Archive
STUDENT PROTEST IN EYGPT TO END THE SPLIT OF PALESTINE
Posted on February 28, 2011 by Omar Karem
Students protest in Egypt to end the split PALESTINE
Stand and saw several interventions for the children of Palestine, particularly of students of different social strata
And groups to calls for emphasizing the importance of the unity of Palestinian ranks; has asked Mohammed Amarna (Doctor of Law – Cairo University) wondered: “How we live each day and the … occupation Jassim to our hearts, if not split ends Fsndao to change in favor of?? How to fall asleep our eyes and we We still say I’m from the West Bank and Gaza!! Palestine is One .. enough of the names scattered .. so it came to stress the importance of the Palestinian legitimacy and the transfer of all of our leadership Palestinian Let the people stand up by himself to end the division .. how long will insist on wearing the dress division? ”
He said student David David (spokesman for the students of Arab Media Research Institute) on the importance of the fooled BC rallies in Gaza and the West Bank and abroad and at home for one goal: to bridge the divide Filstiniy behind the legitimacy of President Abu Mazen, and Mohammed Al-Baghdadi (official Palestine Students in the academy naval branch of the Sheraton) In the appeal, saying: “For all the youth of Palestine and they are voice of the nation working to end division to guide the effort against the real enemy of Israel and to establish our Palestinian state and Jerusalem as its capital. ”
And crossed the press Salsabil Bseiso hoped that culminated in the revolutions of the Palestinian Popular, which was launched both on Facebook-style revolutions in the Arab region to the inevitable outcome in the near future, she said: “We have noticed in recent times in various countries how the collapsed every official of adherence to chair his reign in order to the protection of personal interests and narrow in front of the voice and will of the people reject him; and therefore everyone must learn a lesson and takes care of the national interests of the public to back Palestine as it was and return the brothers loved ones as they were .. Gaza is known flesh sons together enough of the accounting both for differences in our policy only; and we promise to Palestine just do not and to come back the Palestinian social fabric is known for its history as it was to live Palestine .. again ”
The Fady Madhoun (human medicine – University of Alexandria), saying: “came in this student delegation to emphasize the principles established in our dictionary Palestinian We are all talking and his eyes on Palestine, which in the most difficult their situations over the past five years, if we revisit the years of the five that have elapsed in the history of our Snagdna harvested Segmentation is not is that brought us back This could spur us to terminate as soon as .. the Palestinian cause is stronger humanitarian issue passed in human history; and here the aspects of a letter of thanks to the Ambassador of Palestine to assimilate to our demands in order to uphold our voice, hence the call for a protest in all embassies world, because the national unity is the main Mnfzna, Fadi and the message to the brothers to end the division in order not to reach the abyss and said: “We have a lot to go back Palestine as it was before 2005, why not start now ..”.
The sound Talouli embassy official student activities at the end of paragraph hair stand calling for national unity, and concluded by the Palestinian stance on the Palestinian Ohtav revolutionary songs which merged the votes of those present, saying: Hamas and Fatah unity is the foundation.
Gaza Faces a Strong Protest Lead by Young People To End Internal Division
Posted by on February 28, 2011 by Marivel Guzmans in collaboration with Omar Karem
Gaza, Palestine(Akashma Web Blogs) The Day is March 15, 2011, Palestine Youth have made a call to all sectors of Palestine Society to come forward and unite as one force, forgetting differences of the past. Hamas as the leading Party in Gaza and Fatah as representative of West Bank they should unite their confidence with the people that is tired of so much violence, division and diversion. The occupation have for 62 years worn out their energy, is time to regain their fighter spirit that have characterized Palestinians but United as one Force, because the enemy have rejoice with their division and used it against them. “The People United will not be Defeated” is has been a slogan of fighters for centuries, lets remember that and be One Nation. Gaza and West Banks are districts of Palestine, and Palestine is One.
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.
“F**k Israel!,F**k USA! F**k Hamas!, F**k Fatah!, F**k UN. F**k UNWRA.
We, the youth in Gaza, are so fed up with Israel, Hamas, the occupation, the violations of human rights and the indifference of the international community! We want to scream and break this wall of silence, injustice and indifference. Like the Israeli F16’s breaking the wall of sound; we want to scream with all the power in our souls in order to release this immense frustration that consumes us because of this f*****g situation we live in.” Excerpt from the Gazan Youth’s Manifesto for change.
Said Hassan Farhat, one of the coordinators of youth initiative “Call Home” Monday, said that the security services of the Government blocked a sit in the courtyard of the Unknown Soldier in Gaza City to end the internal division in Palestine.
He said in a telephone Farhat told “together”: “A group of young people and the founders of “The Initiative Call Home” visitor in the courtyard of the soldier carrying Palestinian flags and posters but the police officers asked the protesters to withdraw from Square to the young people that started gathering in the Square of the Unknown Soldier.”
Farhat Said: “Despite the rejection of young men to withdrawal they were resolute to sit-in, police officers intensified their presence in the place, and was attended by four security agents dressed in civilian clothes that mix with the crowd and arrested Ahmed Arar coordinator of The Initiative Call Home among the demonstrators and took him to an unknown place and in addition to three others activists.”
Demands to End the Division:
From here we call on the governments of the West Bank and Gaza to respond to the legitimate demands of the people:
1 – the release all political detainees in the prisons of the PA and Hamas
2 – the end of all forms of media campaigns against each others
3 – the resignation of the governments of Haniyeh and Fayyad to re-build a government of national unity agreed by all Palestinian factions representing the Palestinian people.
4 – the restructuring of the Palestine Liberation Organization to contain all the Palestinian factions and get back to its initial aim: Palestine’s freedom
5 – the announcement of the freeze of negotiations until the full compatibility between the various Palestinian factions on a political program
6 – the end of all forms of security coordination with the Zionist enemy
7 – the organization of presidential and parliamentary elections simultaneously in the time chosen by all the factions
The initiative called for protests to call home in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and abroad to end the division.
For his part, said Mizan Center for Human Rights; “Had been almost a heavy police presence in the yard of the Unknown Soldier in Gaza City at around the morning of Monday of February 28, and they beat the coordinator of the campaign Call Home Ahmed Atawneh, where eyewitnesses have reported that he had been beaten before being stopped by police and transport out of the place and the whereabouts where unknown.”
This pool of about (20) people, including journalists on Monday morning, in response to a call launched by the campaign “Call Home”. The invitations were distributed via the Internet and short messages via mobile phones.
The invitations Identify Square Unknown Soldier as a center for gathering in the Gaza Strip, after the lifting of the sitters banners people want to end the division, people want to end the occupation, end the internal division is the way to building a Palestine State), according to eyewitnesses, one police personnel to Atawneh and got between them altercation then the police beat him and when journalists tried to take pictures of the attack warned members of the police take any photos.
The participants broke up the rest of the demonstration after the security forces attack, and came to the place in a civilian silver car and Atawneh was forced to step out and taken to an undisclosed location.
Mizan Center for Human Rights in a statement received by the Agency “together” connote concern over the use of force in the resolution of a peaceful gathering, adding that the Public Meetings Law No. (12) for the year 1998, provides special protection measures to ensure the right of citizens to organize public meetings, without the requirement to obtain a prior authorization, where only actions on the notice in writing to the governor or police chief before (48) hours in advance of the date of the meeting and for the police to make its observations on the details of peaceful assembly for the purpose of protecting and ensuring the safety of participants, and without prejudice to the right to freedom of peaceful assembly, before they are in writing, in the absence of receipt by the Organization of any written answer has the right to organize public meeting in a timely manner. Which is what I think they Astvuoh organizers notify the Ministry of the Interior.
PCHR calls upon the dismissed government in Gaza to open an investigation into the incident, calling for meetings to facilitate the peaceful and protected by the law enforcement bodies.
According to Hassan Farhat, a participant in the sit-in, and the Last Sunday morning in the courtyard of the soldier, that the coordinator of the campaign has notified the Ministry of Interior, under the book was delivered in the ministry’s headquarters complex, located in government ministries (Abu Khadra) on 02.24.2011, did not receive a response.
It is noteworthy that the activist Hassan Farhat has a “memorandum of review issued by the Department of custody and interrogation in the Internal Security Agency should come as 2/3/2011 in the central governorate.
Farhat also pointed out that the activity has not been implemented in the West because of calls to the security organs of the coordinators who have declared their names earlier.
The unrest inside Palestine have been felt since December after the Manifesto of the youth of Gaza Broke out, in a response to the unwelcome for their request the Youth of Gaza released a second document on January 05, 2011.
“We’re NOT calling for a political coup, let’s be clear on this. We’re young people who want to work for the PEOPLE, we denounce the misery we live in, we denounce their division, and reject their fight, because they are not helping us. But more than Fatah and Hamas, who remains Palestinians just like us, ABOVE ALL we denounce the Occupier & its puppet the International Community who fails, day after day, in its duty to impose sanctions on “Israel”. From Do not Distort Our Speech
Such divisions are sweet deal for Israel who entertained the idea for many years to brake down Palestine in two Lands and disengage completely from Gaza.
Gaza have become a liability for Israel as their policies and political ideas are back up by Hezbollah a strong political party in Lebanon and sworn enemy of Israel. Israel was defeated by Hezbollah back in 2006 and they have become stronger than ever.
If There got to be Freedom in any society, Justice must be the base of the same. Human Rights is an inalienable right of every human being, being Gaza, US, Germany, Lebanon, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba(should not exist),Cuba, China, Iran, Mexico, Congo, Russia..or any place on Earth that humans co-habit under any authority of any type.
The right to disagree, the right to have a different opinion, or different feelings is a right that we all humans have a primordial born right, it calls dissent from the Status Quo, governments of the world dissenters are not criminals, they are free minders that choose their own path, and oppression only make them more aware of the situation that you want to force them to be.
This right is inalienable is part of the human rights that we all must enjoy as a citizen of this Earth.
History Of Palestine
Posted on February 27, 2011 byOmar Karem
الخطة التفصيلية لكل محاضرة
سيتم وضع خطة تفصيلية لكل محاضرة على النحو التالي :
• أهداف الوحدة الدراسية وملخص لما سيتم تناوله في المحاضرة.
• عرض المادة العلمية بالاستعانة بالوسائط المساندة.
• ذكر للموضوع الرئيسي الذي سيتم تناوله في المحاضرة القادمة.
ثالثاً: حلقات النقاش:
العمل على تفعيل حلقتي نقاش للمقرر،الأولى للدارسين ويدير هذه الحلقة المشرفون الأكاديميون في المناطق التعليمية، أما حلقة النقاش الثانية فستكون للمشرفين الأكاديميين في المناطق التعليمية والذين يشرفون على مقرر تاريخ القدس تناقش فيها كافة المسائل الفنية والعلمية المتعلقة بالمقرر، ويدير هذه الحلقة منسق المقرر.
