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Freedom of Expression at the Core of The French Ban
Posted on April 11, 2011 by Marivel Guzman
yamnulke
Just think about it, we as a society must not “imposed” our beliefs on others, being religious, political or any other kind.
If I allowed a group of men on women (sitting government) to decide what they think is good for 1 million or billion people,then we as a society are exposing ourselves to end up in a fascist society. To impair my ability to decide what to wear is the same as to impair my ability to decide what to say, or to impair my ability to decide what to eat. You could change the subject line to what ever word is that you want and applies to everyone of them.
Don’t allow yourself to be victim of radical minds that are working in their interest and not in the interest of society. We have come long way fighting for the “Rights OF BE OR NOT TO BE”……
Please show your support for the citizens of France that are facing a draconian law that is going to put their liberties in danger. Support our sisters in France to retain their freedom to wear or not to wear a religious accessory.
Protest against France’s Niqab ban – Defend freedom of religious and
What I like to Do or Say is in Danger
cultural expression – No to Islamophobia
Monday 11 April, 6pm
Outside the French Embassy
58 Knightsbridge
London SW1X 7JT
(nearest tube Knightsbridge)
or
Called by
Unite Against Fascism and One Society Many Cultures
Supported by
British Muslim Initiative / Islamic Forum of Europe / Islam Expo /
Enough Coalition /Free Minders of The Word
The ban on the niqab (full face veil) is due to come into force in
France on Monday 11 April. This denies Muslim women freedom of religious and cultural expression and the right to choose what they wear. Free and democratic societies should allow people to express their faith and culture, and women to dress however they choose.
The only beneficiary of this ban and the Islamophobic campaign that has accompanied it is the fascist Front National, which recently polled 36% of the vote where it stood candidates and 11% across the country, in France’s regional elections. There is a danger that FN leader Marine Le Pen could finish second in next year’s presidential elections.
Although there are no proposals to introduce such legislation in Britain, the ban on the niqab in France has provoked Islamophobic discussions and campaigns here. UKIP and the BNP have called for a ban on the burqa and niqab. There have also been racist attacks on Muslim women wearing head scarves and face veils
Thanks.
Peace
Gaza Was and Still Lives, Under Occupation and Under Attack We Still Gaza,Palestine
Posted on April 9, 2011
by Marivel Guzman
Oldest as Time Itself
The name Gaza means “strength and prevalence”
Gaza is one of the world’s oldest living cities. It is a city held to be of major strategic importance. It was the only overland route between Africa and Asia, which led Egypt to establish, in 3500 B.C., the citadel of Tell Sakan on the banks of the Wadi Ghazzeh, some 12km from the modern city.
We know that back in 2007 when the European Donors cut the money destined to the Palestinian Authorities, The PA was in hardship, and the holding of the Taxes from the Israeli government put the
government in more stress, but now 4 years later the situation have changed, the money given to the Palestinian Authority and the Loans and Help from the US government are in place, we are appealing for justice and distribution of the money owned to us by just cause. Gaza Families whose salaries were withhold by the PA in 2007. More than 100,000 Gazan still waiting for salaries to be paid
The Military Occupation that has kept us from prospering as a Nation is already a rope in our necks, and by adding an undeserved punishment from The PA government Gaza is put in an unusual situation, and the conditions worsen by the lack of central support, and World Support.
Unemployment in Gaza
The last estimates of the population in Gaza 1,657,155 (July 2010 est.)
0-14 years: 43.9% (male 374,110/female 354,088)
15-64 years: 53.5% (male 453,253/female 432,855)
65 years and over: 2.6% (male 17,326/female 25,523) (2011 est.)
These numbers might seem meaningless to you if you overlook them, but the working age in Gaza due the siege, military occupation is from 12 years and up, you can see children as young of 12 years old picking rubles close to the border of Rafah to make a few shekels to support their families, thousands of families in Gaza do not have a male head of household, either because he was killed, or is incarcerated, So more and more children and women are in the necessity to work to provide for their families. In a regular country where the legal age is 18 a 50% of unemployment will means a completely paralyzed society, but for Gaza after so many years under military occupation and more than 4 years of crippling siege their residents have survived and have shown the to the world their tremendous surviving spirit. But that by no means is a motive to keep ignoring their plight. Israel has gone away with so much injustice and ignore her obligations as an occupier power because sadly the Club of the United Nations even have set rules and regulations for bullies countries that wish to occupy illegally another people’s land.
Their residents in their attempts to survive have to resource to all types of occupations, working in the tunnels being on of the most dangerous of all the occupations, but when you have a family to feed you need to do what ever is available. United Nations seems to ignore what Gaza is suffering.
They venture dangerously close to the border fence to unlock metal and steel rods from their demolished home heaps. They are Gaza’s recyclers, and in a Strip where unemployment hovers at nearly 50 percent and poverty soars over 80 percent, environmental considerations are far from their minds. They do this work out of necessity.Yousef, 14, leads two of his younger brothers in
They come by the hundreds every day to sand dunes and rubble sites to sift for pebbles, stones and sand that can be used in making concrete blocks. They lean into trash bins across the Gaza Strip, and wade through piles of rubbish scavenging for plastics, metals and any bits worth reselling.
their daily hunt for concrete materials off the highway between Khan Younis and Deir al-Balah.
Gaza is plagued by poverty, malnutrition and unemployment 3 factors that are like a ticking bomb for the population, without counting the health conditions and the environmental damage due to continuous bombing with plutonium and others unknown chemicals that on recent years have done multiples mutations in newborns and caused fertility problem in their population.
