global and regional environmental change
AgrometShell (AMS)
through processing and modelling of low resolution, high frequency satellite imagery and ground observations:
development of analytical software tools to evaluate the effect of weather on crop yields.
Global Information and Early Warning System (GIEWS) with the use of the Advanced Real Time Environmental Monitoring Information System (ARTEMIS)
through the application, among others, of global low resolution satellite data and ground observations from meteorological stations:
establishment of a system for monitoring global food supply and demand situation using, in addition to socio-economic data and information, remote sensing and ground based environmental observations for crop condition assessment.
Southern African Development Community (SADC) Regional Remote Sensing Unit with the use of ARTEMIS
through the application of low and high resolution satellite data and ground observations from meteorological stations:
development of regional remote sensing and GIS capacity to support food security early warning and environmental assessment in the SADC countries.
Why the United Nations would be involved in the agriculture of the countries, if UN can not even avert wars, or can not even have the consent of 5 countries when they want to destroy a nuisance of a country, as it happen with Iraq.
There is more that United Nations Control, the World Bank and the International Monetary fund, two weapons of war that makes the poorer countries pry of the Rich Global Corporations that in agreement with the United Nations get their pawns into the national resources of the countries and manage their internal sociology-economical and political policies, keeping the entire population subject to poverty and addicted to public welfare that it is at the same time another Corporate strategy to control the population.
World Bank Mandate
Makes no sense that the institution that is supposed to help the people, it is actually making us poorer.
The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank are two mobsters that control the economy of the poorer countries.
The World Bank is the world’s largest source of development assistance and uses its financial resources, highly trained staff, and extensive knowledge base to help each developing country onto a path of stable, sustainable, and equitable growth in the fight against poverty.
In reality they keep the countries they “help” in a leash of control, low salaries for the people as a condition to lend money to the country, and higher interest to the people to “Control Inflation”, but they reserve the low interest loans for the banks, the rich in other words.
Do you see why there are so many protests when the G8 makes their Global Meetings, where they discuss the next strategy to control another chunk of the world?
Did you witness the thousands of protesters in Greece that were fighting against their government for the austerity measure that needed to be imposed on people as a condition for the European Union to give another loan?
Isn’t sad that States (nations)allows the banks and corporations to ruin our world, specially the War Complex Machine?
Time to WAKE UP and SHAKE out the conformity from our reality.
You need to know what it is happening around you, do not bury your head in the sand, thinking that the calamities you see dar away in your computers would pass through you and not affect you. Your children future is at stake. The human race is in its way to extinction. A hybrid race and AI is taken a hold of the world.
If we do not do something about it. At least as a free man, thinkers and owners of our own future.
Please be informed, and be part of the political process of your community and your country. Do not let it be in the hands of the career politicians.
They work for profits, not for us.
Be part of the solidarity movement that is growing bigger and stronger. We want peace for our world, we want justice and equality. Be part of the invisible revolution
I m skeptical mind, and I doubt everything, and do not trust any one that is a product of the Globalist Elitist groups, of Banksters, War Complex Machine, Energy Industry Icons, Monsanto Corporation, Pharmaceutical Industry, Global Churches or Fundamental Religious Groups, or any other group or individual who makes everything possible to divide us, to kills us, ignore us, numb us, or sicken us.
I ask you to investigate, to share any truth that you discover or uncover, any information that is good for us, the human family on earth. And the same way I wish with all my heart that everyone, will come with us, to be part of our awakening family, to rise to the occasion. Tosavee our world.
STAY HUMAN!
Support futurist and visionary activist and Artist Peter Charles from United Natures
Terrorists vs Criminals – Just An Opinion
Posted on February 18, 2012 by Marivel Guzman
Who are The Terrorists? – Who are the Criminals?
In small countries or third world countries the corruption is rampant, disproportionate and selective.
You find corruption in every level of society, but the more damaging is the Government Corruption.
The bribes are every day offered and accepted for the more minimal services and the big bribes are common in the upper levels of Government, being to acquire a good position in a bureaucratic job, tor get government juicy contracts, off course on that the Western rich countries champion the the little poor countries (Halliburton and Black water come to mind)
These can be considered small crimes, but the BIG Crimes are being committed between Countries, on the top executive levels of power.
These Criminal Enterprises are committing unspeakable terrorists acts to inflict fear, these shadow entities are deep nested inside the government apparatus, financed by powerful lobbyists firms that serve various branches of the International Cartel of Banksters and War Complex Machine, all under the umbrella of the government they serve.
Every one is using the term “terrorist” very loose, since Bush and Company started their “War in Terror”, the whole world have jumped into the terror wagon rhetoric speech, without realizing that every body have caught these infectious social diseases called “passive syndrome response and passive aggressive behavior”, where fear is used to generate a response to a premeditated event. The word TERROR, AND TERRORIST are the target words that generate the behavior expected by the planners of the program.
A criminal person is not precisely a terrorist, and a terrorist is not precisely a criminal person.
There is a significant distance between a person committing a simple crime and a terrorist committing a crime, even thought booth acts involving some amount of violence, not the two are the same.
A terror act is intended to inflict a psychological traumatic experience to the target individuals or group of individuals.
A criminal act is intended to terminate life, or to gain some personal or financial benefit from the act.
Now days the Governments are using this confusion to advance in the agendas set up by the entities that work under the secrecy and protected by the money they control.
Whole countries are being victims of their own government programs of control. In the US congress is in the dark of many operations carry out by the Department of Defense and its millitary private contractors which are mercenaries in every sense of the word.
The whole criminal code in many countries have been updated to fit their new mechanism of a global stage and to get rid of unwanted individuals, or to cripple their abilities to perform in society.
The cooperation between countries to “Fight Terrorism” is just a tool that have severed the sovereignty of many Nations.
The Globalists and its Agenda is moving to control the whole world, already divided like a pie in four regions; European Union, North American Union, African Union and Arab League of Nations.
Munich 72, 11 Israeli Olympic Players Sacrificed
Posted on May 17, 2012 by Akashma Online News
There are always 2 sides to the story, On September 6, 1972 in the quarters of the Israeli Olympic Team another story was being played out. In an attempt to pressure Israel to release 200 Palestinians prisoners held in Israel jails, Palestinian Resistance Movement known as Black September have planned to exchange the Olympic hostages for their Nationals in Israeli Jails.
The German Government felt that was their duty to resolve the kidnapping issue, there were two points that needs to be noted:
- First -For years Germany was being made feel guilty after a long “Guilty PR campaign”, the actions of Adolph Hitler have followed every German until now to feel guilty of what is known as the Nazi Holocaust during the Second World War, where millions of European Civilians died, in one of the worse massacres that humanity know of.
- Second– Germany was the host country of the Munich Olympic Games 72.
After two days of negotiations, where the Palestinian Group have refused the offers of money or security for their persons, their only goal was the liberation of 200 Palestinians Resistance Fighters, and nothing else, finally on September 6 and after arduous negotiations, The German Government agreed to provide an airplane to take them to a friendly country and 3 helicopters to transport them to the air field of Furstenfeldbruck military airbase, and the Promise form the Israel Government to release the prisoners.
Now that the world knows, the way Israel operates, its deceitful practices, it’s lack of seriousness on negotiations, with unfulfilled promises and it’s complete neglect of Palestinians rights, we can get to the conclusion that Israel in Munich 72, never intended to liberate the prisoners, the fact that the German police start shooting at the Palestinians and hostages on Israel Orders tell us that the operation and negotiations to liberate the hostages, was a false flag operation of PR campaign from part of Israel to demonize more the Palestinian Resistance Movement in an attempt to steal more land with impunity and to kill Palestinians with the complete assurance that the world will hate the “Palestinians as terrorists”…
Witnesses at the airport said the shooting began when police snipers opened fire on the militants. You have to recreate in your mind the situation in the airport, the militants and hostages were in the same cabin of the helicopters, meaning that the police was not ensuring the lives of the hostages.
According to witnesses, the police started shooting at the helicopters as soon as they touch ground, and “the news were already circulating in the Press that the Terrorists have blown up the Helicopter with the hostages inside, which was dismissed later on.
News of the deaths was confirmed at 0310 pm German Time, contradicting an earlier announcement by a Munich police officer that all the hostages had been released and four of the kidnappers captured. All the Israeli PR machine was working full time, disseminating debunking information on the events.
German authorities agreed to demands by the Palestinians to supply them with an airplane, and provided three helicopters to take them to the airport.
The gun battle started almost immediately after the helicopters landed at the airport.
Bavarian Minister of the Interior Bruno Merk confirmed Munich’s police chief had given the order to open fire. BBC, September 6, Munich 72
After the events of September 1972, Golda Meir authorized the formation of Mossad directed covert action teams to find and assassinate those individuals responsible for the attack on the Israeli athletes in Munich.
Israel for more than 20 years used the events of Munich 72 as excuse, to assassinate Palestinians Political Adversaries, Potential Palestinians leaders, and/or Important Palestinians supporters around the world.
Since Israel creation, the use of terrorism against Palestinians to justify Israel forced existence in stolen lands, have became the worse nightmare for Palestinians in the occupied territories living in West Bank, Gaza, Jerusalem and Palestinians scattered around the world that live as refugees without any rights.
The the world also feels the insecurity with a Psychopath Pariah State that have used Apartheid System to segregate the native Palestinian Population to humiliate and maintain a position of subjugation and fear, and that with the support of other terrorists powerful allies from the West have financed Israel Nuclear programs and have stayed mouth shout on this issue pretending that Nuclear Israel does not exist. The middle east have become a tickling bomb.
Israel making use of its eternal victim hood and trying to perpetuate that image, recently requested to the International Olympic Committee in London to hold a minute of silence for the victims of the assault on Munich 72, trying to initiate an Olympic Tribute for Israel victims only, as if there are not other victims on violence on every spot on Earth and Israeli deaths are the only ones that matter. They themselves are the Number 1 suspects and perpetrators in numerous campaigns of terror in Occupy Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt and in many places in the world, where they are known to create false flags operations, do not forget the King David Hotel Bombing, that for many years was blamed on Palestinian.
the International Olympic Committee will not hold a moment of silence to honor the victims, despite a request from Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon. The decision, handed down Thursday, left Israeli officials fuming.
Some Radical Jews groups in London have called for boycott on the the London Olympic Games 2012, while the conscience world has been asking to boycott Israel and ban it from participating in the Olympics.
Israel Administrative Detention Ilegal Practive
Posted On May 15, 2012 by Marivel Guzman
All the rights reserved for Addammer, article published only for information purpose, not intended for commercial use.
Administrative Detention
Administrative detention is a procedure that allows the Israeli military to hold prisoners indefinitely on secret information without charging them or allowing them to stand trial. Although administrative detention is used almost exclusively to detain Palestinians from the occupied Palestinian territory (OPT), which includes the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, Israeli citizens and foreign nationals can also be held as administrative detainees by Israel (over the years, only 9 Israeli settlers have been held in administrative detention). Israel uses three separate laws to hold individuals without trial:
- Article 285 of Military Order 1651, which is part of the military legislation applying in the West Bank;
- Internment of Unlawful Combatants Law (Unlawful Combatants Law), which has been used against residents of the Gaza Strip since 2005;
- Emergency Powers (Detentions) Law, which applies to Israeli citizens.
Palestinians have been subjected to administrative detention since the beginning of the Israeli Occupation in 1967 and before that time, under the British Mandate. The frequency of the use of administrative detention has fluctuated throughout Israel’s occupation, and has been steadily rising since the outbreak of the second intifada in September 2000.
On the eve of the second intifada, Israel held 12 Palestinians in administrative detention. Only two years later, in late 2002-early 2003, there were over one thousand Palestinians in administrative detention. Between 2005 and 2007, the average monthly number of Palestinian administrative detainees held by Israel remained stable at approximately 765. Since then, as the situation on the ground stabilized and violence tapered off, the number of administrative detaines has generally decreased every year. As of 1 April 2012, there were at least 322 Palestinians from the West Bank and East Jerusalem being detained in administrative detention, of which 24 were members of the Palestinian Legislative Council.
Although international human rights law permits some limited use of administrative detention in emergency situations, the authorities are required to follow basic rules for detention, including a fair hearing at which the detainee can challenge the reasons for his or her detention. Moreover, to use such detention, there must be a public emergency that threatens the life of the nation, and detention can only be ordered on an individual, case-by-case basis without discrimination of any kind. (International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Article 9).
Administrative detention is the most extreme measure that international humanitarian law allows an occupying power to use against residents of occupied territory. As such, states are not allowed to use it in a sweeping manner. To the contrary, administrative detention may be used against protected persons in occupied territory only for “imperative reasons of security” (Fourth Geneva Convention, Art.78).
In practice, Israel routinely uses administrative detention in violation of the strict parameters established by international law. Tellingly, Israel has claimed to be under a continuous state of emergency sufficient to justify the use of administrative detention since its inception in 1948. In addition, administrative detention is frequently used – in direct contravention to international law – for collective and criminal punishment rather than for the prevention of future threat. For example, administrative detention orders are regularly issued against individuals suspected of committing an offense after an unsuccessful criminal investigation or a failure to obtain a confession in interrogation.
In practice, Israel’s administrative detention regime violates numerous other international standards as well. For example, administrative detainees from the West Bank are deported from the occupied territory and interned inside Israel, in direct violation of Fourth Geneva Convention prohibitions (Articles 49 and 76). Further, administrative detainees are often denied regular family visits in accordance with international law standards, and Israel regularly fails to separate administrative detainees from the regular prison population as required by law. Moreover, in the case of child detainees, Israel regularly fails to take into account the best interests of the child as required under international law.
In the occupied Palestinian West Bank, the Israeli army is authorized to issue administrative detention orders against Palestinian civilians on the basis of article 285 of Military Order 1651. This article empowers military commanders to detain an individual for up to six-month renewable periods if they have “reasonable grounds to presume that the security of the area or public security require the detention”. No definition of “security of the area” or “public security” is given. On or just before the expiry date, the detention order is frequently renewed; there is no explicit limit to the maximum amount of time an individual may be administratively detained, leaving room for indefinite legal detention.
Administrative detention orders are issued either at the time of arrest or at some later date and are often based on “secret information” collected by the Israeli Security Agency (formerly known as the General Security Service). In the vast majority of administrative detention cases, neither the detainee nor his lawyer is ever informed of the reasons for the detention or given access to the “secret information”.
In practice, the Unlawful Combatants Law contains fewer protections for detainees than even the few that are granted under administrative detention orders in the West Bank. For example, judicial review is conducted less often; the legality of the detention does not require the existence of a state of emergency; and, the detention “is carried out pursuant to an order issued by the chief of staff or by an officer holding the rank of major general”. In addition, the law establishes two troubling presumptions that shift the burden of proof to the detainee: first, the release of an individual identified as an “unlawful combatant” will harm national security unless proven otherwise; second, the organization to which the detainee belongs carries out hostilities, if the Israeli Minister of Defense has made such a determination, unless proven otherwise. This practice patently violates the accused’s right to a presumption of innocence in any criminal proceeding, and results in a system of indefinite detention justified by mere speculation and stacked heavily against the detainee.
- The government of Israel should release all administrative detainees;
- In the meantime, administrative detainees must be granted their rights in accordance with international law;
- The government of Israel should immediately cease using the Incarceration of Unlawful Combatants Law and take action to repeal it;
- EU member states should raise cases of administrative detainees with the Israeli government under the EU-Israel political dialogue.
More On Administrative Detention
Association’s (Addameer) legal activities. Addameer has also sought to expose the ways in which Israel’s use of administrative detention, as a
means of collective punishment and of exacting revenge on Palestinians in retaliation for exercising their political and civil rights, contravenes the permitted uses of administrative detention in international law. In March 2009, Addameer notably launched an international advocacy and lobbying campaign to stop administrative detention and highlight Israel’s illegal practices in this regard. Administrative Detention in The Occupied Palestine
Administrative Detainees
Administrative detention is a procedure that allows the Israeli military to hold prisoners indefinitely on secret information without charging them or allowing them to stand trial.
Palestinians have been subjected to administrative detention since the beginning of the Israeli Occupation in 1967 and before that time, under the British Mandate. The frequency of the use of administrative detention has fluctuated throughout Israel’s occupation, and has been steadily rising since the outbreak of the second intifada in September 2000. Palestinians Administrative Detainees
Palestinians from the OPT are currently held in a total of 4 interrogation centers, 4 military detention centers, and approximately 17 prisons. While the 4 military interrogation centers are located inside the OPT, all the interrogation centers and prisons—except for one prison, Ofer—are located within the 1948 borders of Israel, in violation of international humanitarian law. The location of prisons within Israel and the transfer of detainees to locations within the occupying power’s territory are illegal under international law and constitute a war crime. The Fourth Geneva Convention explicitly states that “Protected persons accused of offences shall be detained in the occupied country, and if convicted they shall serve their sentences therein” (Article 76). Prison and Detention Center
| Relevant Addameer publications |
Munir’s Story: 28 years after the Massacre at Sabra-Shatila
Posted on May 09, 2012 by Marivel Guzman
Original Story Published on September 07, 2010
By Dr. Franklin Lamb –
The author seen with children at Shatila Refugee Camps, unaware that some of their relatives and families’ friends were among the hundreds butchered against 11 such “walls of death” 28 years ago, on September 16-18, 1982. Photo: Courtesy of the author, Dr. Franklin Lamb.
The untreated psychic wounds are still open. Accountability, justice and basic civil rights for the survivors are still denied.
Scores of horror testimonies have been shared over the past nearly three decades by survivors of the September 1982 Sabra- Shatila massacre. More come to light only through circumstantial evidence because would be affiants perished during the slaughter. Other eyewitness are just beginning to emerge from deep trauma or self imposed silence.
Some testimonies will be shared this month by massacre survivors at Shatila camp. They will sit with the ever growing numbers of international visitors who annually come to commemorate one of the most horrific crimes of the 20th century.
There are no average massacre testimonies.
Zeina, a handsome bronzed-faced middle-aged woman, an acquaintance of Munir Mohammad’s family, asked a foreigner the other day: “How can it be 28 years? I think it was just last fall that my husband Hussam and our two daughters, Maya, 8 years old, and Sirham, 9 years old, left our two room home to search for food because the Israeli army had sealed Shatila camp nearly two days before and few inside Shatila Camp had any. I still pray and wait for them to return.”
In Shatila Palestinian refugee camp and outside Abu Yassir’s shelter, the bullet marks still cover the lower half of the 11 “walls of death” where some of the dried blood is mixed and feathered in with the thin mortar. An elderly gentleman named Abu Samer still has some souvenirs of the event: three American automatic pistols fitted with silencers, a couple of knives and axes that were strapped to some of the killers belts as they quickly and silently shot, carved and chopped whoever they came upon starting at around 6 pm on Thursday September 16, 1982. Plus a couple of whisky bottles. These weapons were gifted to Israel by the US Congress and subsequently issued along with drugs and alcohol and other “policing equipment” to the killers in his “most moral army” by Ariel Sharon.
Earlier this year, one of the murderers from the Numour al-Ahrar (Tigers of the Liberals) militia, the armed wing of Lebanon’s right-wing National Liberal Party founded by former Lebanese President Camille Chamoun, nonchalantly confessed, “we sometimes used these implements in order to advance silently through the alleys of Shatila so as not to cause unnecessary panic during our work.” The Tigers militia, one of five Christian killer units, was assisted inside Shatila by more than two dozen Israeli Mossad agents, and led in this blitz by none other than Dani Chamoun, son of the former President.
No plaque or sign notes what happened here.
The world learned of the slaughter at Sabra-Shatila on the morning of Sunday September 19, 1982. Photos, many now available on the Internet, taken by witnesses such as Ralph Shoneman, Mya Shone, Ryuichi Hirokawa, Ali Hasan Salman, Ramzi Hardar, Gunther Altenburg, and Gaza and Akka Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) Hospital staff, preserve the gruesome images deeply etched in the survivors memory. The Israeli Kahan Commission, five months later in its February 7, 1983 Report, substantially whitewashed Israeli responsibility referring more than once to the massacre as “a war.”
Zeina ushered me down a narrow alley from her house arriving at the 3 by 8 meter wall outside her sister’s home, spraying here and there with an aerosol can as we walked. She apologized for the spray but insisted that she and her neighbors could even now smell the slaughter that happened there three decades earlier.
For readers unfamiliar with the location of Shatila Palestinian Refugee Camp in Beirut, this particular “wall of death” is located across from the PRCS Akka Hospital, such as it is, after years without adequate financial or NGO support. Locating the 11 “walls of death” requires help from the few older Palestinians who still live in this quarter. They are among those still living at the scene and who still vividly recall the details of the massacre. Some provide personal history of some of the butchered, seemingly urging the dead to return by making them seem so alive, often describing a personality trait and the name of their family village in Palestine.
“A sweet boy who adored his older brothers Mutid and Bilal.”
Zeina recalls that Munir Mohammad was 12 years old on September 16, 1982, a pupil at the Shatila camp school, named Jalil (Galilee). Virtually all of the 75 remaining UNRWA schools in Lebanon, like other Palestinian institutions, are named after villages, towns or cities in occupied Palestine. Often they are named after villages that no longer actually exist, being among the 531 villages the Zionists colonizers obliterated during and after the 1947-48 Nakba (Catastrophe).
Zeina recalls that it was late on a Thursday afternoon, September 16, that the Israeli shelling had grown intense. Designed to drive the camp residents into the shelters, almost all of which Israeli intelligence, arriving the previous day in three white vehicles and posing as “concerned NGO staff” had identified and noted the coordinates on their maps. Some residents, thinking aid workers had come to help the refugees, actually revealed their secret sanctuaries. Other refugees, based on their experience in the crowded shelters during the preceding 75 days of indiscriminate, “Peace for Galilee” Israeli bombing of Shatila, suggested to the “aid workers” that the shelters needed better ventilation and perhaps the visitors would help provide it.
According to Zeina the Israeli agents quickly sketched the shelter locations, marked them with a red circle and returned to their HQ which was located less than 70 meters on the raised terrain at the SE corner of Shatila camp still known as Turf Club Yards. Today, this sandy area still contains three death pits which according to the late American journalist Janet Stevens is where some of the hundreds of still missing bodies of the more than 3,000 slaughtered are likely buried. Janet had theorized that there was a second Sabra-Shatila Massacre that occurred on Sunday morning, September 19th, which piggybacked the first and was conducted on the west side of Shatila inside the second Israeli-Phalange HQ, known as the Cite Sportiff athletic complex. As the Israeli soldiers took custody from the Phalange militia of the surviving refugees, trucks entered Cite Sportiff loaded with hundreds of camp residents on the back to be taken to “holding centers”. Family members forced to wait outside heard volleys of gunfire and screams from inside the complex. Hours later the same flat beds drove away to unknown locations, tarps covering the unseen mounded cargo.
Camp resident, Mrs. Sana Mahmoud Sersawi, one of the 23 complainants in the Belgium case filed against Ariel Sharon on June 16, 2001, (currently but not fatally sidetracked) explained:
“The Israelis who were posted in front of the Kuwaiti embassy and at the Rihab benzene station at the entrance to Shatila demanded through loudspeakers that we come to them. That’s how we found ourselves in their hands. They took us to the Cite Sportiff, and the men were marched behind us. But they took the men’s shirts off and started blindfolding them. The Israelis interrogated the young people and the Phalange delivered about 200 more people to the Israelis. And that’s how neither my husband nor my sister’s husband ever came back.”
Journalist Robert Fisk and others who studied these events, concur that more slaughter was done during the 24 hour period after 8 a.m. Saturday, the hour the Israeli Kahan Commission, which declined to interview any Palestinians, ruled that the Israelis had stopped all the killing.
Eyewitness testimony also established that the “aid workers” described by Zeina passed the shelter descriptions and locations to Lebanese Forces operatives Elie Hobeika and Fadi Frem, and their ally, Major Saad Haddad of the Israeli-allied South Lebanese Army. Thursday evening, Hobeika, de facto commander since the assassination the week previously of Phalange leader and President-elect Bachir Gemayel, led one of the death squads inside the killing field of the Horst Tabet area near Abu Yassir’s shelter.
It was in 8 of the 11 Israeli-located and marked shelters that the first of the massacre victims were quickly and methodically slaughtered. There being few perfect crimes, even in massacres, the killers failed to find 3 of the shelters. One of the overlooked shelters was just 25 meters from Abu Yassir’s shelter. Apart from these three undiscovered hiding places there were practically no Shatila shelter survivors.
American journalist David Lamb wrote about this first night of butchery and the “walls of death”:
“Entire families were slain. Groups consisting of 10-20 people were lined up against walls and sprayed with bullets. Mothers died while clutching their babies. All men appeared to be shot in the back. Five youths of fighting age were tied to a pickup truck and dragged through the streets before being shot.”
At around about 8 p.m. on September 18 Munir Mohammad entered the crowded Abu Yassir shelter with his mother Aida and his sisters and brothers Iman, Fadya, Mufid and Mu’in. Keeping the relatively few camp shelters for the woman and children while the men took their chances outside was a common practice as the massacre unfolded. But a few men did enter to help calm their young children.
“If any of you are injured, we’ll take you to the hospital.”
Munir later recalled events that night: “The killers arrived at the door of the shelter and yelled for everyone to come out. Men who they found were lined up against the wall outside. They were immediately machine gunned.” As Munir watched, the killers left to kill other groups and then suddenly returned and opened fire on everyone, and all fell to the ground. Munir lay quietly not knowing if his mother and sisters were dead. Then he heard the killers yelling: “If any of you are injured, we’ll take you to the hospital. Don’t worry. Get up and you’ll see.” A few did try to get up or moaned and they were instantly shot in the head.
Munir remembered: “Even though it was light out due to the Israeli flares over Shatila, the killers used bright flash lights to search the darkened corners. The killers were looking in the shadows”. Suddenly Munir’s mother’s body seemed to shift in the mound of corpses next to him. Munir thought she might be going to get up since the killers promised to take anyone still alive to the hospital. Munir whispered to her: “Don’t get up mother, they’re lying”. And Munir stayed motionless all night barely daring to breath, pretending to be dead.
Munir could not block out the killers words. Years later he would repeat to this interviewer as we passed the Shatila Burial ground known as Martyrs Square:
“After they shot us, we were all down on the ground, and they were going back and forth, and they were saying: ‘If any of you are still alive, we’ll have mercy and pity and take them to the hospital. Come on, you can tell us.’ If anyone moaned, or believed them and said they needed an ambulance, they would be rescued with shots and finished off there and then…What really disturbed me wasn’t just the death all around me. I…didn’t know whether my mother and sisters and brother had died. I knew most of the people around me had died. And it’s true I was afraid of dying myself. But what disturbed me so very much was that they were laughing, getting drunk and enjoying themselves all night long. They threw blankets on us and left us there till morning. All night long [Thursday the 16th) I could hear the voices of the girls crying and screaming, ‘For god’s sake, leave us alone.’ I mean…I can’t remember how many girls they raped. The girl’ voice, with their fear and pain, I can’t ever forget them.”
The same kind of dégagé is displayed by the half dozen confessed militia murderers featured in German director Monika Borgmann’s 2005 film Massaker, one of whom opined: “With hanging or shooting you just die, but this is double,” explaining how he took an old Palestinian man and held him back against a wall, slicing him open in the shape of a cross. “You die twice since you also die from the fear,” he said nonchalantly describing white flesh and bone as if in a charcuterie waiting to be served.
The killers also explained how they began a frantic rush to dispose of as many bodies as possible before the media entered Shatila. One testified how the Israeli army gave them large plastic trash bags to dispose of bodies. Another confessed that they forced people into army trucks to ferry them to Cite Sportiff where they were killed. And that they used chemicals to destroy many of the corpses. Several mentioned that Israeli army officers conferred with the militia’s leaders in Beirut on the eve of the massacres.
The venomous hatred persists to this day.
To this day, the Hurras al-Arz (Guardians of the Cedars) boasts of its role in the carnage. Less than two weeks before the massacre the party issued a call for the confiscation of all Palestinian property in Lebanon, the outlawing of home ownership and the destruction of all refugee camps.
The party statement of September 1, 1982 declared: “Action must be taken to reduce the numbers of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, until the day comes when no single Palestinian remains on our soil.”
In 1982 certain political parties referred to Palestinians as “a bacillus which must be exterminated” and graffiti on walls read: “The duty of every Lebanese is to kill a Palestinian”–the same hatred commonly expressed today in occupied Palestine among colonists, extremist Rabbis and politicians.
The ‘Guardians’ call for outlawing Palestinian refugee property ownership was indeed achieved in 2001 by a law drafted by current Minister of Labor, who pledged on September 1, 2010 that “Parliament will never allow Palestinian refugees the right to own property.”
The mentality that allowed the Massacre at Sabra-Shatila 1982 is largely unchanged in 2010, as Lebanon still resists the call of the international community to grant the survivors of the Sabra-Shatila massacre basic civil rights. Some who have studied the Arabic websites and observed gatherings of the political parties represented at the 1982 massacre, claim the hate language is actually worse today and is being used to stir up Parliamentary opposition Palestinian civil rights.
During the month following the 1982 Massacre, British Dr. Paul Morris treated Munir at Gaza Hospital approximately one kilometer north of Abu Yassir’s shelter, and kept the youngster under observation. Dr. Morris reported to researcher Bayan Nuwayhed al Hout (Sabra and Shatila: September 1982, Pluto Press, London, 2004) that Munir “Will smile once in a while, but he doesn’t react spontaneously like others of this age, except just occasionally.” Then the doctor banged on the table, and said: ‘The lad has to be saved. He has to leave the camp, if only for a while, to recover himself.”
When Munir was asked by al Hout if one day when he grew up and would be able to carry a weapon would he consider revenge. The pre-teen replied, replied: “No, No. I’d never think of revenge by killing children. The way they killed us. What did the children do wrong?”
Munir’s 15 year old brother Mufid was among the first to enter Abu Yassir’s shelter, but he left and later appeared at Akka Hoppital with a gunshot wound. After being bandaged he left the hospital to seek safety and his family. No one has seen him since and for a long time Munir could not even mention him.
According to camp residents, Munir’s older brother, Nabil, then 19 years old, being of fighting age would have been shot on sight by the killers. Aware of this, Nabil’s cousin and his cousin’s wife fled with him as the Israeli shelling increased and camp residents reported indiscriminate killing. The trio dodged sniper bullets to seek refuge in a nursing home where his aunt worked. Like Munir, Nabil soon learned that his mother and siblings were all dead.