رابعا ً: التعيينات:
سوف يكون هناك تعيين واحد شاملاً لجميع وحدات المقرر عن طريق إرساله عبر الانترنت إلى الدارسين.
خامساً: الامتحانات:
ستكون الامتحانات النصفية والنهائية مركزية لكافة المناطق التعليمية .
سادسا ً: مصادر التعلم والقراءات المساعدة:
سيتم وضع رابط على موقع المقرر يشير الى مصادر التعلم والقراءات المساعدة للدارسين للاستزادة حول المادة العلمية .
سابعا ً: دور كل من المشرف الرئيسي ( منسق المقرر ) والمشرف الأكاديمي للمقرر في المنطقة التعليمية:
يمكن توزيع الأدوار بين المشرفين على النحو التالي :
1- منسق المقرر :
1 . إعداد وتقديم المحاضرات ( Video Streaming ) على مدار الفصل الدراسي.
2. إدارة حلقة النقاش الخاصة بالمشرفين الأكاديميين في المناطق التعليمية.
3. إعداد الامتحانات النصفية والنهائية ( مركزية ).
4. إعداد التعيين.
5. الإشراف العام على تنفيذ خطة المقرر.
2- المشرفون الأكاديميين (المساعدون) في المناطق التعليمية:
1. تنفيذ اللقاءات الوجاهية كل في منطقته التعليمية.
2. تصحيح الامتحانات والتعيينات.
3. إدارة حلقة النقاش الخاصة بالمقرر مع الطلبة والرد على استفساراتهم وتساؤلاتهم.
4. التواصل مع منسق المقرر.
5. إرشاد الطلبة للتفاعل مع محاضرات video streaming
مع الاحترام والتقدير
The Times They Are A-Changin’
Posted by Marivel Guzman on November 4, 2010
We are in an important moment, the world is awakening, we are taking responsibilities never before felt as a duty. The situation of Gaza has gone now for 5 years and we were asleep, in a lethargic state, pacified by the lies of the
Media. Now we are the Media, we are broadcasting directly from the ground. Our friends in Gaza send us the News every day, all day. Now our brothers that took the challenge of delivering humanitarian aid to Gaza are Stranded in the border of Egypt, we have said that the convoys are non political movements, for that reason we need to participate, and help them in a non violent fashion way writing to the embassies, to your head of state to make the transfer of the Aid to Gaza. The activists are in a difficult situation they take enough money to travel but not
luxury is allowed. Please spread the message and do you part also. Maybe Bob Dylan and Eddie Vedder Explain it better with this message made song. Thanks to all
We seen more and more that that standoff of the
Road to Hope Convoy is awakening the ordinary citizens their humanitarian side, their voluntarism, it is so important the union, the show of great force of the people of the world, do not leave this courageous justice and peace seekers on their own. To Show our Governments that we can created a tremendous force. To all the peace activists in the world from all nationalities, to keep raising their voices in support of this noble cause.that we won’t stop to the effort to deliver the aid to Gaza. That the stubbornness of the Egyptian government needs to stop and cooperate with the humanitarian convoy and with their neighbors. Gaza.
5 days ago our brother Ken O’keefe important member of this delegation for peace speaks from the Libyan Border.
Is Rupert Murdoch Ignorant?
Posted by Marivel Guzman
Original Post by by Raja Mujtaba
Article by Alan Hart

Its proclaimed objective is to “fight anti-Semitism”. In reality its main purpose under the leadership of Abe Foxman is to smear, harass, silence and preferably destroy those of all faiths and none who are critical of Zionism in action – critical of Israel’s policies in general and its contempt for international law in particular; and critical of the awesome power of the Zionist lobby, in America especially.
“In a recent speech at an ADL (Anti-Defamation League) dinner, Rupert Murdoch, arguably the most influential mainstream media chief on Planet Earth, made some extraordinary statements which must be challenged. But first it’s necessary for us all to be clear about what ADL’s role is.”
Murdoch and his empire They are very much aware of the situation in the world, at this stage ..there is no business as usual. His own empire is suffering the Social Networks taking their viewers and readers away from their outlets.
Even Abraham Foxman with all his ADL(Anti-difamation League) power is suffering the downs of the People waking up to the truth, learning the real agenda of his ADL as a front to kill any attacks on the Zionist Agenda..The ADL and the Jewis Lobby worked tirelessly to kill dissent..But now..we are seeing that their stage is falling down..
Their positions on issues are going to change with the Times, because that’s what they do good..these characters like the lizards will change the color of their skin..
Their ancestors did it in the past they change religion as convenience.
Now these lizards will change even their Views and responses to the times that are changing..
Murdoch is not stupid but he goes where the money will be generated, he is the money man.
Remember myspace.com when Tom the friend of millions make its debut on the wires, and the world got caught by surprise..Well you must wonder is myspace.com wasn’t just another theather mounted for your entertainment and once the show was mature they tear it down and Murdoch came and took his share, your presence, your friends, your pictures, your views. Murdoch is not stupid he is one of the most cleaver men of our time.
The power to the people is pushing aside the “legends” of the Media, characters made famous for their unrestricted use of Power to divert, their impunity to bend the truth with catastrophic consequences. People like Murdoch involved by power given to him by not other than you, your indifference to play a role in your own affairs.
His power is vested on nothing more than propaganda and lies.
Take your power back and Murdoch and his empire of Adds and Money will dissipate with the silver screen, and the Flash News, that the only flash is the light in the face of the actor of the scenery of the theater they mount everyday. Wake Up to reality and take back your rights, exercise your power to decide for your Present and Your Future.
Road to Hope convoy stalled at Egyptian border
Posted by Marivel Guzman Via Ken O’keefe Blog
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Road to Hope convoy stalled at Egyptian border
Nov 3, 2010 5:41 PST
Ken O’Keefe
“Egypt has said that they will let us through by sea, the problem with that is the exorbitant expense. What the people of Gaza need is open borders and unhindered delivery of aid and ultimately trade. The R2H Convoy did not budget for an approx. £100,000 ship journey from Libya to Egypt, and why should we when a tourist can travel freely but aid cannot. This extra cost is reducing aid for the people in Gaza”.
Nov 2, 2010
Ken O’Keefe: “We are getting close to confrontation time. When tourists can travel by car freely through Egypt and a humanitarian aid convoy is blocked, it pretty much says it all. The blockade of Gaza is in a word, unacceptable”
The Road to Hope humanitarian aid convoy continues its role in the international community’s collective mission to break the illegal siege of Gaza and deliver desperately needed aid to the people of Palestine in Gaza. The convoy comprises 30 vehicles and 101 humanitarian aid workers. Among them are 8 survivors of the Israeli attack on the Freedom Flotilla, 7 of them were aboard the Mavi Marmara, including Ken O’Keefe who was involved in disarming two Israeli commandos. The convoy has traveled four and a half thousand miles and is currently located at the Libyan / Egyptian border. As it stands the convoy finds itself at a standstill, with direct communication with the outside world being limited, and access to the internet very difficult.
It has always been a central aspect of the Road to Hope convoy that it acts in a non-political, non-confrontational manner. To work with and cooperate with every government in every country through which it traveled. Thus far this approach has rewarded it with exceptional receptions in every nation. All of the North African governments have been extremely accommodating and the people of each nation even more so. We must give special praise to the Libyan government for its constant support; when the convoy have had challenges, including breakdowns of vehicles, the authorities here have provided the means to repair those vehicles and continue our mission.
Ken O’Keefe: “Now we find ourselves in our third day at the Libyan / Egyptian border and we remain hopeful that the land route will be opened to us in the coming days”. The convoy departed from London with the understanding that the land crossing through Egypt had not been closed to it. Convoy leader, Kieran Turner: “One reason for our optimism that we will travel the land route is the fact that the Al Quds convoy, a Libyan convoy also delivering aid to Gaza, is set to travel the land route in the coming days. For several weeks we have hoped to join our convoys and travel together.” However, the convoy is awaiting permission from the Egyptian authorities to pass through Egypt in this way.
Mr. Turner understands that there is a possibility the Egyptian government will deny the convoy the land route, in which case they will have only two acceptable options —
1) To press on via the land border without permission, at which time our only chance of success will be by way of significant international pressure and a reversal of a policy which tacitly supports the illegal siege of Gaza.
2) If the land route is denied the only remaining option is to deliver our aid by sea. This option inherently requires significant increases in the cost of our mission, and importantly, to all subsequent aid missions. The end result of this policy is a reduction in the already limited resources that can be brought to bear for the people of Palestine.
The convoy leadership urge the Egyptian authorities to allow us safe passage to Gaza by land in the coming days, allow the convoy to join the Al Quds convoy, and ultimately increase the “easing” of the blockade which continues to collectively punish the people of Gaza.
Mr. Ken O’Keefe calls on all the supporters of Palestine “to support Road to Hope and the Al Quds convoys by spreading awareness of our missions and encouraging Egyptian cooperation”.
Contacts:
Primary contact: London – Eleanor Merton +44 777 037 6701
Libya / Egypt – Kieran Turner +44 779 22 66 111 (interviews in Libya available if the roaming costs are covered.)
Dear Online Activist Friends-Share Everything
Posted by Marivel Guzman
Original post by Vahid Razavi
On October 15, 2010
Dear online activist friends,
I would like to share with you my views on privacy and activism in the age of social media. As you are well aware, information about you; such as present location, bank account, health records, credit and driving history, as well as your online habits, emails and phone calls are monitored for the sake of companies and governments.
If you have taken a stand in a protest, placed phone calls to the Middle East, have Middle Eastern name you might as well consider your privacy out the door.
The whole notion of privacy in this digital age is misguided since governments and corporations systematically track, index, log and analyze user behavior. If you are not prone to risk and want to protect your identity, use a false name and a false picture profile and information.
That is the best way to hide your online identity. Even that does not protect you. For example if you use Skype or make a transaction at online bank to check your statements from the same machine that you used to log into your fake profile. The fake profile can be now be linked to your real identity.
This article is not about privacy but to encourage you to participate not just in your own circle but in the large circle of opposing views and positions. I will give you an example. As you are aware, for over the past two years I share articles that my team and I have written about business or social issues on my Facebook’s wall. I have open friend policy because I want our message of peace, tolerance and sustainable business practices to reach a large audience. At the same time, I am part of the Republican party, the Democratic party and moveon.org etc. I make an active decision to share information and blog posts on various groups in LinkedIn, for example the chamber of Commerce, an organization that I find myself on the complete opposition to.