The toxic waste one of the main concerns in Gaza, Israel air strikes have destroyed most of the sawyer system making a hazard problem comparable to a radiation explosion, the waste is being mix with the clean water reservoirs. Palestine is being forced to buy water from Israel as its drinking water is contaminated. And the lack of resources and legal binding from drilling for more wells put Palestine in a more difficult situation.
1967, when Tel Aviv occupied Gaza, the forces built three sewage treatment facilities there, which failed to treat most of the inflowing waste. The system was poorly modified during the 1980s.
Gaza, home to close to 1.7-million Palestinians, is currently almost four times more populous than the 80s but still dependent on the system.
The already dysfunctional facilities were further damaged during Israel’s frequent incursions over the past four years.
The damage done to the waste water-treatment facilities in the northern Gaza City during a December 2008-January 2009 war by Israel made some raw sewage find its way into the ground water sources, our reporter noted. The offensives also killed more than 1,400 Palestinians and
While dumping parts of its wastes in the coastal sliver and hogging its water supplies, Israel has made it extremely difficult for Gaza to bring in waste disposal equipments.
inflicted a damage of above USD 1.6 billion on the strip’s economy.
Tel Aviv, meanwhile, continues to aggravate the problem by partially disposing of its waste water in the Gaza valley. Israel’s all-out land, aerial and naval blockade, meanwhile, blocks the entrance of food, medical fuel and electricity supplies to the coastal sliver.
Gaza’s Coastal Aquifer yields more than 500 million cubic meters of water of which a little over a tenth is allocated to Gaza residents, and the rest is taken by Israel.
One of the groundwater wells in Khan Younis area in the Gaza Strip under regular monitoring program by the research shared project between the University of Heidelberg and the Gaza Governorate. Water is sampled and analyzed in both Gaza and Heidelberg for anions, cations, heavy metals and organic contaminants. (Credit: Environment and Information Center at Gaza Governorate, Gaza)Drinking Water In Gaza Strip Contaminated With High Levels Of Nitrate
Groundwater is the only source of drinking water for the majority of people living in the Gaza Strip. In babies younger than six months, nitrate can lead to methaemoglobinaemia, to diarrhea and to acidosis. The WHO therefore recommends keeping nitrate levels to 50 milligrams per litre or less. 90 per cent of their water samples were found to contain nitrate concentrations that were between two and eight times higher than the limit recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) The Global Organizations spend their millions of dollars making rules, making Reports, collecting Data but most of their resources is a waste of money and efforts because their findings and recommendations are completely ignored or shelved. Israel does not care for the damage that it inflicting to the environment, and to the people, IF EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) was in charge of Palestine, by this time Israel would have been forced to paid hundreds of billions of dollars in Fines.
War induced environmental threats continue to confront the population of Gaza: Health hazards resulting from the fractured sewage system caused by the bombings and toxic radiation contamination caused by Depleted Uranium (DU) and other Heavy Metal weaponry are manifesting at a staggering speed.
DIME weapons were first used against Gaza by Israeli drones in the summer of 2006, when Palestinian medical personnel reported that it significantly increased the fatality rate among victims. Shortly after the DIME weapons were also trialled during the first week of the war in Lebanon in July 2006.
Gaza is being used as a human experiment by Israel. There are reports from 3 Universities that conducted studies in bodies of martyrs and found Toxic and carcinogenic metals, able to produce genetic mutations, have been found in the tissues of people wounded in Gaza during Israeli military operations of 2006 and 2009. The research has been carried out on wounds provoked by weapons that did not leave fragments in the bodies of the victims, a peculiarity that was pointed out repeatedly by doctors in Gaza. This shows that experimental weapons, whose effects are still to be assessed, were used.
“Nobody – says professor Paola Manduca, spokesperson for the New Weapons Research Group, genetics teacher and researcher at the University of Genoa – had never conducted bioptic analysis on tissue samples from wounds. We have focused on wounds made by weapons that do not leave fragments, as the doctors from Gaza reported on them repeatedly. We wanted to verify the presence of metals that remained on the skin and in the derma. It was suspected that these metals were present in the weapons that leave no fragments, but it had never been demonstrated before. To our surprise even the burns provoked by white phosporus contain high amount of metals. Moreover, the presence of these metals in the weapons implies that they have been dispersed in the environment, in unknown amounts and range; they have been inhaled by the victims and by bystanders, thus constituting a risk for survivors and for people that were not directly hit by the bombing.”
Hot topics
There are reports that Israel is using a new weapon in the Gaza strip. More specifically, the claim is that Israel is using something called a DIME weapon. Say what? Yes, DIME weapons are real, it stands for Dense Inert Metal Explosive. In a nutshell a DIME weapon is a bomb or missile that detonates with powerful and lethal explosive power confined to a small area. The idea being to minimize “collateral damage” when using military weapons in urban areas. Yes, this is a humane killing device, science marches on!DIME-Dense Inert Metal Explosive
More allegations were brought to the light of the world when According to a Norwegian MD who was working at a Palestinian hospital in Gaza during the recent war the type of injuries that were inflicted on war casualties ,during this campaign, were different than anything that he has seen before in a war theater and he has seen quite a few conflagrations over the past thirty years. Another Norwegian doctor named DR. Gilbert told the Oslo Gardermoen that “there is a strong suspicion that Gaza is now being used as a test laboratory for new weapons.”
DIME EXPLOSION-Dense Inert Metal Explosive
The suspicion as expressed by many medical doctors is the use of what the US Army calls DIME, Dense Inert Metal Explosive. This weapon was originally designed by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories to inflict severe damage on people but cause lighter destruction on buildings. Dr. Brommant , a German Doctor , who was also present in Gaza, describes the injuries that he has witnessed by saying that “It seems to be some sort of explosive or shell that disperses tiny particles that penetrate all organs, these miniature injuries, you are not able to attack them surgically.” Those who are lucky to survive the initial injuries are most likely to develop RMS a deadly cancer related to the tungsten tiny particles.