Now in America, both Munir and Nabil are leading relatively ‘normal lives’ considering the horror and lost family they experienced while escaping death at Sabra-Shatila. Munir and Nabil have become a credit to Shatila camp, to Palestine and to their adopted country. Residing in the Washington DC area, Munir is married and busy with his career. Nabil is devoting his life to advocacy for peace and justice in the Middle East, working with an NGO. Both brothers return to Shatila camp regularly.
Also apparently living ‘normal lives’ are the six “Christian” militia killers featured in Borgmann’s film Massaker. “They are all living ordinary lives. One of them is a taxi driver,” Borgmann explains.
As is well known, the massacres at Sabra-Shatila were undeniable war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide. Each killing was a violation of international laws enshrined in the Fourth Geneva Convention, International Customary Law and jus cogens. Similar massive crimes have seen charges brought against Rwandan officials, Chile’s ex-president, General Augusto Pinochet, Chad’s former president, Hissein Habre, former Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, Liberia’s Taylor and Sudan’s Bachir.
No one has been punished or even investigated for the Sabra-Shatila massacre. On March 28, 1991 Lebanon’s Parliament retroactively exempted the killers from criminal responsibility. However, this law has no standing in international law and the international community remains legally obligated to punish those responsible. The victims and their families of the Sabra-Shatila massacre as well as virtually all human rights organizations including but not limited to Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the Humanitarian Law Project, strenuously oppose blanket amnesty for the killers. They argue that the 1991 violates Lebanon’s constitution, as well as international law and promotes impunity for heinous crimes.
It was precisely to achieve justice for the victims of crimes such as Sabra-Shatila that the International Criminal Court was established. The ICC must begin its work without further delay and all people of goodwill must encourage Lebanon to grant the survivors of the Sabra-Shatila Massacre basic civil rights.
Dr. Franklin Lamb is Director, Americans Concerned for Middle East Peace, Beirut-Washington DC, Board Member of The Sabra Shatila Foundation, and a volunteer with the Palestine Civil Rights Campaign, Lebanon. He is the author of The Price We Pay: A Quarter-Century of Israel’s Use of American Weapons Against Civilians in Lebanon and is doing research in Lebanon for his next book. He can be reached at fplamb@gmail.com
Also see:
A Letter To Janet About Sabra-Shatilla By Franklin Lamb
A Shred of Truth that Vilify The Real Truth
The Out of Context Line That Can Sacrifice A whole Nation and Discredit A Legitimate Movement of Resistance.
“Abu Marzouk: Hamas won’t be bound by PA-Israel treaty”
DIME weapons were first used against Gaza by Israeli drones in the summer of 2006, when Palestinian medical personnel reported that it significantly increased the fatality rate among victims. Shortly after the DIME weapons were also trialled during the first week of the war in Lebanon in July 2006.
Fighting against misinformation it have been one of the biggest Fights For Palestine.
The first excerpts of an Interview published on Thursday 19 of April have sparked a whole new controversy on the position of Hamas regarding Israel and PA previous agreements.
To the informed readers comes to no surprise Hamas Position on Israel Illegal Existence on Palestine Lands, and vilifying the words of Abu Marzook taken out of context is irresponsible by writers, journalists and bloggers that add their “Side” of the story when their twisted, misinterpreted and purposely published Shreds of the Truth, that by the end of the day have become a whole new “Truth” and a story moving by the armies of bloggers and News Big and small around the world.
Hamas is an acronym of Harakat al Mawqawama al Islamiyya meaning “Islamic Resistance Movement.” The word Hamas also means “zeal.”
Since the article of Abu Marzook interview was first published more than 4000 News and bloggers published their version of the interview and more than 2 millions web sites have talk about it, and they have made their own interpretation of the interview and across the Headlines of the Editorials you can read with Bold Letters:
Hamas leader to Jewish paper: No peace with Israel
This remind me of the experiment done to a group of students that are given a “story” and they are suppose to pass the verbal story to a new student entering the room, by the time the last student is given the “Raw Story”, there is not a Shred of Truth on the story but only the idea of the original story, and the interpretation that every student have given to the story given to them, I mention you this little story/experiment because most probably you were part of this experiment sometimes in your life while in school. The same distortion of the truth is being passed over and over regarding Palestine, its leaders and its people.
The sole mention on an article of the world “Islamic” brings up bad taste of mouth and negative reaction from the well trained audience of the world that have developed a new social disease:
Islamophobia:
Phobia Intentional created, nurtured and spoiled as brat child. Once this brat is release in our society that has been already weakened with pain, wars and propaganda, is able to create the worse of the chaos, and the worst of the crimes, which is the acceptance of the crimes because the subconscious mind have already condoned it.
Phobia: A phobia is a type of anxiety disorder. It is a strong, irrational fear of something that poses little or no actual danger.
If you follow the stories that were generated after the interview that was first published on the 19 of April, you can not help but get outraged by the malicious intent and effort to discredit and to twist the words of Moussa Abu Marzouk, this type of lies and dirty games play by the Major News Organizations is what have help create this social disease that have been so handy for the War Complex Machine, that have helped to desensitized the people hearts. It has come to the point in the physique of the people that if dozens, hundreds or even thousands get killed don’t matter because their lives are not important because they are Muslim, and what they have done to deserve this?.
In Palestine they can not accept the theft of their lands, they can not sit idle when the residents of Gaza are sprayed. with white phosphorus, they react with anger when their children are bombed in the schools or sonar bombed when they sleep.
In other parts of the world where Muslims are being vilified after Bush invaded Iraq, and thereafter the situation got worse for Muslims around the world.
Notice when the News bothers to mention Israel crimes in Occupied Palestine, they make sure that they use the words “Militant Islamist Wings of Hamas”, or “radical Islamic Palestinian terrorist group”, with this denominations the victims are already being vilified and their murder are con·done by the public opinion.
Why will Hamas as an political organization and as an Official Government in Place in Gaza, will accept anything less than the rights for its people?. Why will Hamas be blame and branded a terrorist organization, when they only defend the population from the attacks of Israel?
Does it make sense to you? …The robbers came in the middle of the night and killed your parents, and in the morning you are force to accept a paper that says that those robbers not only will not be punish for the murder of your parents but they will take your home also, and you will go to live in a tent under the auspice of the UNRWA charity? ..how many times the story have to be repeated before someone feel in its heart, that it is inhuman, unfair and illegal under all international standards laws?
This simple story happened in thousands of Palestinians homes, entire villages were razed after their residents were murdered, some other were forced into exile, thru intimidation and terrorist practices. Now they asking Palestinians to accept their destiny without fighting, without feeling the pain. They are asking to give up the fight, they are being ask to lower their gaze and do not complain.
Well some people have already accepted that the plight of the Palestinians is irremediable and unchangeable fact. The PA did when their leaders signed peace treaty with Israel, when they decided to settle the deaths of hundred of thousands of Palestinians deaths in exchange for a Chair in Ramalah, but Hamas and other groups were never agreed with those deals, because they were rotten deals for Palestinians and until now they have not change their mind. They still defend the population and express their outrage on the Press.
Every conflict in history that is ever being written has always been only one side of the story, but that has changed, now we have thousands sides of the story, but with every story there is a twist of the truth, and that have been used against legitimate resistance movements. Hamas is just one example, its leaders have been labeled as Islamist Radicals , the organization itself has been officially labeled terrorist organization in many western countries thanks to AIPAC long tentacles and other Radical Jews groups around the world.
The common notion is that Palestinians living in Gaza are Islamist terrorists, why is this? Israel acquire thousands of weapons “legally”, they signed Weapons Deals with US its major arms supplier.
U.S. press coverage of Israeli attacks on the Palestinian Authority and Palestinian towns on the West Bank often treat the U.S. government as either an innocent bystander or an honest broker in the current conflict, often without giving a full sense of the importance of the United States role as a supplier of arms, aid, and military technology to Israel. In its role as Israel’s primary arms supplier, the United States could exert significant potential leverage over Israeli behavior in the conflict, if it chooses to do so.
Military and Economic Aid
Since 1976, Israel had been the largest annual recipient of U.S. foreign assistance. According to a November 2001 Congressional Research Service report, Israel: U.S. Foreign Assistance, U.S. aid to Israel in the last half century has totaled a whopping $81.3 billion.
In recent years, Israel remains the top recipient of U.S. military and economic assistance. The most commonly cited figure is $3 billion a year, with about $1.8 billion a year in Foreign Military Financing (FMF) grants from the Department of Defense and an additional $1.2 billion a year in Economic Support Funds (ESF) from the Department of State. In the last decade FMF grants to Israel have totaled $18.2 billion. In fact, 17% of all U.S. foreign aid is earmarked for Israel. World Policy Institute
The weapons that Israel buys “legally” from the US arm dealers are killer machines, they kill and destroy people and property, and they are more terrorizing devices than Palestinians Home Made Rockets, rockets that have to be bought “Illegally”, smuggle thru the tunnels, because Israel have sweet deals with the West and the west have taken the right for Palestine to defend their population.
What does it make a person a terrorist?
If you are Palestinian and kill a settler, without jury or trial you are branded terrorist, but when you are Israeli, and you kill 1400 innocents civilians, you simply are defending Israel. That it is the Mantra repeated, That is the difference now days in hundreds of News Outlets that are legitimating this distinction, when they irresponsibly publish News and articles simply branding Palestinians as Islamist Terrorists.
Most of the weapons that Israel uses comes from US weapons factories, the profits are astronomical, so the conflict needs to be kept alive. What will it be of the US Weapon Manufactures if there is a Peace Agreement in Palestine? Peace is the enemy # 1 of Profits .
We are talking of billions of dollars a year in Profits, pure profits because the money that goes to Israel for “Defense”
is free, and some of it comes back as Profit for the US Corporations that live out of Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Sure. Almost all of the weapons used by Israel are from the United States. There might be a couple French fighter planes that they’re using, but its F-16s made in Fort Worth, Texas; its Apache helicopters; its Sparrow and Sidewinder missiles; it’s all from the United States. So you have this real disconnect between an overemphasis on the supply by Iran and Syria of Hezbollah’s weapons and no discussion of the fact that all of the Israeli arsenal is from the United States, and that that is in contravention to U.S. law. to the Arms Export Control Act, which says that U.S.-origin weapons are only to be used for self-defense and for internal security. Frida Barrigan from World Policy Institute
Published April 19, 2012 originally
Hamas Wouldn’t Honor a Treaty, Top Leader Says
Abu Marzook Says He’s Open to a New Israel Relationship
Any agreement reached between Israel and the Palestinian Authority will be subject to far-reaching changes if Hamas comes to power in a democratic Palestinian state, a top Hamas leader told the Forward in an exclusive and wide-ranging interview.Mousa Abu Marzook, considered Hamas’s second-highest-ranking official, said that his group would view an agreement between Israel and the P.A. — even one ratified by a referendum of all Palestinians — as a hudna, or cease-fire, rather than as a peace treaty. In power, he said, Hamas would feel free to shift away from those provisions of the agreement that define it as a peace treaty and move instead toward a relationship of armed truce.
“We will not recognize Israel as a state,” he said emphatically. “It will be like the relationship between Lebanon and Israel or Syria and Israel.”
The exchange was but one part of an unprecedented five-and-a-half-hour discussion conducted over two days between Abu Marzook and the Forward, the first-ever in-depth exchange between a senior Hamas leader and a Jewish publication.Larry Cohler-Esses from Forward
The Situation in Gaza is different, here we talk about resistance as a strategic option, about the right of all the resistance factions to obtain all the means needed to conduct resistance, about the legitimacy of the weapons of the resistance, and about the national consensus on managing the resistance in a way that does not harm the principle.
We Talk about operating in accordance with the conditions we talked about:
Taking people’s circumstances into consideration, and even the conditions in Gaza, which has become..Today.” Ismail Haniya during an interview on Al-Quds TV in Lebanon March 5, 2012
Germans Forced to Keep Silent, for a Guilty Past? Günter Grass Speaks The Truth
Posted on April 19, 2012 by Marivel Guzman
By Henryk M. Broder, Original Article published on April 04, 2012 by Welt Online
Günter Grass has always had a problem with Jews, but as clearly as in a new “poem” entitled “What must be said” about Israel and Iran, he has never said it.
Günter Grass has written a poem. That apparently It will appear next Wednesday in two major daily newspapers at the same time. The “La Repubblica” and the “Sueddeutsche Zeitung”.
The poem reads: “What must be said,” and begins with these words:
“Why I am silent, conceal too long …”
The impartial reader might get the idea that Grass would finally explain why he has concealed his stint with the Waffen-SS as long. But this is not the case. Over this period of his life, the poetic moralist is also long. This time, he is concerned more about the very survival:
“Why I am silent, silent about too long, what is obvious and practiced in simulation games, was at the end as survivors, we are footnotes at best.”
The “alleged in the first strike”
© dpa Picture-central nuclear potential vs. nuclear facilities: Guenter Grass
Grass will no longer remain silent. What is the cause of the explosion logorrhoeischen? The “alleged in the first strike,” an unnamed country that is threatening Iran, which in turn is governed by a “bullies”.
“But why do I say to myself to call that other country by name, in the years since – though secret – a growing nuclear capabilities available but is out of control and access to any scrutiny”
Grass has prescribed silence, because he does not want to risk being called “anti-Semite” branded.
“This general concealment of facts, which my silence subordinate, I find incriminating lie, as well as coercion, punishment is promised if he is flouted, the verdict, anti-Semitism is” familiar. “
Verbal foreplay to a taboo
So it is the usual prelude to a verbal taboo, which is justified by the responsibility of the poet, to prevent a catastrophe. For Grass, sounds like this:
“But now, because in my country of innate crimes that are without comparison, time caught up to time and will be asked to explain, again and purely commercial basis, if declared with nimble lip as reparation, another U-boat to Israel to be delivered, whose specialty is to destructive warheads can control everything there, where the existence of a single atomic bomb is unproven, but wants to be a legend of evidence, I say what needs to be said. “
Grass has always been prone to delusions of grandeur, but now he is nuts completely. Quite activities composing verses fragile busy, he has not noticed many of the speeches of the Iranian president in which he speaks of the need for the “cancer” that has occupied Palestine, to remove from the region. Because that is just “Maulheldentum” which one is “unproven” must not be taken seriously, as the existence of a single bomb until it is used. In the case of Grass would mourn for the victims and donate to the survivors consolation, because he feels the land of Israel “connected”.
Has always been a problem with Jews
“But why I kept quiet until now? As I said, my background, which is never subject to stigma tilgendem forbid, that fact will marked as truth the land of Israel, whom I am connected and remain unreasonable.”
Grass breaks his silence, because he would not again be guilty because he was “tired of the hypocrisy of the West” and hopes that one should free themselves from the enforced silence, the cause of danger to renounce violence, encourage and insist that a unhindered and permanent control of the Israeli nuclear potential and the Iranian nuclear facilities by an international authority of the governments of both countries will be allowed.
While Israel a “nuclear potential” function, the Iranians have only “nuclear facilities” which are probably the generation of electricity. The cause of the “obvious danger” is Israel that is outside the control, while Iran is doing nothing better, than to open its “nuclear facilities” international supervision.
Grass has always had a problem with Jews, but as clear as in this “poem” he has never articulated it. In an interview with “Spiegel Online” in October 2001, he said, as he imagines the solution of the Palestine question. “Israel must acknowledge not only occupied areas also the seizure of Palestinian land and its Israeli occupation is a crime, the need. not only stop, but be undone. versa Otherwise there is no one peace. “
Tel Aviv and Haifa are giving up
This was neither more nor less than an invitation to Israel, not only Nablus and Hebron, Tel Aviv and Haifa as well give up. Just as Hamas and Hezbollah makes no distinction between the Grass in 1948 and the 1967 “occupied territories”, for it is “the occupation of Palestinian land and its Israeli settlement of a criminal act.” This is also the Iranian president.
Ten years later, in summer 2011, received the Grass Israeli journalist Tom Segev for an interview. Segev is fluent in German, so we chatted light-hearted and without a translator and a half hours about everything, even the reactions to his novel “Peeling the Onion”. The debate was for him “very painful” was that they had placed under his command, he had volunteered for the Waffen-SS. “The truth is that I was drafted, as thousands of young people my age.”
Wanted as a knowledge-Segev, why the Holocaust is found in the “onion” only in passing, said Grass: “The madness and crime expressed not only in the Holocaust and did not stop with the end of the war of eight million German soldiers of the Russians have been arrested, have survived two million. The remainder was liquidated. “
Haunted by guilt and shame
You had no qualified mathematician to count on Grass’ numbers game to end: Six million German soldiers were liquidated by the Russians. That actually came about three million German soldiers in Soviet captivity, many of whom about 1.1 million survived, does not matter. Because grass is not about numbers, but a number six million. That’s the number to which it always. The Lucky Number German. Six million dead Jews on the one hand, six million dead German prisoners on the other hand, the bottom line is a clean zero.
Grass is the prototype of the resulting anti-Semite who is kind to the Jews. Of guilt and shame and pursued simultaneously driven by the desire to charge history, he now takes to disarm the “cause of the apparent risk.”
The Germans will never forgive the Jews, what they have done to them. Thus in the Middle East peace comes at last, and even Grass is his peace of mind, Israel is “history”. So says the Iranian president, and which the poet dreams of onion skinning.
Welt’s Editor’s note: An earlier version of the article it had said that the “New York Times” would print the poem. This was not the case.
Akashma News Editor: The article expresses the solely opinion of the Author. This article was first published in Welt Online in German Language. Was translated using google translate.
Henryk M. Broder is the classic Israeli propagandist and protector of Israel crimes. Gunter Grass a writer that have exposed without reserve Israel impunity have risked his career. Anybody that dare to write against Israel it is branded as Anti Semitic, the term used trying to silence anybody that speaks against Israel Crimes.
In Europe it is illegal to speaks against the Holocaust, so for a writer to come into the open with a poem of this nature it is willing to risk his liberty or his life.
There is nothing more honorable than speak the Truth. For long the Editorials of the Main Media Outlets have been complicit with Israel, not because there was no Truth to tell, but because the money paid to the Big Newspapers have been always more important than the Truth, but lately many writers have come clean in their opinions on Israel daring to tell the truth, risking their jobs and their reputation. The money it has been always an obstacle for the truth.
If you can contribute to a better translation please email akashmanews@iifreepress.org
Original German Article Found here Günter Grass – Nicht ganz dicht, aber ein Dichter
More on Gunter Grass……….Gunter Grass is my hero……….by John Irving…………….More
The Wolf with ‘The Red Hood’ | Victims of The War Empire
The real criminals in the Tarek Mehanna case
Tarek Mehanna is seen in this image from video footage taken in Boston in 2009. (Credit: Reuters/WHDH-TV)
By Glenn Greenwald
In one of the most egregious violations of the First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech seen in quite some time, Tarek Mehanna, an American Muslim, was convicted this week in a federal court in Boston and then sentenced yesterday to 17 years in prison. He was found guilty of supporting Al Qaeda (by virtue of translating Terrorists’ documents into English and expressing “sympathetic views” to the group) as well as conspiring to “murder” U.S. soldiers in Iraq (i.e., to wage war against an invading army perpetrating an aggressive attack on a Muslim nation). I’m still traveling and don’t have much time today to write about the case itself — Adam Serwer several months ago wrote an excellent summary of why the prosecution of Mehanna is such an odious threat to free speech and more background on the case is here, and I’ve written before about the growing criminalization of free speech under the Bush and Obama DOJs, whereby Muslims are prosecuted for their plainly protected political views — but I urge everyone to read something quite amazing: Mehanna’s incredibly eloquent, thoughtful statement at his sentencing hearing, before being given a 17-year prison term.
At some point in the future, I believe history will be quite clear about who the actual criminals are in this case: not Mehanna, but rather the architects of the policies he felt compelled to battle and the entities that have conspired to consign him to a cage for two decades:
________________________
TAREK’S SENTENCING STATEMENT
APRIL 12, 2012Read to Judge O’Toole during his sentencing, April 12th 2012.
In the name of God the most gracious the most merciful Exactly four years ago this month I was finishing my work shift at a
local hospital. As I was walking to my car I was approached by two federal agents. They said that I had a choice to make: I could do things the easy way, or I could do them the hard way. The “easy ” way, as they explained, was that I would become an informant for the government, and if I did so I would never see the inside of a courtroom or a prison cell. As for the hard way, this is it. Here I
am, having spent the majority of the four years since then in a solitary cell the size of a small closet, in which I am locked down
for 23 hours each day. The FBI and these prosecutors worked very hard-and the government spent millions of tax dollars – to put me in that cell, keep me there, put me on trial, and finally to have me stand here before you today to be sentenced to even more time in a cell.
In the weeks leading up to this moment, many people have offered suggestions as to what I should say to you. Some said I should plead for mercy in hopes of a light sentence, while others suggested I would be hit hard either way. But what I want to do is just talk about myself for a few minutes.
When I refused to become an informant, the government responded by charging me with the “crime” of supporting the mujahideen fighting the occupation of Muslim countries around the world. Or as they like to call them, “terrorists.” I wasn’t born in a Muslim country, though. I was born and raised right here in America and this angers many people: how is it that I can be an American and believe the things I believe, take the positions I take? Everything a man is exposed to in his environment becomes an ingredient that shapes his outlook, and I’m no different. So, in more ways than one, it’s because of America that I am who I am.
When I was six, I began putting together a massive collection of comic books. Batman implanted a concept in my mind, introduced me to a paradigm as to how the world is set up: that there are oppressors, there are the oppressed, and there are those who step up to defend the oppressed. This resonated with me so much that throughout the rest of my childhood, I gravitated towards any book that reflected that paradigm – Uncle Tom’s Cabin, The Autobiography of Malcolm X, and I even saw an ehical dimension to The Catcher in the Rye.
By the time I began high school and took a real history class, I was learning just how real that paradigm is in the world. I learned about the Native Americans and what befell them at the hands of European settlers. I learned about how the descendents of those European settlers were in turn oppressed under the tyranny of King George III.
I read about Paul Revere, Tom Paine, and how Americans began an armed insurgency against British forces – an insurgency we now celebrate as the American revolutionary war. As a kid I even went on school field trips just blocks away from where we sit now. I learned about Harriet Tubman, Nat Turner, John Brown, and the fight against slavery in this country. I learned about Emma Goldman, Eugene Debs, and the struggles of the labor unions, working class, and poor. I learned about Anne Frank, the Nazis, and how they persecuted minorities and imprisoned dissidents. I learned about Rosa Parks, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King,
and the civil rights struggle.I learned about Ho Chi Minh, and how the Vietnamese fought for decades to liberate themselves from one invader after another. I learned about Nelson Mandela and the fight against apartheid in South Africa. Everything I learned in those years confirmed what I was beginning to learn when I was six: that throughout history, there has been a constant struggle between the oppressed and their oppressors. With each struggle I learned about, I found myself consistently siding with the oppressed, and consistently respecting those who stepped up to defend them -regardless of nationality, regardless of religion. And I never threw my class notes away. As I stand here speaking, they are in a neat pile in my bedroom closet at home.
From all the historical figures I learned about, one stood out above the rest. I was impressed be many things about Malcolm X, but above all, I was fascinated by the idea of transformation, his transformation. I don’t know if you’ve seen the movie “X” by Spike Lee, it’s over three and a half hours long, and the Malcolm at the beginning is different from the Malcolm at the end. He starts off as an illiterate criminal, but ends up a husband, a father, a protective and eloquent leader for his people, a disciplined Muslim performing the Hajj in Makkah, and finally, a martyr. Malcolm’s life taught me that Islam is not something inherited; it’s not a culture or ethnicity. It’s a way of life, a state of mind anyone can choose no matter where they come from or how they were raised.
This led me to look deeper into Islam, and I was hooked. I was just a teenager, but Islam answered the question that the greatest scientific minds were clueless about, the question that drives the rich & famous to depression and suicide from being unable to answer: what is the purpose of life? Why do we exist in this Universe? But it also answered the question of how we’re supposed to exist. And since there’s no hierarchy or priesthood, I could directly and immediately begin digging into the texts of the Qur’an and the teachings of Prophet Muhammad, to begin the journey of understanding what this was all about, the implications of Islam for me as a human being, as an individual, for the people around me, for the world; and the more I learned, the more I valued Islam like a piece of gold. This was when I was a teen, but even today, despite the pressures of the last few years, I stand here before you, and everyone else in this courtroom, as a very proud Muslim.
With that, my attention turned to what was happening to other Muslims in different parts of the world. And everywhere I looked, I saw the powers that be trying to destroy what I loved. I learned what the Soviets had done to the Muslims of Afghanistan. I learned what the Serbs had done to the Muslims of Bosnia. I learned what the Russians were doing to the Muslims of Chechnya. I learned what Israel had done in Lebanon – and what it continues to do in Palestine – with the full backing of the United States. And I learned what America itself was doing to Muslims. I learned about the Gulf War, and the depleted uranium bombs that killed thousands and caused cancer rates to skyrocket across Iraq.
I learned about the American-led sanctions that prevented food, medicine, and medical equipment from entering Iraq, and how – according to the United Nations – over half a million children perished as a result. I remember a clip from a ’60 Minutes‘ interview of Madeline Albright where she expressed her view that these dead children were “worth it.” I watched on September 11th as a group of people felt driven to hijack airplanes and fly them into buildings from their outrage at the deaths of these children. I watched as America then attacked and invaded Iraq directly. I saw the effects of ’Shock & Awe’ in the opening day of the invasion – the children in hospital wards with shrapnel from American missiles sticking but of their foreheads (of course, none of this was shown on CNN).
I learned about the town of Haditha, where 24 Muslims – including a 76-year old man in a wheelchair, women, and even toddlers – were shot up and blown up in their bedclothes as the slept by US Marines. I learned about Abeer al-Janabi, a fourteen-year old Iraqi girl gang-raped by five American soldiers, who then shot her and her family in the head, then set fire to their corpses. I just want to point out, as you can see, Muslim women don’t even show their hair to unrelated men. So try to imagine this young girl from a conservative village with her dress torn off, being sexually assaulted by not one, not two, not three, not four, but five soldiers. Even today, as I sit in my jail cell, I read about the drone strikes which continue to kill Muslims daily in places like Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen. Just last month, we all heard about the seventeen Afghan Muslims – mostly mothers and their kids – shot to death by an American soldier, who also set fire to their corpses.
These are just the stories that make it to the headlines, but one of the first concepts I learned in Islam is that of loyalty, of
brotherhood – that each Muslim woman is my sister, each man is my brother, and together, we are one large body who must protect each other. In other words, I couldn’t see these things beings done to my brothers & sisters – including by America – and remain neutral. My sympathy for the oppressed continued, but was now more personal, as was my respect for those defending them.
I mentioned Paul Revere – when he went on his midnight ride, it was for the purpose of warning the people that the British were marching to Lexington to arrest Sam Adams and John Hancock, then on to Concord to confiscate the weapons stored there by the Minuteman. By the time they got to Concord, they found the Minuteman waiting for them, weapons in hand. They fired at the British, fought them, and beat them. From that battle came the American Revolution. There’s an Arabic word to describe what those Minutemen did that day. That word is: JIHAD, and this is what my trial was about.
All those videos and translations and childish bickering over ‘Oh, he translated this paragraph’ and ‘Oh, he edited that sentence,’ and all those exhibits revolved around a single issue: Muslims who were defending themselves against American soldiers doing to them exactly what the British did to America. It was made crystal clear at trial that I never, ever plotted to “kill Americans” at shopping malls or whatever the story was. The government’s own witnesses contradicted this claim, and we put expert after expert up on that stand, who spent hours dissecting my every written word, who explained my beliefs. Further, when I was free, the government sent an undercover agent to prod me into one of their little “terror plots,” but I refused to participate. Mysteriously, however, the jury never heard this.
So, this trial was not about my position on Muslims killing American civilians. It was about my position on Americans killing Muslim civilians, which is that Muslims should defend their lands from foreign invaders – Soviets, Americans, or Martians. This is what I believe. It’s what I’ve always believed, and what I will always believe. This is not terrorism, and it’s not extremism. It’s what the arrows on that seal above your head represent: defense of the homeland. So, I disagree with my lawyers when they say that you don’t have to agree with my beliefs – no. Anyone with commonsense and humanity has no choice but to agree with me. If someone breaks into your home to rob you and harm your family, logic dictates that you do whatever it takes to expel that invader from your home.
But when that home is a Muslim land, and that invader is the US military, for some reason the standards suddenly change. Common sense is renamed ”terrorism” and the people defending themselves against those who come to kill them from across the ocean become “the terrorists” who are ”killing Americans.” The mentality that America was victimized with when British soldiers walked these streets 2 ½ centuries ago is the same mentality Muslims are victimized by as American soldiers walk their streets today. It’s the mentality of colonialism.
When Sgt. Bales shot those Afghans to death last month, all of the focus in the media was on him-his life, his stress, his PTSD, the mortgage on his home-as if he was the victim. Very little sympathy was expressed for the people he actually killed, as if they’re not real, they’re not humans. Unfortunately, this mentality trickles down to everyone in society, whether or not they realize it. Even with my lawyers, it took nearly two years of discussing, explaining, and clarifying before they were finally able to think outside the box and at least ostensibly accept the logic in what I was saying. Two years! If it took that long for people so intelligent, whose job it is to defend me, to de-program themselves, then to throw me in front of a randomly selected jury under the premise that they’re my “impartial peers,” I mean, come on. I wasn’t tried before a jury of my peers because with the mentality gripping America today, I have no peers. Counting on this fact, the government prosecuted me – not because they needed to, but simply because they could.
I learned one more thing in history class: America has historically supported the most unjust policies against its minorities – practices that were even protected by the law – only to look back later and ask: ’what were we thinking?’ Slavery, Jim Crow, the internment of the Japanese during World War II – each was widely accepted by American society, each was defended by the Supreme Court. But as time passed and America changed, both people and courts looked back and asked ’What were we thinking?’ Nelson Mandela was considered a terrorist by the South African government, and given a life sentence. But time passed, the world changed, they realized how oppressive their policies were, that it was not he who was the terrorist, and they released him from prison. He even became president. So, everything is subjective – even this whole business of “terrorism” and who is a “terrorist.” It all depends on the time and place and who the superpower happens to be at the moment.