Guess what happens when I post an article to one of the groups that share the opposite values that I have? They get all worked up! They start posting and calling me names etc. Frankly I do not care about that. My business and money does not come from the Chamber of Commerce or the Republicans or Democrats. I am not on any ones payroll except my own but it gets under the skin of these groups. It pisses them off like no tomorrow. I am proud of that. They devote precious time posting articles and time trying to convince themselves that they are still in the right. I just wish sometimes my activist friends expand the circle of friends and work on the larger population to sell ideas to the masses.
I am not asking you sacrifice your perceived privacy. I am asking you to get involved even if it is under a different profile name and join these groups so that we can influence its members and the actions of these groups.
Additionally we can all do many things that do not cost money and yet has a big impact. Do you know that Google/Facebook/Bing all provide coupons for first time users of the advertisement networks? If you do not have an ad network account it is easy to start one. Check it out. Create an advertisement network account and use one of the first 50 dollars or first 75 dollars ads are free coupon. Find an article or an organization you want to promote. Decide on the keywords (simply pick your cause as the keyword) Place your ads for that organization. When you reach the 75 dollar mark disconnect the ads. You did not pay a dime and was able to advertise on a network for a cause you backed.
The goal is to encourage folks to reach outside of the circle of friends and leverage social media and the web as the people’s media. The point is that too many activists remain stuck within the orbit of like minded people. While having a community is important, we often neglect the middle of society. Many people work too much, if they are lucky to have a job. They are worried about their bills, their health care expenses, their mortgage and rent payments, their families. Many of them share the same concerns and have the same anxieties as we do. They don’t have the time to explore the social and political issues in depth. They turn on the local news, watch CNN or Fox for an hour or so. Many of them simply read the free morning newspapers handed out to commuters which do not provide comprehensive analysis. This is the social layer that we as activists must reach. History shows that all social and political changes have occurred only when the broad middle of society participates. Yes, the movements are often started with small groups but they have succeeded by communicating and connecting with the larger members of society. The Civil Rights movement started with a small church in Alabama and spread across the country bringing supporters from the mainstream. The same occurred with the LBGT movement. What started as a minority movement has become mainstream. Had Blacks only confined their struggle for equal rights to themselves, it’s unlikely that any advances would have been made. Had only gays and lesbians struggled alone, it’s unlikely that their legal rights would have been recognized and their struggle continues. It’s imperative that activists reach out to the mainstream. It’s the only way to effect the social and political changes we desire. Failure to do so will result in our permanent marginalization.
That’s my two cents.
Peace.
Vahid
Mr. Razavi Iranian-American author of The Age of Nepotism has traveled extensively to Iran and the Balkans. He is an expert in the subject of Iran and US politics. As CEO of BizCloud company, Mr. Razavi develops the organization strategy and manages the company’s sales, engineering Marketing and day to day operations.He brings to the position more than thirteen years of sales, operations and customer service experience in the software and customer service industry.
Obamas’s Inner Eisenhower
Obama’s Inner Eisenhower
Posted on 29. Sep, 2010 by Raja Mujtaba in Opinion
By Jeff Gates
Is Barack Obama waking up to the agenda of those who produced his political career? Was his “Inner Eisenhower” on display last week in his televised speech to the U.N. General Assembly?
Did listeners detect a distraught commander-in-chief seeking to bypass Congress and appeal directly to the international community for help in containing Israel’s expansionist goals?
In 1948, the Joint Chiefs cautioned Harry Truman about the “fanatical concepts” of a Jewish-Zionist elite that sought recognition as a legitimate state. U.S. military leaders warned Truman that this elite wanted “military and economic hegemony over the entire Middle East.”
Albert Einstein and other prominent Jews were even more critical. They cautioned Americans about the Zionist political party that produced Menachem Begin, Ariel Sharon and Benjamin Netanyahu, calling it a “terrorist party” with “the unmistakable stamp of a Fascist party.”
Eight years later, President Eisenhower experienced how they advance their agenda when, during the last days of his November 1956 presidential campaign, Israel, France and Britain sought to induce a war with Egypt over control of the Suez Canal.
Though Ike was distracted by presidential politics, London and Paris were quickly persuaded to abandon their efforts. Not Tel Aviv. Then as now, Jewish fanatics were not inclined to listen to a U.S. commander-in-chief regardless of the impact of their behavior on our national interests.
When this Republican leader sought Congressional support to counter the Zionists’ agenda, he found none. That’s when this former five-star general turned in desperation to a televised address to counter Israeli Congressional influence that has grown far stronger over the past 54 years.
In April 2010, a bipartisan 363 members of Congress committed themselves to an “unbreakable bond” with Israel—regardless of its behavior. No one dared even whisper the word treason.
That same Israel-first agenda was addressed to the commander-in-chief over the signatures of 76 Senators led by Democrat Barbara Boxer of California. GOP Congressman Eric Cantor of Virginia and New York Senator Charles Schumer, a Democrat, launched a bipartisan pro-Israel assault on the commander-in-chief that sounded less like the Congress than the Knesset.
Obama’s Inner Ike
Could this be why Obama made an appeal to the international community to halt Israeli expansionism? Like Ike, did he wake-up to the fact of Israeli dominance in the Congress?
Has this young president—with no military experience—been forced to face the reality of an enemy within? If so, we may yet have an opportunity to restore representative government. If so, those who deceived the U.S. to invade Iraq for a Zionist agenda may yet be held accountable.
However, this past week also saw Congressman Barney Frank join others circulating a petition to free Israeli Master Spy Jonathan Pollard. A dual-citizen operative, Pollard did more damage to our national security than anyone in U.S. history. When he stole more than one million classified documents and Tel Aviv sold them to Moscow, our “special friend” gutted Cold War defenses on which American taxpayers spent more than $20 Trillion (in 2010 dollars) from 1948-1989.
Is Barney Frank committing treason? Or is he circulating that petition so that our national security apparatus has a list of those complicit in the treason that induced us to war in the Middle East on false pretenses? Was Obama’s speech to the U.N. a cry for help by a president whose advisory corps is dominated by pro-Israelis and Israeli-Americans?
Read More………….Opinion Maker Foresight with Insight
Dream of Peace: View from Gaza
Posted by Marivel Guzman
On September 24, 2010
During the Israeli War on Gaza in 2009, we were so terrified. I prayed for God to save our lives. AlhamdulAllah, He did.
I am a Gazawi, from a large family of eleven brothers and one sister. My father is a poor farmer, but as is the case of so many of us here, he is now unemployed.
Living in Gaza has been difficult since the Israeli Assault of 2009, and the inhumane Siege that have affected so many Gazan families.
The lack of basic services such water and electricity are shocking us, medical supplies and medicines indispensable to treat our sick are in short supply creating a double humanitarian crisis.
But my dreams of peace for my land stay in my heart and mind.
My Goal is to inform people outside of Gaza, about the situation that we live in and to raise international awareness about the blockade of the Gaza Strip and to send a message to the international community to stop the support to Israel and stop the occupation of our land.
We Gazawes along with all Palestinians are dreaming to break the siege and stop the suffering for Gaza.
Gazans dreams to break the siege and stop the suffering is shared by all our Palestinians brothers in West Bank and in the world.
May this year be a year of peace in Palestine!
We Palestinians have the dream of live in peace, despite of having terrible experiences and reactions to the war, the siege, and the occupation.
We have no borders, no life, we are all walled in and blockade.
Life is full of difficulties and constant danger, and we are forced to live with so little and some of us with nothing.
With the checkpoints and so many restrictions, there is no way out. We are trapped inside our own Land.
However, I personally believe things can change, and I work toward that goal in every way I am able.
I refuse to allow hope to die in me. I have dreams of finishing my degree in PT conflict resolution and of spreading the news about Gaza widely in such a way as to help my people and my land.
I pray day and night to see my people’s face cheer up, expressing the love for each other in a peaceful condition.
I have worked with the youth project in Khan Younis for demonstrating our rights in jobs, expressed in study. The EU youth Parliament nominated me as the member from Gaza to represent Gaza Youth in the “Berlin Conferences” in 2007 I was unable to attend due to the border restrictions and the Siege.
Life for nearly all refugees in the Khan Younis Camp is more difficult because of the blockade of Gaza, with much higher unemployment. Fewer families can provide for themselves, leaving a staggering proportion of the population dependent on UNRWA’s food and cash assistance. Ninety per cent of the camp’s water is unfit for human consumption, so basic hygiene is another big concern.
I worked for the American Friends Service Committee, training for responding to conflict situations, transforming the conflict to opportunities for young people, and encouraging peace on our side, so we can live our lives with various other trainings and experiences.
I am now the Project Coordinator with Catholic Relief Services CRS, basically the Gaza Emergency and Recovery Project. as it is. In Catholic Relief Services we work with local partners in Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza and for nearly half a century.
Our projects aim to support peace with justice for all people in this troubled region, while responding to the humanitarian and sustainable development needs of Palestinians.
I do believe there is always a reason to hope and dream of peace despite whatever horrors are surrounding us. I am learning and hope to continue learning the tools needed to meet conflicts with resolution, teaching people to have hopes and dreams of peace, reconstructing peoples’ lives.
Issam Sammour
Gaza Strip, Palestine
Email :Sammour.issam@Gmail.com
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Issam Sammour like thousands of young Palestinians cherish the dream to Study Abroad, it should not be a hard quest,
why they have to see their future with so many obstacles?, from the signing of documents to the visa request, they have to go through hell is there no better word to designated their troubles.
Israel makes almost impossible to fulfill the basic requirements to obtain the Passport and Visa, the check points on Ramallah and the blockade of Gaza are in the way. They can not travel to to other side of Palestine, there is a blockade a permanent check point on Erez. the point that divide Gaza Strip from the West Bank. And in Ramallah the friends that volunteer to help with the documents encounter countless obstacles as well.
You need to live the everyday struggles to understand their state of mind. With an alarming rate of underemployment, preparing themselves for a better future is not a luxury but a necessity. They need to obtain higher education to be able to compete in so tight market. The situation in Gaza is worsened since Israel imposed a blockade, where does not let export or imports to cross and in complicity with Egypt have kept Gaza Strip impoverished to the point where more than 80 % of the population is in public assistance.
Palestinian Diaspora
The Palestinian Diaspora
Posted on 14. Sep, 2010 by by Marivel Guzman Original Posted by Raja Mujtaba in Gaza Today
Does It Care Enough To Become Engaged?
By Alan Hart
IDF doing ethnic cleansing
The real history of the making and sustaining of the conflict in and over Palestine that became Israel invites the conclusion that the Arab regimes – more by default than design in my view – betrayed the Palestinians. The question this article addresses is: Will future historians conclude that the Palestinian diaspora betrayed its occupied and oppressed brothers and sisters?