Bodies with dead tissues and no apparent wounds; ‘shrunken’ corpses; civilians with heavy damage to lower limbs that require amputation, which is nevertheless followed by unstoppable necrosis and death; descriptions of extensive internal wounds with no trace of shrapnel, corpses blackened but not burnt, and others heavily wounded that did not bleed.
Many of these descriptions suggest the possibility that the new weapons used include ‘direct energy’ weapons, and chemical and/or biological agents, in a sort of macabre experiment of future warfare, where there is no respect for anything: International rules (from the Geneva Convention to the treaties on biological and chemical weapons), refugees, hospitals and the Red Cross, not to mention the people, their future, their children, the environment, which is poisoned through dissemination of Depleted Uranium and toxic substances released after oil and chemical depots are bombed.
Angels Of Death – The Nazi Doctors
Gaza, Palestine unique situation needs to be brought to the attention of the world, Israel uses Gaza as a tool of control to manage the “Peace Talks” conditions.
After all the analysis of Gaza conditions, seeing how malnutrition have made so much struggles in the health of the children, the elderly and pregnant woman.
The use of banned and illegal weapons on its population, the lack of clean drinking water, the destruction of its infrastructure including the purposely destroyed sewer system, the systematic bombing of their camps and cities using toxic chemicals that could be regarded as Chemical Weapons under United Nations Atomic Agency IF inspected, the psychological trauma of all Gaza Residents, the lack of safe housing and shelter, the shortage of everyday food supplies, the deliberately destruction of their agricultural lands, and ultimately the siege that do not allow them to run for refugee as other populations have done when their countries are invaded, attacked or plagued with internal conflicts.
Gaza is unique in every aspect of their struggles.
And as if their plight is not enough, the US and “ALLIES” named their Elected Party Official as a terrorist Organization with the only purpose to control more their lives not allowing friendly countries to freely help Gaza with their economical struggles.
The International Community, activist, independent media outlets, bloggers and peace activists that have followed Gaza situation, have worked arduously to raise awareness on the Truth about Israel Occupation and latest invasion of Gaza giving its residents hopes to change their lives. Gaza that enclave in the Mediterranean Ocean was one of the oldest places on Earth and Gaza Still Stand. They do not lose hopes that soon the World as a whole will see them as equal, their humanity still intact still praises the raise of the sun on that beautiful Gaza Sea, they pray everyday for a better tomorrow, their hopes are intact.
Gaza was and still Lives, Under Occupation and Under Attack still Stand Gaza Palestine.
Welcome to Come, Come To Gaza and meet the friendliest people in the planet.
The Raising Phoenix is the symbol of Gaza, Palestine.
Gaza gets a reminder of 2008-2009 war
Original Post by Omar Ghraieb
Friday 8, 2011, 2:04 AM (Gaza, Palestine)Israeli warplanes, warships and tanks continued their vicious and continuous assault on Gaza.
They targeted medics, 2 were injured while rushing to one of the targeted places by Israeli shelling using an ambulance. More residential areas and houses were also targeted.
Medics reported that 6 were dead in Gaza while 40 others got injured, from which many are women and children. Some of the injured were in a critical state while some others suffered from a life long disability due to heavy and direct shelling.
Israeli tanks approached from western and northern areas into Gaza, they shelled and targeted homes then opened sporadic fire before leaving.
Palestinian resistance declared cease-fire that starts at 11 pm Gaza time but it was one-sided, Israel didn’t oblige instead they responded by continuous shelling and air raids.
They re-raided the border line between Gaza and Egypt. Egyptian local news sources reported that a shell fell on a land inside Egyptian Rafah but with no reported injuries.
All dead and injured in Gaza were civilians.
Huge power outages took place in Khan Younis and Rafah after Israel’s heavy shelling on Gaza, many power lines and converters were damaged.
Explosions, sporadic fire and Israeli warplanes were heard till 3 am of April the 8th.
It looks like the upcoming days will bring more assaults and attacks.
So to be continued….
Posted by Omar Ghraieb at 2:04 AM
Reactions:
Israel carried out mass shelling on Gaza
Israel assaults Gaza again
Gaza, April 7, Israel carried out mass shelling on Gaza using full force and all war tools.
Israel used warplanes (F16s, Apaches and drones), warships and tanks to bomb Gaza non-stop for consecutive 3 hours targeting most of Gaza. Israel shells fell on residential areas targeting houses belonging to Qudaih, Al Manasra and Hellis families.
Israel also used full force to raid Rafah, Gaza intl, airport, Khan younis, Zaytoon neighborhood, Deir Al Balah, Jabalya, Shujae’ya, Qarara and several others places.
Adham Abu Salmeyah, Health Ministry official, One Gazan died, Mahmoud Al Manasra, 50, and over 25 got injured till now. A guy also reached the hospital aleady amputated after being directly hit by an Israeli shell, 2 farmers were also injured when a shell fell on their farm.
Israeli forces targeted most of Southern Northern and Eastern Gaza.
Palestinian resistance fired earlier a mortar that fell on a bus in Nahal Oz injuring a number of Israelis, they continued responding back to Israel’s vicious attack by firing some Grad rockets and mortars.
Israeli shells fell on residential homes, a hospital, farmed lands, a factory, an ambulance, power generator in Khan Younis causing power outages and Al Rayes Mountain.
Israel has been targeting Gaza for the past two days with over night air raids but with no reported injuries.
Israel’s shelling on Gaza continues while the Palestinian resistance also trying to continue responding.
Mohamed Al Madhoon, a journalist, also got injured during Israel’s mass shelling on Gaza and his situation is critical.