In your eyes, I’m a terrorist, and it’s perfectly reasonable that I be standing here in an orange jumpsuit. But one day, America will change and people will recognize this day for what it is. They will look at how hundreds of thousands of Muslims were killed and maimed by the US military in foreign countries, yet somehow I’m the one going to prison for “conspiring to kill and maim” in those countries – because I support the Mujahidin defending those people. They will look back on how the government spent millions of dollars to imprison me as a ”terrorist,” yet if we were to somehow bring Abeer al-Janabi back to life in the moment she was being gang-raped by your soldiers, to put her on that witness stand and ask her who the “terrorists” are, she sure wouldn’t be pointing at me.
The government says that I was obsessed with violence, obsessed with ”killing Americans.” But, as a Muslim living in these times, I can think of a lie no more ironic.
-Tarek Mehanna
Glenn Greenwald (email: GGreenwald@salon.com) is a former Constitutional and civil rights litigator and is the author of two New York Times Bestselling books on the Bush administration’s executive power and foreign policy abuses. His just-released book, With Liberty and Justice for Some, is an indictment of America’s two-tiered system of justice, which vests political and financial elites with immunity even for egregious crimes while subjecting ordinary Americans to the world’s largest and most merciless penal state. Greenwald was named by The Atlantic as one of the 25 most influential political commentators in the nation. He is the recipient of the first annual I.F. Stone Award for Independent Journalism, and is the winner of the 2010 Online Journalism Association Award for his investigative work on the arrest and oppressive detention of Bradley Manning.
4/12/12More on Tarek Mehanna …………
“Mehanna‘s case is a classic example of the so-called anti-terrorism paradigm at work, which is prevent the terrorist act from occurring,” said professor Boston College Law School professor George Brown, who teaches national security law. AP
Juror says Mehanna deserved mercy, She had hoped for chance to appeal to judge.
She and her fellow jurors in the terrorism trial of Tarek Mehanna had no choice but to find him guilty. And she cannot fault the government for charging the Sudbury man in the first place, she said.
But still, she struggles to sleep at night.
If she had the opportunity, Beverly A. Richards said she would have asked US District Court Judge George A. O’Toole Jr. to show mercy before sentencing 29-year-old Mehanna to 17 1/2 years in prison Thursday, because she saw too many things wrong with the case. The Boston Globe
A Silence Fight It’s My Right! Hunger Strike For Justice
Posted on April 06, 2012 by Marivel Guzman, in Collaboration with Omar Karem (Gaza, Palestine)
The Silence of a Hunger Striker Can Be Heard Around the World With Your Help
Hani Shalabi, at Gaza hospital bed after being deported from Israel after she engaged in the longest woman huger strike in an Israeli prison. Photo/Omar Karem
The silence protest staged by Palestinians Conscience Objectors is the best Non Resistance Weapon and only resource Palestinians have inside Israel Prisons, Often denied the rights of an attorney, which is the case in most of the detainees, they leave them with few option to exercise their rights.
A silence hunger strike staged by an individual could be the lousiest of the protest can any one perform, the role of the press and the mouth to mouth news it is the key element to make it to succeed.
On March 23 the ethics committee of Israel Bureau of Prisons announced that Hana Shalabi was going to be forced to eat artificially using gastrointestinal tubes, a practice that it’s considered inhumane treatment by Amnesty International, because even though is propagated as a human practice to save the life of a prisoners it curtail their freedom of expression and rights to protest in a Non Violent Way.
The rights group condemned any attempts to force Hana Shalabi, who had been on hunger strike for 37 days (at the time of this report) in protest of her continued detention without trial, to eat as “cruel” and called on Israel to either charge or release her.
Government guards waiting Hani Shalabi arrival to Gaza, after a long hunger strike in an Israeli prison she was deported to Gaza as a deal bargain to release her. Photo/Omar Karem
Amnesty International condemned any attempts to force Hana Shalabi, who was on hunger strike for 37 days in protest of her continued detention without trial, to eat as “cruel” and called on Israel to either charge or release her.
The World Medical Association (WMA) has longstanding clear guidelines for the ethical behavior of physicians in treating hunger strikers. The Israeli Medical Association is an active member in the WMA. It should be emphasized that doctors should not only refrain from such action, but they should object to it even if they are not involved directly in the process as stated clearly in the first principle of the declaration:
“Duty to act ethically. All physicians are bound by medical ethics in their professional contact with vulnerable people, even when not providing therapy. Whatever their role, physicians must try to prevent coercion or maltreatment of detainees and must protest if it occurs.”
Her father Yehia Shalabi expressed the family’s concern. “My daughter is on hunger strike since they arrested her,” he said. “Her health is in danger, because her stomach is empty. She cannot stand, she does not speak.” Hana Shalabi’s mother and father have joined her hunger strike.
Hana Shalabi case took global dimensions and sparked hundred of solidarity movements around the world, in the US many Universities students groups joined Hana Shalabi in her hunger strike, some students staged 24 hours hunger strikes and others went to 3 days in public displays of solidarity.
The Palestinian and Irish struggles are similar in dimension and they share the same pains and suffer the same struggles, Martin Hurson (RIP) became the first Irish prisoner to die behind bars when his hunger strike entered its 44th day. Many of the surviving Irish hunger strikers had serious damage to their health and never fully recovered.
In the US, 2 American Citizens have started their own hunger strike to protest the treatment of Palestinians Prisoners and to send a message to President Obama on the conditions of the citizens of Occupied Palestine.
Their Hunger Strike Non Violent protest have continued even after Hana Shalabi was forced to chose between life and her rights. She did not got charged with any crime, as it was the previous arrest where she spent 2 years in Administrative Detention, finally on April 2, she was deported to Gaza in a deal to save her life she accepted the exile, even thought Gaza it is Palestine, her family lives in West Bank known as the Occupied Territories, but Israel have placed an illegal blockade on Gaza Strip separating the Palestinians from their families. Erez crossing point, commonly known as “Non Men Land” divide Gaza from West Bank, no Palestinian is allowed to cross to either side, only International Workers and products that are allowed from Israel use that crossing.
Second American Citizen to Join The Hunger Strike for Justice for the Palestinians Prisoners in Administrative Detention in Israel Jails
Nancy Williams an American Peace Activist has added her voice to Hunger Striker Non Violent Resistance Movement against injustice in Palestine, she is today on her 7th day, she followed the lead of Sandra Rose Twang the first American Citizen to join the Hunger Striker Non Violent Movement in an act of Political Protest against our government for supporting Israel.
“Hello everyone, this is Nancy Williams. I began a hunger strike for Palestinians, on March 30, 2012, 12am. So now, I am in my 43rd hour of my hunger strike. Originally I was going to do this hunger strike for, when I heard about Hana Shalabi, who was also on a hunger strike. She was arrested by the Israeli government, illegally, and she stopped her hunger strike the other day. So, I decided to still go through with this because there are still many Palestinians that are arrested illegally. Women, children, older people, and something really needs to be done about it. I’m really hoping that my hunger strike helps. Not only that, but the Israeli government is violating International Human Rights laws.
Nancy Williams
Sandra Twang the First American Activist that started the International Campaign of Non Violent Protest of Resistance joining Palestinians Prisoners in hunger strike crossed the 15 days in hunger strike today.
The arrival of Hana Shalabi to Gaza coincided with the International Seminar on Palestinian Political Prisoners and Detainees, which has as special guess the journalist and peace activist Lauren Booth from UK. Lauren Booth drew world attention in 2008-2009 Israel assault to Gaza Strip when she got caught up inside the Gaza Strip and was witness of the massacre that Israel perpetrated on the innocent population of Gaza.
Over the years Hunger Striking have become more and more powerful tool of Political protest, and seems to be taking the stage in the global Non Violent Resistance Movement against Injustice and Inequality.
From Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association ADDAMEER, the development on Hana Shalabi ordeal. Please kindly Share
- Brigadier General Danny Efroni
Military Judge Advocate General
6 David Elazar Street
Harkiya, Tel Aviv
Israel
Fax: +972 3 608 0366; +972 3 569 4526
Email: arbel@mail.idf.il; avimn@idf.gov.il - Maj. Gen. Avi Mizrahi
OC Central Command Nehemia Base, Central Command
Neveh Yaacov, Jerusalam
Fax: +972 2 530 5741 - Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defense Ehud Barak
Ministry of Defense
37 Kaplan Street, Hakirya
Tel Aviv 61909, Israel
Fax: +972 3 691 6940 / 696 2757 - Col. Eli Bar On
Legal Advisor of Judea and Samaria PO Box 5
Beth El 90631
Fax: +972 2 9977326
Before all, she is human and she witnessed the atrocities that Israel committed in Gaza during the assault, she shared the pains of the mothers losing their sons, and the children left without parents murdered in from of their eyes, could be the most devastating event any human can suffer without losing the faith in God, but for Palestinians that Faith is what have kept them alive and resisting this 65 long occupation.
Sandra Twang: No to Abduction of Dignity!
Posted on April 02, 2012 by Marivel Guzman
First American Citizen Activist that started the International Campaign of Non Violent Protest of Resistance joining Palestinians Prisoners in hunger strike
UPDATED
21 days in hunger Strike for Justice
Sandra Twang: No to Abduction of Dignity!
Standing in solidarity with Hana Shalabi
by Sife Saleem – Original Posted Aljazeera Talk – Gaza
Translated by: Jummana Al-Kahlout
A scream out for liberty exploded from the land of democracy and human rights, the United States of America. Sandra, an American citizen was inspired by a Palestinian hero fighting for freedom and now stands in solidarity with her, demanding justice. Her message is a call out to Barack Obama, the Israeli government and the international community’s conscience.
Sandra Rose Twang, the American peace activist has been on hunger strike since the 21st of March 2012 in solidarity with Hana Shalabi. She told Aljazeera Talk that her solidarity movement is a message to Barrack Obama pleading him to intervene in Hana’s case and attempt to end the inhumane and unjust imprisonment of Palestinians in Israeli jails.
Sandra has spread her message on the internet asking people to support the cause and join the hunger strike to impose enough pressure to drive the American government to take action. “Hana Shalabi is a hero and a role model to me in her courage and power” Claims Sandra.
Twang has been interested in the Palestinian cause for the past two years and has educated herself enough to conclude that the Palestinian people are a strong nation who withstood suffering, injustice and discrimination for over 60 years.
Thus, she has joined their fight for liberation by standing in strong solidarity with Hana Shalabi in her hunger strike. She tells us “It was difficult to cope in the first few days, but I now feel fine. My youngest son supports me and so does my mother because they believe Palestinian’s have the right to live in dignity”
“This is justice.” She adds. Hana is fighting for her basic human right, to live a decent life within Israeli prisons, which she is sitting in without even a hint of a fair trial! First degree murders receive a trial so why is Hana, whose crime is her “unacceptable” opinion, denied this right? She explains that it saddens her to see the international community failing to interact with Hana’s situation, expressing her sorrow at the evident reluctance.
“Palestinians are a symbol of courage” she says in a heart-felt manner.
Administrative detention is not just arrest. It is the abduction of dignity, land and life. The sole goal of this detention is to keep Palestinians deprived of basic human rights, consequently making their ultimate demand; to gain them back.
This is simply unacceptable. The United States has always been an advocate of human rights and international democracy, but Sandra fears that if the US continues to support the oppression of the Palestinian people, it is contradicting its own values and faces an almost inevitable backfire in the near future.
Sandra’s message to the Israeli government states “The world has stood by and allowed you to illegally occupy, kill and humiliate the people of Palestine; for this, you might think you have won, but a real country does not constitute of just land, a real country cannot stand on pillars of corruption, it is only a matter of time before you collapse”
The fate of 20,000 detainees illegally held in Israeli jails worries Sandra, and should worry the entire international community. Sandra is determined to fight for the freedom of these Palestinian prisoners and calls on people seeking peace and governments claiming justice to stand up and take a stance too.
Do not allow international silence to overwhelm you. Take action and enforce change.
US Senators Web Sites, and Direct Numbers
The silence protest staged by Palestinians Conscience Objectors is the best Non Resistance Weapon and only resource Palestinians have inside Israel Prisons, Often denied the rights of an attorney, which is the case in most of the detainees, they leave them with few option to exercise their rights. A silence hunger strike staged by an individual could be the lousiest of the protest can any one perform, the role of the press and the mouth to mouth news it is the key element to make it to succeed.
On March 23 the ethics committee of Israel Bureau of Prisons announced that Hana Shalabi was going to be forced to eat artificially using gastrointestinal tubes, a practice that it’s considered inhumane treatment by Amnesty International, because even though is propagated as a human practice to save the life of a prisoners it curtail their freedom of expression and rights to protest in a Non Violent Way. A Silence Fight It’s My Right! Hunger Strike For Justice
We have invented the most powerful flying machine, the smallest medical devices, the most dangerous weapon we can imagine and being so technologically advanced we still can not comprehend in its entirely our humanity, but we are trying, little by little we understand more and more of us, our world become so important that we feel the necessity of help in the restoration and the unification of our human family.
What make us humans we ask ourselves? The Soul?, our Heart?, our feelings? what really do we have inside our bodies that make us compassionate or despicable beings? Does all the human beings are able to FEEL?. The Most Powerfull Weapon Our Humanity
“I am ashamed to say that my country in particular has acted in a most egregious way in its veto of any UN response in holding Israel accountable for its crimes.
But now I want to tell you what drove me to this hunger strike.
There is a young woman, Hana Shalabi, now imprisoned in Hasharon Prison in Israel, arrested on February 16, 2012 and is being held under administrative detention, detention without charge or trial. She is not allowed to know what she is accused of, to examine any of the evidence against her, thereby rendering her capability for due process null and void.” Sandra Rose Twang
The first African- American who rule the American people
Posted on March 31, 2012 by Marivel Guzman
Some say Barrack Obama Illegally Sits in the United States Presidency
“No person except a natural born citizen, or a citizen of the United States, at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that office who shall not have attained to the age of thirty five years, and been fourteen Years a resident within the United States”. US Constitution
A person that has illegal access to secret information that can be used against the United States of America, should be charge with treason, altogether with the persons that help this person to climb to the Presidential Chair.
The President of the United States is Commander in Chief of the Arm Forces of the United States, this makes Barrack Obama to be employee of the Department of Defense, for such; he should have been cleared by The Defense Security Service. commonly known as DSS
If it is determined that you need a security clearance, you have to complete a Security Clearance Background Investigation Questionnaire. Since May 2001, the U.S. Department of Defense has required that this form be completed via a software program called EPSQ (Electronic Personnel Security Questionnaire). When completing the questionnaire for confidential and secret clearances, you have to provide information for the previous five years. For top-secret clearances, you must provide information for the previous ten years. It is important to make sure that you tell the truth because if it is proved that you gave false information, you could go to prison for five years. If you are in the military, false testimony can result in not only five years in the brig (military prison) but also a dishonorable discharge and forfeit of all benefits.
“If you work for the U.S. Department of Defense, the Defense Security Service is the office that is most likely to conduct your security clearance investigation. The Office of Personnel Management conducts security clearance investigations for most other branches of the federal government.”
The US Department of Defense, The Democratic Party, The Congress of The United States, The Judges that Sworn Barrack Obama as President of the United States, The Ethic Committee more specially and any person that knew that Obama was not American Born Citizen, any person that was part of the Fraud and Conspiracy to Mislead the American Citizens need to be charge with treason and sentence accordingly to the Crime.
There are certain rules that needs to be meet for a person to Run for President of the United States of America, if this person lied under oath once he was investigated should be charged with fraud, and afterward that he was illegally sworn as President of the United States this person and his stuff should be charged with conspiracy to commit a crime.
The persons that covered up the scam once they were interviewed by the media, or by special investigators all should be charged with fraud and conspiracy to commit a crime.
No person is above the law, No person should use his/her power to access power of position or help other persons to access a power of position.
“There have been numerous requests for Sen. Barack Hussein Obama’s official birth certificate. State law (Hawai‘i Revised Statutes §338-18) prohibits the release of a certified birth certificate to persons who do not have a tangible interest in the vital record. Therefore, I as Director of Health for the State of Hawai‘i, along with the Registrar of Vital Statistics who has statutory authority to oversee and maintain these type of vital records, have personally seen and verified that the Hawai‘i State Department of Health has Sen. Obama’s original birth certificate on record in accordance with state policies and procedures.” Dr. Chiyome Fukino, the Director of the Hawaii Department of Health released on October 31, 2008
In December ’08 a retired CIA officer commissioned an investigator to look into the Barack Obama birth certificate and eligibility issue. On July 21, 2009 westernjournalism.com obtained a copy of the investigator’s report. Here is an unedited version of the report.
June 10, 2009 Report, updated July 18, 2009
The Territorial Public Health Statistics Act in the 1955 Revised Laws of Hawaii
I think that I now understand the legal background to the question of where Obama was born.
Let’s begin with the statement that Dr. Chiyome Fukino, the Director of the Hawaii Department of Health released on October 31, 2008. The television and print media used this statement as a reason to prevent and treat with contempt any investigation into whether Barack Obama was not born in Hawaii. But the language of the statement was so carefully hedged and guarded that it should have had the opposite effect.
“There have been numerous requests for Sen. Barack Hussein Obama’s official birth certificate. State law (Hawai‘i Revised Statutes §338-18) prohibits the release of a certified birth certificate to persons who do not have a tangible interest in the vital record. Therefore, I as Director of Health for the State of Hawai‘i, along with the Registrar of Vital Statistics who has statutory authority to oversee and maintain these type of vital records, have personally seen and verified that the Hawai‘i State Department of Health has Sen. Obama’s original birth certificate on record in accordance with state policies and procedures.”
It is understandable that after such an apparently definitive statement most news outlets, whether conservative or liberal, would accept this as sufficient grounds to relegate the controversy to the status of a fringe phenomenon. Unless they happened to take the trouble to look into the “state policies and procedures” as laid down by the relevant statutes. If they had done so, they would have seen that Dr. Fukino’s press release was carefully hedged and “lawyered” and practically worthless. But the media in general should not be faulted. The statement seems to roll out with such bureaucratic certainty and final authority. I believed it to be significant until a Honolulu attorney mailed me the relevant statutes. I was so surprised that I laughed out loud.
Here is a summary of Hawaii’s “state policies and procedures” in 1961.
In the State of Hawaii, back in 1961, there were four different ways to get an “original birth certificate” on record. They varied greatly in their reliability as evidence. For convenience, I’ll call them BC1, BC2, BC3, and BC4.
BC1. If the birth was attended by a physician or mid wife, the attending medical professional was required to certify to the Department of Health the facts of the birth date, location, parents’ identities and other information. (See Section 57-8 & 9 of the Territorial Public Health Statistics Act in the 1955 Revised Laws of Hawaii which was in effect in 1961).
- Actual long form Certificate of Live Birth similar to one Obama refuses to release
BC2. In 1961, if a person was born in Hawaii but not attended by a physician or midwife, then all that was required was that one of the parents send in a birth certificate to be filed. The birth certificate could be filed by mail. There appears to have been no requirement for the parent to actually physically appear before “the local registrar of the district.” It would have been very easy for a relative to forge an absent parent’s signature to a form and mail it in. In addition, if a claim was made that “neither parent of the newborn child whose birth is unattended as above provided is able to prepare a birth certificate, the local registrar shall secure the necessary information from any person having knowledge of the birth and prepare and file the certificate.” (Section 57-8&9) I asked the Dept of Health what they currently ask for (in 2008) to back up a parent’s claim that a child was born in Hawaii. I was told that all they required was a proof of residence in Hawaii (e.g. a driver’s license [We know from interviews with her friends on Mercer Island in Washington State that Ann Dunham had acquired a driver’s license by the summer of 1961 at the age of 17] or telephone bill) and pre-natal (statement or report that a woman was pregnant) and post-natal (statement or report that a new-born baby has been examined) certification by a physician. On further enquiry, the employee that I spoke to informed me that the pre-natal and post-natal certifications had probably not been in force in the ‘60s. Even if they had been, there is and was no requirement for a physician or midwife to witness, state or report that the baby was born in Hawaii.
BC3. In 1961, if a person was born in Hawaii but not attended by a physician or midwife, then, up to the first birthday of the child, a “Delayed Certificate” could be filed, which required that “a summary statement of the evidence submitted in support of the acceptance for delayed filing or the alteration [of a file] shall be endorsed on the certificates”, which “evidence shall be kept in a special permanent file.” The statute provided that “the probative value of a ‘delayed’ or ‘altered’ certificate shall be determined by the judicial or administrative body or official before whom the certificate is offered as evidence.” (See Section 57- 9, 18, 19 & 20 of the Territorial Public Health Statistics Act in the 1955 Revised Laws of Hawaii which was in effect in 1961).”
[In other words, this form of vault birth certificate, the Delayed Certificate, required no more than a statement before a government bureaucrat by one of the parents or (the law does not seem to me clear on this) one of Barack Obama’s grandparents. If the latter is true, Ann Dunham did not have to be present for this statement or even in the country.]
BC4. If a child is born in Hawaii, for whom no physician or mid wife filed a certificate of live birth, and for whom no Delayed Certificate was filed before the first birthday, then a Certificate of Hawaiian Birth could be issued upon testimony of an adult (including the subject person [i.e. the birth child as an adult]) if the Office of the Lieutenant Governor was satisfied that a person was born in Hawaii, provided that the person had attained the age of one year. (See Section 57-40 of the Territorial Public Health Statistics Act in the 1955 Revised Laws of Hawaii which was in effect in 1961.) In 1955 the “secretary of the Territory” was in charge of this procedure. In 1960 it was transferred to the Office of the Lieutenant Governor (“the lieutenant governor, or his secretary, or such other person as he may designate or appoint from his office” §338-41 [in 1961]).
- Certification of Live Birth, released by Obama
In 1982, the vital records law was amended to create a fifth kind of “original birth certificate”. Under Act 182 H.B. NO. 3016-82, “Upon application of an adult or the legal parents of a minor child, the director of health shall issue a birth certificate for such adult or minor, provided that the proof has been submitted to the director of health that the legal parents of such individual while living without the Territory or State of Hawaii had declared the Territory or State of Hawaii as their legal residence for at least one year immediately preceding the birth or adoption of such child.” In this way “state policies and procedures” accommodate even “children born out of State” (this is the actual language of Act 182) with an “original birth certificate on record.” So it is even possible that the birth certificate referred to by Dr Fukino is of the kind specified in Act 182. This possibility cannot be dismissed because such a certificate certainly satisfies Dr Fukino’s statement that “I as Director of Health for the State of Hawai‘i, along with the Registrar of Vital Statistics who has statutory authority to oversee and maintain these type of vital records, have personally seen and verified that the Hawai‘i State Department of Health has Sen. Obama’s original birth certificate on record in accordance with state policies and procedures.” If this is the case, Dr Fukino would have perpetrated so unusually disgusting a deception that I find it practically incredible (and I greatly doubt that anyone could be that shameless). On the other hand, if the original birth certificate is of types 2, 3, or 4, Dr Fukino’s statement would be only somewhat less deceptive and verbally tricky. I only bring up this possibility to show how cleverly hedged and “lawyered” and basically worthless Dr Fukino’s statement is.
Sections 57-8, 9, 18, 19, 20 & 40 of the Territorial Public Health Statistics Act explain why Barack Obama has refused to release the original vault birth certificate. If the original certificate were the standard BC1 type of birth certificate, he would have allowed its release and brought the controversy to a quick end. But if the original certificate is of the other kinds, then Obama would have a very good reason not to release the vault birth certificate. For if he did, then the tape recording of Obama’s Kenyan grandmother asserting that she was present at his birth in Kenya becomes far more important. As does the Kenyan ambassador’s assertion that Barack Obama was born in Kenya, as well as the sealing of all government and hospital records relevant to Obama by the Kenyan government. And the fact that though there are many witnesses to Ann Dunham’s presence on Oahu from Sept 1960 to Feb 1961, there are no witnesses to her being on Oahu from March 1961 to August 1962 when she returned from Seattle and the University of Washington. No Hawaiian physicians, nurses, or midwives have come forward with any recollection of Barack Obama’s birth.
The fact that Obama refuses to release the vault birth certificate that would instantly clear up this matter almost certainly indicates that the vault birth certificate is probably a BC2 or possibly a BC3.
It is almost certainly a BC 3 or even a BC 4 if the “Certification of Live Birth” posted on the Daily Kos blog and the fightthesmears.com website by the Obama campaign is a forgery. Ron Polarik has made what several experts claim to be a cogent case that it is a forgery. There have been a couple of attempts to refute his argument and Polarik has replied to the most extensive of them. I do not claim expertise in this area, but I think it would be best for journalists and politicians to familiarize themselves with the arguments on both sides before they casually dismiss Polarik’s position without taking the trouble to understand it.
Here are 2 of Polarik’s websites: http://bogusbirthcertificate.blogspot.com/
http://bogusbithcertificate.blogspot.com/
Because the disputants know far more about this subject than I do, I am an agnostic about Polarik’s argument. However, the likelihood that this computer-generated “Certification of Live Birth” was forged, is, I believe, increased by the fact that it has been pretty clearly established that Obama “either didn’t register for the draft or did so belatedly and fraudulently. The documents indicate that it’s one or the other.” http://www.debbieschlussel.com/archives/004431print.html The forgery of Obama’s selective service registration was necessary, because according to Federal law, “A man must be registered to be eligible for jobs in the Executive Branch of the Federal government and the U.S. Postal Service. This applies only to men born after December 31, 1959.” http://usmilitary.about.com/cs/wars/a/draft2.htm)
It is also very strange that Dr Fukino’s statement in no way attested to (or even addressed the issue of) the authenticity of the “Certification of Live Birth” (and the information that appears on it) that the Daily Kos blog and the Obama campaign posted on line. Dr Fukino merely stated that “I as Director of Health for the State of Hawai‘i, along with the Registrar of Vital Statistics who has statutory authority to oversee and maintain these type of vital records, have personally seen and verified that the Hawai‘i State Department of Health has Sen. Obama’s original birth certificate on record in accordance with state policies and procedures.”
If there is no hospital or physician record in the vault birth certificate, then he wasn’t born in a hospital in Hawaii. And a home birth or non-hospital birth can then be ruled out for the following reason.
When someone has a home birth or is not born in a hospital, this becomes a part of his family’s lore and is now and again spoken of by his parents. He and his siblings grow up knowing that he was born at home or his uncle’s house, etc. The fact that someone in the campaign told a Washington Post reporter that he was born in Kapioliani hospital and his sister said he was born at Queens hospital indicates that there was not and is not any Obama/Dunham family memory of a home birth or non-hospital birth in Hawaii.
And if there is no hospital record in the original vault birth certificate, then he was not born in a hospital in Hawaii.
Instead of the birth certificate on file at the Hawaii Dept of Health, the Obama campaign posted on the Daily Kos blog and the Fightthesmears website a “Certification of Live Birth”. The Certification of Live Birth is not a copy of the original birth certificate. It is a computer-generated document that the state of Hawaii issues on request to indicate that a birth certificate of some type is “on record in accordance with state policies and procedures”. And there is the problem. Given the statutes in force in 1961, the Certification of Live Birth proves nothing unless we know what is on the original birth certificate. There are several legal areas (involving ethnic quotas and subsidy) for which the state of Hawaii up until June 2009 did not accept its computer-generated Certification of Live Birth as sufficient proof of birth in Hawaii or parentage. Why should the citizens of the United States be content with lower standards for ascertaining the qualifications of their President?
If you combine an awareness of what the Certification of Live Birth posted on the internet really is with 1) a knowledge of the relevant statutes in 1961 and 2) Obama’s stubborn refusal to permit the release of the real birth certificate and his determination to fight any legal actions that would compel him to do so, it becomes clear that there is no logical explanation for Obama’s refusal without taking into consideration the relevant statutes. Then his behavior becomes clear. The Territorial Public Health Statistics Act in the 1955 Revised Laws of Hawaii is the missing piece of the puzzle.
Most people think of a birth certificate as a statement by a hospital or midwife with a footprint, etc. (That may be why some main-stream journalists have straight out lied about this. Jonathan Alter, senior editor at Newsweek magazine, for example, told Keith Olbermann on MSNBC on Feb 20, 2009 that “They [the Republicans] are a party that is out of ideas so they have to resort to these lies about the fact that he’s not a citizen. This came up during the campaign, Keith. The Obama campaign actually posted his birth certificate from a Hawaii hospital online.” But it is Alter who resorted to lying to the American people on television. “The Obama campaign” never “actually posted his birth certificate from a Hawaii hospital online.” On July 17, 2009 CNN’s Kitty Pilgrim lied when she stated that the Obama campaign had produced “the original birth certificate” on the internet and that FactCheck.org had examined the original birth certificate; whether it was forged or not, the Certification of Live Birth that was posted by the campaign and FactCheck.org is not, and by definition, cannot be the original birth certificate or a copy of the original birth certificate. There were no computer generated Certifications of Live Birth in 1961, the year Obama was born. Obama’s original birth certificate (whether it was filed in 1961 or later) was a very different document from the Certification of Live Birth on FactCheck.org. On the FactCheck.org web site, the claim is made that “FactCheck.org staffers have now seen, touched, examined and photographed the original birth certificate.” So FactCheck.org is lying about this as well.
FactCheck.org gets its prestige from a reputation for objectivity. Why would those who run this site choose to tell so obvious a lie and so endanger the site’s reputation? The answer is in the date of the posting, August 21, 2008. It was in mid-August that questions about the Certification of Live Birth began to reach a critical mass and threaten to enter the public discourse. The mostly pro-Obama television and newspaper/magazine media had to be given an excuse and cover for their collective decision to dismiss or ignore the substantial questions about whether Obama met the qualifications for the office set forth in Article II section I of the Constitution. And those reporters and editors who were not in the tank for Obama had to be deceived. After Labor Day the swing voters would begin to pay attention to the Presidential campaign. The truth had to be killed. And with its lie about “how it examined and photographed the original birth certificate“, FactCheck.org killed it.)
Most people would not consider a mailed-in form by one of his parents (who could have been out of the country or whose signature could have been forged by a grandparent) or a sworn statement by one of his grandparents or by his mother or even a sworn statement by himself many years later to be sufficient evidence (when set next to the statements by his maternal grandmother and the Kenyan ambassador that he was born in another country). Unless the American people are shown the original birth certificate, all of these are possibilities. And if Obama refuses to allow the state of Hawaii to release the original birth certificate, it begins to look like he was not born in a Hawaii hospital or at home with the assistance of a doctor or midwife. A reasonable person would acknowledge that there are serious reasons to doubt that Barack Obama was born in the United States. This is especially true because, if Obama was born in a foreign country, his family had a compelling reason to lie about it.