There’s no mystery about the Arab (regime) betrayal. When the Palestine file was closed by Israel’s 1948 victory on the battlefield and the armistice agreements, the divided and impotent Arab regimes secretly shared the same hope as the Zionists and the major powers. It was that the file would remain closed for ever. The Palestinians were supposed to accept their lot as the sacrificial lamb on the altar of political expediency.
Nor is there any mystery about why the Arab regimes were at one with the Zionists and the major powers in hoping that there would never be a regeneration of Palestinian nationalism. They all knew that if there was, there would one day have to be a confrontation with Zionism; and nobody wanted that.
When Yasser Arafat, Abu Jihad and a few others lit the slow burning fire of the regeneration, it was the security services of Eygpt, Jordan and Lebanon which took the lead in trying to put it out.
Fast forward to today.
The incredible almost superhuman steadfastness of the occupied and oppressed Palestinians is the reason why Zionism will never be able to close the re-opened Palestine file again unless it resorts to a final round of ethnic cleansing, to drive the Palestinians off the West Bank and into Jordan or wherever. In my analysis it is more likely than not that Zionism’s in-Israel leaders will create a pretext to do just that at a point in the foreseeable future
What point?
When it becomes apparent even to them that with bombs and bullets and brutal repressive measures of all kinds they can’t break the will of the occupied and oppressed Palestinians to continue the struggle for their rights and compel them to accept crumbs from Zionism’s table.
As things are I think it is unrealistic to expect the governments of the major powers either to use the leverage they have to call and hold the Zionist state to account for its past crimes, or to intervene to prevent the crimes it will commit in a foreseeable future.
And it can be taken as read that the Arab regimes will not lift a finger to prevent a final Zionist solution to the Palestine
problem. (Before Sharon sent the IDF all the way to Beirut to exterminate the PLO’s leadership and destroy its infrastructure, Gulf Arab leaders met in secret, without advisers present, in order to agree a message to the Reagan administration. The message was to the effect that they would not intervene in any way when Sharon made his move. After that message was sent, one of the Arab leaders present, Oman’s Sultan Qaboos, said to Arafat: “Be careful. You are going to ask for our help and it will not come.” Last year I had a private conversation in London with a major royal from the Arab world. I said to him, “Nothing is going to change in the Arab world until your regimes are more frightened of their own masses than they are of offending Zionism and America”. He replied, “You’re right.” I also said to him, “If the Zionists do resort to a final round of ethnic cleaning to close the Palestine file, Arab leaders, behind closed doors, will give thanks and celebrate.” His reply was the same, “You’re right.”)
Question: What can the Palestinians do to help themselves?
My view is that they should wind-up (close down) the discredited Palestine National Authority (PNA), and put policymaking and implementation back into the hands of the Palestine National Council (PNC), which is supposed to be (it once was) the highest and most supreme Palestinian decision-making body. To become relevant again it would have to be reconstructed and re-invigorated by elections in every place where there are Palestinians – the occupied West Bank including East Jerusalem, the Gaza concentration camp and the diaspora.
The fact that the PNA is corrupt, impotent and discredited is reason enough for it to be put out of its misery, but there’s more to it.
In their claim for justice, the Palestinians have 100% of right, legal and moral, on their side (whereas the Israelis have 99% of the might, conventional and nuclear, on their side). If this claim was properly presented and pressed by a credible Palestinian leadership, by definition a democratically elected leadership duly authorized to represent the views of all Palestinians, it would be more difficult for the governments of the major powers, the one in Washington DC especially, to go on refusing to use the leverage they have to end Israel’s occupation of Arab land grabbed in the Zionist state’s 1967 war of aggression. (Not self defense as Zionism asserts).
Because Israel and the major powers won’t talk to Hamas (despite the fact that its leaders have signalled their willingness to live in peace with an Israel inside its pre-1967 borders), and because the Fatah-dominated PNA is so discredited (I imagine Arafat is revolving with anger in his grave), the occupied and oppressed Palestinians are effectively leaderless in the sense that they are without an institution to represent them in the corridors of power.
It follows, or so I believe, that a demand for putting policy making and implementation back into the hands of a reconstructed and re-invigorated PNC must come from the Palestinian diaspora – from Palestinian communities in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Eygpt, Kuwait, Iraq, Yemen, Western Europe, the USA, Canada, Australia, Chile, Honduras, Brazil, Columbia and Guatemala.
The question arising is the one of the headline for this article: Does the Palestinian diaspora care enough to become engaged?
I have long been of the view that the major difference between Jews and Arabs is that Jews know how to play the game of international politics and Arabs don’t. The Palestinians could prove me wrong. The world, not just the occupied and oppressed Palestinians, needs them to do so.
Alan Hart has been engaged with events in the Middle East and their global consequences and terrifying implications – the possibility of a Clash of Civilisations, Judeo-Christian v Islamic, and, along the way, another great turning against the Jews – for nearly 40 years…
He’s been to war with the Israelis and the Arabs, but the learning experience he values most, and which he believes gave him rare insight, came from his one-to-one private conversations over the years with many leaders on both sides of the conflict. With, for example, Golda Meir, Mother Israel, and Yasser Arafat, Father Palestine. The significance of these private conversations was that they enabled him to be aware of the truth of what leaders really believed and feared as opposed to what they said in public for propaganda and myth-sustaining purposes.
It was because of his special relationships with leaders on both sides that, in 1980, he found himself sucked into the covert diplomacy of conflict resolution…Now Alan is an Institution in himself. Now, Alan is a regular contributor to Opinion Maker.
Should King Abdullah invite Netanyahu to Riyadh?
Posted on 14 September by Marivel Guzman by Original Post on 09. Sep, 2010 by Raja Mujtaba in Gaza Today
By Alan Hart
The suggestion that he should was made by Thomas L. Friedman in his column for the New York Times on 7 September. My first response was to say to myself, “That proves Friedman doesn’t understand the complexities of the conflict and is at least a little bit bonkers.”
But the more I thought about it, the more it seemed to me that King Abdullah should do what Friedman suggested. In a moment I’ll get to what I think the Arabs and the Palestinians especially would have to gain without losing anything, but first here’s the essence what Friedman wrote.
He noted that eight years have passed since the Arab peace initiative pushed by Abdullah when he was Crown Prince was presented to, and approved by, an Arab League summit in Beirut. (It offered a full and final peace, including the normalizing of relations between the entire Arab region and Israel, in exchange for a complete Israeli withdrawal from all territories occupied in 1967, including East Jerusalem, and a “just solution” to the Palestinian refugee problem).
Friedman then commented that the plan has been “floating out there in the ether of diplomatic possibilities” ever since its approval in 2002. “It is time to bring it out of the air. King Abdullah should invite Mr. Netanyahu to Riyadh and present it to him personally.”
Friedman went on:
“Abdullah need not go to Jerusalem, as Anwar Sadat did, or recognize Israel. He can, though, still have a huge impact on the process by simply handing his plan to the leader for whose country it was intended. I can’t think of anything that would get these peace talks off to a better start. It feels to me as though Netanyahu is taking this moment seriously, but he is still very wary. By handing him the Abdullah plan, the Saudi monarch would unleash a huge peace debate in Israel. It would make it more difficult for Netanyahu to continue settlement building – and spur an Israeli public that is also still wary to urge Netanyahu to take risks for peace and support him for doing so. Netanyahu is the only Israeli leader today who can deliver a deal.
“The Saudis can’t just keep faxing their peace initiative to Israelis. That has no emotional punch. It actually says to Israelis: if the Saudis are afraid to hand us their plan, why should we believe they’ll have the courage to implement it if we do everything they suggest? Israelis are isolated. Seeing their prime minister received by the most important Muslim leader in the world in Riyadh would have a real impact.
“Both Israelis and Palestinians are going to have to do something really hard to produce a two-state solution. Saudi officials have developed a reputation in Washington for being experts at advising everyone else about the hard things they must do, while being reluctant to step out themselves. This is their moment – to do something hard and to do something important.”
Netanyahu has apparently said that he will go anywhere for peace, so let’s suppose for the sake of discussion that King Abdullah does invite him to Riyadh and he goes.
Either at his meeting with Abdullah to take personal delivery of the Arab peace plan or afterwards, Netanyahu would say there was one element of it that was completely unacceptable to all Israelis – the proposal that a just solution to the Palestinian refugee problem should be on the basis of UN Resolution 194 of 11 December 1948. Its key words are the following:
“… the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property which, under principles of international law or in equity, should be made good by the Governments or authorities responsible.”
Down the years (and consistent with its Nakba denial), Israel has put two fingers up to Resolution 194 and denied the Palestinians a right of return, on the grounds that conceding the right would be an act of national suicide. As it was put, for example, by Likud spokesman Zalman Shoval in March 2007, “If 300,000-400,000, or maybe a million, Palestinians would invade the country, that would be the end of the state of Israel as a Jewish state.”
A truth, which all of Israel’s leaders have known for many years, is that the Palestinian right of return does not have to be an obstacle to peace unless they want it to be. Under the pragmatic Arafat’s leadership, the decision was taken to accept that in the event of a genuine and viable two-state solution, the right of return would have to be limited to the territory of the Palestinian state. Though they could not say so in public, Arafat and his leadership colleagues were completely aware this would mean that probably not more than 100,000 refugees would be able to return and that the rest would have to settle for compensation.
Another truth is that Jerusalem does not have to be an obstacle to peace unless Israel’s leaders want it to be. If they don’t want Jerusalem to be divided again, the Arabs will say, “Okay. Let it be an open, undivided city and the capital of two states.”
My point so far is that if Netanyahu did go to Riyadh, he would discover that the Arab peace plan of 2002, subject only to clarifications of the flexibility of the Arab position on the right of return and Jerusalem, actually offers what a rational Israeli government and people would accept with relief.
What would the Arabs and the Palestinians especially have to gain if King Abdullah did invite Netanyahu to Riyadh and he went?
In one scenario, and assuming that most Israelis are not beyond reason (an assumption I do not make), it might unleash what Friedman described as a “huge peace debate in Israel.” And that just might open the door to peace on terms virtually all Palestinians and most other Arabs and Muslims everywhere could just about accept.
In another scenario – continued Israeli rejection of the Arab peace plan of 2002 – it would enable King Abdullah and all of his Arab brothers at leadership level to say to the world, and America especially, something like: “Now you cannot be in any doubt about what the obstacle to peace is – Zionism. If you really want peace, you must now play your part and use the leverage you have to call and hold Zionism to account for its crimes.”
If that didn’t mobilize support in the Western world for an acceptable measure of justice for the Palestinians and peace for all, nothing ever will.