To be continued ……
Posted by Omar GhraiebApril 7, 2011 Gaza,Palestine at 6:07 PM
The Next Knock Out, Forclosure & Banks Bail Outs, Wars & Profits, Accidents/Catastrophes and More!
Posted on April 1, 2011 by Marivel Guzman
The Wars,Earthquakes,Tsunamis,Nuclear and Oil Accidents,Revolutions, all paying off well. “Blue chips achieving the best quarterly gains since 1998”. OH! Bad News for Jobless American, 6,000 Americans lost benefits, but don’t worry! “Seasonally adjusted 388,000, which was mostly in line with analysts’ previous estimates”. So it makes it OK, because they Estimated it. Statistics are Fake Numbers to Numb your MIND
U.S stocks traded mixed in the last trading day of the first quarter, with blue chips achieving the best quarterly gains since 1998.
Investors were concerned that a possible inflation risk might hurt the U.S. economic recovery as oil prices on Thursday hit the highest level since September 2008. Meanwhile, the market stayed uneasy as many markets-affecting issues, such as the nuclear leakage incidents in quake-hit Japan and unrest in the Middle East and North Africa, remained unsettled.
The CBOE Volatility Index, widely considered the best gauge of fear in the market, fell below 18.
On the economic front, the U.S. jobless data last week showed the jobs market was still on the track of improving. The Labor Department posted that initial claims for state unemployment benefits slipped 6,000 to a seasonally adjusted 388,000, which was mostly in line with analysts’ previous estimates.
Meanwhile, the Commerce Department said new orders for manufactured goods fell 0.1 percent to 446 billion dollars, after an upwardly revised 3.3 percent gain in January.
As for stocks, basic materials still led the gainers on Thursday. Transportation and energy sectors were also among the biggest winners but financial shares were down 0.23 percent as the Federal Reserve Bank of New York rejected American International Group’s plan to repurchase a risky set of mortgage-backed securities late Wednesday.
Frauds and Bonuses
AIG settles longstanding fraud cases for $1 billion
Isn’t is neat?, this Giant Insurance American Insurance Company engaged in one of the biggest frauds on American history and make billions on the scam and settle for 750,000 Millions. Plus get Bail Out Money.
And the Big Bonuses and Bribes started rolling in the high circles of corruption, high up in the the floors of the tallest buildings.
So Who Win and Who Loose? We the People Loose and The Bankers Win.
But what about the “Natural Disasters”!, Weather Defense System, Ring Any Bells? HAARP could accidentally lose control of the Frequencies that Generates? Maybe and cooking the Earth at very low frequency is a dangerous Business to engage, unless they have a magic wand to stop the process once is unleashed. How much of control does HAARP has over their Giants Antennas? Could they generate a strong Earthquake able to shake the sea beds and created a Giant Wave?
The United States Navy and Air Force have joined with the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, to build a prototype for a ground based “Star Wars” weapon system located in the remote bush country of Alaska.
The individuals who are demanding answers about HAARP are scattered around the planet. As well as bush dwellers in Alaska, they include: a physician in Finland; a scientist in Holland; an anti-nuclear protester in Australia; independent physicists in the United States; a grandmother in Canada, and countless others.
And who win and who lose, Insurance Companies, The International Monetary Fund will come to the rescue, …Say Again!…Bankers will rescue the devastated Countries, and those countries will need some food to survive..Guess!
MONSANTO comes to the rescue donating infected (Genetically Modified Seeds)…
The base of any species survival reside in the SEED. When we modify the structure of development of its genes we are creating a molecular conflict with its environment and its ability to evolve and adapt to the surroundings that were in place before its modification.
Monsanto have played in this field for quite some times, in its efforts to monopolize the supply of seeds, control its development and future behavior in a specific type of soil, which have also been modified to create the conditions for the new structure to grow.Monsanto can change the genes of a particular specie of seed, and maybe change the soil where it will be developed, but Monsanto can not possible control all the conditions in the environment; such the weather conditions that are required to create healthy plants, microscopic organisms that by normal natural law live in certain types of soils.
Monsanto More Dangerous than War Itself
China might be the WWIII Winner, if we survive it. Think Again. The Sleeping Giant? After all all the civilized world sent, their manufactures to China, All kind of “Made in China” the Whole World got inundated with electronics, clothing, toys, gadgets, even babies. Now we have a Giant Country that own most of Government Bonds of the Civilized World. We made China Strong, and we all weaken our Countries. And Now What?
Huang Haiyuang, a senior researcher
who has traveled widely in
the West, summarized seven PLA technological
priorities:
information operations and warfare
air and missile technology
precision guided munitions
defensive weapon technology
unmanned aerial vehicle technology
military space technology
naval carrier (air-to-ship integration).
China Liberation Army: Looks At The Future
by C H A R L E S F. H A W K I N S
Armageddon! Nope…We The People are The Sleeping Giant…Time To WAKE UP..and Take Control of your Future, or others will do for you.
Lies that Stick, Struggles that Sell. The Media Broke Out the Silence
Posted on March 29, 2011 by Marivel Guzman
Palestine Youth Broke the Silence! Not after the Tunisia Revolution and certainly not after the Egyptian Revolution.
“Palestinian youth have been inspired by uprisings in Arab countries, Pushing for a Palestinian Tahrir” Aljazeera Channel
I don’t think so, [Aljazeera] Palestinian youth have plenty of inspiration to uprise in their own merit. I think 63 years are few generations of struggles, pains, death, suppression and oppression being from their own leadership, but mostly from Israel IDF soldiers. The Palestinian Youth of today have suffered more than other youth around the world, and I don’t think that the inspiration born out of Tunisia or Egypt.