In 1961 if a 17 year old American girl gave birth in a foreign country to a child whose father was not an American citizen, that child had no right to any American citizenship, let alone the “natural born” citizenship that qualifies someone for the Presidency under Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution.
In 1961, the year that Barack Obama was born, under Sec. 301 (a) of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, Ann Dunham could not transmit citizenship of any kind to Barack Obama.
“ 7 FAM 1133.2-2 Original Provisions and Amendments to Section 301
(CT:CON-204; 11-01-2007)
“a. Section 301 as Effective on December 24, 1952: When enacted in 1952, section 301 required a U.S. citizen married to an alien to have been physically present in the United States for ten years, including five after reaching the age of fourteen, to transmit citizenship to foreign-born children. The ten-year transmission requirement remained in effect from 12:01 a.m. EDT December 24, 1952, through midnight November 13, 1986, and still is applicable to persons born during that period.
“As originally enacted, section 301(a)(7) stated: Section 301. (a) The following shall be nationals and citizens of the United States at birth: (7) a person born outside the geographical limits of the United States and its outlying possessions of parents one of whom is an alien, and the other a citizen of the United States who, prior to the birth of such person, was physically present in the United States or its outlying possessions for a period or periods totaling not less than ten years, at least five of which were after attaining the age of fourteen years: Provided, That any periods of honorable service in the Armed Forces of the United States by such citizen parent may be included in computing the physical presence requirements of this paragraph.”
The Immigration and Nationality Corrections Act (Public Law 103-416) on October 25, 1994 revised this law to accommodate “a person born outside the geographical limits of the United States and its outlying possessions of parents one of whom is an alien, and the other a citizen of the United States who, prior to the birth of such person, was physically present in the United States or its outlying possessions for a period or periods totaling not less than five years, at least two of which were after attaining the age of fourteen years”.
But in 1961, if Barack Obama had been born outside of the country, the Dunham family had no way of knowing that in 1994 Congress would pass a law that would retroactively make him a citizen. At that time, the only way to get citizenship for him would be to take advantage of one of the loopholes in the Territorial Public Health Statistics Act.
People can debate the meaning of the term “natural-born citizen” as long as they like but this is clear: If, in 1961, 17 year old Ann Dunham gave birth to a child on foreign soil whose father was not an American citizen, then the Immigration and Nationality Act at that time denied Barack Obama any right to American citizenship of any kind. Therefore if at the time of his birth Obama was ineligible for American citizenship of any kind, then he cannot be a “natural-born citizen”. This is true even if the Immigration and Nationality Act was changed 33 years after he was born. Even if the law was retroactively changed to grant citizenship (but not “natural-born” citizenship) to some of those who had at birth been denied it. If a person is not at the time of his birth an American citizen, he cannot be a natural-born citizen. Therefore, that person is ineligible under Article II, Section1 for the Office of President of the United States.
It is only by examining the 18th century usage and definition of a term that we can ascertain its meaning in the Constitution. In the 18th century, and at the time of the framing and ratification of the Constitution by the states, the term “natural-born” subject or citizen was always used or defined in such a way as to exclude the child of a British or American girl or woman when that child was born in a foreign country and that child’s father was a foreign citizen. No 18th century jurist would have thought the term “natural-born” citizen or subject could have been extended to the child of a British or American girl or woman when that child was born in a foreign country and that child’s father was a foreign citizen.
Here is Blackstone’s classic exposition in 1765 of the legal meaning of the term from the Commentaries on the Laws of England.
William Blackstone, Commentaries 1:354, 357–58, 361–62
1765
“Natural-born subjects are such as are born within the dominions of the crown of England, that is, within the ligeance, or as it is generally called, the allegiance of the king; and aliens, such as are born out of it.. . .
“When I say, that an alien is one who is born out of the king’s dominions, or allegiance, this also must be understood with some restrictions. The common law indeed stood absolutely so; with only a very few exceptions: so that a particular act of parliament became necessary after the restoration, for the naturalization of children of his majesty’s English subjects, born in foreign countries during the late troubles. And this maxim of the law proceeded upon a general principle, that every man owes natural allegiance where he is born, and cannot owe two such allegiances, or serve two masters, at once. Yet the children of the king’s embassadors born abroad were always held to be natural subjects: for as the father, though in a foreign country, owes not even a local allegiance to the prince to whom he is sent; so, with regard to the son also, he was held (by a kind of postliminium) to be born under the king of England’s allegiance, represented by his father, the embassador. To encourage also foreign commerce, it was enacted by statute 25 Edw. III. st. 2. that all children born abroad, provided both their parents were at the time of the birth in allegiance to the king,…might inherit as if born in England: and accordingly it hath been so adjudged in behalf of merchants. But by several more modern statutes these restrictions are still farther taken off: so that all children, born out of the king’s ligeance, whose fathers were natural-born subjects, are now natural-born subjects themselves, to all intents and purposes, without any exception; unless their said fathers were attainted, or banished beyond sea, for high treason; or were then in the service of a prince at enmity with Great Britain.” [The italics are Blackstone’s]
The irresponsible confirmation in the Senate of the irresponsible tallying of votes in the Electoral College does not supersede the clear meaning of Article II, Section 1. If it is allowed to stand, disregard of the Constitution by all branches of the government would be openly established. To all who believe that the Constitution is the government’s basic law, that the Constitution is the only instrument that gives the enactments of Congress and the commands of the Executive validity, it will be clear that the rule of law in the United States is a fiction.
Journalists and politicians complain that we must avoid a Constitutional crisis, but there already is a Constitutional crisis. It has been caused by Obama’s refusal to take the simple step to clear the matter up. The power of the Executive branch has been compromised. Its right to collect taxes and sign Congressional enactments into law, in fact all of its powers, have become problematic. Since their validity under Section I is now doubtful, they depend on the illegal exercise of force. Since officers of the American military take their oath on commissioning to the Constitution and not the President, their obedience to the Commander-in-Chief has lapsed and, if they challenge or resist his authority, any courts-martial will also be an illegal exercise of force. The only way out of the present Constitutional crisis is for Obama to do as McCain did when he was confronted by far less pressing doubts about the circumstances of his birth. He must disclose his vault birth certificate. Since the document has been so suspiciously withheld for so long, it should be subjected to rigorous forensic tests. Then whatever is on it should be judicially assessed together with the claims that have been made that Barack Obama was born on foreign soil.
It should be added that “Obama’s top terrorism and intelligence adviser, John O. Brennan, heads a firm that was cited in March for breaching sensitive files in the State Department’s passport office, according to a State Department Inspector General’s report released this past July.
“The security breach, first reported by the Washington Times and later confirmed by State Department spokesman Sean McCormack, involved a contract employee of Brennan’s firm, The Analysis Corp., which has earned millions of dollars providing intelligence-related consulting services to federal agencies and private companies.
“During a State Department briefing on March 21, 2008, McCormack confirmed that the contractor had accessed the passport files of presidential candidates Barack Obama, Hillary Rodham Clinton, and John McCain, and that the inspector general had launched an investigation.
“Sources who tracked the investigation tell Newsmax that the main target of the breach was the Obama passport file, and that the contractor accessed the file in order to ‘cauterize’ the records of potentially embarrassing information.
“ ‘They looked at the McCain and Clinton files as well to create confusion,’ one knowledgeable source told Newsmax. ‘But this was basically an attempt to cauterize the Obama file.’
“At the time of the breach, Brennan was working as an unpaid adviser to the Obama campaign.
” ‘This individual’s actions were taken without the knowledge or direction of anyone at The Analysis Corp. and are wholly inconsistent with our professional and ethical standards,’ Brennan’s company said in a statement sent to reporters after the passport breach was made public.
“The passport files include ‘personally identifiable information such as the applicant’s name, gender, social security number, date and place of birth, and passport number,’ according to the inspector general report.
“The files may contain additional information including ‘original copies of the associated documents,’ the report added. Such documents include birth certificates, naturalization certificates, or oaths of allegiance for U.S.-born persons who adopted the citizenship of a foreign country as minors.”
“The State Department Office of Inspector General (OIG) issued a 104-page report on the breach last July. Although it is stamped ‘Sensitive but Unclassified,’ the report was heavily redacted in the version released to the public, with page after page blacked out entirely.”
http://www.newsmax.com/timmerman/brennan_passport_breach/2009/01/12/170430.html
The following may be relevant:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/apr/19/key-witness-in-passport-fraud-case-fatally-shot/
Key witness in passport fraud case fatally shot
Saturday, April 19, 2008
“A key witness in a federal probe into passport information stolen from the State Department was fatally shot in front of a District church, the Metropolitan Police Department said yesterday.
“Lt. Quarles Harris Jr., 24, who had been cooperating with a federal investigators, was found late Thursday night slumped dead inside a car, in front of the Judah House Praise Baptist Church in Northeast, said Cmdr. Michael Anzallo, head of the department’s Criminal Investigations Division.
“Cmdr. Anzallo said a police officer was patrolling the neighborhood when gunshots were heard, then Lt. Harris was found dead inside the vehicle, which investigators would describe only as a blue car.
“Emergency medics pronounced him dead at the scene.
“City police said they do not know whether his death was a direct result of his cooperation with federal investigators.
“We don’t have any information right now that connects his murder to that case,” Cmdr. Anzallo said.
“Police say a “shot spotter” device helped an officer locate Lt. Harris.
“A State Department spokeswoman yesterday declined to comment, saying the investigation into the passport fraud is ongoing.
“The Washington Times reported April 5 that contractors for the State Department had improperly accessed passport information for presidential candidates Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama and John McCain, which resulted in a series of firings that reached into the agency’s top ranks.
“One agency employee, who was not identified in documents filed in U.S. District Court, was implicated in a credit-card fraud scheme after Lt. Harris told federal authorities he obtained “passport information from a co-conspirator who works for the U.S. Department of State.” “
There is a possibility that the breaches of the passport files associated with the “credit-card fraud scheme” were a cover for or associated with the breaches of the passport files by the employee of Brennan’s Analysis Corp. This certainly at least should be looked into.
July 11th Addendum to Report
1. Until June 2009, the reasonable doubts about where Obama was born could have quickly and finally been resolved if he had authorized the release by the Hawaiian Dept of Health of his original birth certificate or else applied for it himself and released it to the media. But as these doubts have increased and reached the point where they are no longer a “fringe” phenomenon, the Hawaiian state govt has recently taken certain steps that would create procedural and possibly legal barriers to a resolution of the controversy. Given the slipperiness that characterized the statements of Chiyome Fukino, the Dept’s Director, and Janice Okubo, the Dept’s spokesperson, to the media on this issue, it is, I think, also reasonable to regard these steps with suspicion.
A family that I am acquainted with has a child who was born in Hawaii 6 months ago. They filled out and mailed in a form to the Dept of Health, as did their doctor. In return the Dept sent them in the first week of June, 2009, the same abbreviated computer-generated form that last year on the Daily Kos and subsequently on the Obama campaign web site was called a “Certification of Live Birth”. The form that this family received this year is identical in format to the Certification of Live Birth on the Daily Kos web site with one exception: the title at the top of the form.
On June 12, 2008 the title for this abbreviated form was Certification of Live Birth. The title for the form that this family received in the first week of June 2009 is Certificate of Live Birth. I called The Dept of Health and confirmed that the title of the form had been changed. The bureaucrat that I spoke to said the change had been made “recently”, but could not or would not tell me when. Sometime between June 12, 2008 and the first week of June 2009 the Hawaiian Dept of Health changed the title of this abbreviated form from “Certification of Live Birth” to “Certificate of Live Birth“. Why?
The use of the word “Certificate” rather than “Certification” makes the form feel somewhat more like a traditional birth certificate than the “Certification of Live Birth” that the Daily Kos website and subsequently the Obama campaign posted on the Internet even though, like the “Certification“, it also lacks any information about the hospital, doctor, or midwife. There is no footprint etc. This renaming of the document will be very convenient for the Hawaiian Dept of Health in future stonewalling should any legal pressure be brought against them to produce Obama’s “Certificate of Live Birth”. Instead of producing the original “Certificate of Live Birth”, they will produce the abbreviated “Certification of Live Birth” form that the Dept of Health has now renamed a “Certificate of Live Birth” and claim that they are doing so “in accordance with state policies and procedures” in the words of the Dept’s Director, Dr. Chiyome Fukino.
But whether it is called (as it was last year) a Certification or (as it is now) a Certificate of Live Birth this abbreviated document provides none of the probative information that was or wasn’t on Barack Obama’s original Certificate of Live Birth. Unlike the Certificate of Live Birth of the time when Barack Obama was born, this new Certificate of Live Birth provides no real evidence of where a child was born or indication of where such evidence might be found. It provides no information that would demonstrate to the people of the United States whether there is convincing evidence that he was actually born here or whether a relative or two (or possibly even Barack Obama himself) just made a statement to that effect to a low level bureaucrat. (As is permitted under Section 57-40 of the Territorial Public Health Statistics Act in the 1955 Revised Laws of Hawaii.)
2. On June 7, 2009, a spokeswoman for the Hawaii Department of Health told a rather obvious lie (or engaged in a pretty transparent verbal deception) in another attempt to discourage further investigation into the issue of whether Barack Obama was born on Oahu. “The state Department of Health no longer issues copies of paper birth certificates as was done in the past”, said spokeswoman Janice Okubo. “The department only issues ‘certifications’ of live births, and that is the ‘official birth certificate’ issued by the state of Hawaii, she said. ” [Honolulu Star Bulletin] http://www.starbulletin.com/columnists/kokualine/20090606_kokua_line.html
This statement was false or deliberately very misleading. Here, from a Hawaii state document that was posted on June 10, 2009, is a description of how to apply for “the original Certificate of Live Birth” (the original birth certificate) as opposed to the Certification of Live Birth:
“In order to process your application [to prove native Hawaiian ancestry], DHHL [Department of Hawaiian Homelands] utilizes information that is found only on the original Certificate of Live Birth, which is either black or green. This is a more complete record of your birth than the Certification of Live Birth (a computer-generated printout). Submitting the original Certificate of Live Birth will save you time and money since the computer-generated Certification requires additional verification by DHHL.
“Please note that DOH [Department of Health] no longer offers same day service. If you plan on picking up your certified DOH document(s), you should allow at least 10 working days for DOH to process your request(s), OR four to six weeks if you want your certified certificate(s) mailed to you.”
http://hawaii.gov/dhhl/applicants/appforms/applyhhl
Ms. Okubo’s statement gave the false impression that Obama could not gain access to or release “the original Certificate of Live Birth”, and that it was the DOH’s policy rather than his own reluctance that was responsible for the holding back of this Certificate. This was an obvious deception. The document at the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands website indicates that at the time she made this statement it was false, and that a procedure was in place for application for “the original Certificate of Live Birth.”
Only the information on the original birth certificate, “the original Certificate of Live Birth”, can demonstrate to the people of the United States whether there is convincing evidence that he was actually born here or whether a relative or two (or possibly even Barack Obama himself) just made a statement to that effect to a low level bureaucrat.
3. On July 8, 2009 the web site World Net Daily reported that “The state, which had excluded the controversial document [the Certification of Live Birth] as proof of native Hawaiian status, has changed its policy and now makes a point of including it.”
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=103408
Here is the new statement on the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands web site [July 8, 2009]. “The Department of Hawaiian Home Lands accepts both Certificates of Live Birth [original birth certificates and the recently renamed abbreviated computer printouts] and Certifications of Live Birth [as the abbreviated computer printouts were up till recently called] because they are official government records documenting an individual’s birth… Although original birth certificates (Certificates of Live Birth) are preferred for their greater detail, the State Department of Health (DOH) no longer issues Certificates of Live Birth. When a request is made for a copy of a birth certificate, the DOH issues a Certification of Live Birth.”
http://hawaii.gov/dhhl/applicants/appforms/applyhhl
The web site theobamafile.com picked up this significant change in procedure on the Dept of Hawaiian Homelands website on June 18, 2009. http://www.theobamafile.com/_BogusPOTUS/20090608.htm#HawaiiRuleChange
Sometime between June 10, 2009 and June 18, 2009 the State of Hawaii changed its rule on what documents and data were necessary to prove Hawaiian ancestry, thereby upgrading the apparent status of the abbreviated Certification of Live Birth which it had formerly regarded as insufficiently probative. Why?
Second American Citizen to Join Hunger Strike-Gandhism
Posted on March 25, 2012 by Marivel Guzman
Palestinians Supporters Join in Hunger Strike in Solidarity with Hana Shalabi
How To Fight a Non Violent Resistance Movement such Hunger Strike? Do Israel strike the Fighters with Food?
We have invented the most powerful flying machine, the smallest medical devices, the most dangerous weapon we can imagine and being so technologically advanced we still can not comprehend in its entirely our humanity, but we are trying, little by little we understand more and more of us, our world become so important that we feel the necessity of help in the restoration and the unification of our human family.
What make us humans we ask ourselves? The Soul?, our Heart?, our feelings? what really do we have inside our bodies that make us compassionate or despicable beings? Does all the human beings are able to FEEL?. The Most Powerfull Weapon Our Humanity
Confronted by these questions we find people around the world that have reached that point where they need to become part of the solution, and they found the way to join the struggle in a pacific way, a way that can not be fought with weapons, or propaganda, the Non violent movement in Palestine is finding voices around the globe, making the Israel-Palestinians conflict a Matter of Global Affairs.
Sife Saleem a young journalist from Gaza brought to my attention Sandra Twang Letter to President Obama, a story that needs to be shared, it is very important for all of us in the US to raise our voices on the issues that matter to all of us. For one it is inhumane what it is happening in Palestine and second our money it’s being used without our consent.
Every year our congress allocate more than 3 billions of our tax money to send to Israel, it is not fair, not fair for us as a citizens of the US, being that the Government have cut so many social services and cut to education, and we do not give our permission for such transfer of money to a foreign country, that we know have spied on the US government, have killed Americans..and It is not fair for Palestinians, and it is illegal to be used against innocent civilians.
“When you see a foreign people supporting you and making stand with you, we feel happy specially when you look around, and you see your brother of the Arab world, who don’t look at you and pretend they ignore our struggles. The Solidarity is very helpful in the case of Palestine
to let the world to know the Palestine case, it is strike for Israel because it loses international support, and that help us as Palestinians to share our case and present the right picture to the world.” Sife Saleem writer in Aljazeera Talk.
The first American Citizen to Join the Hunger Strike was Sandra Rose Twang on March 21, and Nancy Williams will join on March 30, 2011 in solidarity with Hana Shalabi.
“On March 30, 2012, I will begin my hunger strike for Palestine. The reason why I choose this date is because I cannot participate in the Global March to Jerusalem. I am a natural born citizen of the United States of America and I oppose the actions of the Israeli government towards the Palestinians. I also oppose the support that my government gives to Israel, while ignoring the fact that the Israeli government violates international human rights laws, on a daily basis. My government does not teach us the truth about what has happened and is still happening there, so I learned for the first time about Palestine in 2010. How I first learned was when I became contacts with someone in Khan Younis, who then told me about Ken O’Keefe. Then I became contacts with him and began following his experience, until now. Also, since 2010, I have been blessed by meeting and speaking with new friends in Palestine, who have shown me nothing but love. I cannot sit here, as an American citizen and not take action”. Nancy Williams
A Plea from an American Peace Activist Sandra Rose Twang to President Obama, announced on March 21 that she will join Hana Shalabi and
70 other prisoners in Israel Jails under administrative detention in a Non Violent Protest against Israel inhumane practice, Sandra Twang has expressed also her commitment to maintain her hunger strike in protest for President Obama public support for Israel crimes, and financial backing for a state that have violated every single International Law, and ignore numerous UN resolutions.
In her Letter from Sandra to U.S. President
“I am ashamed to say that my country in particular has acted in a most egregious way in its veto of any UN response in holding Israel accountable for its crimes.
But now I want to tell you what drove me to this hunger strike.
There is a young woman, Hana Shalabi, now imprisoned in Hasharon Prison in Israel, arrested on February 16, 2012 and is being held under administrative detention, detention without charge or trial. She is not allowed to know what she is accused of, to examine any of the evidence against her, thereby rendering her capability for due process null and void.” Sandra Rose Twang
Gandhi Legacy, Non Violent Resistance
Gandhi was not a pacifist; he believed in the right of those being attacked to strike back and regarded inaction as a result of cowardice to be a greater sin than even the most ill-considered aggression. Gandhi’s calls for the sacrifice of lives in order to shame the oppressor into concessions can easily seem chilling and ruthless.
But Gandhi’s insistence that, in the end, peaceful resistance will always be less costly in human lives than armed opposition, and his understanding that the role of a protest movement is not primarily to persuade people of something new, but rather to get them to act on behalf of what they already accept as right – these principles have profound resonance in both the Israel-Palestine conflict and the wider movement for justice and democracy that began to sweep the world in 2011.
Over 10,000 Palestinian women have been arrested and detained since 1967 under Israeli military orders, which govern nearly every aspect of life in the occupied Palestinian territory. There were 36 Palestinian female prisoners in Israeli prisons prior to the exchange deal concluded by the Israeli government and Hamas in October 2011. Hamas reported that Israel agreed to include all female political prisoners in the exchange deal. However, two women, Lina Jarbuni and Wurud Qassem, who have been in prison since before the first phase of releases on 18 October 2011, and an additional two women, Salwa Hassan and Alaa Jubeh, who were arrested before the second phase of releases on 18 December 2011, are still in Israeli detention.
UNITED NATIONS – A UN human rights expert Wednesday called on Israel to release Hana Shalabi, a Palestinian woman prisoner who has been on a hunger strike for nearly a month. “The situation of Ms. Shalabi is morbid and life-threatening,” said Richard Falk, the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories. “This is an appeal to the conscience and to humanity and a desperate call to all of us.” Falk urged the international community to intervene on her behalf. “Israel ought to end its inhumane treatment of Ms. Shalabi. Release her immediately.”
Shalabi supporters join hunger strike, boycott courts
Ma’an News Agency, Mar 20, 2012
PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad on Thursday expressed his support for Shalabi after meeting her parents at his office in Ramallah.
“She is fighting for her dignity,” the premier said.
Last month, Catherine Ashton, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, expressed “longstanding concern about the extensive use by Israel of administrative detention without formal charge.”
Ran Cohen, of Physicians for Human Rights in Israel, told Reuters TV on Friday that Shalabi could be risking her life if she remains on hunger strike.
I am ashamed to say that my country in particular has acted in a most egregious way in its veto of any any UN response in holding Israel accountable for its crimes.
But now I want to tell you what drove me to this hunger strike.
There is a young woman, Hana Shalabi, now imprisoned in Hasharon Prison in Israel, arrested on February 16, 2012 and is being held under administrative detention, detention without charge or trial. She is not allowed to know what she is accused of, to examine any of the evidence against her, thereby rendering her capability for due process null and void.
Palestinian hunger striker Hana Shalabi hospitalized
Posted on March 24, 2012 by Marivel Guzman
Administrative detainee Hana Shalabi: 36 Days on Hunger Strike
Updated
PHR-Israel & Addameer: Joint Statement
Ramallah-Jaffa, 6 March 2012- Notwithstanding the Israeli Military Court decision on 4 March to shorten her administrative detention order from six months to four months, Hana Shalabi expressed her undeterred intention to continue her hunger strike, now on its 20th day, in protest of the torture, assault and degrading treatment to which she has been subjected and of her ongoing detention without charge or trial.
Yesterday, 5 March, Hana stated during a visit with Addameer-affiliated lawyer Muna Naddaf that she has not eaten and has only been drinking water since her arrest. During the past four days, she has only been able to drink 1.5 liters of water total due to experiencing extreme nausea, though she has not been vomiting. She stated that she is feeling pain in her chest below her heart and pain above her waist, in addition to dizziness. The lawyer noted that Hana had difficulty speaking without pausing, and would breathe for moments before resuming speech. The lawyer also observed that Hana looked very tired and did not move very much.
Hana reiterated that since February 27 she has refused medical examinations by Israeli Prison Service (IPS) doctors. During the previous visit with Addameer Lawyer Samer Sam’an on 27 February, Hana stated that she would only agree to receive medical attention from Physicians for Human Rights-Israel (PHR-Israel). On 4 March, the IPS denied the request made by PHR-Israel to allow PHR-Israel doctors to visit Hana. The request was denied on the grounds that granting visiting access to an external doctor is based on the right to a second medical opinion, and since Hana refuses to be examined by doctors from the IPS, she does not qualify as a case where such a visit is granted. On 4 March, PHR-Israel filed a petition to the District Court in Petach Tikva demanding that the IPS approve without delay a visit by PHR-Israel doctors to Hana. The petition, which will be heard tomorrow, 7 March, states that according to the Israeli Medical Association, two weeks after the beginning of a hunger strike the decomposition of muscle tissue commences, including the heart muscle.
Hana confirmed that on 16 February, she was forcibly strip searched by a male soldier and assaulted, merely hours after soldiers brought her to Salem Detention Center following her arrest. In the affidavit given to Addameer Lawyer Samer Sam’an, Hana described the forced strip search and assault at the hands of the soldiers of the Israeli Occupying Forces as “utterly degrading” and that what they did to her was “not acceptable in all customs of the world”. She subsequently began her hunger strike and was placed in solitary confinement.
On 4 March, during the Military Court of First Instance session to review her administrative detention order issued by the Israeli military commander on 23 February, Judge Dalya Kaufman dismissed the request by Hana’s lawyers to call on witnesses to testify to the assault and abuse inflicted upon Hana. The judge stated that the request was denied based on the fact that “the prosecution requested the military police to conduct an investigation”. The judge then confirmed her administrative detention order for a period of four months.
On 5 March, an appeal was filed to the Israeli Military Court of Appeals regarding Hana’s administrative detention order. The session is scheduled for tomorrow, 7 March, at 1:30pm. On 1 March, Hana’s lawyers also filed a complaint to the Israeli Attorney General and to the Israeli military prosecutor regarding the assault.
Notably, during the past week, other Palestinian political prisoners have begun to join in Hana’s hunger strike in protest of the unjust Israeli military court system, which does not afford them due process and does not conform to or abide by International legal standards.
Addameer and PHR-Israel call on the local and international communities, including the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the European Union, to take immediate action and intervene with Israel in the strongest manner possible to pressure Israel to immediately facilitate medical visits to Hana Shalabi, unconditionally release Hana Shalabi and cease the use of administrative detention, and to conduct serious and independent investigation into the assault of Hana Shalabi and end its practice of torture, inhuman and degrading treatment.
More Stories …………..
Palestinians march to support hunger striking prisoner – Palestinians marched near the Old City of Jerusalem in support of hunger striking prisoner Hana Shalabi, who is protesting her administrative detention, meaning imprisonment without charge, by Israel. Demotrix
Palestinian hunger striker Hana Shalabi hospitalized- Female Palestinian prisoner Hana Shalabi, who has been on a hunger strike since February 16, has been hospitalized. “Hana Shalabi was transferred this evening to Israel’s Meir hospital after her state of health deteriorated,” Palestinian Prisoner Affairs Minister Issa Qaraqaa said on Monday. Press TV
American Citizen in Hunger Strike in solidarity with Hana Shalabi and the Plight of the Palestinians People – My name is Sandra Twang, a 56 year old woman who lives in a very small rural village in central New York. I am writing this letter to inform you that I am on a hunger strike, I have almost finished my second day, have eaten nothing for 2 days and I plan to continue, unless something is done about the gross oppression and genocide of the Palestinian peoples. Sandra Twang Hunger Strike
Letter from Sandra to U.S. President -Sandra Twang Hunger Strike
Posted on March 24, 2012 by Marivel Guzman
A Plea from an American Peace Activist Sandra Rose Twang to President Obama
President of the United States Barak Obama
The White House
Washington, DC
Dear Mr. President,
My name is Sandra Twang, a 56 year old woman who lives in a very small rural village in central New York.
I am writing this letter to inform you that I am on a hunger strike, I have almost finished my second day, have eaten nothing for 2 days and I plan to continue, unless something is done about the gross oppression and genocide of the Palestinian peoples.
I learned of Palestine only a few years ago and have been educating myself on the subject since.
What I learned has created such pain in my heart for these people that I can no longer bear it.
What is even more painful is my governments active participation in this genocide by providing 3 billion dollars a year to the government of Israel, military hardware, and the most heinous provision , a blind eye to this genocide of an entire people..
In all instances the United States has stepped away from its legal responsibility to denounce this incredible theft of land and the building of Jewish only settlements pushing the Palestinians into smaller and smaller enclaves which are rapidly becoming open air prisons with the building of an apartheid wall , hundreds of checkpoints and Israeli only roads.
The gross treatment of the Palestinians and the neglect of recognition of their human rights is appalling, their mobility is limited and defined by a government which seems to me to have no understanding of international law.
Their children are stolen from their beds in the middle of the night, by the Israeli Defense Forces who then take them to prison to be interrogated and many times tortured. Many as young as 12 years old, their parents are not allowed to accompany them and there is no legal counsel provided.
The Non-violent protestors, human beings confronting the building of 30 ft cement prison walls around their entire villages , for many the only way out through is a gateway which is a checkpoint with IDF soldiers attending.
A curfew set for when they can leave and when they must return by.
Many Palestinians are farmers, their olive groves on the other side of this prison wall, unable to access them unless the Israeli government allows it, with this cutting them off from their only source of income.
Many non violent Palestinian protestors have been killed while exercising their right to protest these injustices, as has our own youth Rachael Corrie, whose death was dismissed and given no dignity for her incredible sacrifice in her fight to protect the Palestinians.
Then there is the story of Gaza, an enclave totally surrounded by prison walls.
The people of Gaza cannot leave Gaza they are truly prisoners.
In December 2008 thru January 2009, the Israeli government bombed this enclave for 22 days killing more then 1387 people, 320 were children under the age of 18, 107 were women and 773 were civilians only 330 took part in the hostilities. ( B’Tselem’s investigation which is an Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories). Report
.
Because Gaza is totally surrounded by a razor wire and a prison wall there was no place for the civilians to go. Both Israel and Egypt blocked all crossings , and there are no bomb shelters in Gaza because the Israeli government will not allow cement into Gaza.