Footnote:
Some readers will say that a genuine and viable two-state solution, even if it was possible, is unacceptable because it would not provide the Palestinians with enough justice. My response is quite simple. One state for all is by far the best solution for all; but because of the reality of the existence of a nuclear-armed Zionist entity, the two-state solution is the best deal the Palestinians are ever likely to get.
Alan Hart has been engaged with events in the Middle East and their global consequences and terrifying implications – the possibility of a Clash of Civilisations, Judeo-Christian v Islamic, and, along the way, another great turning against the Jews – for nearly 40 years…
He’s been to war with the Israelis and the Arabs, but the learning experience he values most, and which he believes gave him rare insight, came from his one-to-one private conversations over the years with many leaders on both sides of the conflict. With, for example, Golda Meir, Mother Israel, and Yasser Arafat, Father Palestine. The significance of these private conversations was that they enabled him to be aware of the truth of what leaders really believed and feared as opposed to what they said in public for propaganda and myth-sustaining purposes.
It was because of his special relationships with leaders on both sides that, in 1980, he found himself sucked into the covert diplomacy of conflict resolution…Now Alan is an Institution in himself.
Lauren Booth Letter to Israel
Lauren Booth’s Letter To Israel
by Marivel Guzman (videos) 10:52
Journalist Lauren Booth was on the first Free Gaza voyage and stayed to work in Gaza after the boats left.
Her heartfelt letter to the people of Israel should be read by everyone who hopes for peace in the Middle East.
This stunning video tribute to her words was designed and produced by the Free Gaza movement.
Make sure to share, every one has the right to know what The Moral Army of Israel is capable of.
Every one that knows has the obligation and the moral duty to inform others of the crimes committed in Occupied Palestine.
We need to raise our voices and stand for Justice and Peace. Palestinians needs your support.
The Samouni Family is one example of the thousands of families massacred in Gaza and in West Bank. This is not an isolated case, this is one that was known to the world.
The Arabs Clowns with Crowns
Posted by Marivel Guzman on September 01, 2010
The Arabs countries in their role of subservient of the Royal Power in England, they have not forgotten the pen, that institutionalized and officialized their existence.
Since their separation from the Real Arabs Lands and Rich antique civilizations they have become little islands of Royal Power.
They have never done anything worth it for the Palestinians in the 62 of official struggles and death.If the 6 days war of 1967 can be even taken in consideration as an attempt to take back the stolen lands.
For the contrary they have been the worse employers, the worse refugee hosts, and if this was not enough they have treated their Palestinians brothers worse than their worse enemies.
They have denied every human rights that every human being deserve just for being in this earth.
They have denied any rights as residents and they go to the extent to deny the right to buy any property. Anybody else ca buy land in their territories except “the Palestinians Refugees”.
The excuse have been that if they absorb the Palestinian population and grant them citizenship, Israel will deny the right of return in any future peace agreement.
What a pathetic and convenient excuse, it’s more than a convenient position, to use Palestinians as a cheap labor and to use them as flag for their political agenda.
Arabs Clowns with Crowns
Where the kings live the people starve.
There is no richer country that that one that share equally the resources of the land.
When the king wear silk sheet beds, the people struggle for a loaf of bread.
When the king posses palaces, the people posses shacks.
“Long Live the King”
Long Live the King
The original phrase was translated from the French Le Roi est mort. Vive le Roi!, which was first declared upon the coronation of Charles VII following the death of his father Charles VI in 1422.
In France, the declaration was traditionally made by the Duc d’Uzès, a senior Peer of France, as soon as the coffin containing the remains of the previous king descended into the vault of Saint Denis Basilica.
The phrase arose from the law of le mort saisit le vif—that the transfer of sovereignty occurs instantaneously upon the moment of death of the previous monarch.
“The King is dead” is the announcement of a monarch who has just died.
“Long live the King!” refers to the heir who immediately succeeds to a throne upon the death of the preceding monarch.
We are in a new era,
We do not need Kings: to take the riches of the land to accumulate them in their Palaces.
to subjugate the people. to wear a Gold Crown and wear Gold Rings…
to make secret deals on behalf of their family interest, to Parade on red carpets.
to Silence and kill the thinker crowd, to speak in God’s name.
We need Leaders:
that Lead by example, that seek the welfare of the population,
that gives their support to their people, that have loyalty to their people and not to the Foreign Powers,
that works incessantly for their people and not for their money
Is Obama Subjected To Blackmail?
Posted on 08. Aug, 2010 by Akashma News
Original Reportby Wayne Madsen in Hot Topics from Opinion-Maker
SPECIAL REPORT. Obama and Emanuel: members of same gay bath house club in Chicago
By Wayne Madsen
President Obama and his chief of staff Rahm Emanuel are lifetime members of the same gay bath house in uptown Chicago, according to informed sources in Chicago’s gay community, as well as veteran political sources in the city.
The bath house, Man’s Country, caters to older white men and it has been in business for some 30 years and is known as one of uptown Chicago’s “grand old bathhouses.” WMR was told by sources who are familiar with the bath house that it provides one-year “lifetime” memberships to paying customers and that the club’s computerized files and pre-computer paper files, include membership information for both Obama and Emanuel. The data is as anonymized as possible for confidentiality purposes. However, sources close to “Man’s Country” believe the U.S. Secret Service has purged the computer and filing cabinet files of the membership data on Obama and Emanuel.
Members of Man’s Country are also issued club identification cards. WMR learned that Obama and Emanuel possessed the ID cards, which were required for entry.
Obama began frequenting Man’s Country in the mid-1990s, during the time he transitioned from a lecturer at the University of Chicago Law School to his election as an Illinois State Senator in 1996. Emanuel, reportedly joined Man’s Country after he left the Clinton White Hosue and moved back to Chicago in 1998, joining the investment firm of Wasserstein Perella and maintaining his membership during his 2002 campaign for the U.S. 5th District House seat vacated by Rod Blagojevich, who was elected governor.
Man’s Country appears to be a “one stop shopping” center for gay men. The club’s website advertises steam rooms, “fantasy rooms,” bed rooms, male strippers, adult movies, and lockers.
However, Man’s Country was not the only location for Obama’s predatory gay sex activities. The Chicago gay community is aware that Obama often made contacts with younger men at his famous “pick-up basketball” games. It was at these “pick up” matches where Obama first met Emanuel and a young Democratic campaign worker and senior bank vice president named Alexi Giannoulias. Currently running for Obama’s old U.S. Senate seat now occupied by Roland Burris, Giannoulias successfully ran for Illinois Treasurer in 2006 after being drafted for the run by Chicago’s Democratic machine.
The Blagojevich trial: “Sex, Lies, and Audio tapes” — Fitzgerald’s US Attorney’s Office part of White House cover-up of gay sex in the Second City
Giannoulias was a vice president and senior loan officer for his father’s bank, Broadway Bank, from 2002 to 2006. Broadway Bank made real estate loans to Antoin “Tony” Rezko, the chief of Rezmar Corporation. On May 13, 2008, Rezko was found guilty, after being indicted by a grand jury at the behest of the U.S. Attorney for Northern Illinois Patrick J. Fitzgerald, of six counts of wire fraud, six counts of mail fraud, two counts of corrupt solicitation, and two counts of money laundering. Rezko has been in solitary confinement at the Metropolitan Detention Center at Van Buren and Clark in Chicago since June 2008. However, Rezko has not yet been officially sentenced to a federal prison. A Syrian-American, Rezko is considered to be a flight risk, even though his one-time fortune of $50 million has been reduced to zero.
One Republican politician in Chicago told WMR that Rezko will be a prime witness for Blagojevich’s defense. “Figure it this way, Rezko’s been in solitary confinement in the city jail since June 0f 2008 . . . if he is released to appear at Blagojevich’s trial as the primary witness, everyone expects him to squeal like a pig,” said the Republican politico.
In 2005, Rezko reportedly engaged in a complicated real estate “flip” through which his wife Rita and Obama agreed to split an empty lot adjoining a home that Obama bought in Chicago’s Kenwood district. The deal saw Obama buy the home for $1.65 million, which was $300,00 below market value. Obama then bought a strip of the adjoining property from Mrs. Rezko, a speculative deal that stood to make Obama a handsome profit. Since Rezko’s conviction, the property has has reportedly gone into bankruptcy. Giannoulias’s Broadway Bank was seized by the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation on April 23, 2010, reportedly as Secretary of Treasury Tim Geithner was on his way to Chicago to present the bank with a bailout check. Geithner quickly changed his plans.
Giannoulias, Broadway’s then-senior loan officer, has denied being involved in the decision to loan money to Rezko.
Blagojevich’s trial judge, U.S. District Court judge James Zagel, a crony of former Illinois Republican Governor Jim Thompson, ruled that all 500 hours of phone calls intercepted and taped by Fitzgerald could not be played during Blagojevich’s trial as demanded by Blagojevich and his defense lawyers. Blagojevich demanded that Fitzgerald “show up in court and explain to everybody . . . why you don’t want those tapes that you made played in court.”
WMR has learned that the tapes may contain salty references Obama’s and Emanuel’s private lives.
WMR attempted to interview Blagojevich’s senior defense lawyer Sam Adam to no avail but other informed sources told us that the tapes, if played, would highlight the corruption of not only Obama, Emanuel, and other member of Obama’s Chicago “brain trust” but also Fitzgerald himself. WMR was told that Fitzgerald’s tactics have included providing sex and drugs to imprisoned felons to get them to provide perjured testimony at federal trials.
It is exactly the type of federal prosecutorial misconduct by Fitzgerald that former Republican Governor said was used by state prosecutors when he commuted the death sentences of Illinois’s death row population. Ryan was indicted by Fitzgerald for fraud and he is currently serving out a federal prison sentence.
Blagojevich’s trial was scheduled to begin on June 3 and Fitzgerald’s main interest was to keep the trial focused on Blagojevich, especially after he managed to “flip” Blagojevich’s former chief of staff John Harris to testify against the impeached and ousted governor. WMR learned from informed sources that one lawyer on Harris’s defense team is involved in a gay partner scandal that was discovered by the attorney’s wife.
Some of the wiretaps may reveal that it was not Valerie Jarrett, Obama’s longtime friend and current White House policy adviser who was Obama’s top candidate to fill his U.S. Senate seat, but the young 32-year old “pick up basketball” friend of Obama, Giannoulias, then serving his second year as state Treasurer. However, Obama had avoided campaigning for Giannoulias in Illinois and there were initial indications that the president had “thrown Giannoulias under the bus,” according to some Democratic political circles in Chicago. However, Obama has since had a change of heart and began to campaign for him.
Mutiple Chicago sources report that Republicans who see Giannoulias’s Obama connections as providing an edge in his Senate race this year should not celebrate prematurely. Giannoulias’s GOP opponent, U.S. Representative Mark Kirk, a Naval Reserve intelligence officer, has also been identified as a closeted gay man. Kirk divorced his wife last year after an eight-year marriage. They had no children.