Palestinian youth have been resisting their own internal struggles they have been in the walls of facebook, youtube, myspace and other networks for years, in these days you taking notice of them is different because it seems that you the ‘Big Networks’, the ‘Big Media’ never have paid attention to their cries.
That you the Streamedia are writing about them it is a different story, and you did it because it sound juicy for your ratings.
The Struggles of Palestine
When the Youth Of Gaza Broke Out Manifesto first made the light to the streammedia, it was the first time that the manifesto was in the wires and it was not the first time the youth of Gaza broke the silence (GYBO). They have been braking the silence in their struggle with Israel with the world, they have been dying in front of your cameras and they have been called the perpetrators, they have been fighting with bare hands and rocks against tanks and you the media have been calling them the terrorists, they have been incarcerated and tortured and you have been silenced.
You the media is the one that broke the silence on January when the activists in the worldwide in a bold move sided with them and we all push for their voices to be heard. When you saw that they were making waves then you took advantage of their light and you decided that the story was good enough to be written about it.
They did not inspire out of Jasmin Revolution or the Tahrir Square, NO! Sandy Tolan, you picked up that title because it is catchy and sounds good and will be grab in the crawler of the web.
Now there are conflicts with the two main political parties in Palestine, from one side we have the Palestinian Authority closure of more than 300 NGOs in West Bank, charities that Hamas over the years has financed and sponsored, and they [Hamas] were doing the right thing in the Occupied Territories, but the egos got lose and the PA could not accept Hamas’victory without inflicting low punches, without seeing that the only losers are the Palestinians. Since 1982 Hamas is the organization that has been in charge of most of the health and social life of Palestine.
The United Nations Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in the occupied Palestinian Territory, Maxwell Gaylard, today voiced his concern about the forced closure on 30 November by the local authorities in Gaza of all Gaza-based offices of the non-governmental organization Sharek Youth Forum.
“I am very concerned about the recent forced closing of Sharek Youth Forum in Gaza. Sharek is an important NGO partner of the United Nations in its work on behalf of children and the youth in Gaza”, Mr. Gaylard said.
Mr. Gaylard noted that “Sharek’s work forms part of the many important activities carried out by civil society organizations in the occupied Palestinian Territory promoting development and the protection of human rights.“
He stated that freedom of association and freedom of expression are fundamental rights protected by international law as well as the Palestinian Basic Law and expressed his hope that Sharek would be permitted to continue its work in Gaza without further delay or undue hindrance.
Statement by Maxwell Gaylard,
United Nations Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in the occupied Palestinian Territory
On the Closure of Sharek Youth Forum in the Gaza StripJerusalem, 7 December 2010
Since 2007 the Fatah-dominated government in the West Bank has also closed more than 300 Hamas and Islamic-linked charities and NGOs.
I don’t see the UN raising the flag for the 300 Charities closed down in West Bank by the PA, not that Sharek Youth Forum be less important, but my note is in the context of marking the double standards used to emphasize the wrongs of one political party vs the other one, Hamas over their favorite Fatah.
The PA that is being cracking down on the resistance in the West Bank pleasing and serving the interest of Israel. Maybe the goal is toward “The Peace Talks” but we all know that Israel does not recognized Abbas as a “Peace Partner.”
Seriously speaking Israel does not know the meaning of peace.
And let’s mention also the continuous arrests of peaceful protesters in West Bank and Jerusalem, but not from the PA but from IDF forces that without mercy use lethal force to stop the demonstrators from expressing their opposition to the illegal Wall, the closure of Shuhada Street in Hebron, the demolitions of homes in East Jerusalem, the dispossession of homes, the illegal arrests of Palestinians and other very serious issues that the UN keep ignoring, even the murder of internationals is not a serious topic for our “Peace Keepers in New York Headquarters.”
Where is the Big Media in these important events that take place inside Palestine? Why don’t you Brake the Silence and exposed Israel Once and for all?..Will be the day that we will be celebrating Earth Day.
The next excerpts was taken from an article published by Aljazeera, I bring it to you because it has some good information, I do not agree with the way they portray the youth of Palestine taking the merit of their struggles, but now they are taking their time to give you a taste of the occupation with the “Big Media flavor”. Even thought in their article I see the youth of West Bank is not Numb as the great majority of the population, they [youth] see the situation from their young minds from different perspective.
“If you look at our social situation, people in Ramallah don’t care, mostly speaking,” says Dina Shilleh, a 27-year-old piano teacher who returned with her parents from Serbia during the heady early days of Oslo. “If they can go out, they have their car, they have their house, they can dress nicely, that’s kind of what it’s about. There’s a lot that’s been sedated. Because in the end you want to live. It’s like, hey, how long do you want to keep fighting? My grandparents fought, my parents fought. Am I gonna do it? My kids? It would have to be something that would really spark the people to get out of this numbness.”
I personally have experienced the disinterest from some Palestinians here in California and in Ramallah, they simply don’t care, they can come to the US, they work, eat and entertain themselves as long as they are not taking the heat from the IDF they care less for Gaza or for the struggles of Shuhada Street residents or East Jerusalem.
It is disappointing but also I see they are tired of fighting, they lived the occupation in their worse times, what can we do to wake up their dreams of freedom again?