The severe oppression of Gaza is so horrendous that international activists and human rights organizations around the world have tried to break this horrible siege and blockade .
The people of the world are aware of this crime and because of a lack of response by the governments have taken it upon themselves as human rights defenders to attempt to break this blockade.
The atrocities in Gaza are particularly grotesque in that they involve the random firing of missiles into urban areas , the shooting of farmers whose land lies close to the prison wall , shooting at fisherman who dare to go out beyond 3 miles from their shore . These atrocities go on and on year after year with the international community doing nothing.
I am ashamed to say that my country in particular has acted in a most egregious way in its veto of any any UN response in holding Israel accountable for its crimes.
But now I want to tell you what drove me to this hunger strike.
There is a young woman, Hana Shalabi, now imprisoned in Hasharon Prison in Israel, arrested on February 16, 2012 and is being held under administrative detention, detention without charge or trial. She is not allowed to know what she is accused of, to examine any of the evidence against her, thereby rendering her capability for due process null and void.
She was only released from prison 4 months ago from administrative detention of 2 years, the day of her arrest from her home, violated by the arresting soldiers who beat her and provided no information to her why she was being arrested.
She has protested her arrest and the unjust legal system and refusal to allow her due process by going on a hunger strike. She is as I write this 36 days into her strike and dying , with the Israeli government, cold heatedly refusing to answer her charges of illegal detainment and freeing her.
Hana confirmed that on 16 February, she was forcibly strip searched by a male soldier and assaulted, merely hours after soldiers brought her to Salem Detention Center following her arrest. In the affidavit given to Addameer Lawyer Samer Sam’an, Hana described the forced strip search and assault at the hands of the soldiers of the Israeli Occupying Forces as “utterly degrading” and that what they did to her was “not acceptable in all customs of the world”. She subsequently began her hunger strike and was placed in solitary confinement.
There are more then 300 Palestinians at this time being held under this type of detainment. Many are on hunger strike demanding their right to due process.
I cannot believe that my country allows this type of international crime and continues to support a corrupt government who has no respect for international law or respects for human rights laws or due process.
My heart cries for her but in the same breath her courage is breath taking and I feel that I can not abandon her, and if I do not join her, then I would be as guilty as those who are taking her life.
My own governments silence fills me with fear of who we are. Our silence screams criminality in our continued support of Israeli crimes against these brave people.
So, I am letting you know that I will continue not to eat until you, Mr. Obama, address this issue with a heart and a respect for international and human rights laws.
The Palestinian people have a beautiful culture and they are very intelligent.
Their problem is, they have no saying and have not for some time of their own destiny . If Israel is allowed to continue with these crimes I fear for the Palestinians, because I do not know what happens to a people who are forced to live under such severe oppression generation after generation.
Respectfully and with high hopes,
Sandra Rose Twang
Israel ‘turning blind eye’ to West Bank settlers’ attacks on Palestinians
Posted on March 21, 2012 by Marivel Guzman
EU reports say farmers are bearing the brunt of intimidation in systematic and expanding campaign of violence
A Palestinian tries to put out a fire started by settlers on the West Bank, where confidential EU reports say violence against Palestinians is increasing. Photograph: Menahem Kahana/AFP/Getty Images
Jewish settlers in the West Bank are conducting a systematic and expanding campaign of violence against Palestinian farmers, families and children with the Israeli authorities turning a blind eye, according to confidential reports from senior European Union officials.
In two reports to Brussels from EU heads of mission in Jerusalem and Ramallah, obtained by the Guardian, the officials found that settler violence against Palestinians has more than tripled in three years to total hundreds of incidents.
“Acts of settler violence are becoming a serious concern for the Israeli state which has so far failed to effectively protect the Palestinian population,” says the report sent to EU ambassadors in Brussels last month.
The report notes 411 attacks by settlers last year resulting in Palestinian casualties and damage to property, against 132 attacks in 2009.
The campaign of intimidation is especially targeted at Palestinian farmers and their livelihood, the reports found, noting that settlers damaged or destroyed Palestinian olive groves en mass.
Around 10,000 trees were destroyed last year. But last autumn’s olive harvest season was quieter than previous years.
The Israeli authorities are accused of structuring their security operations to minimize the cost to the settlers of the campaign of harassment, intimidation and violence.
“Over 90% of monitored complaints regarding settler violence filed by Palestinians with the Israeli police in recent years have been closed without indictment,” the February report says.
A previous and more detailed analysis from April last year described the increasing settler violence as “an alarming phenomenon”.
“Discriminatory protections and privileges for settlers compound these abuses and create an environment in which settlers can act with apparent impunity.”
The Israeli authorities’ failure to resolve 92% of 600 reported incidents by April last year effectively encouraged the settlers to step up the violence, the report argued, adding that the perception had been created that “settler violence enjoys the tacit support of the state of Israel”.
The manner in which the Israelis organise security operations in the West Bank militates against the Palestinians enjoying protection.
Children are stoned going to school and Palestinian shepherds and farmers are common targets for violence.
For more than 300,000 Jewish settlers in more than 200 locations in the West Bank, the Israeli military is obliged to intervene if there is retaliatory Palestinian violence. The army, though, is relatively powerless to halt violence against Palestinians since this is the remit of the Israeli police.
“Arguably the single most important deficiency in the provision of an impartial rule of law is the difference in the level of protection afforded to settlers and Palestinians,” the report says.
The EU officials say that, according to Israeli security sources, the campaign of violence is being masterminded by around 100 militant settler leaders, and they point to the potential electoral liability for any Israeli government that seeks to get to grips with the violence.
“In Israeli terms, there is a negative political consequence to cracking down on settler violence and no political gain from protecting violence.”
Apart from deploring the violence and demanding explanations from the Israeli authorities, the EU officials propose scant other action to halt the campaign.
They suggest to their superiors in Brussels that settler leaders urging violence against Palestinians be blacklisted by the EU and barred from traveling in the union
Source The Guradian in UK
Where to Go, I’m Palestinian!
Posted on March 17, 2012 by Marivel Guzman in collaboration with Omar Karem
A Place Called Home
The story is similar to thousands other stories about young people in Palestine. Every one with a minor variations. “I heard this before,” somebody told me when I was inquiring about Omar Karem, the Palestinian journalist from Gaza.
It’s not that he heard Omar Karem’s name before, but he heard the same story before.
The harassment of journalists in Gaza is known by the activist community. No one want to be named, or be in the story because a lot of my activists friends are dreaming with going to Gaza, and no one wants to have trouble with Hamas before they even try to get inside Gaza.
It is not easy to enter Gaza, you might say why? if they need the exposure of the situation, why do Hamas makes it difficult for peace activists to enter Gaza?
There are many stories, really not official stories, but people that live in Gaza and know the procedures and the politics of Gaza, know that you have to know somebody in the Government, be part of a convoy, or have terrific credentials. If you do not meet the requirements then you need an invitation from an organization from Gaza, specifying your purpose to visit Gaza, then you need to summit that invitation to the Egyptian embassy who at the end is the ultimate and sole authority for your transfer thru Egyptian Land to transit to Gaza, then even after you might have attained authorization or transit visa from the Egyptian Government, you still have to convince Hamas that you are not spy of US or Israel.
Recently I read an article published by a journalist who try to enter to Gaza and was denied because he did not have a “fixer” authorized by Hamas.
I have a dear friend in Gaza, his name Omar Karem by now you know this name, because we have published few articles on him, related to his multiple arrest by Hamas, his crime taking pictures to share with the world, his photography experience, and his journalistic and photographic work.
He keeps repeating the same answer to the security forces, “my word is my weapon to help Palestine, my camera is my only tool to snap photos, to share to the world, to tell the world the atrocities that Israel commit in Gaza”.
Omar has been detained in numerous occasions by the security forces of Hamas, the first time when he was deported from Egypt on May 2009, after spending 7 months in an Egyptian prison, his crime!, being Palestinian. At his arrival in Gaza in May 2009 , he was kept in jail for one week, after numerous calls to family members, and government official he was finally released.
He is tired of the situation in Gaza, his future is uncertain, Gaza future is uncertain, Omar tried everything to stay sane in a a country, where everyday is surviving day. he has done what many young Palestinians have tried, going to school is a good way to stay sane, to keep the faith in the future, to learn new skills, to be prepare for..’when the Occupation ends’., and working to survive.
It is not easy to get hired in Gaza, there are no jobs in Gaza, the well paid jobs are by UN or other International Organizations but they do not hire Palestinians, and the other jobs that he can take are filled very fast, the opportunities are almost non existent. He become peace activist, journalist and photographer, but Hamas has kept a continual eye on him, why? he does not understand.
He was almost integral part of the Italian Convoy last year, he spend 9 days with them, serving as a guide, translator and companion, seems that this brought some attention from Hamas, he was harassed many times by the security forces, detained, interrogated, his laptop and phone confiscated few times, beat, threaten and there is no reason, he is being investigated in numerous occasions and nothing is found against him, and even after he was released, he still being harassed.
Last year after the last detention, he tried to leave Gaza, he got the authorization from Hamas and he got all his belongings and say good bye to family and friend, only to be returned from Egypt side with the explanation, after two arduous days, that he can not enter Egypt, “For Security Reasons”.
Every time that he has an encounter with Hamas, he has come out clean, well Omar said; “I do not belong to any political Party, I m peace activist, I write for blogs spreading Israel crimes, I want to liberate Palestine, I use my camera, I m not criminal, I m not spy, why do Hamas always attack me”.. Did Hamas become too Extreme?
There are other activists in Gaza that have been under the scrutinizer eye of Hamas security forces, like Mohamed Mazzer author of GBO Manifesto, who has been arrested more than 20 times, his crime telling the truth.
We wonder what are the arguments to detain journalists and photographers whose only purpose is to give us to the world the events in Gaza, for Omar be treated as enemy is hurtful, he, that knows the treatment from Israelis, while living in West Bank, and being detained for more than a year in Israel Prison for being Palestinian, for not carrying a permit, a piece of paper that should say that he is Palestinian, what ironic for Palestinians being punish for not having identification card, as if being born in Palestine is not enough.
After the March 15 March on 2011, the situation turned more gray for him, he was arrested 3 more times, and again his camera, his phone taken away, last December while photographing the tunnels in Rafah he was arrested reason, No reason, Hamas will say “non of your business”
“Please come with no banners, no flags, no colors, security forces please do not give bad image to the world. Do not copy the practices of Israel, we are tired of repression and oppression. Support us, in the new Palestine Nation that we all try to build. Tomorrow is a new day, to rectify the errors, to take lessons of the past. Inshallah” Omar Karem, Gaza, March 15 2011 Palestine One Nation
“I’m Omar Karem, I’m Palestinian. I live in Gaza, Palestine, I want to denounce to the Minster of Interior office of Gaza, the actions of some of their security officers, abusing their power, they are harassing the citizens of Gaza with out authorization from the Minister office .
On March18, 2011,They stopped me and took my laptop, phone, passport and personal that I was carrying with me that day, they took me to some rooms around the Unknown Soldier Plaza- and they hit, kick me, and threat me…and say bad words and called me Zionist, they said that I work for American agenda.
Unknown Soldier square, in the room of the jendi mahur. I was going in my way to to sign for the internet, some security officers stopped me.they kick me, 10 or 15 men asking me questions, before calling to the police station. They took, my passport, id card, my laptop,. They took the file for my cv, my cell phone, all his certificates from journalism.”
He is one of the organizers of the Rachel Corrie memorial, and active member of touristic department in Gaza, helping restaurants and hotels to organize events, but none of that matters, he is treated as if he is enemy of Gaza, to the point that he feels unwanted and unwelcome in his own Land.
Last March 2, 2012, again security forces went to his home, forcefully enter his home, destroyed most of his family pictures, important documents, they took his lap top, his passport, and went to invade his personal files, he was blind folded and taken to a police station for investigation and release next day, without his passport or ID card, he was advice to report every week with them, they told him if they don’t find anything on him, they will return his passport, well they did not find anything and his passport was returned.
After few weeks of relative calm, he return to his “normal” life, going back to his journalist hobby and photography passion, on March 10, under Israel assault, suffering the fear of being the last day under the bombs, he decided to visit the cemetery to have a moment of quite and could not resist the temptation to shoot few pictures, Gaza Cemetery is a beautiful and peaceful place, and as a bad movie again Hamas security show out of nowhere telling him, that he can not be there, that it was security area, as if the cemetery is less safe than any other place in Gaza, they demanded the ID, to what Omar told them, that he has the right to be there, that he was Palestinian, that he was just relaxing, they got mad and took his camera and phone and ask him to go next day to the police station to retrieve his items.
How sad, Gaza is being besieged by Israel, for the last two years they have been suffering the worse crisis in the last decade, for the last two months they barely have few hours of electricity, and to top all that Israel has been shelling Gaza for the last two weeks, and Hamas adding more sorrow to their lives, how cruel and insensitive of them.
I can understand that the Government want to be careful with persons, that they do not trust anybody, could be that Palestinians that have contact con internationals give the idea to Hamas to be working for a ‘foreign country’.
“I came to this site to take photos of the trees and flowers, two security guards with out any reason came to me and took my camera and my phone, and told me that I shouldn’t be here, that this is security area, and that I put my self in danger and people of Gaza. They know the area of war, Gaza cemetery its very nice, with orange and lemon trees, grapefruit and flowers, This is the Gaza Strip’s eastern cemetery.They told me you have to go at 10 clock, we will be waiting for you, to come to the station of special forces of (alamn aldakhly )
Why Hamas do this to me?, do they want to kill my will to fight against Israeli?, why they always always say, you cant be here, you cant take pics, some others have told me, that I may not stand to good because I live here, because I try to protect the people, I want the world to watch how Israel kills the civilian population.It’s not fair Hamas, You are wrong.”
After many times going to the station, they finally returned my phone, they call many of my friends and family, they did not gave me my camera, I have to go to talk to Interior Minister Ahmed Bahar, why I put me thru all these struggles, they are pushing me out of my land. They are making my life impossible to live.
I prepared myself to leave Gaza, and planing to go to Egypt, yesterday I was granted permission from Hamas to go to Egypt, and new surprise
Egyptian authorities tell me that I m in the black list and barred to visit Egypt, because I fought the Mubarack Regine, because I participated in many protests to open the Rafah border, now I feel more trapped than ever, the other place that I could go, has denied my right to dream, they have told me that I can not ever go to Egypt, what I suppose to do now?.
How to fight?, If my weapons are my words, How to fly? if my wings are clipped, How to leave?, when all the doors are closed,
Where to go?, when I don’t have a place to call home. I m Palestinian, This is my home, My Land. I born Palestinian, let me BE.
Rachel Corrie Legacy
Posted on March 15, 2012 by Marivel Guzman
Rachel Corrie American Hero
International Solidarity Movement got to a hold in March 16,2003 when Rachel Corrie a beautiful young American, only 23 years old was crashed to death by a D9 American made Bulldozer.
“I should at least mention that I am also discovering a degree of strength and of basic ability for humans to remain human in the direst of circumstances – which I also haven’t seen before. I think the word is dignity. I wish you could meet these people. Maybe, hopefully, someday you will.”
– Rachel Corrie, in an email to her mother, February 28 2003
The United Nations (UN) and human rights groups such as Amnesty International and the International Committee of the Red Cross who oppose the house demolitions reject the IDF’s claims, and document numerous instances where they argue the IDF’s claims do not apply.[1] They accuse the Israeli government and IDF of other motives:
Collective punishment, the punishment of an innocent Palestinian “for an offense he or she has not personally committed.
Theft of Palestinian land by annexation to build the Israeli West Bank barrier or to create, expand or otherwise benefit Israeli settlements.
According to the United Nations, about 1,500 homes were demolished by the IDF just in the Rafah area in the period 2000-2004.
In 2004, Human Rights Watch published the report ‘Razing Rafah: Mass Home Demolitions in the Gaza Strip’.The report documented what it described as a “pattern of illegal demolitions” by the IDF in Rafah, a refugee camp and city at the southern end of the Gaza Strip on the border with Egypt where sixteen thousand people lost their homes after the Israeli government approved a plan to expand the de facto “buffer zone” in May 2004. The IDF’s main stated rationales for the demolitions were; responding to and preventing attacks on its forces and the suppression of weapons smuggling through tunnels from Egypt.
Rachel Corrie since their daughter death have started a campaign of Solidarity for Palestine and a fight against the Israel government to find justice for Rachel.
“One of the things we were told in Gaza by very respected Palestinians Psychologists that just concluded a study in thousand Palestinians children, is that they have discovered that many of these Palestinians children no longer have a will to live, that they were so dehumanized, they were so affected by seeing particularly their fathers being beaten by IDF soldiers, that their psychological condition is one of the dimensions of the conflict, that is not widely understood”. Richard A. Falk
Thousands of respect scholars from dozens of universities around the globe have add their voice to the BDS- Boycott and Disinvestment Sanctions intended to press Israel to stop her inhumane treatment of Palestinians in the territories.
Many of those scholars find themselves in the disjunctive to choose between Israel and Israel, some only engage in the aspect to fight for Palestine’s Human Rights inside the “Occupied Territories”, that part of Land that after 1948 partition of Palestine has been stolen inch by inch, others go furthers in lending their support to the core of the conflict, which is the illegal partition of Palestine, they completely deny the legality of the Partition of 1948.
The Palestine-Israel conflict gets more and more complex, and more intrinsic as we go deeper and deeper into the conflict.
The International Solidarity Movement and other organizations around the world have been facing critics from the government and pressure because the illegal place of laws naming Palestinians NGO’s as terrorists organization, move pushed by the Israel Lobby around the world, in their effort to weaken the Palestinian Resistance.
Rachel Corrie was a compassionate being than since early age showed her inner desire to help the weak and helpless.
On March 14, 2003, during an interview with the Middle East Broadcasting network, Corrie said:
“I feel like I’m witnessing the systematic destruction of a people’s ability to survive … Sometimes I sit down to dinner with people and I realize there is a massive military machine surrounding us, trying to kill the people I’m having dinner with.”
When Israel commits her acts of terror, she is expecting to inflict fear on Palestinians and on the peace activist community but it has worked the other way around, every time, she kills an activist, thousands of them sign to go to Palestine to work as human shields.
When Israel murdered the 9 peace activists in the Mavi Marmara, more than a million people signed in the different Gaza Convoys, showing with this that the world is not deter by Israel terror practices.
Europe is Freezing
Posted on March 14, 202 by Marivel Guzman
Africa is Warm
original published in News National Post
Death toll from Europe’s cold snap hits 400 as explosive experts called in to break up Serbian ice
Agence France-Presse Feb 7, 2012 – 10:40 AM ET
Peter Andrews / Reuters
A group of children cross the frozen Vistula River between Poniatowski and Lazienkowski Bridge in the centre of Warsaw February 5, 2012
by Stephanie van den Berg
BELGRADE — Authorities used explosives, icebreakers and tractors Tuesday in the battle to overcome Europe’s big freeze, as dozens more died of hypothermia and tens of thousands remained cut off by snow.
Around 400 people have now died from the cold weather in Europe since the cold snap began 11 days ago.
While there was some respite for people in Ukraine — where more than 130 deaths have been recorded — the mercury plunged overnight to minus 39.4 degrees Celsius in the Kvilda region of the Czech Republic.
More bodies were found either on the streets, in their cars or in their homes in Germany, Greece, Italy, Poland, Hungary and across the Balkans.
Related
AFP Photo / Patrick Pleul
Sheets of ice cover the river Oder in Frankfurt an der Oder, eastern Germany, on February 7, 2012
Authorities in Serbia said that 70,000 people were trapped in snow-bound villages in the south as officials declared an “emergency situation.”
In a dramatic effort to prevent two of the country’s main waterways from becoming completely blocked, officials called up army explosive experts.
As ice layers threatened to cause widespread floods on the Ibar, Alexander Prodanovic, the country’s top water official, said dynamite would be detonated to break up the huge blocks which had formed.
Authorities also hired icebreaking ships from Hungary to ease the flow on the Danube, the main waterway for all commercial shipping in Serbia. The port authority said the Danube was navigable around Belgrade but with difficulty.
There was similar chaos elsewhere in the Balkans with train linking Croatia’s central coastal town of Split and the capital Zagreb derailing as a result of a snow drift. There were no reports of injuries.
The army, firefighters and rescue services were trying to get food and medicine to the population in several hundred villages in southern Croatia where snow up to 1.4 metres high was piled up.
“This is a disaster, we have been cut off from the rest of the world … Snowploughs cannot reach us, so we have to walk to get some bread and basic things,” Marko Ancic told the Slobodna Dalmacija daily after trekking some 17 kilometres from his village to reach the nearest town.
Large parts of eastern and southern Bosnia were also cut off by the snow and avalanches. There has been no contact since Friday with the hamlet of Zijemlje, some 30 kilometres from the town of Mostar.
“We don’t know what is going on there. They have not had electricity since Friday and phone lines are cut, they have no running water,” Radovan Palavestra, the mayor of Mostar, told AFP.
“There are elderly people who are very fragile and children including a baby of two months.”
A helicopter which should have flown in aid to Zijemlje was unable to take off Tuesday morning because of heavy snowfall.
Daniel Mihailescu / AFP / Getty Images
A car is pictured on a secondary road near Romania’s A2 motorway, connecting Bucharest to Constanta, after the road was closed due to severe weather conditions on February 7, 2012
In Romania, two heavily pregnant women had to be flown out by helicopter in the eastern area of Iasi after their villages were completely cut off. Another pregnant woman had to be ferried to hospital by tractor in the eastern Paltinis area after her ambulance became stuck in the snow.
Schools were shut in large parts of the country, including Bucharest, while many train services were cancelled. Around 40% of roads were also closed, although flights did resume from Bucharest airport.
AFP Photo / Nikolay Doychinov
Yanka Atanasova, 70, cries as she sits in a tent in the flooded village of Biser, Bulgaria on February 7, 2012
Snowstorms lashed Bulgaria, a day after eight people drowned in raging rivers and the icy waters from a broken dam that submerged a whole village to the southeast.
Officials on Tuesday warned of flooding when temperatures go up and snow melts.
European Commissioner for Crisis Response Kristalina Georgieva said “the worst is yet to come” after she visited Biser, which was worst hit by the flooding from the broken dam.
“The next two weeks may be really hard. The warmer weather will cause melting of the snow and the situation will most probably worsen,” private broadcaster bTV quoted her as saying.
A Briton living on the Greek island of Symi drowned in a river which had been swollen by heavy rains as he tried to move his moped to safety.
Eleven people have died so far from the cold and snow in Serbia, with the latest victim a 62-year-old man found dead a kilometre from his home near Arilje in western Serbia and a woman killed by falling ice in the capital Belgrade.
In the central city of Kragujevac, authorities took inmates from a local jail to help clear snow, local media said.
To the south in Albania, the Kukes lake on the border with Kosovo – supplying a hydropower plant at Fierze – was frozen over for the first time in more than a decade, putting more pressure on already strained power supplies.
The numbers killed by hypothermia in Poland rose to 68 after the authorities there recorded another six deaths in the last 24 hours. The majority of those who have died were homeless, many of whom had been drinking heavily.
The cold snap has also seen a sharp rise in the number of people being killed by carbon monoxide poisoning from faulty gas heaters.
According to the state weather forecaster in Ukraine, temperatures there could rise to a relatively modest minus six degrees. But the respite will be short-lived with temperatures expected to plunge to minus 30 by the weekend.
The UN weather service said temperatures would remain low until March.
“We might expect the change in the current cold wave to to start easing from the start of next week up to the end of the month,” Omar Baddour, a scientist at the World Meteorological Organization, told reporters.
It was a similar message from Britain where forecasters said the cold spell could last for two more weeks and heavy snow at the weekend.
And in France, authorities appealed to households to save power where possible as they predicted electricity use could hit a record high.
The cold weather has increased demand for gas in many European countries.
Italy took emergency measures on Monday to deal with what it called critical shortages of Russian gas following the icy weather, while supplies to other members of the European Union mostly improved at the weekend but remained below normal.
Russia, which supplies about a quarter of Europe’s natural gas, reduced westward flows through pipelines across Ukraine last week citing greater domestic demand because of the extreme weather.
With files from Reuters
Mario Laporta / AFP / Getty Images
A policeman gives information to a truck driver during a snowfall, at a highway exit near Candela, on Februery 7, 2012
Israeli Airstrikes Kill Civilians in Gaza
Posted on March 10m 2012 By Marivel Guzman in collaboration with Omar Karem from Gaza, Palestine
Updating!
Israeli Airstrikes Terrorizes Gaza
GAZA — Israeli airstrikes killed 15 Palestinians, most of them civilians, in the Gaza Strip on Friday and early Saturday, and the armed militants retaliated in response to the attacks, sending home made rockets at southern Israel.
Web sites affiliated with Hamas, the Government of Gaza, reported early Saturday that the death toll in the Palestinian enclave had risen to 13, and the the injures 26 so far, 5 in critical conditions. This come when Gaza is deep in the darkness, where the only electrical plant stopped working completely after the fuel stopped entering Gaza. Israel and Egypt has played a great role on this situation. Israel has maintained an illegal siege of the strip for more than 4 years, and Egypt have not been cooperative to help in the enter of oil, and diesel to operate the plant.
The first airstrike, part of the illegal target assassinations of Israel killed Zuhair Al-Qissi and his son and law, Mahmoud Hanani, Zuhair Al-Qissi was the leader of PCR-Popular Resistance committee one of the political parties in Gaza.
Around 100 rockets have hit southern Israel as Israeli warplanes bombard the Gaza Strip, wounding 26 Palestinians and four Israelis. Five Palestinians and one Israeli are seriously injured.
In statements to the media on Saturday, the PRC armed wing said it had fired 29 rockets into Israel, while the PFLP’s brigades said it fired two rockets towards Israeli cities
After the first strike, and in retaliation for the assassination Zuhair Al-Quassi at least 20 rockets were fired at Israeli territory. Three civilians were wounded, one seriously, according to the police and emergency services. Israel Radio reported that they were foreign workers. Two rockets were intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome anti rocket missile defense system, one crashed into a village near the Israeli port city of Ashdod, shaking the grounds near a house, while others landed in open areas or the sea, causing no injures.
We wonder if the celebrated Israel’s Iron dome anti rocket missile defense system is just waste of money, if they have not been able to stop the “barrage of Rockets” coming from Gaza. According to their own sources they stopped few rockets out of more than 100
As a result of the sudden escalation, the Israeli authorities called for the cancellation of all outdoor public activities in southern Israel that were scheduled for Saturday.
On another attack of Israel past March 22, 4 innocents lost their lives in a similar manner.
“Israel Defense Forces said that Palestinian militants had fired at them. In returning fire, they accidentally hit four members of the same family in the Gaza neighborhood of Sagaya.”, it is common occurrence that Israel target civilians, remember the deadly Attack on 2008-2009 “Cast Lead”, where Israel killed 1500 Palestinians including 600 children, between 3 months and 16 years old.
 |
A Palestinian carries an injured boy into Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, after Israeli tank fire struck a home on March 22, 2011 |
| Photo Credit Reuters |
Palestinian medics said those killed in the attack were aged 12, 16 and 17 and 58.
The leader who was killed, Zuhair Al-Qissi, was the secretary general of the Popular Resistance Committees, the group that Israel says was responsible for the attack last August, from across the border with Egypt in which eight Israelis were reported killed, those claims were dismissed by independent sources and PRC have denied their involvement.
The Palestinians factions are known for acknowledge their attacks, when they are responsible. The Egyptian border attack could just been another of Israel flag operations to excuse the militarization of the border with Egypt, after the fall of Mubarack, and planting the attack to create the “facts” on the ground.
The P.R.C. came into being after the start of the second uprising, or intifada. It was founded by a group of that split out from the older factions like Hamas, Fatah and the Islamic Jihad. The group maintains good relations with Hamas and joined it to seize an Israeli soldier, in a cross-border raid in 2006. The Israeli soldier was released last year in exchange for more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners, an historical deal negotiated by Hamas and Egyptian authorities.
Hours after the first airstrike, Israeli aircraft struck in eastern Gaza City, killing three other civilians. Witnesses said they were on a hilly area near the “buffer zone” land seized by Israel along the illegal fence, between Gaza and Israel and according to Israel were planing to fire rockets to Israel.
This area is part of cultivation lands, and the villagers need to approach their lands to harvest their crops, International Solidarity Movement activists a group of International stationed in Gaza often are seen accompanying the villagers to get to their lands, waving white flags in an attempt to stop the targeting of civilians.
Vittorio Arrigoni RIP was part of ISM, and he was often going to the fields and to the sea to serve as a shield for the villagers and the fishermen.
Friday’s strikes came after months of Israel incursions in the Gaza Strip, the Israel drones are seen invading Gaza airspace very often, and the activity of IOF personal on the border is a common thread for the besiege population that lives close to the border with Israel.
Israel has been airing videos regarding their tunnel practice in “case of another war” scenario intended to keep the population in fear.
Mr. Qissi was appointed as leader of the P.R.C. after Israel killed his predecessor, Awad al-Nirab, and five other civilians with an airstrike on a house in southern Gaza.
In January, Mr. Qissi had been reported killed, but another militant died in that episode.
Mr. Qissi’s son and law was Mahmoud Hnani, who was deported from the West Bank and settled in Gaza more than four years ago, the PRC. said in a statement.
The two men were traveling in a car when they were hit. Yasmeen Nabeeh, a resident of the southern Gaza City neighborhood of Tal al-Hawa, said she heard a powerful blast and, from her window, saw a blue Volkswagen car burning on the street. A spokesman for an ambulance service said that a bystander was seriously wounded in the bombing.
Israel often targets Gaza “militants” it says are preparing attacks. Al-Qaissi, who is also known as Abu Ibrahim, is the highest profile casualty in Gaza since his predecessor, Kamal Nairab, was killed seven months ago in similar fashion.
Mr. Hnani spent six years in an Israeli prison .
After the first Israeli strike on Friday, a spokesman for the P.R.C. known as Abu Mujahed said that his group was no longer committed to the shaky cease-fire with Israel that has been largely observed by Hamas.
“The response to this crime is open,” Abu Mujahed told reporters.
The funeral for the victims of Israel strikes will be done according to Islam tradition, the third day . Mr Zuhair Al-Qissi will be bury in Rafaf, Palestine on Sunday March 11, 2012.