In addition, U.S. Representative Aaron Shock, who took over the House seat vacated by Obama’s Republican Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, is, according to Chicago Boy’s Town sources, a habitué of Minibar, a noted gay bar in Chicago’s gay district. For an extremely young first term member of the House, observers were surprised when GOP Minority Whip Eric Cantor of Virginia named Shock as a Deputy Minority Whip.

Man’s Country, one of Chicago’s “grand old bathhouses” and located at 5015 North Clark Street in Chicago’s “Boystown,” was a frequent hangout for State Senator Obama and Rahm Emanuel
Sources in Chicago’s gay community report that Obama was attracted to Man’s Country’s older white clientele because he generally enjoys being fellated by older white men. Obama would regularly be seen at Man’s Country on Wednesdays.
Obama reportedly has never engaged in reciprocal activity. The sources also confirm the allegations made during the 2008 campaign by Larry Sinclair, a Chicago visitor who revealed that in 1999 he engaged in such oral sex activity and crack cocaine use with then-State senator Obama on two occasions, once in the back of a Chicago limousine operated by Five Star Limousine Service, and the other at a Chicago area motel, the Comfort Suites in Gurnee, Illinois.
After revealing details of the encounter at a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, Sinclair was arrested by Washington Metropolitan Police on a fugitive warrant issued by Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden, the son of Obama’s vice presidential running mate, Senator Joe Biden. Sinclair was charged with a misdemeanor count of theft of money orders, however, the state of Delaware declined prosecution. Beau Biden later declined to run for his father’s old Senate seat because of his duties to prosecute a major pedophilia case involving Lewes, Delaware pediatrician Dr. Earl Bradley. There are reports that Biden’s office helped to cover up Bradley’s activities, including failing to authorize search warants for Bradley’s office and computer.
Chicago’s “DLC” — not the Democratic Leadership Council but the “Down Low Club” — a gay matchmaking service
WMR spoke to several well-placed sources in Chicago who reported that Jeremiah Wright, the pastor of Obama’s former church of 20 years, Trinity United Church of Christ (TUCC) on Chicago’s south side, ran what was essentially a matchmaking service for gay married black professional members of the church, including lawyers and businessmen, particularly those with children. The matchmaking club was called the “Down Low Club” but references to it over the phone and email simply referred to the group with the code phrase “DLC.” The ruse, according to our sources, was to make anyone who was eavesdropping on the communications believe that the references were to the Democratic Leadership Council, also known as the DLC.
The gay DLC’s services were intended to keep ensure TUCC’s gay members avoided posting solicitations on web services like Craig’s List and refrain from cruising gay bars. The strategy was to protect them from getting busted and being “outed.”
Among the members of the gay “DLC” were Obama and TUCC’s choir director, Donald Young, an openly gay man who reportedly had a sexual relationship with Obama. Two other gay members of the church were Larry Bland and Nate Spencer. Young and Bland were brutally murdered, execution style, in late 2007. Bland was murdered on November 17, 2007 and Young on December 24, 2007. The latter was killed by multiple gunshot wounds. Spencer reportedly died on December 26, 2007, official cause of death: “septicemia, pneumonia, and HIV.”
“DLC” members often went on camping trips arranged by TUCC. Wright reportedly was the head of the “DLC” matchmaking services and ensured that its members protected each other.
The “DLC’s” clientele included Obama and other gay members of TUCC, including, reportedly Young, Bland, and Spencer. Fox 32 Chicago reported that Bland’s mother, Josephine Bland, was so upset at her son inviting men into their home as a result of contacting them through gay web sites like “Adam4Adam,” she moved out.
The gay community in Chicago knows to keep away from the TUCC and “DLC” stories because of the “creepiness” of the operation and the suspicious deaths of the three TUCC gay black men.
Although Obama protected his alternate life style through the secretiveness of the “DLC,” he was not so careful when he proclaimed he was a state senator while frolicking at Man’s Country in uptown Chicago.
Love: Obama’s personal trainer
Reggie Love, a former Duke basketball and football player and unsuccessful National Basketball hopeful, currently serves as Obama’s personal trainer and White House “special assistant” — he has been called Obama’s “body man” – who receives a salary of $104,000 a year. Love is also reportedly one of Obama’s regular gay sex partners. Love joined Obama’s Senate staff in a senior staff position in 2006.
Media General’s tabloid, the National Enquirer, proffered a story last year about Michelle Obama being furious about the relationship between her husband and his “body man.” The Enquirer’s sister tabloid, The Globe, later floated a story about Obama having a relationship with a Democratic campaign official named Vera Baker. WMR has been told that this relationship was a clever ruse to throw off speculation about Obama’s actual past sex partners. Baker has apparently left the United States for relatively more obscurity in Martinique. Media General’s tabloids have scooped the mainstream media on sex scandals involving Bill Clinton and Gennifer Flowers and Monica Lewinsky, Tiger Woods, and John Edwards and Rielle Hunter.
WMR’s Chicago sources believe the Secret Service records of presidential candidate Obama’s activities in Chicago would show that Obama regularly arrived at Love’s Chicago residence at 9:00 am and departed at 9:15 am. Sources told WMR that while 15 minutes is much too short for a personal training exercise, it is ample time for fellatio.
Bill Frist, “Brokeback Mountain,” and Obama
In 2006, after Obama became the junior senator from Illinois, WMR’s sources in the Congressional Black Caucus reported that there were persistent rumors of gay trysts between Obama and then-GOP Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee. The allegations at the time seemed unbelievable.
However, based on Obama’s penchant for receiving fellatio from older white men, a column written by The Washington Post’s “In the Loop” columnist Al Kamen on April 7, 2006, some four months into Obama’s Senate term, may have expanded relevance. Kamen reported he received an invitation to attend Frist’s “5th Annual VOLPAC ’06 Weekend” in Nashville from April 21st to 23rd and that the invitation card required one to “unbuckle the cowboy’s pants and look inside to see what this was all about.” Kamen opined that the invitation seemed “a bit too ‘Brokeback Mountain.’”
The invitation advertised that the shindig would feature “one-of-a-kind music and special friends,” although Kamen said there was no indication what made the “friends” so “special.” Kamen then wrote, “The back of the card shows the cowboy from behind with a red flowered handkerchief sticking out of his right pocket. Wait a minute — wasn’t there something about how this used to be some kind of code in the gay community years ago? A way to signal each other in crowded, noisy bars? So we checked the GayCityUSA.com’s Hanky Codes. Sure enough, there it was in the chart explaining what they mean: red hanky in right pocket. Oh, dear.”

Rumors about Obama and Frist ran amok in Congressional Black Caucus circles in 2006.
Although Frist ran on the pledge of only serving two terms, he became Senate Majority Leader with all the perks of the office. WMR’s sources in Chicago’s gay community revealed that Frist’s Majority Leader predecessor, Senator Trent Lott of Mississippi, was also known to seek the services of male prostitutes. Frist, who said he planned to run for President in 2006, decided against a run for the White House and also declined a run for Tennessee governor in 2010.
With the rumor mill running at full speed in 2006, it is obvious why Frist abandoned politics so quickly for the medical business. Frist later endorsed Obama’s health care proposals. A year later, when GOP Senator Larry Craig was arrested while soliciting for sex in a men’s toilet stall at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, he changed his mind about immediately resigning his Senate seat. Knowing about his colleagues’ behavior, he dug in his heels and completed his term in January 2009.
Rahm the “Sugar Daddy”
Obama’s chief of staff Emanuel, who won a scholarship to the Joffrey Ballet but turned it down to attend college, is married and, like Obama, has children, in Emanuel’s case, a son and two daughters.
However, Emanuel, who is 50, also travel frequently with a male companion, a wealthy Chicago real estate developer, some five to six years his senior. WMR has learned from Chicago’s gay community as well as political sources that Emanuel and his friend have gone together on a trip to India, skiing vacations, and soon plan a vacation in Florida, sans Mrs. Emanuel and the kids.
In Chicago’s gay community, Emanuel is known as “sugar daddy,” promising young men with perks and lucrative positions if they sleep with him. On occasion, Emanuel has been with older men, such as his travel companion, but his preference is young, according to WMR’s sources. Emanuel also often uses bicycling and basketball venues to make his approaches. Being an Emanuel “basketball buddy” is a key to professional success.
WMR spoke to one member of the gay community in Chicago who had first hand knowledge of one of Emanuel’s bed partners, an older man who runs a non-profit symphony organization.
Obama’s other sex partners
WMR has previously reported on Obama’s past trysts with Alabama Democratic U.S. Representative Artur Davis, a current primary candidate for governor of Alabama. Although not in the same class, Obama and Davis attended Harvard Law School during an overlap of their attendance at the law school.
The information on Davis and Obama was gathered by opposition researchers for former Alabama Representative Earl Hilliard, who Davis defeated in the 2002 Democratic primary. Recently, WMR was informed by sources in Alabama that Attorney General Eric Holder traveled three days ago to Alabama to inform Davis that if he loses his primary race, he would be nominated by Obama to fill the job of U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Alabama, a position still held by Bush-appointee Leura Canary, one of the main prosecutors of convicted and jailed former Alabama Democratic Governor Don Siegelman.
Chicago sources also informed WMR of another past gay partner of Obama, Massachusetts Democratic Governor Deval Patrick.
The Clear and Present Blackmail Threat
Leading secret alternate life styles, Obama and his chief of staff provide classic blackmail threats. Considering Obama’s choice for the Supreme Court, Elena Kagan, who is reputedly a semi-open lesbian, the question must be posed how much Obama’s and Emanuel’s own covert life styles led to the decision to nominate Kagan, someone with no experience on a judicial bench.
Similarly, the fact that so much is known about Obama’s and Emanuel’s trysts in Chicago begs another important question. If politicians, gay community activists, and journalists in the Windy City are aware of Obama’s and Emanuel’s highly blackmailable gay life styles, the same can certainly hold true for the executives of one of Chicago’s corporate headquarters — that of BP America’s Production Operations.
Throw in the intelligence agencies of America’s allies, friends, enemies, and the situation becomes a clear and present danger to the national security of the United States.
Wayne Madsen is a Washington, DC-based investigative journalist, author and syndicated columnist. He has written

for several renowned papers and blogs.
Madsen is a regular contributor on Russia Today. He has been a frequent political and national security commentator on Fox News and has also appeared on ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, CNN, BBC, Al Jazeera, and MS-NBC. Madsen has taken on Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity on their television shows. He has been invited to testifty as a witness before the US House of Representatives, the UN Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, and an terrorism investigation panel of the French government.