Aljazeera Article published March, 05, 2011
On a cool January evening at the height of Tunisia’s Jasmine Revolution, Najwan Berekdar and a few friends were sitting at a smoky café in Ramallah, puffing on water pipes and strategising. “We were talking about what’s happening in Tunisia, and we decided, maybe this is the momentum – we should use it,” Berekdar remembers weeks later from her office at Sharek, a youth-oriented Palestinian NGO. “We were, like, five people. We were sitting with our laptops and we said, ‘Okay, let’s make an event.’ We wanted something to encourage people to go out.” Within days, masses of Egyptians began filling Tahrir Square, and 27-year-old Berekdar, her friends and like-minded Palestinian youths were even more inspired. “We wanted to send this message that it is time for us to do something. And obviously we can do it. Look at other people. If they managed to do it, we can do it.” The demonstrations these Palestinian youths helped organized were quickly banned, sometimes with clubs, by a Palestinian Authority (PA) with deep historic and political ties to the Tunisian and Egyptian dictatorships. But then other groups began forming their own demonstrations. And Berekdar and her friends, through email loops and a face-to-face “thinking group” of about 20 academics and intellectuals, organized new protests. “We were suppressed by the PA a second time and a third time,” she says. Soon Palestinian authorities began to investigate the group. “One of our group members was called by the police, and by the intelligence, and by – I don’t know, we have four security forces, I think,” Berekdar says. (Actually, there are five.) “They stayed at his home until one in the morning.” The mukhabarat assumed the young man was the ringleader, Berekdar recalls with amusement. They pressed him for details of the hierarchy of what is in fact a loose, ever-shifting coalition that only recently got a name: Hirak Shebab, or Youth Movement. It is an informal, mostly leaderless group – a concept the centralised PA does not seem to grasp. As Berekdar spoke, at 1:30 on a recent afternoon, an email came in from a friend. About the demonstration that day at 6:00: Should they do it at Manara Square in the centre of Ramallah or outside the Muqata, the PA headquarters? Berekdar was not sure. Scarcely four hours before the event, she seemed unhurried, and confident of Hirak Shebab’s ability to get sufficient numbers to show up at the last minute. Berekdar is trying to involve young people, both unaffiliated and from different Palestinian parties, including Hamas. She estimates that so far about 2,000 people connect with the group’s message pushing for democracy and fundamental change. “It’s about changing the whole discourse of the Palestinians,” she says. “It is time for us to start doing something. Because obviously the political leadership is not doing anything.” The ‘pulse of Palestine’ In the revolutionary spirit spreading across the Middle East, Palestinian youth groups have become a small but important catalyst in a building wave of discontent with PA repression and complicity in a failed “peace process” backed by the US. The groups’ actions are sparked not only by events in the region, but by the US veto of the UN Security Council’s condemnation of Israeli settlements. A widening circle of Palestinian groups are calling for an end to negotiations with Israel, an end to the political division between the West Bank and Gaza and wholesale reform of the PA and the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO). Some advocate dissolving the PA completely. “Fatah and Hamas have failed Palestinian society,” says Nader Said, a Palestinian pollster and political analyst. Youth, he says, “represent the pulse and conscience of Palestine”. In Gaza, Said says, young people “are the ones who have demonstrated in the middle of the shooting, covering their faces with paper bags,” so that security forces would refrain from possibly shooting a brother or cousin. “They are the soul of the Palestinians,” but by themselves, “they’re not strong enough to carry the emancipation agenda.” Yet the message is resonating well beyond the youth groups. As Palestinians under a 43-year occupation watch their Arab neighbours fight for democracy, pressure increases on the PA to reform itself – or at least, to appear to do so. Faced with the threat of the US veto, the PA sought to burnish its resistance credentials by refusing to yield to American pressure to call off the Security Council vote. And Salam Fayyad, the prime minister, recently sent a message to Palestinian youth via Facebook, asking for input as he forms a new Palestinian cabinet. Within hours, he received hundreds of replies – some supportive, some sceptical. “Now suddenly they’re this nationalistic body that’s clinging to Palestinian rights?” scoffed Diana Buttu, a Palestinian lawyer and former PA negotiator, in a recent interview. “They’ve put their finger to the wind, and realised that the wind has changed. Right now you don’t want to be seen as the one nation that’s clinging to the United States. So they had to do something.” But others say the pressure from emerging Arab democracies, and what one insider called the “betrayal” by the US, may force the PA to turn inward, and thus make the kind of core changes it has long resisted. “We do not want an authority that is a buffer between the people and the occupation,” says Qais Abu Leila, a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council and a founder of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine. “We need a Palestinian Authority that is part of the people and a continuation of the struggle against occupation.” Abu Leila believes the shifting political landscape may force the PA to confront its increasingly undemocratic, authoritarian character. “We are now facing the danger of the emergence of more or less police regimes” in Gaza and the West Bank. Under the PA, he says, “gradually the democratic checks and balances of government are fading away”. ‘A quiet colonisation’ Fundamental change within the PA, if it happened, would likely include a reassessment of its security cooperation with Israel. Some coordination of visas and safe passages, and movement of Palestinian police between West Bank towns, would continue, reformers say. More draconian measures seen as collaboration with Israel’s occupation could be suspended. These include the extralegal arrest and detention of hundreds of Palestinians, and incidents of torture, documented by Palestinian human rights groups, in the name of fighting terrorism and preventing a Hamas takeover in the West Bank. Human Rights Watch recently called on the US and EU to suspend aid to the PA “pending concrete steps to end a culture of impunity for security service abuses, including torture”. But a Palestinian decision to suspend security cooperation would likely have huge financial consequences. In recent years the US has spent nearly half a billion dollars in training and “professionalising” key parts of a 25,000-strong Palestinian security apparatus under three-star American general Keith Dayton. The money flow would likely reduce to a trickle if basic principles of the arrangement were suspended. Some analysts