Timeline:Of Friday Attacks
The Latest Attacked raise the victims to 17 in Gaza Palestine, Israel have not stopped the shelling since Friday..Gaza TV News
NUMBER OF MARTYRS TILL THIS MOMENT SINCE FRIDAY REACH TO 16 AND HERE IS THE NAMES :
1. martyr Fayeq Saad 2-martyr Mutasim Hajjaj 3. martyr Obeid Mohammad Al-garably 4-5 hararh-martyr Hazem karika 6. martyr Shadi Al-seiqali 7-martyr Commander Zuhair Al-Qaysi 8. martyr Mahmoud Hanani 9-martyr Mohammed Maghazi 10. martyr Mahmoud Najem 11. Martyr Ahmed Haggag 12. martyr Mohammed Mansour BORO 13. martyr Kamal Abu champions 14. martyr Hussein Barham Hammad 15. martyr Mahdi Abu Shawish 16. Ahmed Salem Ali
Hani Siliman Gaza, Palestine4:20 am; ISRAELI ARTILLERY SHELLING THE EASTERN AREA OF GAZA CITY WITH 2 MISSILES AT LEAST , ONE MARTYR AT LEAST HIS BODY COMPLETELY BURNED , AMBULANCES RUSHING TO THE AREA Hani Siliman Gaza Palestine
Just in 4 am: Beach Camp Police Station has been attacked by by three missiles from Israeli F16! At least, three people have been injured! Glass chattered and havoc spread! Prof. Said Adbelwahed Gaza Palestine
2:00 am: ISRAELI GUN BOATS OPENING FIRE ON THE WESTERN COAST MIDDLE OF GAZA STRIP WHILE THE DRONES FLYING AT LOW LEVELS Hani Siliman Gaza Palestine
MORE NEWS:
An Israeli air strike on the Gaza Strip killed five Palestinians belonging to the Islamic Jihad militant group, Gaza emergency medical services spokesman Adham Abu Selmeya told reporters. 20 other people were also reported to have been injured in the attack. The escalation started on Saturday morning when Israel attacked Gaza Khan Younis Camp. Gaza Is being Attacked Again
New Forensic Evidence Reveals that Megrahi Not Guilty After All
Posted on February 27, 2012 by Marivel Guzman
Convicted Lockerbie Bomber Probably Not Guilty—So Who Is the Real Criminal?
US and UK pushed the courts to release Megrahi on humanitarian grounds, rather that allow him to present his evidence in his appeal. At the Lockerbie trial so-called “key witness” Abdulmajid Gauci would identify Megrahi as the purchaser of certain items of clothing found at the crash site that Gauci claimed were purchased at his shop in Valetta, Malta. But on the witness stand Gauci proved to be a flop at identification. An FBI officer, Harold Hendershot, called to the witness stand to bolster Gauci’s testimony, also appeared to lack credibility.
Megrahi was released and received hero welcome in Libya by Col Muamar Gadhafee.
Gadhafee denied that he was pressure to give up his claim that Libya did not have anything to do with the Pam 103. The economical sanctions were lifted right after Gadhafee allowed the extradition of the two suspects. One of them was found innocent, only Megrahi was found guilty.
Lockerbie bombing: Forensic evidence ‘casts fresh doubt on Megrahi guilt’
The wreckage of Pan Am 103. Picture: AP
By TIM CORNWELL
Published on Monday 27 February 2012 00:00
NEW forensic evidence claiming to destroy key pillars of the case against the Libyan convicted of the Lockerbie bombing will be revealed today.
Forensic examination of a small fragment of circuit board, cited as critical evidence linking Libya to the atrocity that claimed 270 lives on 21 December, 1988, does not originate from the source identified by prosecutors, it is claimed.
The new evidence is detailed in two documentaries on the case against Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, 59, screened today on BBC Scotland and the Al Jazeera network. They coincide with the launch of a book telling the story of Megrahi and featuring extensive interviews with him, released by the Scottish company Birlinn.
The book, too, is said to probe deeply into the forensic evidence in the case.
In the BBC Scotland documentary, Megrahi, a former Libyan intelligence officer, says he “forgives” Maltese shopkeeper Tony Gauci, who identified him as purchasing clothes which were found packed around the bomb, on a day Megrahi admitted he was in Malta.
“Forgiving him, I am facing my God very soon,” Megrahi says. “I swear I have never been in his shop or buy any clothing from his shop. I swear with my God, which is my God and his God as well, I swear I have never been in his shop or buy any clothing from his shop.
“He has to believe this, because when we meet together before the God, I want him to know that before I die. This is the truth.”
The circuit board, found at the crash site, was linked to the bombing because the fragment, labelled PT35b by investigators, was identified as coming from an MST-13 timer made by the Swiss firm Mebo. Megrahi had regular dealings with the firm. The Crown also claimed the timers had only ever been supplied to Libya. Megrahi was described at his trial as a member of the Libyan intelligence services who worked in Malta at the Libyan Arab Airlines office. He was accused of helping to place the bomb on an Air Malta flight, from which it was transferred to the doomed Pan Am 103.
Megrahi’s defence team was not able to secure access to the fragment to conduct its own expert analysis before the trial, or his first unsuccessful appeal, the documentary is said to claim.
But in preparation for the second appeal, which Megrahi abandoned when he was released on compassionate grounds after a cancer diagnosis, his defence team was able to examine the fragment and other key pieces of evidence.
Their experts claimed it contained no trace of explosive residue. But, more importantly, defence experts also claimed it was made of a different combination of materials to the MST-13s, meaning it did not originate with the Mebo device.
The BBC confirmed yesterday that their documentary explored forensic evidence.
The two programmes feature an interview Megrahi gave in December to his friend George Thomson, a former police officer and criminal defence specialist who was part of his legal team for four years.
Today also sees the publication of John Ashton’s book, Megrahi: You Are My Jury – The Lockerbie Evidence, published by Birlinn. Mr Ashton, an investigative journalist, was also in Megrahi’s defence team and worked closely with him to produce the book.
BBC Scotland insisted last night that, while the interview in the documentary was conducted by Thomson, the programme itself “was produced in accordance with our guidelines on impartiality”.
The Rev John Mosey, a British parent who lost his daughter in the bombing, said he expected both the book and the documentaries to launch a major re-examination of the Lockerbie case.
For those sceptical of the trial and conviction, it “promises evidence of things that we have been saying for many years”, he added.
He had closely followed the circuit-board evidence at Megrahi’s lengthy trial, he said. “It was extremely, extremely dodgy. It was very, very suspicious.
“The way it suddenly appeared, embedded in a shirt collar, with the information on the page overwritten and changed, all police procedures were thrown out of the window.”
But Susan Cohen, an American whose daughter also died in the bombing, said: “None of this sounds any different from what I’ve heard before. With these documentaries, is there going to be a panel afterwards, someone who is representing someone who is not the voice for Megrahi propaganda?
“This is simply allowing this conspiracy theory to flourish. In all these years nothing has ever, ever come out that really shows any significance.”
Megrahi, the only man convicted in the Lockerbie bombing, was said to be three months from death when he was released from a Scottish prison in August 2009 following a decision by justice secretary Kenny MacAskill. He remains alive in Libya, but in the December interview clearly considers himself close to death.
The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC), which investigated Megrahi’s 2001 conviction, found six reasons why it may have been a miscarriage of justice and sent the case back to the Appeal Court. The appeal ended when he was released.
Among the SCCRC’s reasons were inconsistencies in Mr Gauci’s statements and controversy surrounding an identification parade in Kamp van Zeist at which he identified Megrahi. It is understood the documentary makers gained access to the SCCRC’s investigations into the case.
Megrahi was interviewed in his bed in his home in Tripoli. Looking frail and straining to make his words audible, Megrahi laments that he will die while still branded “the Lockerbie bomber”.
Asked by Mr Thomson what he would say to Mr Gauci if he were in the room, he says: “I’d say he dealt with me very wrongly. I have never seen him in my life before he came to the court. But I do forgive him.”
• Many believe convicted killer Mohammed Abu Talb is the real Lockerbie bomber.
Talb was freed from prison in Sweden in 2010. He was serving a life sentence for terrorist attacks in Copenhagen and Amsterdam using explosive devices.
He was the original suspect for the attack on Pan Am Flight 103 until 1990, when attention switched to Libya.
At the time of the Lockerbie trial, Talb admitted he and members of his family were involved in the fight to liberate Palestine. But he denied he was “a murderer and a liar”, and claimed he had given up the military struggle before the Lockerbie bombing.
The trial in Kamp van Zeist heard Talb had used many aliases as a member of the Palestinian Popular Struggle Front, including one that translated as “he who takes revenge”.
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Lockerbie bombing: New book claims Megrahi was ‘innocent victim of dirty politics and judicial folly’
Scottish publisher Birlinn launches into the Lockerbie controversy today with the publication of a book that promises the fullest account yet of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi’s story in his own words.
Gaza in its Darkest Hour
Posted on February 18, 2012 by Akashma Online News
UPDATED
Nothing seems to change in Gaza. Politicians come and go, Israel attacking again. The leaders of the world silence. The United Nations busy with PR and budgets. While Gaza still in the dark. The visit of two royals delegations in the past might had put Gaza in the news for few hours, but nothing really change.
Gaza, Palestine
Gaza, Palestine/-Gaza in its darkest hour after the fuel stopped getting to the only electrical plant of Gaza after Israel bombed the other plants in the assault of 2008-2009.
When we talk about Tunnels in Gaza we have to talk about the Bedouins Tribes that control the Rafah border.
Before the Egyptian Revolution I have the opportunity to talk to my Egyptian friends about all themes, but one of my favorites was to talk about Palestine.
Some of my friends have this idea that most of their economical problems, and security situation is due to Palestinians crossing illegally the border.
And that the security problem is according to them to the terrorists that are financed by Iran and Hezbollah, that was the propaganda feed thru all the regimen of Mubakark that was in bed with Israel, and kept the country deprived, oppressed, with more than 2,000,000 people incarcerated for their political views, specially the then illegal Muslim brotherhood that they said was financed from Iran to destabilize the country.
Off course this idea is not shared for the majority of Egyptians, they know their own problems were created along the way, since British Empire decided to colonize these great lands of the Nile.
With this notion I have to mention also, that they do not see themselves as an Arab people but proudly they refer themselves as the Pharaoh people, some how superior race, or more intellectually advanced.
I m not sure that the tribes of Bedouins share the same idea, but for sure they are merchants that travel the deserts selling goods, and having a semi sedentary life only to raise their live stock of sheep.
These same tribes now controlling the border with Gaza, where the tunnels are dug.
They control completely the entrances of the tunnels, and according to reports from CNN, after the revolution, No police dare to get closer to the Tribes and their controlled lands of the Sinai.
They control the smuggling weapons, and the official sell of weapons that enter Gaza for the official government as well, they gauge the food, medicines and fuel, And Fuel being of of the commodities that can bring more profits. One of the most disturbing news coming directly from Tel Avid is that they also controlled the human traffic coming to Israel, women to be sold as prostitutes and migrant workers to be exploit by Israeli farmers.
“For centuries their identity was nomadic. They roamed the deserts of the Arabian Peninsula with little care for national borders or sovereign rule. Modern life has persuaded many Bedouin to opt for a more sedentary existence in the various countries they inhabit, but they haven’t shaken their reputation as professional outlaws.
Nowhere is that reputation more pronounced than in North Sinai, where they control much of the smuggling into Gaza. Their motivation is profit, not any particular affinity with the Palestinian people.
And it’s big business.” CNN
Ibrahim, from the Sawarka tribe around El Arish, the North Sinai governate’s capital, says he “chipped in” with some partners to build five tunnels into Gaza costing about $100,000 each. The tunnels are used to transport big-ticket items such as cars, most of them these days with Libyan number plates. Ibrahim shows off his array of battered old Mercedes, Kias, even a Range Rover. Usually, he sends about 10 cars through the tunnels at a time, once or twice a week.
Salem is a friend of Ibrahim’s from the neighboring Tarabin tribe. Neither wanted to use his full name for fear of police reprisal. Salem smuggles weapons, olives, tomatoes and canned food through the tunnels into Gaza. Olives cost about $100 per carton. Animals, such as a tiger or small elephant for the Gaza zoo, cost as much as $20,000, Salem said.
“But there’s a red line,” he said. “We refuse to allow suicide bombers through the tunnels to bomb Israeli targets from the Egyptian side. And we won’t smuggle hostages,either. I was once offered $500,000 to smuggle an Israeli hostage to Islamist groups in Gaza. I refused.”
Truth is that most of the problems facing Gaza; from water, food, construction material, medical equipment and most important Fuel Supplies are due to Israel Unfair and illegal blockade of the Mediterranean Port of Gaza, and Now added to the latest punitive measures implemented for Israel, punishing the innocent population of Gaza for the Unity deal reach by the two main factions, the Price Gouging in the Egyptian fuel prices had put Gaza in its darkest moments.
Hamas and Fatah have decided to work as a team and elect their leaders in the next elections, decision that was not welcome by Israel.
A Palestine United will be a invincible force against the tactics of divide and conquer used by Israel.
The Unity will boots the mood of Palestinians and will give them a respite in this internal conflict.
The constant harassment from both of the parties in Gaza and West Bank have been a tremendous drain of energy in the fight against the occupation.
Egypt wants to stop the passage of fuel through tunnels under the border between the countries, the official Rafah terminal is not equipped for goods transfers and its development is restricted to people only by an agreement between Egypt, Israel and the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority. We wonder whose interest serve this close door agreement that undermine the well being of almost 2 million people in Gaza…
The agreement still in force since 2006, after Hamas won the election in 2007, Israel and PA have tried to castigate Hamas for wining the elections; for the PA a political pressure exercised to their political enemy, and for Israel to push the PA to take back Gaza.
There is no secret that PA has been a playmate to implement most of the policies dictated by Israel, and Hamas has not.
But the internal agreements convened in Cairo and Doha has not bring benefits for Gaza, even thought the fuel is a bare necessity for Gaza to run the hospitals, schools, Official business and households is not meet yet.
As Monday the 20 of February Fuel from Egypt was yet to be transferred to Gaza despite assurances it would arrive on Sunday to alleviate an energy crisis, a power authority official said Sunday afternoon.
“The current crisis is a political problem that started six years ago. The Israeli occupation, the Palestinian Authority’s refusal to provide the Gaza Strip with funds, and the policy of Egypt which is dealing with Gaza out of security calculations, have all contributed to the current situation,” said Hamas government spokesman Fawzi Barhoum.
The constant battle for public support have pushed Hamas to put the PR campaign first, instead of the welfare of Gaza. The refusal t0 buy the Israel fuel has been the pivotal point in this electricity shortage. I m that sounds to said but, we know that Israel is the occupying power, and control what enters and don’t. Most of the deals are done behind doors, and what transpire is obvious.
If Israel control the money that enters Gaza, and Israel collect the taxes of the Palestinians society, and the money donated by the International community is obvious to assume that Israel and the Government of Gaza have their mechanism to transfer the money, the goods, and the embargo as well.
Israel ‘approved’ companies provide much of the fuel necessities of Gaza, the rest is bought, and smuggle thru the tunnels.
Last year when the European Union stop the funneling of funds to Gaza, the first blackest days started to feel in Gaza, and the deterioration of the electrical Plant due to the impossibility to import parts, and the lack of fuel to run it, put Gaza in the Dark.The only plant was providing electricity on schedule. Where only the people working for the government knew exactly when will the light will come.
Heart of darkness
Karl Schembri Photo
-Wasfi Al Nider sits motionless on a couch with his legs stretched looking at a small screen. Whenever it goes blank, it is the sign of yet another power cut hitting Gaza. But unlike the frustrations of thousands of others working on computers or watching TV, the screen the 63-year-old is looking at is connected to his blood and a kidney dialysis machine.
“Whenever there is a blackout, I’m in Allah’s hands,” Wasfi says. “The machine just stops, blood stops circulating, I just cry. Then we have to wait until the generator starts.”- A journalist Jorney
Thousands of electrical devices were ruined because the electrical unannounced cuts, if you did not have Outrage Plug Protector, you were out of luck, and your computer most probably was blown out.
The entrance of fuel thru the tunnels not never stopped completely, and the smuggling of petrol that serve the private residents also never stopped. The dark side of Gaza can be see in the belt of the refugee camps, and in the impoverished neighborhoods that can not effort generators and/or fuel.
Gaza like any other society in the world, regardless of its state of war, and blockade to the outside of the world, has it blocks of ‘Rich’ families that never have felt the blockade, at least not with full force as the rest of the population.
Gaza is comprised mostly of refugee camps, where thousands of Palestinians linger waiting for freedom, not every one enjoy the benefit of being connected to the ‘Grid’, still now thousands of families live in tents, and in half destroy homes that lit their nights with candles and if they are lucky enough to have a working person they will have little money to share electricity provided by a better accommodated neighbor that have the luxury to have a generator.
Most of the petrol that enters under the line ‘Tunnels’ comes with a stiffly tag price, not all the fuel that enters Gaza is controlled by the Government.
Gaza like any other region of the world, have their hustlers, ‘this active group’ of Palestinians that are not deterred by the occupation, or the blockade and they find the ways to make ‘little money’ even if it means doubling the prices of the already expensive fuel prices.
This business goes both ways, in the Egyptian side and the Palestinians side in Rafah where all the tunnels are situated.
Sad as it sounds it is a reality, and Money it is the wheel that moves Gaza Society.
As I m finishing this article some developments are moving along in Gaza on the order of fuel, they received some Diesel from Egypt under a contract but not enough to satisfy the whole Gaza. They were talking of 5000 littler of diesel a day will cross to Gaza, but Gaza needs 100,000 littler of Gas at least to serve a population of almost 2,000,000.
Who is Behind Wikileaks?
Posted on February 14, 2012 by Marivel Guzman
Who is Behind Wikileaks?
First Published in Global Research Center for Research on globalizationGlobal Research, December 13, 2010
“World bankers, by pulling a few simple levers that control the flow of money, can make or break entire economies. By controlling press releases of economic strategies that shape national trends, the power elite are able to not only tighten their stranglehold on this nation’s economic structure, but can extend that control world wide. Those possessing such power would logically want to remain in the background, invisible to the average citizen.” (Aldous Huxley)
Wikleaks is upheld as a breakthrough in the battle against media disinformation and the lies of the US government.
Unquestionably, the released documents constitute an important and valuable data bank. The documents have been used by critical researchers since the outset of the Wikileaks project. Wikileaks earlier revelations have focussed on US war crimes in Afghanistan (July 2010) as well as issues pertaining to civil liberties and the “militarization of the Homeland” (see Tom Burghardt, Militarizing the “Homeland” in Response to the Economic and Political Crisis, Global Research, October 11, 2008)
In October 2010, WikiLeaks was reported to have released some 400,000 classified Iraq war documents, covering events from 2004 to 2009 (Tom Burghardt, The WikiLeaks Release: U.S. Complicity and Cover-Up of Iraq Torture Exposed, Global Research, October 24, 2010). These revelations contained in the Wikileaks Iraq War Logs provide “further evidence of the Pentagon’s role in the systematic torture of Iraqi citizens by the U.S.-installed post-Saddam regime.” (Ibid)
Progressive organizations have praised the Wikileaks endeavor.
Our own website Global Research has provided extensive coverage of the Wikileaks project.
The leaks are heralded as an immeasurable victory against corporate media censorship.
But there is more than meets the eye.
Even prior to the launching of the project, the mainstream media had contacted Wikileaks.
There are also reports from published email exchanges (unconfirmed) that Wikileaks had, at the outset of the project in January 2007, contacted and sought the advice of Freedom House. This included an invitation to Freedom House (FH) to participate in the Wikileaks advisory board:
“We are looking for one or two initial advisory board member from FH who may advise on the following:
1. the needs of FH as consumer of leaks exposing business and political corruption 2. the needs for sources of leaks as experienced by FH 3. FH recommendations for other advisory board members 4. general advice on funding, coallition [sic] building and decentralised operations and political framing” (Wikileaks Leak email exchanges, January 2007).There is no evidence of FH followup support to the Wikileaks project. Freedom House is a Washington based “watchdog organization that supports the expansion of freedom around the world”. It is chaired by William H. Taft IV who was legal adviser to the State Department under G. W. Bush and Deputy Secretary of Defense under the Reagan administration.
Wikileaks had also entered into negotiations with several corporate foundations with a view to securing funding. (Wikileaks Leak email exchanges, January 2007):
The linchpin of WikiLeaks’s financial network is Germany’s Wau Holland Foundation. … “We’re registered as a library in Australia, we’re registered as a foundation in France, we’re registered as a newspaper in Sweden,” Mr. Assange said. WikiLeaks has two tax-exempt charitable organizations in the U.S., known as 501C3s, that “act as a front” for the website, he said. He declined to give their names, saying they could “lose some of their grant money because of political sensitivities.” Mr. Assange said WikiLeaks gets about half its money from modest donations processed by its website, and the other half from “personal contacts,” including “people with some millions who approach us….” (WikiLeaks Keeps Funding Secret, WSJ.com, August 23, 2010)
Acquiring covert funding from intelligence agencies was, according to the email exchanges, also contemplated. (See Wikileaks Leak email exchanges, January 2007)
At the outset in early 2007, Wikileaks acknowledged that the project had been “founded by Chinese dissidents, mathematicians and startup company technologists, from the US, Taiwan, Europe, Australia and South Africa…. [Its advisory board] includes representatives from expat Russian and Tibetan refugee communities, reporters, a former US intelligence analyst and cryptographers.” (Wikileaks Leak email exchanges, January 2007).
Wikileaks formulated its mandate on its website as follows: “[Wikileaks will be] an uncensorable version of Wikipedia for untraceable mass document leaking and analysis. Our primary interests are oppressive regimes in Asia, the former Soviet bloc, Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East, but we also expect to be of assistance to those in the west who wish to reveal unethical behavior in their own governments and corporations,” CBC News – Website wants to take whistleblowing online, January 11, 2007, emphasis added).
This mandate was confirmed by Julian Assange in a June 2010 interview in The New Yorker:
“Our primary targets are those highly oppressive regimes in China, Russia and Central Eurasia, but we also expect to be of assistance to those in the West who wish to reveal illegal or immoral behavior in their own governments and corporations. (quoted in WikiLeaks and Julian Paul Assange : The New Yorker, June 7, 2010, emphasis added)
Assange also intimated that “exposing secrets” “could potentially bring down many administrations that rely on concealing reality—including the US administration.” (Ibid)
From the outset, Wikileaks’ geopolitical focus on “oppressive regimes” in Eurasia and the Middle East was “appealing” to America’s elites, i.e. it seemingly matched stated US foreign policy objectives. Moreover, the composition of the Wikileaks team (which included Chinese dissidents), not to mention the methodology of “exposing secrets” of foreign governments, were in tune with the practices of US covert operations geared towards triggering “regime change” and fostering “color revolutions” in different parts of the World.
The Role of the Corporate Media: The Central Role of the New York Times
Wikileaks is not a typical alternative media initiative. The New York Times, the Guardian and Der Spiegel are directly involved in the editing and selection of leaked documents. The London Economist has also played an important role.
While the project and its editor Julian Assange reveal a commitment and concern for truth in media, the recent Wikileaks releases of embassy cables have been carefully “redacted” by the mainstream media in liaison with the US government. (See Interview with David E. Sanger, Fresh Air, PBS, December 8, 2010)
This collaboration between Wikileaks and selected mainstream media is not fortuitous; it was part of an agreement between several major US and European newspapers and Wikileaks’ editor Julian Assange.
The important question is who controls and oversees the selection, distribution and editing of released documents to the broader public?
What US foreign policy objectives are being served through this redacting process?
Is Wikileaks part of an awakening of public opinion, of a battle against the lies and fabrications which appear daily in the print media and on network TV?
If so, how can this battle against media disinformation be waged with the participation and collaboration of the corporate architects of media disinformation?
Wikileaks has enlisted the architects of media disinformation to fight media disinformation: An incongruous and self-defeating procedure.
America’s corporate media and more specifically The New York Times are an integral part of the economic establishment, with links to Wall Street, the Washington think tanks and the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).
Moreover, the US corporate media has developed a longstanding relationship to the US intelligence apparatus, going back to “Operation Mocking Bird”, an initiative of the CIA’s Office of Special Projects (OSP), established in the early 1950s.
Even before the Wikileaks project got off the ground, the mainstream media was implicated. A role was defined and agreed upon for the corporate media not only in the release, but also in the selection and editing of the leaks.
In a bitter irony, the “professional media”, to use Julian Assange’s words in an interview with The Economist, have been partners in the Wikileaks project from the outset.Moreover, key journalists with links to the US foreign policy-national security intelligence establishment have worked closely with Wikileaks, in the distribution and dissemination of the leaked documents. I
n a bitter irony, Wikileaks partner The New York Times, which has consistently promoted media disinformation is now being accused of conspiracy. For what? For revealing the truth? Or for manipulating the truth? In the words of Senator Joseph L. Lieberman:
“I certainly believe that WikiLleaks has violated the Espionage Act, but then what about the news organizations — including The Times — that accepted it and distributed it?” Mr. Lieberman said, adding: “To me, The New York Times has committed at least an act of bad citizenship, and whether they have committed a crime, I think that bears a very intensive inquiry by the Justice Department.”
(WikiLeaks Prosecution Studied by Justice Department – NYTimes.com, December 7, 2010)
This “redacting” role of The New York Times is candidly acknowledged by David E Sanger, Chief Washington correspondent of the NYT:
“We went through [the cables] so carefully to try to redact material that we thought could be damaging to individuals or undercut ongoing operations. And we even took the very unusual step of showing the 100 cables or so that we were writing from to the U.S. government and asking them if they had additional redactions to suggest.”
(See PBS Interview; The Redacting and Selection of Wikileaks documents by the Corporate Media, PBS interview on “Fresh Air” with Terry Gross: December 8, 2010, emphasis added).
Yet Sanger also says later in the interview: “It is the responsibility of American journalism, back to the founding of this country, to get out and try to grapple with the hardest issues of the day and to do it independently of the government.” (ibid) “Do it independently of the government” while at the same time “asking them [the US government] if they had additional redactions to suggest”?
David E. Sanger cannot be described as a model independent journalist. He is member of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and the Aspen Institute’s Strategy Group which regroups the likes of Madeleine K. Albright, Condoleeza Rice, former Defense Secretary William Perry, former CIA head John Deutch, the president of the World Bank, Robert. B. Zoellick and Philip Zelikow, former executive director of the 9/11 Commission, among other prominent establishment figures.
(See also F. William Engdahl, Wikileaks: A Big Dangerous US Government Con Job, Global Research, December 10, 2010). It is worth noting that several American journalists, members of the Council on Foreign Relations have interviewed Wikileaks, including Time Magazine’s Richard Stengel (November 30, 2010) and The New Yorker’s Raffi Khatchadurian.
(WikiLeaks and Julian Paul Assange : The New Yorker, June 11, 2007) Historically, The New York Times has served the interests of the Rockefeller family in the context of a longstanding relationship.
The current New York Times chairman Arthur Sulzberger Jr. is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, son of Arthur Ochs Sulzberger and grandson of Arthur Hays Sulzberger who served as a Trustee for the Rockefeller Foundation.
Ethan Bronner, deputy foreign editor of The New York Times as well as Thomas Friedman among others are also members of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).
(Membership Roster – Council on Foreign Relations)
In turn, the Rockefellers have an important stake as shareholders of several US corporate media.
The Embassy and State Department Cables It should come as no surprise that David E. Sanger and his colleagues at the NYT centered their attention on a highly “selective” dissemination of the Wikileaks cables, focussing on areas which would support US foreign policy interests:
Iran’s nuclear program, North Korea, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan’s support of Al Qaeda, China’s relations with North Korea, etc.
These releases were then used as source material in NYT articles and commentary.
The Embassy and State Department cables released by Wikileaks were redacted and filtered.
They were used for propaganda purposes. They do not constitute a complete and continuous set of memoranda. From a selected list of cables, the leaks are being used to justify a foreign policy agenda.
A case in point is Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons program, which is the object of numerous State Department memos, as well as Saudi Arabia’s support of Islamic terrorism.
Iran’s Nuclear Program The leaked cables are used to feed the disinformation campaign concerning Iran’s Weapons of Mass Destruction. While the leaked cables are heralded as “evidence” that Iran constitutes a threat, the lies and fabrications of the corporate media concerning Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons program are not mentioned, nor is there any mention of them in the leaked cables.
The leaks, once they are funnelled into the corporate news chain, edited and redacted by the New York Times, indelibly serve the broader interests of US foreign policy, including US-NATO-Israel war preparations directed against Iran.
With regard to “leaked intelligence” and the coverage of Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons program, David E. Sanger has played a crucial role. In November 2005, The New York Times published a report co-authored by David E. Sanger and William J. Broad entitled “Relying on Computer, U.S. Seeks to Prove Iran’s Nuclear Aims”.