As a U.S. Naval Officer, he managed one of the first computer security programs for the U.S. Navy. He subsequently worked for the National Security Agency, the Naval Data Automation Command, Department of State, RCA Corporation, and Computer Sciences Corporation.
Madsen is a member of the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ), Association for Intelligence Officers (AFIO), and the National Press Club.
Israel Classifies its Past as Top Secret
Israel Classifies its Past as Top Secret
Editor Raja Mujtaba
Posted on 31. Jul, 2010 by Marivel Guzman in Israel
By Lawrence Davidson.
Israel is a land built on myths. It is, of course, not unique in this. Indeed in this way Israel is very much like its patron, the United States.
In order to build and maintain a mythical status a nation must create a picture of itself from its very inception and pass that picture down generation upon generation.
For the U.S. it is the idea that the nation is a beacon of both democracy and capitalism unto the world and what it does in terms of foreign policy, and even when at war, is always done altruistically. For Israel, the myth is that the nation is democratic and the last bastion of safety for the world’s Jews.
Everything it does, even when that amounts to imperial expansion, is done defensively. In order to maintain these myths one must control history. The story line must be taught in the schools and supported by the nation’s multiple media sources. One must raise up a population that is so well inculcated with its mythic worldview that if something occurs which contradicts it, it can be readily dismissed as an exception to the rule. In the case of the United States, two hundred years of indoctrination and a long term status as a great power has allowed its myths to survive, in the minds of its own people, the horrors of Viet Nam, Iraq and now Afghanistan. Israel is a much younger nation with only three or so generations of indoctrination under its psychological belt, so to speak. And, while it may be a regional superpower, its reputation in the Middle East is built on fear.
With the rest of the world that reputation is associated with equally unstable and temporary attitudes, like Holocaust guilt. In essence, apart from the convinced Zionists, Israel’s sustaining national myths are still fragile. A number of years ago Israel applied its law that required the government archives to be opened for public review and research following a thirty year waiting period for political affairs and fifty years for military affairs. This brought many of the government documents referring to seminal years of 1947 and 1948 into the open. The result was a serious, evidence based, revision of the founding legends of Israel. In other words, the state lost momentary control of its own history.
The result undermined the nation’s mythic self-image amongst observers outside of Israel and caused significant unease within the country. So powerful was the reaction of the elites against this revised interpretation of the past that the “new historians” who brought it forth are now either teaching abroad or have, as in the case of Benny Morris, recanted. In the interim things have only gotten worse for the Zionist defenders of the idealized Israel. Multiple invasions of Lebanon and the essentially defenseless Palestinian cities and towns, the slaughter of the innocent, the reduction of Gaza to an open air prison, the on-going confiscation of land and property in the Occupied Territories, rampant settler violence, and the repeated election of racist governments have resulted in a worldwide civil society effort to isolate Israel and induce it to reform itself in the same manner as South Africa.
Except in the United States, Israel’s claim to act only in self-defense is not seen as credible and the accusation that all who disagree are anti-Semites not taken seriously. Yet outside disenchantment, as dangerous as it might be in the long run, is not nearly as threatening as the erosion of one’s domestic population’s adherence to their national myths.
That adherence must be maintained at all cost otherwise the nation will metamorphose into something that no longer supports its present elites. The fate of the “new historians” has demonstrated just how determined the Israeli establishment is to prevent that sort of erosion. That being the case, Israel’s present Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has extended for an additional twenty years the period during which government archives can remain closed.
The Haaretz article announcing this decision says that the Prime Minister acted because of “pressure from the intelligence agencies,” but Netanyahu probably did not need much convincing. The period of time for which documents will now remain classified include such events as the 1954 Lavon Affair, the 1956 Sinai invasion, and the 1967 war which saw the heinous attack on the USS Liberty and the seizure of the Golan Heights. The State Archivist, Yehoshua Freundlich told Haaretz that “some of the material was selected classified because ‘it has implications over [Israel’s] adherence to international law.’”
This is probably an understatement. To add insult to injury, Haaretz reports that there is a good possibility that the government’s decision to classify much of Israel’s past as top secret will mean that “archives that had already been made public would again be hidden away.” If you study the new historians’ revisionist history of Israel you are struck by the Machiavellian behavior of men like David Ben Gurion who made a profession of being “economical with the truth”.
So devious were many of Israel early establishment figures that their political competitors, such as the neo-fascist Ze’ev Jabotinsky and the terrorist Menachem Begin, appear almost refreshing in their frightful honesty. Today we have the worst of all worlds in Israel–leaders who are both terrorists and shockingly devious. Now by their own admission, today’s Zionist leaders must hide away their nation’s sins lest the entire world turn away from Israel, and perhaps even their own citizens begin to fear that their national myths cannot stand honest and objective examination.
Lawrence Davidson is a Professor of Middle East History at West Chester University in West Chester Pennsylvania. He is the author of America’s Palestine: Popular and Official Perceptions from Balfour to Israeli Statehood (University Press of Florida, 2001), Islamic Fundamentalism (Greenwood Press, 2003), and, co-author with Arthur Goldschmidt of the Concise History of the Middle East, 8th and 9th Editions (Westview Press, 2006 and 2009). His latest book is entitled Foreign Policy, Inc.: Privatizing American National Interest (University of Kentucky Press, 2009). Professor Davidson travels often and widely in the Middle East. He also has taken on the role of public intellectual in order to explain to American audiences the impact of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East.
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PALESTINIANS IN LEBANON; RAW DEAL
Posted on 23 Jul, 2010 by Marivel Guzman
Dr Franklin Lamb
Shatila Palestinian Refugee Camp, Beirut
“Some members of Parliament prefer that the camps explode and then they will insist that, “Palestinian security problems must be resolved before Parliament can consider giving them civil rights”—meaning several more years of delay. That would be a disaster for all concerned.”
‘Ahmad’, Resident of Al-Buss refugee camp, Tyre, Lebanon;
Following some initial optimism after MP Walid Jumblatt’s June 15 introduction of draft legislation that would exempt Palestinians from the Kafkaesque work permit process, grant them the right to own a home outside their oxygen scarce ‘sardine can’ camps, and allow them to receive some worker paid earned social security benefits, progress has dramatically slowed .
During last week’s Parliamentary session Head of the Administration and Justice parliamentary committee, MP Robert Ghanem, reiterated his request to Berri and Parliament for a two-month “rest period”. Premier Saad Hariri called for postponing the voting for “two months or two months and a half.” Several other members asked the same. Parliament Speaker Berri quickly agreed and postponed voting on the subject until August 17, adding that “…the law will not pass unless it enjoys consensus among Lebanese parties.”
Some supporters of Palestinian civil rights see problems with more delays and with Berri’s “no passage of civil rights without consensus”. What is meant by consensus? A simple majority plus one, two-thirds or..? “ Does it mean taking no legislative action on Palestinians civil rights unless and until MP Jumblatt can agree with MP Sami Gemayel-normally polar opposites on important issues?. Others argue that Berri has no authority to require ‘consensus’ as it would likely mean any proposal will deteriorate into the lowest common denominator with virtually no rights being granted. Under the Lebanese Constitution, a law passes when it receives one more vote in favor than against and what is needed for passage is not determined by the Speaker. Some in Parliament are insisting on a straight up or down vote on bills presented on the subject of Palestinian civil rights. If Jumblatts or any other draft law garners 65 votes out of 128 it passes.
A review of Lebanon’s Parliamentary history shows that virtually all of Parliament’s important decisions have been made by a straight up or down vote, not ’consensus’. Surely one very important vote was the one that took place on August 17, 1970. The Parliamentary vote margin that elected ‘consensus’ candidate Suleiman Frangieh President of Lebanon over Elias Sarkis was one vote, a result of last minute vote switches engineered by Druze leader Kamal Jumblatt. Forty years later to the day, August 17, 2010, the ‘consensus’ vote” on Kamel’s son Walid’s historic Palestinian Civil Rights bill is scheduled for a vote.
InsaAllah? We hope so!
Ambivalence has spread around Parliament despite two additional measures being offered. One was introduced in Parliament in early July by the Syrian Socialist National Party (SSNP). This draft law closely reflects internationally mandated civil rights for refugees and of all the proposals to date the SSNP draft is what Parliament should enact to finally remedy six decades of civil wrongs. If enacted it would remedy the serial discrimination by successive Lebanese governments since the 1969-1982, “Ayyam al-Thawra” (“the Days of the Revolution”), when Palestinian refugees had many more employment prospects and benefited from improved camp living conditions. The SSNP proposal is a preferred “one package” solution that will avoid a protracted piece by piece process and would largely finish this urgent problem.
Faced with two substantive draft bills, the right wing Christian parties, often at odds, have joined ranks with Prime Minister Saad Hariri’s ( “If it were up to me I would grant Palestinians their rights tomorrow”-April, 2010) Future Movement (“Muqtaqbal) to slam on the Parliamentary brakes. All the March 14th coalition except the Phalange Party have accepted this draft bill which currently has the most support in Parliament probably because it offers the refugees the least civil rights. According to its sponsors, the draft must be studied more before formally considered. A draft being circulated reveals that those refugees with a Palestinian ID Card approved by the Lebanese General Security can receive a temporary residency permit including a 5 year ‘laissez passer’ travel document but not the approximately 5000 non-ID’s who came in the 1970’s following Black September. Regrettably, this draft bill keeps the work permit and only amends Article 59 of the labor law in order to waive work permit fees for Palestinians. Nor does it allow participation in the 25 Syndicated Professions because it retains the impossible to meet Reciprocity requirements.
Some MPs are dexterous in their efforts to limit civil rights granted to Palestinians. MP Robert Ghanem, argued on 7/19/10 that work permits are good for Palestinians “because they will preserve the refugee status of Palestinians in Lebanon. We fear that if we exempted the Palestinians from a work permit, we will drop their refugee status and this does not come in line with their interests.” MP Ghanem surely is aware that being allowed to work is very much in line with the refugees interests and has nothing at all to do with “dropping their refugee status.” In fact they do not have refugee status as provided by international law. That is one of the main problems. Lebanon considers Palestinians variously as “foreigners”, “special category of foreigners” and other times a “Palestinian refugees” without allowing them the legal rights that their refugee status warrants.
With respect to Social Security benefits, the March 14 proposal requires that refugees pay into the Lebanese Social Security Fund but allows only for end of service and a family allowance payment. Its specifically forbids sickness, accident or maternity benefits to Palestinian refugees. Without health and accident coverage the incentive to even seek a work permit wanes. This ‘consensus’ proposal is more of a gesture than a solution and unless redrafted remains a bare bones proposal that will do little to provide internationally mandated civil rights. Nor will it satisfy the pursuit of genuine rights among Lebanon’s Palestinians, increasingly insisted on by the international community. Many Palestinians and their supporters are critical of this latest proposal and see it as offering ‘a little something’ that will allow its supporters to say, as one MP boasted last week: “we will finally have achieved something for the refugees and anyhow, how much more can we be expected to squeeze from our flesh for these Palestinians?”