believe the PA could survive possible cuts in US funding, especially if the EU stepped into the breach. Others are sceptical. “The PA is a security subcontractor for Israel,” says Buttu. Despite the pressure the PA is facing, she does not foresee any change. “The whole aim is to allow Israel to have a very quiet occupation, a very quiet colonisation.” “We alleviated the occupation from its responsibility,” agrees Ali Jarbawi, a longtime critic of the authority who recently joined the government as the Palestinian minister of planning. “And they [Israelis] are living happily ever after when you go to Dizengoff Street and sip wine with the yuppies at these sidewalk cafés. As if the West Bank does not exist. As if Gaza does not exist. As if the Palestinians do not exist.” Jarbawi believes the two-year state-building plan the PA put in place in 2009, overseen by Fayyad, should be given a chance to work – but only until September 2011. Jarbawi insists there must be a limit to official Palestinian patience. “You can’t keep the negotiation track open forever, and keep the dependency on aid also open forever, so the world is paying for the continuation of the occupation. And at the same time they are building settlements on the ground, eating what’s supposed to become our state.” Jerusalem: ‘The next Tahrir?’ After September, Jarbawi says, the Palestinian strategy could include an end run around the US, through an appeal to the other members of the “Quartet” – the EU, Russia and the UN – to recognise a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders. Already nine Latin American nations have stepped forward. “Brazil, through this letter, recognises the Palestinian state on the 1967 borders,” Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the then Brazilian president, wrote to Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, in December. Other options Jarbawi envisions include asking for an international presence in the West Bank, building a new, nonviolent intifada – “one million people walking down the streets, chanting for an end to occupation” – or even dissolving the very authority in which Jarbawi now works. “That has to remain a viable option,” he says. Abu Leila believes dissolving the PA is unrealistic. But he insists the pressure for reform has become too great to ignore. “There is an almost universal recognition that there must be radical change in Palestine, and that it must start with ending the division” with Gaza, he says, echoing comments by Berekdar and many others. He calls this step essential “in order to face the occupation and a hostile policy adopted by the US. The PA could organise the Palestinian society in a way that could fuel the struggle against the Israeli occupation. This is a meaningful option.” This may be starting to happen. In February, Tawfiq Tirawi, a member of the Central Committee of the PLO and until recently the PA security chief, called for “days of rage” protests against the American veto in the Security Council. “They consider themselves the masters of the world,” said the man who until recently helped coordinate security arrangements with Israel and the US. “They [the Americans] call for democracy and freedom. They say that they want this for all nations of the world, but when it comes to the Palestinian people, it just evaporates. The interest of our people is the most important thing. We will say no to the Americans if it is not in the interest of our people.” Some Palestinians believe a nonviolent popular uprising is coming in Palestine – whether backed by the PA or not. “Resistance has always been a unifying force,” says Hani Masri of Badael, the Ramallah think-tank. “The youth, they are telling the leadership, either you will be changing or you will be changed.” Masri and others are discussing mass mobilisations, including 50,000 to 100,000 Palestinians marching peacefully to Qalandia, the checkpoint between Jerusalem and Ramallah that now resembles an international border crossing. Beyond that, he asks, “why can’t we turn Jerusalem into the next Tahrir?” Weekly protests in the Palestinian towns of Bili’in, Budrus and Nili’in have already received international attention as focal points of a nonviolent Palestinian resistance. But whether mass mobilisations will actually take place to confront the Israeli occupation is another matter. High price of confrontation “The big question today is whether the Palestinian society has the juice to create a real civil disobedience, refusing-the-occupation campaign,” says Gershon Baskin, the co-director of the Jerusalem-based Israel-Palestine Center for Research and Information, and a strong advocate of the two-state solution. “There are 24,000 Palestinians working in settlements. Two Rami Levi supermarkets opened up in the West Bank, and many of the shoppers are Palestinian. If you’re going to wage a campaign to simply say we’re not cooperating any more with the occupation, then what that means is you’re not going to work in Israel any more, you’re not going to work in the Israeli settlements … You’re going to have confrontation with the occupation. And that has a very high price.” Would Palestinians, so dependent on the foreign-funded jobs and services that Buttu calls “donor heroin,” be willing to forego the sharp reduction in aid that would surely accompany a new strategy of confrontation? “In the short term we would really pay a heavy price economically,” Buttu agrees. “For one thing, you wouldn’t see people sitting around in nice cafés like this,” she says, smiling ironically while sitting in Ramallah’s Café de la Paix. But confronting the occupation “would definitely unite people who are not united now”. “Something could spark it,” Baskin says. “Who would have predicted Tunisia, Egypt, Libya? But I don’t see Palestinian society having the energy today to do it. Israelis and Palestinians today feel much more comfortable pushing a ‘like’ button on their Facebook page than going out to the street.” That may or may not be true. As major checkpoints have come down recently, the occupation has loosened around Ramallah, Nablus and Jenin, and relative freedom within a small portion of the West Bank has created a sense of limited breathing room. For some Palestinians, quality of life has gone up. Some say the “donor heroin” has created a sense of comfort, even complacency, in the small enclave inside the West Bank. “If you look at our social situation, people in Ramallah don’t care, mostly speaking,” says Dina Shilleh, a 27-year-old piano teacher who returned with her parents from Serbia during the heady early days of Oslo. “If they can go out, they have their car, they have their house, they can dress nicely, that’s kind of what it’s about. There’s a lot that’s been sedated. Because in the end you want to live. It’s like, hey, how long do you want to keep fighting? My grandparents fought, my parents fought. Am I gonna do it? My kids? It would have to be something that would really spark the people to get out of this numbness.” And yet, when Hirak Shebab organised demonstrations at Manara Square recently, Dina answered the call. “We need a new leadership,” she says, recalling her chants against the occupation and in favour of democracy. “We need a new idea.”