The article refers to mysterious documents on a stolen Iranian laptop computer which included “a series of drawings of a missile re-entry vehicle” which allegedly could accommodate an Iranian produced nuclear weapon:
“In mid-July, senior American intelligence officials called the leaders of the international atomic inspection agency to the top of a skyscraper overlooking the Danube in Vienna and unveiled the contents of what they said was a stolen Iranian laptop computer. The Americans flashed on a screen and spread over a conference table selections from more than a thousand pages of Iranian computer simulations and accounts of experiments, saying they showed a long effort to design a nuclear warhead, according to a half-dozen European and American participants in the meeting. The documents, the Americans acknowledged from the start, do not prove that Iran has an atomic bomb. They presented them as the strongest evidence yet that, despite Iran’s insistence that its nuclear program is peaceful, the country is trying to develop a compact warhead to fit atop its Shahab missile, which can reach Israel and other countries in the Middle East.”(William J. Broad and David E. Sanger Relying on Computer, U.S. Seeks to Prove Iran’s Nuclear Aims – New York Times, November 13, 2005, emphasis added) These “secret documents” were subsequently submitted by the US State Department to the International Atomic Energy Agency IAEA, with a view to demonstrating that Iran was developing a nuclear weapons program. They were also used as a pretext to enforce the economic sanctions regime directed against Iran, adopted by the UN Security Council. While their authenticity has been questioned, a recent article by investigative reporter Gareth Porter confirms unequivocally that the mysterious laptop documents are fake. (See Gareth Porter, Exclusive Report: Evidence of Iran Nuclear Weapons Program May Be Fraudulent, Global Research, November 18, 2010). The drawings contained in the documents leaked by William J. Broad and David E. Sanger do not pertain to the Shahab missile but to an obsolete North Korean missile system which was decommissioned by Iran in the mid-1990s. The drawings presented by US State Department officials pertained to the “Wrong Missile Warhead”: In July 2005, … Robert Joseph, US undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, made a formal presentation on the purported Iranian nuclear weapons program documents to the agency’s leading officials in Vienna. Joseph flashed excerpts from the documents on the screen, giving special attention to the series of technical drawings or “schematics” showing 18 different ways of fitting an unidentified payload into the re-entry vehicle or “warhead” of Iran’s medium-range ballistic missile, the Shahab-3. When IAEA analysts were allowed to study the documents, however, they discovered that those schematics were based on a re-entry vehicle that the analysts knew had already been abandoned by the Iranian military in favor of a new, improved design. The warhead shown in the schematics had the familiar “dunce cap” shape of the original North Korean No Dong missile, which Iran had acquired in the mid-1990s. … The laptop documents had depicted the wrong re-entry vehicle being redesigned. … (Gareth Porter, op cit, emphasis added) David E, Sanger, who worked diligently with Wikileaks under the banner of truth and transparency was also instrumental in the New York Times “leak” of what Gareth Porter describes as fake intelligence. (Ibid) While this issue of fake intelligence received virtually no media coverage, it invalidates outright Washington’s assertions regarding Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons. It also questions the legitimacy of the UN Security Council Sancions regime directed against Iran. Moreover, in a bitter irony, the selective redacting of the Wikileaks embassy cables by the NYT has usefully served not only to dismiss the central issue of fake intelligence but also to reinforce, through media disinformation, Washington’s claim that Iran is developing nuclear weapons. A case in point is a November 2010 article co-authored by David E. Sanger, which quotes the Wikileaks cables as a source: “Iran obtained 19 of the missiles from North Korea, according to a [Wikileaks] cable dated Feb. 24 of this year…. (WikiLeaks Archive — Iran Armed by North Korea – NYTimes.com, November 28, 2010). These missiles are said to have the “capacity to strike at capitals in Western Europe or easily reach Moscow, and American officials warned that their advanced propulsion could speed Iran’s development of intercontinental ballistic missiles.” (Ibid, emphasis added). Wikileaks, Iran and the Arab World The released wikileaks cables have also being used to create divisions between Iran on the one hand and Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States on the other: “After WikiLeaks claimed that certain Arab states are concerned about Iran’s nuclear program and have urged the U.S. to take [military] action to contain Iran, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton took advantage of the issue and said that the released cables showed U.S. concerns regarding Iran’s nuclear program are shared by the international community.” Tehran Times : WikiLeaks promoting Iranophobia, December 5, 2010) The Western media has jumped on this opportunity and has quoted the State Department memoranda released by Wikleaks with a view to upholding Iran as a threat to global security as well as fostering divisions between Iran and the Arab world. “The Global War on Terrorism” The leaks quoted by the Western media reveal the support of the Gulf States and Saudi Arabia to several Islamic terrorist organizations, a fact which is known and amply documented. What the reports fail to mention, however, which is crucial in an understanding of the “Global War on Terrorism”, is that US intelligence historically has channelled its support to terrorist organizations via Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. (See Michel Chossudovsky, America’s “War on Terrorism”, Global Research, Montreal, 2005). These are US sponsored covert intelligence operations using Saudi and Pakistani intelligence as intermediaries. In this regard, the use of the Wikleaks documents by the media tends to sustain the illusion that the CIA has nothing to do with the terror network and that Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states are “providing the lion’s share of funding” to Al Qaeda, the Taliban, Lashkar-e-Taiba, among others, when in fact this financing is undertaken in liaison and consultation with their US intelligence counterparts: “The information came to light in the latest round of documents released Sunday by Wikileaks. In their communiques to the State Department, U.S. embassies in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states describe a situation in which wealthy private donors, often openly, lavishly support the same groups against whom Saudi Arabia claims to be fighting.” ( Wikileaks: Saudis, Gulf States Big Funders of Terror Groups – Defense/Middle East – Israel News – Israel National News) Similarly, with regard to Pakistan: The cables, obtained by WikiLeaks and made available to a number of news organizations, make it clear that underneath public reassurances lie deep clashes [between the U.S. and Pakistan] over strategic goals on issues like Pakistan’s support for the Afghan Taliban and tolerance of Al Qaeda,…” (Wary Dance With Pakistan in Nuclear World, The New York Times December 1, 2010) Reports of this nature serve to provide legitimacy to US drone attacks against alleged terrorist targets inside Pakistan. The corporate media’s use and interpretation of the Wikileaks cables serves to uphold two related myths: 1) Iran has nuclear weapons program and constitutes a threat to global security. 2) Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are state sponsors of Al Qaeda. They are financing Islamic terrorist organizations which are intent upon attacking the US and its NATO allies. The CIA and the Corporate Media The CIA’s relationship to the US media is amply documented. The New York Times continues to entertain a close relationship not only with US intelligence, but also with the Pentagon and more recently with the Department of Homeland Security. “Operation Mocking Bird” was an initiative of the CIA’s Office of Special Projects (OSP), established in the early 1950s. Its objective was to exert influence on both the US as well as the foreign media. From the 1950s, members of the US media were routinely enlisted by the CIA. The inner workings of the CIA’s relationship to the US media are described in Carl Bernstein’s 1977 article in Rolling Stone entitled The CIA and the Media: “[M]ore than 400 American journalists who [had] secretly carried out assignments for the Central Intelligence Agency, according to documents on file at CIA headquarters. [1950-1977]Some of these journalists’ relationships with the Agency were tacit; some were explicit. … Reporters shared their notebooks with the CIA. Editors shared their staffs. Some of the journalists were Pulitzer Prize winners,… Most were less exalted: foreign correspondents who found that their association with the Agency helped their work….; Among the executives who lent their cooperation to the Agency were Williarn Paley of the Columbia Broadcasting System, Henry Luce of Tirne Inc., Arthur Hays Sulzberger of the New York Times, Barry Bingham Sr. of the LouisviIle Courier‑Journal, and James Copley of the Copley News Service. Other organizations which cooperated with the CIA include the American Broadcasting Company, the National Broadcasting Company, the Associated Press, United Press International, Reuters, Hearst Newspapers, Scripps‑Howard, Newsweek magazine, the Mutual Broadcasting System, the Miami Herald and the old Saturday Evening Post and New York Herald‑Tribune. (The CIA and the Media by Carl Bernstein) Bernstein suggests, in this regard, that “the CIA’s use of the American news media has been much more extensive than Agency officials have acknowledged publicly or in closed sessions with members of Congress” (Ibid). In recent years, the CIA’s relationship to the media has become increasingly complex and sophisticated. We are dealing with a mammoth propaganda network involving a number of agencies of government. Media disinformation has become institutionalized. The lies and fabrications have become increasingly blatant when compared to the 1970s. The US media has become the mouthpiece of US foreign policy. Disinformation is routinely “planted” by CIA operatives in the newsroom of major dailies, magazines and TV channels: “A relatively few well-connected correspondents provide the scoops, that get the coverage in the relatively few mainstream news sources, where the parameters of debate are set and the “official reality” is consecrated for the bottom feeders in the news chain.”(Chaim Kupferberg, The Propaganda Preparation of 9/11, Global Research, September 19, 2002). Since 2001, the US media has assumed a new role in sustaining the “Global War on Terrorism” (GWOT) and camouflaging US sponsored war crimes. In the wake of 9/11, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld created the Office of Strategic Influence (OSI), or “Office of Disinformation” as it was labeled by its critics: “The Department of Defense said they needed to do this, and they were going to actually plant stories that were false in foreign countries — as an effort to influence public opinion across the world.'” (Interview with Steve Adubato, Fox News, 26 December 2002, see also Michel Chossudovsky, War Propaganda, Global Research, January 3, 2003). Today’s corporate media is an instrument of war propaganda, which begs the question: why would the NYT all of a sudden promote transparency and truth in media, by assisting Wikileaks in “spreading the word”; and that people around the World would not pause for one moment and question the basis of this incongruous relationship. On the surface, nothing proves that Wikileaks is a CIA covert operation. However, given the corporate media’s cohesive and structured relationship to US intelligence, not to mention the links of individual journalists to the military-national security establishment, the issue of a CIA sponsored PsyOp must necessarily be addressed. Wikileaks Social and Corporate Entourage Wikileaks and The Economist have also entered into what seems to be a contradictory relationship. Wikileaks founder and editor Julian Assange was granted in 2008 The Economist’s New Media Award. The Economist has a close relationship to Britain’s financial elites. It is an establishment news outlet, which has, on balance, supported Britain’s involvement in the Iraq war. The Economist’s Editor-in-Chief, John Micklethwait was a participant in the June 2010 Bilderberg conference. The Economist also bears the stamp of the Rothschild family. Sir Evelyn Robert Adrian de Rothschild was chairman of The Economist from 1972 to 1989. His wife Lynn Forester de Rothschild currently sits on The Economist’s board. The Rothschild family also has a sizeable shareholder interest in The Economist. Former Editor of The Economist (1974-86), Andrew Stephen Bower Knight is currently Chairman of the J. Rothschild Capital Management Fund. He is also reported to have been member of the Steering Group (1986) of the Bilderberg. The broader question is why would Julian Assange receive the support from Britain’s foremost establishment news outfit which has consistently been involved in media disinformation? Are we not dealing with a case of “manufactured dissent”, whereby the process of supporting and rewarding Wikileaks for its endeavors, becomes a means of controlling and manipulating the Wikileaks project, while at the same time embedding it into the mainstream media. It is also worth mentioning another important link. Julian Assange’s lawyer Mark Stephens of Finers Stephens Innocent (FSI), a major London elite law firm, happens to be the legal adviser to the Rothschild Waddesdon Trust. While this in itself does prove anything, it should nonetheless be examined in the broader context of Wikileaks’ social and corporate entourage: the NYT, the CFR, The Economist, Time Magazine, Forbes, Finers Stephens Innocent (FSI), etc. Manufacturing Dissent Wikileaks has the essential features of a process of “manufactured dissent”. It seeks to expose government lies. It has released important information on US war crimes. But once the project becomes embedded in the mould of mainstream journalism, it is used as an instrument of media disinformation: “It is in the interest of the corporate elites to accept dissent and protest as a feature of the system inasmuch as they do not threaten the established social order. The purpose is not to repress dissent, but, on the contrary, to shape and mould the protest movement, to set the outer limits of dissent. To maintain their legitimacy, the economic elites favor limited and controlled forms of opposition… To be effective, however, the process of “manufacturing dissent” must be carefully regulated and monitored by those who are the object of the protest movement ” (See Michel Chossudovsky, “Manufacturing Dissent”: the Anti-globalization Movement is Funded by the Corporate Elites, September 2010) What this examination of the Wikileaks project also suggests is that the mechanics of New World Order propaganda, particularly with regard to its military agenda, has become increasingly sophisticated. It no longer relies on the outright suppression of the facts regarding US-NATO war crimes. Nor does it require that the reputation of government officials at the highest levels, including the Secretary of State, be protected. New World Order politicians are in a sense “disposable”. They can be replaced. What must be protected and sustained are the interests of the economic elites, which control the political apparatus from behind the scenes. In the case of Wikileaks, the facts are contained in a data bank; many of those facts, particularly those pertaining to foreign governments serve US foreign policy interests. Other facts tend, on the other hand to discredit the US administration. With regard to financial information, the release of data pertaining to a particular bank instigated via Wikileaks by a rival financial institution, could potentially be used to trigger the collapse or bankrutpcy of the targeted financial institution. All the Wiki-facts are selectively redacted, they are then “analyzed” and interpreted by a media which serves the economic elites. While the numerous pieces of information contained in the Wikileaks data bank are accessible, the broader public will not normally take the trouble to consult and scan through the Wikileaks data bank. The public will read the redacted selections and interpretations presented in major news outlets. A partial and biased picture is presented. The redacted version is accepted by public opinion because it is based on what is heralded as a “reliable source”, when in fact what is presented in the pages of major newspapers and on network TV is a carefully crafted and convoluted distortion of the truth. Limited forms of critical debate and “transparency” are tolerated while also enforcing broad public acceptance of the basic premises of US foreign policy, including its “Global War on Terrorism”. With regard to a large segment of the US antiwar movement, this strategy seems to have succeeded: “We are against war but we support the ‘war on terrorism'”. What this means is that truth in media can only be reached by dismantling the propaganda apparatus, –i.e. breaking the legitimacy of the corporate media which sustains the broad interests of the economic elites as well America’s global military design. In turn, we must ensure that the campaign against Wikileaks in the U.S., using the 1917 Espionage Act, will not be utilized as a means to wage a campaign to control the internet. In this regard, we should also stand firm in preventing the prosecution of Julian Assange in the US. Note: Minor changes were added to this article on December 14 and 26, 2010
The Global Economic Crisis Michel Chossudovsky Andrew G. Marshall (editors) This book can be ordered directly from Global Research Global Research Articles by Michel Chossudovsky Bookmark and Share Subscribe to the Global Research E-Newsletter Shop Global Research ! Please support Global Research Global Research relies on the financial support of its readers. Your endorsement is greatly appreciated Disclaimer:
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61 Homes Demolished in Gaza!
Posted by Marivel Guzman on February 12, 2012
By Barbara Lubin
Al Sammack Restaurant The Fisherman-Destroyed
I am writing this letter to you late at night and I am asking you to help me. Over the years I have asked for you to step up and reach out to the people here in Palestine because to be honest with you are the only people I know who have responded over and over again throughout the years. This is an emergency and people’s lives are depending on all of us to help.
Sometimes I feel like I have seen it all and there is nothing left to surprise me in life and then there are days like TODAY.
I woke up early because ever since I arrived in Gaza I have been going to bed very early – sometimes as early as 6:00 P.M. This is because on our way here Dr. Mona El-Farra and I were in a horrible automobile accident somewhere between Cairo and Gaza. We were very lucky, just very bad bruises, much luckier than those in the other little mini car that crashed head on at a very fast speed into our car. All of them were taken away to the hospital bloody and screaming. I will never get over the images of the mother, father, grandmother and 3 children laying on the ground waiting to be taken to the hospital. So I have been going to bed early trying to recover from this and then getting up very early and spending the days going to visit MECA’s projects here in the Gaza Strip.
This morning there was a lot of noise outside Dr. Mona’s apartment building so I got out of bed to see what was happening. Dr. Mona lives on the 10th floor in an apartment building in Gaza City facing the beach. About a block down the road there was a group of very old homes on the beach where 61 families have lived since 1948. Some of them have lived there since the early days of the first intifada when Sharon [Ariel Sharon, an Israeli government minister during the first intifada] came to Gaza and demolished hundreds of Palestinian homes to make the roads wide enough for the Israeli tanks to enter the cities. These wide roads were called Sharon Highways. Imagine the shock of the Palestinians to see their own elected government behaving the same way as the Israelis did. They and their sons and daughters are fishermen and fisherwomen. I had met the families a few days ago when one of the daughters, Ibtisam, came to see Dr. Mona. Dr. Mona El-Farra is the person you go to in Gaza if you have a problem or need help. She knows everyone. Ibtisam was very upset and she asked Dr. Mona and me to come and speak with her father. So we walked down the street to where the she lived and went into her house where I met the whole family. The problem was that the government (not the Israeli Government, the government in Gaza) was demanding that all 61 families move out of their homes in 3 days but the families refused saying that they had lived next to the sea in their homes for 63 years. But they were willing to discuss this as long as the government found housing for all of them near to the sea.
This morning without any more discussion about 100 male and female police officers came to tell the families that they had 1 hour to get all their belongings out of their homes because they were going to demolish the houses. Dr. Mona and I ran down to the homes and pushed our way through the police and the onlookers and found our friend and her family. Everyone begged me to take pictures but the police made it clear that they would take away anyone’s camera if they caught them taking photos.
I did get some pictures without being seen [the photos are too large to send via internet from Gaza but we will post them when Barbara returns to the US] and I called Dennis Bernstein at KPFA and talked to him which was pretty difficult because the police kept coming over and threatening Mona and me and all the men, women and children around us and shoving us with their bully clubs. People were screaming and crying. Everyone was going into their homes and carrying out whatever they could. An old man probably around my age (70) just sat in front of his candy store staring out in disbelief.
Mona and I stayed as long as we could unable to stop what was going on, begging the government stormtroopers to stop this nightmare and let us help with some kind of negotiation to deal with the situation, at least to figure out where the families were going to stay. But no all they did was push all of us around and give the peoples a few more minutes to get what they could out of their homes and then they started to threaten Mona and me with arrest and jail. As Mona and I ran from the scene I turned around only to see the enormous earth movers start leveling the homes and I became sick because all I could think about was beautiful, heroic Rachel [Corrie]’s last moments.
As soon as we got to Mona’s apartment we opened the window in her living room on the 10th floor and watched the government of Gaza carry out it’s dastardly acts. I want to tell you that ever since I arrived in Gaza it has been cold and windy with rain storms like I have never seen. There are times during the day and night when you can’t see 6 inches in front of you and the fact that there is only electricity in Gaza for 8 hours a day on and off makes if almost impossible live. This is the first time in 5 days that I have been able to use internet.
It is late, Mona and I are exhausted. We have just come home from the Mosque (one of about 15 enormous mosques that have recently been built, some right on the beach near the fishermen’s homes) where the families are sitting women and children in one room and men in another. Some of the men have built a huge bonfire outside and are sitting and standing in front of it trying to stay warm. There is only one tall building left and it is about to fall. At about 3:00A.M. Mona, Talal, Mohammed and I [Talal works with MECA’s partner Afaq Jadeeda Association and Mohammed is a MECA volunteer] jump into cars and drive all around Gaza waking up merchants and getting them to come down to their stores and open them so we can buy 65 warm blankets and pillows for the people. And hundreds of dollars of food to tide them over tonight.
When we arrived with the trucks loaded with these supplies everyone came running to us, crying and thanking us. It is not easy finding merchants who will take VISA here in the Gaza Strip. I have been to the bank window taking as much money as I possibly can from my own account. This is where you come in. You must help me. We need to feed these families and help them get lodging today and we can’t do it on our own. We called the Red Cross and they said they would try to get here today. Well that’s not good enough. Please call them yourself and demand that they come and help right now and please, please make as large a contribution as you can to help me buy the necessary things to keep people here going. To feed the families and help them find shelter.
I am too tired to go on. I must sleep but knowing what the men, women and children in the Mosque face tomorrow and in the future will give me the strength I need to help them tomorrow but I can’t do it without your financial help. I know you are thinking that you just gave donations to MECA at the end of the year but that money went to our projects. Now you must call everyone that you know and ask them to help because this project will save lives. We can’t stand by without doing everything we can to help. We must show these Palestinian mothers, fathers and children that we as Americans can do more than provide f16 fighters, apache helicopters, tanks and all the other weapons that we have given to Israel that have been used to kill and injure them.
Good Night, Barbara
Barbara Lubin
According to the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) website, “ the Middle East Children’s Alliance is the fiscal sponsor for ISM-USA.” Donations for ISM’s campaign to “interfere with the construction of the annexation barrier” can be made to “MECA (ISM-USA Fund).”
MECA organizes delegations to “Palestine/Israel” where participants can “witness the impact of the Israeli occupation and…learn about refugees, land confiscation, political prisoners…” Trip highlights include learning “about the origins of the Palestinian refugees and the Right of Return, and how it can be implemented” (emphasis added).
MECA founder and Executive Director Barbara Lubin wrote “I think that the Jewish State is racist to the core.” Lupin refers to the 1948 “ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian population” and wrote that “[t]he concept of ‘Jewish morality’ is truly dead. We can be fascists, terrorists, and Nazis just like everybody else.”
In an interview, MECA Director of Gaza Projects, Dr. Mona El-Farra, explained that MECA refused USAID funding because it came with the condition that they promise “not [to] give any help or any aid whatsoever for the families of the militiamen, or their relatives, or anyone related to ‘terrorist attacks’” because “we consider it resistance” (emphasis added).
MECA raised funds for British MP George Galloway’s “Viva Palestine” convoy “following the massacre in Gaza.”
Partners include pro-Palestinian groups such as Addameer, Badil, the Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign, Bat Shalom, and Gaza Community Mental Health Programme (GCMHP). Also partners with the Lajee Center, which refers to the “Israeli regime of Apartheid, colonization, and belligerent occupation.”
Is Hamas Being Too Extreme?
Posted on February 05, 2012 by Marivel Guzman in Collaboration with Omar Karem
I m Omar Karem, I m Palestinian, Live in Gaza. I m amateur photographer, writer and blogger, I m not spy of Israel Or CIA, I do not belong to any political parties, I belong to Palestine and fight to Liberate her. I m being continuously harassed, detained, interrogated for no apparent reason other than being Photographers and having many friends inside and outside Palestine.The situation in Gaza is devastating for all its residents, the Israeli Illegal Siege has taken the industry to almost a complete halt, the farmers unable to export their products have two options, to feed them to the animals or to stop cultivating. The fishing industry after all the assaults in the fishermen and the 3 mile limit has paralyzed the fishing industry in Gaza. The Hospitals are running on generators which are not sufficient to satisfy the energy needs of the medical equipment, the whole Gaza Strip is immersed in desperation and need for food and products. And in top of all the necessity that the people live due to the blockade and the Occupation itself, Hamas has not stopped it harassment against the citizens.
There are many accounts of abuses from the security forces of Hamas against journalists and regular citizens that dare to hold a camera, illegal detentions, incarceration, and confiscation of laptops and cameras, and cell phones are common complain.
Since last January that the Gaza Youth Broke the Silence and they published the Gaza Broke the Youth Manifest, Hamas has stepped the assault in journalist, students and ordinary citizens that all they ask is to end the Israel Occupation and the Internal Divisions
Gaza, Palestine(Akashma Web Blogs) Gaza is under attack, Israel have stepped up her attacks in the Besieged Gaza Strip and even under such circumstances the Youth of Gaza leading “The Initiative Call Home” staged a protest in the Square of the Unknown Soldier in Gaza City before they were ordered to evacuated the Plaza. The protest led by Young Palestinians to end the internal divisions is a sign that the Revolution that started in Tunisia and Egypt has sparked the light in Palestine. There is not to say that they did not want to brake the old rule, but with the air of Revolution and the global support is a good moment to engage the world in their calls for Freedom.
The protest was broken up by security agencies of the Government by force, today they organized a sit-in group where Young People peacefully gathered to demand an end to the internal divisions, in the Square of the unknown soldier in Gaza City, Palestine. Their demands have been growing stronger since last December when the Youth of Gaza Broke Out, a movement started growing support around the world, when they declare in their Famous “Gaza Youth’s Manifesto For Change” made public by blogger, Opinion Maker Online Newspaper and many others News Outlets around the world.
Such Manifesto was not welcome for factions inside Palestine and for many activists around the world, they saw in this Youth Manifesto more divisions, but in reality was a desperate call for a change. Free Gaza Today
Omar Karem a photojournalist in Gaza and co-founder of Akashma Web Blogs have seen the rage of the security forces of Hamas in many occasions while covering the events in Gaza, the public sit ins demonstrating against the division, in the protests to support Egypt, in the March 15 but in On March 18, 2011 he was violently assaulted on the street in Center of Gaza, and forced to accompanied some security men for ‘questioning!’, but he was not take to the police department office, but to some rooms around the Unknown Soldier Square, ” before the incident occurred he witnessed how some other security officers also approached two foreign women and took their cameras. When he was in those small rooms, he saw how two other women were there probably arrested. He made a public denounce to Mr Hammad head of Security in the Interior Minister of Gaza, he was being treated as criminal and not as a Palestinians that is fighting against the same aggressor Israel. And again on February 01, 2012 after the demonstrations on Beit Hanoun he was arrested, his laptop, camera, and phone confiscated, his home searched and given an order to appear again for interrogation at Hamas Security Headquarters of Monday February 6 2012.
The internal division and the paranoia is taking its toll, Hamas sees enemies in every person that walks in Gaza, not realizing that elections sooner of later will take place and they can not stage a victory, they need to win Palestinians to their side, unifying the people that has been divided for so many years of internal conflict.
Israeli occupation forces broke up the peaceful March on Tuesday with live bullets. Israeli occupation forces opened fire towards a peaceful march was headed for the buffer zone north of Beit Hanoun, accompanied International Peace Activists . March gained access to about 50 meters near the Beit Hanoun “Erez”, adding that “the fire heavily towards the march led us to turn it off and return for fear of casualties, and, fearing for the lives of the people. Palestine News
Please come with no banners, no flags, no colors, security forces please do not give bad image to the world. Do not copy the practices of Israel, we are tired of repression and oppression. Support us, in the new Palestine Nation that we all try to build. Tomorrow is a new day, to rectify the errors, to take lessons of the past. Inshallah Omar Karem, Gaza, March 15 2011 Palestine One Nation
He is being accused by the Security Forces of Hamas of being Israel collaborator, CIA operative, FATAH member, Egypt Spy all absurd and nonsense charges that he denies categorically, for Hamas the idea of a Gazawan to externalize his opinions as a Citizens of the besieged Gaza or as a journalist telling the world the crimes that Israel commits everyday is censored as if this was a crime against the state.
The way I see Hamas now throwing punches to the wind in its effort to curtail the opposition ideas to a system that is not working. Hamas has lose sight of what it is important. Israel was and still the enemy of the people, the people of Gaza are not enemies of the state, they all fighting for a common enemy, and all the Gaza society has to be united to be able to defeat so strong enemy, and Hamas as the government elected by the people of Gaza has to show restrain in its security extremes or lose the sympathy of the citizens that put them in the chair.
Many Arab/Muslim activists reject our movement & consider us as some Zionist machinery because in the manifesto, we’ve been denouncing Hamas – among others. It’s always amazing to see the shortcuts people’s minds can take and how good they are at condemning without even trying to understand. We’d like to remind all our goal: yes we are frustrated and tired of being oppressed, killed, humiliated and kept from even leaving to study in other countries, yes we denounce political parties governing us because they didn’t help in anything, but we denounce ALL of them, not ONLY Hamas. Abu Yasan Gybo
No crime go unpunished, no deeds go unrewarded, if Hamas saw its victory in Gaza was because its support for its people, they need to stop the the harassment and see that the times are changing and they need to be the leaders to their people and not their oppressors.
It turned out that our crime is that we’ve been very active in the March 15 protests that called for unity between Fatah and Hamas. We were interrogated separately, but had the same reaction when we felt that they deal with this movement as a crime and actually going after its members now. We tried to explain that we didn’t go against anyone and what we called for was in our cause’s interest which is the only thing that matters to us! What we did understand from their questions is that we’ve “as in March 15 members” been meeting with politicians (both Palestinian and foreign), implementing their agendas as getting funded by them and asking them for visas. Also sitting with Israelis “which means we’re spies” and they’re holding all kinds of evidences against us! Gazanism
The youth of Gaza are in their twenties, they dress sporty, they are University Students, they are the facebook activist, the twitters, youtubers, this generation that want to change the old ideas, they want a new Palestine without the rigor of religion, without the stamp of millitary flavor, their envision a new Palestine United by their flag, their Land, culture and her people, they want to forget about the political parties that have damage so much the reputation of Palestine.
It takes courage to speak the truth in a place such Gaza, that even with close to two million souls crumble down in a tiny strip of land, the news goes faster that Israel Bullets and the arrests of activists are to the order of the day. But with all the oppression and repression and Israel Occupation Gazawans don’t give up their hopes for a better Gaza, a New Gaza Palestine where diversity will be found only in the cultures and the International Peace Activists that have shared their struggles and not in the party lines that seems to divide the people.
Now all the lies are exposed, the internal fights need to settled, the youth of Gaza is forcing the old leaders to rethink their role, to lead Palestine as a Nation and come as one voice. They created a big platform where all the dissidents voices can be heard and the obsolete policies and old practices be clean away.
Palestine One Nation Surviving Time
Posted on January 22, 2012 by Marivel Guzman in collaboration with Omar Karem
Palestine Divided by the Wall of Hopelessness?
The Holy Land fighting ancient enemies The Holy Books
And I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land unto a good land and a large, unto a land flowing with milk and honey; unto the place of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites. It was a good land, flowing with milk and honey and inhabited by several tribes of people.- Exo 3:8
Palestine have many enemies, unfortunately!. …and against all the Odds, Palestinians resilience has proved to be stronger than the most powerful forces on the face of the Earth. Even thought that for the last 100 years this ancient holy land has been victim of criminal intent, pillage and murder, she still standing because you can defeat the armies but you can’t defeat a Nation.
The information being distributed in the social networks has been great to raise awareness inside Palestine and around the world, but has not been enough to contra-rest the propaganda being spread for more than 65 years, and certainly not enough to fight the Religious notion that Palestine is the promise Land and the Jews the chosen people.
Sadly there are thousands of Palestinians inside West Bank, and Gaza that live in a state of imaginary peace and comfort and they conform a block designed by the Zionist Entity with years of tricks with military strangulation and social makeup , these Palestinians Citizens have no mood or humor to side with the resistance fighters of the rest of the Palestinians Society, to join their voices with the thinkers, the fighter minds, the displaced in refugee camps,.. they themselves are enemies of the Palestinian Cause, living inside an occupied country where they have their work, they do not suffer to survive, they can travel abroad with ease and their sons and daughters live in shielded comfort zone. Their children don’t see the need to throw rocks, they don’t feel the necessary to voice their anger to the occupier forces, they grew up to their pain and their settle inside the occupation with built tirelessness transformed in apathy, they finally have left the fight to the politicians, which at the same time do nothing other to live the occupation.
Some of the higher ranking politicians in Palestinian Politics were swallowed by this phenomenon and they don’t see it other way, they were also molded to the occupation. They live in an endless planing for the future, where meetings take their full schedule that there is no time to really act as a citizen living in an occupied land. Off course there are the few dissidents minds which mostly are sitting inside Israel, Hamas and PA jails.
According to Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics and prisoner advocacy groups, there are currently over 6000 Palestinian prisoners, including legislators, in Israeli jails, many of whom have been rounded up without charge or trial. Independent sources put the number of the inmates at 11,000.
The latest arrests are part of an Israeli suppression campaign targeting senior Palestinian figures’ activities.