No InsaAllah please! Just tell us Yes or No ok?
Meanwhile scores of Palestinians protested outside Parliament last week as Palestinian frustration continues to mount in the camps over delays in granting civil rights. True, it sounds nice enough and more likely than not it comes from lips with a smile, and the literal translation is good also: “God willing”.
However in reality, it’s a deadly and vicious expression that every guide book publisher on Lebanon has a moral duty to warn their readers about. For the real meanings of “InsaAllah” are: “probably not”, “almost certainly not going to happen”, “forget about it fool”, or simply, “no way and go away!” So if one is presented with the response, ‘InsaAllah’, whether by the office of the Speaker of Lebanon’s Parliament , or from someone you might be asking out on a date or trying to get something done in Lebanon, or tying to get civil rights legislation enacted into law, one has a big chance of being disappointed.
In Lebanon’s Parliament, about the worst thing that can happen to a members pet legislative initiative is to have it placed in “the InsaAllah drawer”, meaning it is set aside for ‘Enshalleh’ consideration sometime in the ‘InsaAllah’ future. Often never to be heard from. Some fear this is what may happen to proposals to grant Palestinian refugees their internationally mandated right to work and to own a home.
Other reasons for Parliamentary delay?
Some Parliament watchers speculate that certain members seek to delay granting Palestinians civil rights until the Special Tribunal for Lebanon hands down expected indictments, concerning the 2005 assassination of Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri. They calculate the STL announcements will dramatically increase Lebanese-Palestinian tensions. Change and Reform parliamentary bloc MP Michel Aoun (Free Patriotic Movement leader), no advocate of any meaningful civil rights for Palestinians, is warning of a US ‘green lighted’ Israeli invasion of Lebanon if the STL indicts “uncontrolled” Hezbollah members. Others claim the main problem is that Lebanon cannot move beyond the 1975-1990 Civil War and raising in Parliament the subject of Palestinians brings up also many painful memories that most of the confessions wish to forget.
While some political analysts in Lebanon think there is a chance that Parliament may well ease the restrictions on the right to work, there is still strong opposition to granting Palestinian refugees the internationally recognized right to own real property or even a single home–an international right allowed in all other countries. As a scare tactic on this issue the specter of ‘Naturalization’ is again raised even though it has nothing to do with home ownership.
If Israelites can buy homes in Lebanon why not Palestinian refugees?
There is no shortage of Lebanese politicians who will explain why Palestinian home ownership is out of the question including the claim that there is simply not enough land in crowded Lebanon for foreigners to be allowed to purchase any. Kataeb-Phalance bloc MP Elie Marouni told his followers on Bastille Day last week “that the Palestinian refugees in Lebanon will never be naturalized as long as there are Christian believers who will sacrifice themselves for the sake of Lebanon. We don’t have the space.” His colleague and Phalange Party leader Amin Gemayel warned the day before that “granting Palestinians the right to own property would lead to their naturalization”.
Neither of these leaders has explained why during the half century (1948-2001) when Palestinian refugees were allowed to own property the question of “naturalization” was never an issue. There was no problem. The fact is that the assertion that ‘naturalization’ would be the result of a refugee family owning a home is false and it is was invented solely for the reason that it provides ‘raw meat’ for detractors who basically don’t want any rights for any Palestinians no matter what the facts are.
According to Lebanese Human Rights Ambassador Ali Khalil: “Fanning the coals of ‘naturalization’ is a recent bogeyman meant to scare Christians who already are nervous because their numbers continue to shrink. Generally more affluent than other sects, they are able to leave Lebanon for better prospects. If Palestinians were able to work and became a bit more affluent many of them would leave also but that fact appears lost on those who prefer to keep them in squalid camps in Lebanon rather than allowing them to work and perhaps move out of Lebanon.”
The ‘not enough land for foreigners’ claim is faulty on two grounds. Regarding population density, in Saida’s Ein el Helwe Camp, the largest of the 12 in Lebanon, approximately 90,000 refugees are tightly packed into less than 1 km sq. area whereas the average Lebanese population density is close to 350 persons per sq, km.
Foreigners buy as much land in Lebanon as they wish and can afford despite the ‘legal’ limitations for foreigners of 3,000 sq. meters in Beirut and 5000 sq. meters outside Beirut. Foreigners regularly ignore the “law” and sometimes pay bribes to purchase whatever land they want and sometimes even citizenship.
Free Patriotic Movement leader and Hezbollah ally MP Michel Aoun is calling for a new law to reclaim property from foreign owners in response to complaints about his voicing strong objection to granting Palestinian refugees in Lebanon the right to own property.
“We can’t issue a law that gives the Palestinians the right to own property, but we can issue a law to reclaim properties owned by foreigners,” Aoun said with a straight face, adding that “Christian parties didn’t act with prejudice when the issue of civil rights for Palestinian refugees was raised. “Our stance is similar to that of the Phalange Party and the draft law would only be put to the vote of the parliament after being studied,” Aoun added. Some in Lebanon are waiting to see if General Aoun’s “No buying a little bit of Lebanon” law gets introduced in Parliament and what the US Congress and Arab league reaction will be if it does.
BayIt BeyLebnan? ( Hebrew for ‘your home in Lebanon?’)
The Israeli-American Likud banker and warmonger Irving I. Moscowitz, financial backer of the archeological tunnel in east Jerusalem and supporter, financially or otherwise, of virtually all Zionist groups developing stolen Palestinian land including his own properties in Maale Adumim, Har Homa in Palestinian east Jerusalem and Beitar Illit is claimed to have moved into the real estate market in Lebanon.
Regarding occupied Palestine, Moscowitz has for years advised would be investors, (ignoring the Geneva Conventions and settled International law) at Jewish only “real estate fairs” in American and European Synagogues: “Your investment is insured, protected and 100% legal. You should consider strengthening your portfolio and Israel’s future!”
Moscowitz is said to expect competition for Lebanese land from Lev Leviev, who the NYT refers to as ‘the missionary mogul”. Leviev, now the world’s largest cutter and polisher of diamonds, also specializes in illegal real estate developments on stolen Palestinian land. Leviev’s, Leader Management and Development, is currently building the settlement of Zufim on Palestinian land in the illegally occupied West Bank. When asked recently by Ha’aretz Daily if he has a problem building on expropriated Arab land he replied, “For me, Israel, Jerusalem, Lebanon are all the same.” So are the Golan Heights. As far as I’m concerned, all of Eretz Israel is holy. To decide the future of Jerusalem? It belongs to the Jewish people. What is there to decide? Jerusalem is not a topic for discussion.”
Both tell associates that with their American partners, they are moving into the Lebanese real estate market which they find attractive. If true, Lebanon’s Parliament might want to consider using some of the extra time they have extended themselves this summer, currently being devoted to sounding the ‘chicken little sky is falling’ alarm about Palestinians wanting to exercise their internationally mandated civil right to own a home pending their return to Palestine. Parliament should investigate claims that “American” companies”, some with 100% Israeli stockholders are buying up Lebanese land and using bribes to avoid Lebanese law.
‘Darwish’, a school teacher in South Lebanon explained this week what many Palestinians feel:
“My family home and property were stolen by Zionist thugs in Akkad in 1948 and also our cousin’s home outside Jerusalem. If you look at the current advertisement in Israeli newspapers, (‘Darwish shows a copy of an ad he printed off the internet from Haaretz.com that reads, “Own a little piece of Switzerland” which describes a quaint Swiss like scene, and it shows a bucollic vista that Darwish claims was his family’s village, now a Zionist colony.) so you see this is my problem. In Palestine our home was stolen and in Lebanon I cannot own one. Worse than this, it bothers me and my family that Zionists can now sell my land in Palestine to foreigners while as a Palestinian in Lebanon I cannot buy a temporary home. Israelites can invest their profits from our stolen Palestinian land and they can build homes in Lebanon and sell to other foreigners, but Palestinians can’t buy a home here. We have heard that some of the same “American and European” companies that sell our Palestinian land to foreigners in Palestinian now operate in Lebanon. One ‘American’ company is reported to have 11 stockholders. All of them Israelis”.
Parliament appears to be ‘playing’ the Palestinians this summer, as well as ‘playing’ the international community that expects more courage, compassion and respect for international human rights from a gifted people. Parliament risks degrading Lebanon in the process and its leaders should schedule a straight up vote without further dilatory tactics such a ‘more study’ and ‘building near unanimous consensus’ that appears designed to produce the lowest common denominator which means that without political will and courage it will likely produce not much at all.
Regarding six decades of annual calls for ‘more study of this sensitive problem’ there are already more than 30 studies completed just since 2000. They unanimously conclude what nearly every ten years old in Lebanon understands needs to be done and that is to grant the internationally mandated right to work, to own, inherit and bequeath a home, and access to some social security protection without further dilatory tactics.
LACK OF RIGHTS
• Palestine refugees lack many basic rights, are restricted from employment in
most professions and are not allowed to own property
• Palestine refugees have extremely limited access to the legal system
• Palestine refugees who do not have identification cards (known as non-IDs)
have even fewer rights and less freedom of movementPOVERTY
• 2/3 of Palestine refugees are poor, subsisting on less than $6 per day
• 6.6% of these subsisting on less than $2.17 per day
• The majority of those living in poverty and extreme poverty reside
in camps in South Lebanon UNRWA LEBANON
The events 28 years later by a survivor of the Massacre: 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 Munir’s Story: 28 years after the Massacre at Sabra-Shatila
Franklin Lamb volunteers with the Palestine Civil Rights Campaign as mission of his life. He blogs at Civil Rights.
Dr. Franklin Lamb is Director of the 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.
Lamb has been a Professor of International Law at Northwestern College of Law in Oregon. He earned his Law Degree at Boston University and his LLM, M.Phil, and PhD degrees at the London School of Economics.
As a Middle East expert and commentator, Dr. Lamb has appeared on Press TV, Al-Manar and several other media outlets. His articles and analyses have been published by Counter Punch, Veterans Today, Intifada Palestine, Electronic Intifada, Opinion Maker, Dissident Voice, Daily Star and Al Ahram.
Dr Lamb is a frequent contributor to Opinion-Maker.org
- Palestinians Refugees on the Move






Zvi Bar’el is the Middle Eastern affairs analyst for Haaretz Newspaper. He is a columnist and a member of the editorial board. Previously he has been the managing editor of the newspaper, the correspondent in Washington and has also covered the Occupied Territories.