The crackdown is believed to be aimed at preventing reconciliation between Hamas and its rival Palestinian faction, Fatah. Press TV
It is very sad to recognized millions of Palestinians in the exile think more or less this way, and even the militias are accustomed to fight, they have been mentally trained to die for the land, they become to think that as long as they keep fighting and dying they believe to fulfill their duty as a Muslim and as Palestinians and they are not ready to accept changes that goes against what they grew to live and believe. They are exhausted to try and they keep doing the only thing that “works”…keeping Israel in an endless state of uncomfortably bother, if they kill one “Jew” is a victory even if it mean nothing in the big scale, but Israel uses it as an excuse to kill: The Ratio is 8 to 1.
All the divisions we see in Palestine were engineered in that way, the political factions do not want to let go the little thing they think they have “achieved”. The UN Club-former league of Nations created the facts in the ground to make more believable the division of the land.
There are hundreds of NGO’s around the world that are collecting millions of dollars in Palestine Name or using Palestine Cause but they have become operational businesses, most of the money being used primarily in renting expensive hotels to “Expose the Occupation” and to collect donations, even the real concerned citizens that take part of the convoys that are continuously entering Gaza, they are more and more being attached to the occupation system.
I hate to give any score of victory to the Zionist Entity, but our compassion being used to add more efforts to bring Aid to Gaza and to helping few patients to foreign hospitals for treatment, all being done with good heart but it seems that is not really helping to end the occupation, or stopping the apartheid system, unfortunately we are being sucked to be part of the occupation.
Yesterday I was discussing the situation with Hassan Hammad, he has lived in and out the US for more than 30 years, he lost his Palestinians Identity Card and can not live nor work in Palestine, but can visit. He has completely lost hope on Palestine, according to him Israel control the PA, education, money, road, borders and in simple words, “Israel has created a sense of political Palestinians Participation with the PA, but in reality Israel control everything that is said and done and the little achievement that we have in Palestine is because Israel wanted that way, but if she want she will militarily occupy Ramallah tomorrow, and none can do anything, but Israel does not want to bother again, it is too much hustle ”
I tell him that the situation is different now, that the world is supporting Palestine, than more than 150 countries have recognized Palestine, and again he said. “Where are the 150 country armies, are they defending Palestine or they just talking?”
It is hard to argue against his hopelessness, he have lived the occupation, the curfews, checkpoints, tear gas, jail, bullets, humiliation, his first son died inside her wife womb because the curfew was enforced severely during the first intifada and she needed cesarean to deliver. He has bad memories of Palestine and see a bleak future.
Off course I do not really blame Palestinians, they have been the victims all along, victims that they have forged their mind, living, and misery to fit inside the occupation, I whole blame the Zionist Entity, the Christian loonies and the Elite around the world that have used the “Middle East” conflict to divide the minds and lands of the world in their path of destruction making with this The Stronger Industry men have ever seen. “The War Complex Machine”.
Palestine is One Nation under Siege, The psychological war that Israel wages against her people is more provocative than the physical one. The uncertainty of tomorrow is in every Palestinian mind, they are not allowed to plan a future for themselves, for their children or for their lands.
Israel continual incursions in Gaza air space and overnights raid in West Bank keep the population in an upheaval situation every day. The destruction of Gaza dwellings and the complete disruption of their social life have made Palestinians to look for ways to heal their uncertain condition as a ‘Nation’ under the grip of a military power that have drained the natural resources and the energy of the people of the Holy Land.
The world is changing their view on the Palestine-Israel conflict and every day more and more people around the world are adding their efforts to the global resistance, against the occupation, being virtual activist or International Observer we all are taking part of Palestine struggle, just do not allow to be part of the Apartheid System.
Views articulated by Palestinians in Gaza are more optimists than those in the exile, the hopes for a better tomorrow are stronger than the oppression of the occupation.
Now days in Gaza where the intifada continue until now and the borders between Israeli and Gaza people are closed the numbers of educated people is rising and reaching high levels. Now in Gaza, we have the best computer programmers, best scientists and the most percentage of highly educated people Compared to census thousands of master degrees hundreds of Ph Ds
Youth groups aiming to raise the The level of social awareness: In radio stations, media, news agencies took the obligation to show to the world about our case, which has been covered by the Israel’s media propaganda machine all the time dispersing lies, making itself look as a victim, but now our case, our voices is full of freedom and power, willing from all our hearts to make every one in this world to understand and to know about our rights.
Palestine is a Nation of not a beggar – by Omar Mansour Gaza, Palestine
He could not imagine his son, as a journalist struggling with his pen to write against the corruption that prevents such things as justice, purity and freedom, because the advocates of justice and freedom in and around Gaza have their own law, which prevents others from speaking the truth.
This is the bleak picture cameras can pick up if approached from Gaza borders, and the question arises, what is needed from the Palestinian Gazans to do in order to live their life with dignity, freedom, justice, security and Peace?. Gaza Heart and Mind – by Kamal Sobeh
Frequency Technology – HAARP Search, Research and Reach
Posted on January 19, 2012 by Marivel Guzman
The Military’s Pandora’s Box
by Dr. Nick Begich and Jeane Manning
This article was prepared to provide a summary of the contents of a book written in 1995 which describes an entirely new class of weapons. The weapons and their effects are described in the following pages. The United States Navy and Air Force have joined with the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, to build a prototype for a ground based “Star Wars” weapon system located in the remote bush country of Alaska.
The individuals who are demanding answers about HAARP are scattered around the planet. As well as bush dwellers in Alaska, they include: a physician in Finland; a scientist in Holland; an anti-nuclear protester in Australia; independent physicists in the United States; a grandmother in Canada, and countless others.
Unlike the protests of the 1960s the objections to HAARP have been registered using the tools of the 1990s. From the Internet, fax machines, syndicated talk radio and a number of alternative print mediums the word is getting out and people are waking up to this new intrusion by an over zealous United States government.
The research team put together to gather the materials which eventually found their way into the book never held a formal meeting, never formed a formal organization. Each person acted like a node on a planetary info-spirit-net with one goal held by all — to keep this controversial new science in the public eye. The result of the team’s effort was a book which describes the science and the political ramifications of this technology.
That book, Angels Don’t Play this HAARP: Advances in Tesla Technology, has 230 pages. This article will only give the highlights. Despite the amount of research (350 footnoted sources), at its heart it is a story about ordinary people who took on an extraordinary challenge in bringing their research forward.
HAARP Boils the Upper Atmosphere
HAARP will zap the upper atmosphere with a focused and steerable electromagnetic beam. It is an advanced model of an “ionospheric heater.” (The ionosphere is the electrically-charged sphere surrounding Earth’s upper atmosphere. It ranges between 40 to 60 miles above the surface of the Earth.)
Put simply, the apparatus for HAARP is a reversal of a radio telescope; antenna send out signals instead of receiving. HAARP is the test run for a super-powerful radiowave-beaming technology that lifts areas of the ionosphere by focusing a beam and heating those areas. Electromagnetic waves then bounce back onto earth and penetrate everything — living and dead.
HAARP publicity gives the impression that the High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program is mainly an academic project with the goal of changing the ionosphere to improve communications for our own good. However, other U.S. military documents put it more clearly — HAARP aims to learn how to “exploit the ionosphere for Department of Defense purposes.” Communicating with submarines is only one of those purposes.
Press releases and other information from the military on HAARP continually downplay what it could do. Publicity documents insist that the HAARP project is no different than other ionospheric heaters operating safely throughout the world in places such as Arecibo, Puerto Rico, Tromso, Norway, and the former Soviet Union. However, a 1990 government document indicates that the radio-frequency (RF) power zap will drive the ionosphere to unnatural activities.
” … at the highest HF powers available in the West, the instabilities commonly studied are approaching their maximum RF energy dissipative capability, beyond which the plasma processes will ‘runaway’ until the next limiting factor is reached.”
If the military, in cooperation with the University of Alaska Fairbanks, can show that this new ground-based “Star Wars” technology is sound, they both win. The military has a relatively-inexpensive defense shield and the University can brag about the most dramatic geophysical manipulation since atmospheric explosions of nuclear bombs. After successful testing, they would have the military megaprojects of the future and huge markets for Alaska’s North Slope natural gas.
Looking at the other patents which built on the work of a Texas’ physicist named Bernard Eastlund, it becomes clearer how the military intends to use the HAARP transmitter. It also makes governmental denials less believable. The military knows how it intends to use this technology, and has made it clear in their documents. The military has deliberately misled the public, through sophisticated word games, deceit and outright disinformation.
The military says the HAARP system could:
Give the military a tool to replace the electromagnetic pulse effect of atmospheric thermonuclear devices (still considered a viable option by the military through at least 1986)
Replace the huge Extremely Low Frequency (ELF) submarine communication system operating in Michigan and Wisconsin with a new and more compact technology
Be used to replace the over-the-horizon radar system that was once planned for the current location of HAARP, with a more flexible and accurate system
Provide a way to wipe out communications over an extremely large area, while keeping the military’s own communications systems working
Provide a wide area earth-penetrating tomography which, if combined with the computing abilities of EMASS and Cray computers, would make it possible to verify many parts of nuclear nonproliferation and peace agreements
Be a tool for geophysical probing to find oil, gas and mineral deposits over a large area
Be used to detect incoming low-level planes and cruise missiles, making other technologies obsolete
The above abilities seem like a good idea to all who believe in sound national defense, and to those concerned about cost-cutting. However, the possible uses which the HAARP records do not explain, and which can only be found in Air Force, Army, Navy and other federal agency records, are alarming. Moreover, effects from the reckless use of these power levels in our natural shield — the ionosphere — could be cataclysmic according to some scientists.
Two Alaskans put it bluntly. A founder of the NO HAARP movement, Clare Zickuhr, says “The military is going to give the ionosphere a big kick and see what happens.”
The military failed to tell the public that they do not know what exactly will happen, but a Penn State science article brags about that uncertainty. Macho science? The HAARP project uses the largest energy levels yet played with by what Begich and Manning call “the big boys with their new toys.” HAARP is an experiment in the sky, and experiments are done to find out something not already known. Independent scientists told Begich and Manning that a HAARP-type “skybuster” with its unforeseen effects could be an act of global vandalism.
HAARP History
The patents described below were the package of ideas which were originally controlled by ARCO Power Technologies Incorporated (APTI), a subsidiary of Atlantic Richfield Company, one of the biggest oil companies in the world. APTI was the contractor that built the HAARP facility. ARCO sold this subsidiary, the patents and the second phase construction contract to E-Systems in June 1994.
E-Systems is one of the biggest intelligence contractors in the world — doing work for the CIA, defense intelligence organizations and others. $1.8 billion of their annual sales are to these organizations, with $800 million for black projects — projects so secret that even the United States Congress isn’t told how the money is being spent.
E-Systems was bought out by Raytheon, which is one of the largest defense contractors in the world. In 1994 Raytheon was listed as number forty-two on the Fortune 500 list of companies. Raytheon has thousands of patents, some of which will be valuable in the HAARP project. The twelve patents below are the backbone of the HAARP project, and are now buried among the thousands of others held in the name of Raytheon. Bernard J. Eastlund’s U.S. Patent # 4,686,605, “Method and Apparatus for Altering a Region in the Earth’s Atmosphere, Ionosphere; and/or Magnetosphere,” was sealed for a year under a government Secrecy Order.
The Eastlund ionospheric heater was different; the radio frequency (RF) radiation was concentrated and focused to a point in the ionosphere. This difference throws an unprecedented amount of energy into the ionosphere. The Eastlund device would allow a concentration of one watt per cubic centimeter, compared to others only able to deliver about one millionth of one watt.
This huge difference could lift and change the ionosphere in the ways necessary to create futuristic effects described in the patent. According to the patent, the work of Nikola Tesla in the early 1900’s formed the basis of the research.
What would this technology be worth to ARCO, the owner of the patents? They could make enormous profits by beaming electrical power from a powerhouse in the gas fields to the consumer without wires.
For a time, HAARP researchers could not prove that this was one of the intended uses for HAARP. In April, 1995, however, Begich found other patents, connected with a “key personnel” list for APTI. Some of these new APTI patents were indeed a wireless system for sending electrical power. Eastlund’s patent said the technology can confuse or completely disrupt airplanes’ and missiles’ sophisticated guidance systems. Further, this ability to spray large areas of Earth with electromagnetic waves of varying frequencies, and to control changes in those waves, makes it possible to knock out communications on land or sea as well as in the air.
The patent said:
“Thus, this invention provides the ability to put unprecedented amounts of power in the Earth’s atmosphere at strategic locations and to maintain the power injection level particularly if random pulsing is employed, in a manner far more precise and better controlled than heretofore accomplished by the prior art, particularly by detonation of nuclear devices of various yields at various altitudes… ”
“…it is possible not only to interfere with third party communications but to take advantage of one or more such beams to carry out a communications network even though the rest of the world’s communications are disrupted. Put another way, what is used to disrupt another’s communications can be employed by one knowledgeable of this invention as a communication network at the same time.”
“… large regions of the atmosphere could be lifted to an unexpectedly high altitude so that missiles encounter unexpected and unplanned drag forces with resultant destruction.”
“Weather modification is possible by, for example, altering upper atmosphere wind patterns by constructing one or more plumes of atmospheric particles which will act as a lens or focusing device.
… molecular modifications of the atmosphere can take place so that positive environmental effects can be achieved. Besides actually changing the molecular composition of an atmospheric region, a particular molecule or molecules can be chosen for increased presence. For example, ozone, nitrogen, etc., concentrations in the atmosphere could be artificially increased.”
Begich found eleven other APTI Patents. They told how to make “Nuclear-sized Explosions without Radiation,” Power-beaming systems, over-the-horizon radar, detection systems for missiles carrying nuclear warheads, electromagnetic pulses previously produced by thermonuclear weapons and other Star-Wars tricks. This cluster of patents underlay the HAARP weapon system.
Related research by Begich and Manning uncovered bizarre schemes. For example, Air Force documents revealed that a system had been developed for manipulating and disturbing human mental processes through pulsed radio-frequency radiation (the stuff of HAARP) over large geographical areas. The most telling material about this technology came from writings of Zbigniew Brzezinski (former National Security Advisory to U.S. President Carter) and J.F. MacDonald (science advisor to U.S. President Johnson and a professor of Geophysics at UCLA), as they wrote about use of power-beaming transmitters for geophysical and environmental warfare. The documents showed how these effects might be caused, and the negative effects on human heath and thinking.
The mental-disruption possibilities for HAARP are the most disturbing. More than 40 pages of the book, with dozens of footnotes, chronicle the work of Harvard professors, military planners and scientists as they plan and test this use of the electromagnetic technology. For example, one of the papers describing this use was from the International Red Cross in Geneva. It even gave the frequency ranges where these effects could occur — the same ranges which HAARP is capable of broadcasting.
The following statement was made more than twenty-five years ago in a book by Brzezinski which he wrote while a professor at Columbia University:
“Political strategists are tempted to exploit research on the brain and human behavior. Geophysicist Gordon J.F. MacDonald, a specialist in problems of warfare, says accurately-timed, artificially-excited electronic strokes could lead to a pattern of oscillations that produce relatively high power levels over certain regions of the earth … in this way one could develop a system that would seriously impair the brain performance of very large populations in selected regions over an extended period”
” … no matter how deeply disturbing the thought of using the environment to manipulate behavior for national advantages, to some, the technology permitting such use will very probably develop within the next few decades.”
In 1966, MacDonald was a member of the President’s Science Advisory Committee and later a member of the President’s Council on Environmental Quality. He published papers on the use of environmental control technologies for military purposes. The most profound comment he made as a geophysicist was, “the key to geophysical warfare is the identification of environmental instabilities to which the addition of a small amount of energy would release vastly greater amounts of energy.” While yesterday’s geophysicists predicted today’s advances, are HAARP program managers delivering on the vision?
The geophysicists recognized that adding energy to the environmental soup could have large effects. However, humankind has already added substantial amounts of electromagnetic energy into our environment without understanding what might constitute critical mass. The book by Begich and Manning raises questions:
Have these additions been without effect, or is there a cumulative amount beyond which irreparable damage can be done?
Is HAARP another step in a journey from which we cannot turn back?
Are we about to embark on another energy experiment which unleashes another set of demons from Pandora’s box?
As early as 1970, Zbigniew Brzezinski predicted a “more controlled and directed society” would gradually appear, linked to technology. This society would be dominated by an elite group which impresses voters by allegedly superior scientific know-how. Angels Don’t Play This HAARP further quotes Brzezinski:
“Unhindered by the restraints of traditional liberal values, this elite would not hesitate to achieve its political ends by using the latest modern techniques for influencing public behavior and keeping society under close surveillance and control. Technical and scientific momentum would then feed on the situation it exploits,” Brzezinski predicted.
His forecasts proved accurate. Today, a number of new tools for the “elite” are emerging, and the temptation to use them increases steadily. The policies to permit the tools to be used are already in place. How could the United States be changed, bit by bit, into the predicted highly-controlled technosociety? Among the “steppingstones” Brzezinski expected were persisting social crises and use of the mass media to gain the public’s confidence.
In another document prepared by the government, the U.S. Air Force claims: “The potential applications of artificial electromagnetic fields are wide-ranging and can be used in many military or quasi-military situations… Some of these potential uses include dealing with terrorist groups, crowd control, controlling breaches of security at military installations, and antipersonnel techniques in tactical warfare. In all of these cases the EM (electromagnetic) systems would be used to produce mild to severe physiological disruption or perceptual distortion or disorientation. In addition, the ability of individuals to function could be degraded to such a point that they would be combat ineffective. Another advantage of electromagnetic systems is that they can provide coverage over large areas with a single system. They are silent and countermeasures to them may be difficult to develop… One last area where electromagnetic radiation may prove of some value is in enhancing abilities of individuals for anomalous phenomena.”
Do these comments point to uses already somewhat developed? The author of the government report refers to an earlier Air Force document about the uses of radio frequency radiation in combat situations. (Here Begich and Manning note that HAARP is the most versatile and the largest radio-frequency-radiation transmitter in the world.)
The United States Congressional record deals with the use of HAARP for penetrating the earth with signals bounced off of the ionosphere. These signals are used to look inside the planet to a depth of many kilometers in order to locate underground munitions, minerals and tunnels. The U.S. Senate set aside $15 million dollars in 1996 to develop this ability alone — earth-penetrating-tomography. The problem is that the frequency needed for earth-penetrating radiation is within the frequency range most cited for disruption of human mental functions. It may also have profound effects on migration patterns of fish and wild animals which rely on an undisturbed energy field to find their routes.
As if electromagnetic pulses in the sky and mental disruption were not enough, T. Eastlund bragged that the super-powerful ionospheric heater could control weather.
Begich and Manning brought to light government documents indicating that the military has weather-control technology. When HAARP is eventually built to its full power level, it could create weather effects over entire hemispheres. If one government experiments with the world’s weather patterns, what is done in one place will impact everyone else on the planet. Angels Don’t Play This HAARP explains a principle behind some of Nikola Tesla’s inventions — resonance — which affect planetary systems.
Bubble of Electric Particles
Angels Don’t Play This HAARP includes interviews with independent scientists such as Elizabeth Rauscher. She has a Ph.D., a long and impressive career in high-energy physics, and has been published in prestigious science journals and books. Rauscher commented on HAARP. “You’re pumping tremendous energy into an extremely delicate molecular configuration that comprises these multi-layers we call the ionosphere.”
“The ionosphere is prone to catalytic reactions,” she explained, “if a small part is changed, a major change in the ionosphere can happen.”
In describing the ionosphere as a delicately balanced system, Dr. Rauscher shared her mental picture of it — a soap-bubble-like sphere surrounding Earth’s atmosphere, with movements swirling over the surface of the bubble. If a big enough hole is punched through it, she predicts, it could pop.
Slicing the Ionosphere
Physicist Daniel Winter, Ph.D., of Waynesville, North Carolina, says, “HAARP high-frequency emissions can couple with longwave (extremely-low-frequency, or ELF) pulses the Earth grid uses to distribute information as vibrations to synchronize dances of life in the biosphere.” Dan terms this geomagnetic action ‘Earth’s information bloodstream,’ and says it is likely that coupling of HAARP HF (high-frequency) with natural ELF can cause unplanned, unsuspected side effects.
David Yarrow of Albany, New York, is a researcher with a background in electronics. He described possible interactions of HAARP radiation with the ionosphere and Earth’s magnetic grid: “HAARP will not burn holes in the ionosphere. That is a dangerous understatement of what HAARP’s giant gigawatt beam will do. Earth is spinning relative to thin electric shells of the multilayer membrane of ion-o-speres that absorb and shield Earth’s surface from intense solar radiation, including charged particle storms in solar winds erupting from the sun. Earth’s axial spin means that HAARP — in a burst lasting more than a few minutes — will slice through the ionosphere like a microwave knife. This produces not a hole but a long tear — an incision.”
Crudely Plucking the Strings
Second concept: As Earth rotates, HAARP will slice across the geomagnetic flux, a donut-shaped spool of magnetic strings — like longitude meridians on maps.
HAARP may not ‘cut’ these strings in Gaia’s magnetic mantle, but will pulse each thread with harsh, out-of-harmony high frequencies. These noisy impulses will vibrate geomagnetic flux lines, sending vibrations all through the geomagnetic web. ”
“The image comes to mind of a spider on its web. An insect lands, and the web’s vibrations alert the spider to possible prey. HAARP will be a man-made microwave finger poking at the web, sending out confusing signals, if not tearing holes in the threads. ”
“Effects of this interference with symphonies of Gaia’s geomagnetic harp are unknown, and I suspect barely thought of. Even if thought of, the intent (of HAARP) is to learn to exploit any effects, not to play in tune to global symphonies. ”
Among other researchers quoted is Paul Schaefer of Kansas City. His degree is in electrical engineering and he spent four years building nuclear weapons. “But most of the theories that we have been taught by scientists to believe in seem to be falling apart,” he says. He talks about imbalances already caused by the industrial and atomic age, especially by radiation of large numbers of tiny, high-velocity particles “like very small spinning tops” into our environment. The unnatural level of motion of highly-energetic particles in the atmosphere and in radiation belts surrounding Earth is the villain in the weather disruptions, according to this model, which describes an Earth discharging its buildup of heat, relieving stress and regaining a balanced condition through earthquakes and volcanic action.
Feverish Earth
“One might compare the abnormal energetic state of the Earth and its atmosphere to a car battery which has become overcharged with the normal flow of energy jammed up, resulting in hot spots, electrical arcing, physical cracks and general turbulence as the pent-up energy tries to find some place to go.”
In a second analogy, Schaefer says “Unless we desire the death of our planet, we must end the production of unstable particles which are generating the earth’s fever. A first priority to prevent this disaster would be to shut down all nuclear power plants and end the testing of atomic weapons, electronic warfare and ‘Star Wars’.” Meanwhile, the military builds its biggest ionospheric heater yet, to deliberately create more instabilities in a huge plasma layer — the ionosphere — and to rev up the energy level of charged particles.
Electronic Rain From The Sky
They have published papers about electron precipitation from the magnetosphere (the outer belts of charged particles which stream toward Earth’s magnetic poles) caused by man-made very low frequency electromagnetic waves. “These precipitated particles can produce secondary ionization, emit X-rays, and cause significant perturbation in the lower ionosphere.”
Two Stanford University radio scientists offer evidence of what technology can do to affect the sky by making waves on earth; they showed that very low frequency radio waves can vibrate the magnetosphere and cause high-energy particles to cascade into Earth’s atmosphere. By turning the signal on or off, they could stop the flow of energetic particles.
Weather Control
Avalanches of energy dislodged by such radio waves could hit us hard. Their work suggests that technicians could control global weather by sending relatively small ‘signals’ into the Van Allen belts (radiation belts around Earth). Thus Tesla’s resonance effects can control enormous energies by tiny triggering signals.
The Begich/ Manning book asks whether that knowledge will be used by war-oriented or biosphere-oriented scientists.
The military has had about twenty years to work on weather warfare methods, which it euphemistically calls weather modification. For example, rainmaking technology was taken for a few test rides in Vietnam. The U.S. Department of Defense sampled lightning and hurricane manipulation studies in Project Skyfire and Project Stormfury. And they looked at some complicated technologies that would give big effects. Angels Don’t Play This HAARP cites an expert who says the military studied both lasers and chemicals which they figured could damage the ozone layer over an enemy. Looking at ways to cause earthquakes, as well as to detect them, was part of the project named Prime Argus, decades ago. The money for that came from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA, now under the acronym ARPA.) In 1994 the Air Force revealed its Spacecast 2020 master plan which includes weather control. Scientists have experimented with weather control since the 1940’s, but Spacecast 2020 noted that “using environmental modification techniques to destroy, damage or injure another state are prohibited.” Having said that, the Air Force claimed that advances in technology “compels a reexamination of this sensitive and potentially risky topic.”
40 Years of Zapping the Sky?
As far back as 1958, the chief White House advisor on weather modification, Captain Howard T. Orville, said the U.S. defense department was studying “ways to manipulate the charges of the earth and sky and so affect the weather” by using an electronic beam to ionize or de-ionize the atmosphere over a given area.
In 1966, Professor Gordon J. F. MacDonald was associate director of the Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics at the University of California, Los Angeles, was a member of the President’s Science Advisory Committee, and later a member of the President’s Council on Environmental Quality.
He published papers on the use of environmental-control technologies for military purposes. MacDonald made a revealing comment: “The key to geophysical warfare is the identification of environmental instabilities to which the addition of a small amount of energy would release vastly greater amounts of energy. ” World-recognized scientist MacDonald had a number of ideas for using the environment as a weapon system and he contributed to what was, at the time, the dream of a futurist. When he wrote his chapter, “How To Wreck The Environment,” for the book Unless Peace Comes, he was not kidding around. In it he describes the use of weather manipulation, climate modification, polar ice cap melting or destabilization, ozone depletion techniques, earthquake engineering, ocean wave control and brain wave manipulation using the planet’s energy fields.
He also said that these types of weapons would be developed and, when used, would be virtually undetectable by their victims. Is HAARP that weapon? The military’s intention to do environmental engineering is well documented, U.S. Congress’ subcommittee hearings on Oceans and International Environment looked into military weather and climate modification conducted in the early 1970’s. “What emerged was an awesome picture of far-ranging research and experimentation by the Department of Defense into ways environmental tampering could be used as a weapon,” said another author cited in Angles Don’t Play This HAARP.
The revealed secrets surprised legislators. Would an inquiry into the state of the art of electromagnetic manipulation surprise lawmakers today? They may find out that technologies developed out of the HAARP experiments in Alaska could deliver on Gordon MacDonald’s vision because leading-edge scientists are describing global weather as not only air pressure and thermal systems, but also as an electrical system.
Small Input – Big Effect
HAARP zaps the ionosphere where it is relatively unstable. A point to remember is that the ionosphere is an active electrical shield protecting the planet from the constant bombardment of high-energy particles from space. This conducting plasma, along with Earth’s magnetic field, traps the electrical plasma of space and holds it back from going directly to the earth’s surface, says Charles Yost of Dynamic Systems, Leicester, North Carolina. “If the ionosphere is greatly disturbed, the atmosphere below is subsequently disturbed.”
Another scientist interviewed said there is a super-powerful electrical connection between the ionosphere and the part of the atmosphere where our weather comes onstage, the lower atmosphere.
One man-made electrical effect — power line harmonic resonance — causes fallout of charged particles from the Van Allen (radiation) belts, and the falling ions cause ice crystals (which precipitate rain clouds). What about HAARP? Energy blasted upward from an ionospheric heater is not much compared to the total in the ionosphere, but HAARP documents admit that thousandfold-greater amounts of energy can be released in the ionosphere than injected. As with MacDonald’s “key to geophysical warfare,” “nonlinear” effects (described in the literature about the ionospheric heater) mean small input and large output. Astrophysicist Adam Trombly told Manning that an acupuncture model is one way to look at the possible effect of multi-gigawatt pulsing of the ionosphere. If HAARP hits certain points, those parts of the ionosphere could react in surprising ways.
Smaller ionospheric heaters such as the one at Arecibo are underneath relatively placid regions of the ionosphere, compared to the dynamic movements nearer Earth’s magnetic poles. That adds another uncertainty to HAARP — the unpredictable and lively upper atmosphere near the North Pole.
HAARP experimenters do not impress commonsense Alaskans such as Barbara Zickuhr, who says “They’re like boys playing with a sharp stick, finding a sleeping bear and poking it in the butt to see what’s going to happen.”
Could They Short-Circuit Earth?
Earth as a spherical electrical system is a fairly well-accepted model. However, those experimenters who want to make unnatural power connections between parts of this system might not be thinking of possible consequences. Electrical motors and generators can be caused to wobble when their circuits are affected. Could human activities cause a significant change in a planet’s electrical circuit or electrical field? A paper in the respected journal Science deals with manmade ionization from radioactive material, but perhaps it could also be studied with HAARP-type skybusters in mind:
“For example, while changes in the earth’s electric field resulting from a solar flare modulating conductivity may have only a barely detectable effect on meteorology, the situation may be different in regard to electric field changes caused by manmade ionization… ” Meteorology, of course, is the study of the atmosphere and weather. ionization is what happens when a higher level of power is zapped into atoms and knocks electrons off the atoms. The resulting charged particles are the stuff of HAARP. “One look at the weather should tell us that we are on the wrong path,” says Paul Schaefer, commenting on HAARP-type technologies.
Angels Don’t Play This HAARP: Advances in Tesla Technology is about the military’s plan to manipulate that which belongs to the world — the ionosphere. The arrogance of the United States government in this is not without precedent.
Atmospheric nuclear tests had similar goals. More recently, China and France put their people’s money to destructive use in underground nuclear tests. It was recently reported that the US government spent $3 trillion dollars on its nuclear program since its beginnings in the 1940’s. What new breakthroughs in life science could have been made with all the money spent on death?
Begich, Manning, Roderick and others believe that democracies need to be founded on openness, rather than the secrecy which surrounds so much military science. Knowledge used in developing revolutionary weapons could be used for healing and helping mankind. Because they are used in new weapons, discoveries are classified and suppressed. When they do appear in the work of other independent scientists, the new ideas are often frustrated or ridiculed, while military research laboratories continue to build their new machines for the killing fields.
However, the book by Manning and Begich gives hope that the military industrial academic bureaucratic Goliath can be affected by the combined power of determined individuals and the alternative press. Becoming informed is the first step to empowerment.
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