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March 15: Palestinian Youth Call for Unify under One Nation, without colors, only by their flag colors
Posted on March 14 by Marivel Guzman in collaboration with Omar Karem
Palestine(Akashma Web Blogs)Gaza one of the oldest districts in Palestine,with 62 Villages and Cities, on the Mediterranean Riviera, facing the sea if you sail in an straight line on the Mediterranean sea you can get to Crete, Cypress, Turkey, Egypt,Libya, Even to the south of Italy then why Palestinians are force to beg to the government of Egypt to let in to Gaza as it is happening in this moments, where thousands of Palestinians are stranded in various airports and main cities around the world, because the New Military Government in Egypt of Omar Suleiman does not allow them to set foot in Egypt territory, and the Palestinians that want to leave Gaza, go through a tedious procedure starting with their own government, where they need to pay a fee to get into a list to be permitted to leave Gaza, then once they cross to Rafah Egypt in the Egyptian side they wait another 5 to 10 hours, to be return back to Gaza without a valid reason what so ever. Some Palestinians are allowed to leave only if they have a Visa and ticket ready to leave the country, or some few cases of patients that cross for treatment to a specific clinics in Egypt. They are some talks about lifting the ban, but nothing concrete yet.
On the other side of Palestine where close to 8 millions of Palestinians live in the various cities and refugees camps, between hundreds of Illegal “Settlements” and “Outpost” surrounded by heavy military personal, a 25 feet wall and dozens of incorporated check points and road blocks, illegal detentions and targeting assassinations, that make their every day life impossible, without counting with the shortage of drinking water, lack of jobs, and a Unite government that oversee the necessities of their citizens.
Since Israel withdrew from Gaza on 2005, the situation in Palestine have gone from bad to worse, the physical division that separate Palestine making it into two different entities, at least that is what Israel have force them to be, and for the last 4 years seems that Palestinians living West Bank and Gaza have fallen into Israel Game.
The situation was looking too gray for the future of Palestine until a group called “Gaza Youth Brake the Silence” that in December 2010 exposed the conditions of the besieged Gaza to the world. This group call for the Unity of all Palestine and this movement started to grow to a magnitude that even Israel was taken by surprise.
In matter of days all the Outlets News of the world took notice of this group and their Manifesto was widely spread across the Internet, and their facebook group grew by the minutes in matter of days they have more than 12,000 members.
They have called for the Unity of the political parties, the people, the ideas to be Palestine One Nation, they are inviting all Palestine to raise their voice at unison, converging their ideas for the common good of Palestinians, not rule by Fatah, or Hamas, not intended for Gaza or West Bank but for Palestine.
Palestinians who carried on their shoulders all the sins of history and jammed events that Promoted a new generation resolutely legacy accumulated over decades in the both sides of Palestine; West Bank and the Gaza Strip. And from Gaza begins its new launch iniciative, said he wished to rectify the deficit of the older generation of parents and the errors committed at the height of the conflict between the sworn brotherhood of power.
The youth of Gaza are in their twenties, they dress sporty, they are University Students, they are the facebook activist, the twitters, youtubers, this generation that want to change the old ideas, they want a new Palestine without the rigor of religion, without the stamp of millitary flavor, their envision a new Palestine United by their flag, their Land, culture and her people, they want to forget about the political parties that have damage so much the reputation of Palestine.
The fight for the power, the hold of the chair, all the political and military mix that did not help Palestine to be United as a Nation fighting for a common enemy the Occupier, the Neo-Colonizer Israel that for 62 years sow the terrain to her convenience.
Israel divided the land in two diametrical entities that it made them believe that they were two people living in two distance lands. West Bank, Palestine dislike for long time Gaza People, they saw them for some time as intruders that came to take their jobs. In the Gaza Strip the situation did not go fine either, they were forced to choose and pick their candidates when the physical division made impossible the central government of Palestine to take care of the affairs of Gaza.
Gaza was forcefully neglected to the point that new factions were formed to filled the vacuum left by the Palestinian Authority, even when Yasser Arafat the revered men in Palestine, was imprisoned in his Rammallah compound, he could not ever serve his closest citizens, under the watch of the whole world. He managed the affairs of the nation from the headquarters of the PA in Ramallah, but Gaza was too far to be served or help. During those years Israel was brewing the fate of Gaza and the separation from Palestine. For almost 8 years and since Israel withdrew her army and dismantle the settlements from Gaza, the Strip is being deteriorating under a siege and a bigger negglect, but this time by the whole world that being witness of the situation and done nothing about it.The activist of the world have work tirelessly to show the raw truth to the world, and now the youth of Palestine is taking the lead.
Now all the lies are exposed, the internal fights need to settled, the youth of Gaza is forcing the old leaders to rethink their role, to lead Palestine as a Nation and come as one voice. They created a big plataform where all the dissidents voices can be heard and the obsolete policies and old practices be clean away.
They said: “We have moved more than a month to work on the ground and left the “Facebook” virtual world for the revolution to end the division and we started working on a campaign of house to house of Rafah to Beit Hanoun and in all parts of the West Bank to translate the Revolution to the ground in all parts of home.”March 15 activists speaking on their behalf and they visited the Office in Gaza.
Revolution Profile: Mohamed Sheikh Yusuf, Youth March 15 for the most we have to work to restore national unity and if we are not united Palestine is lost and her youth will be lost, and the old Palestinian people should carry the idea of the Palestinian flag without the other no one says, “To continued to divide the revolution, to allow for all to wrap around and the most inspirational to continue as young people, we relied on personal spending for this revolution, saying it was a revolution to add personal expense to the contributions of activists, saying sarcastically that the revolution of this kind does not need of funding.
Prosecutions and arrests for police officer and a Rose:
Through the process of build-up and preparation for the start of a revolution young Shaykh Yusuf: We have been prosecuted and there has been arrests and booking, our computer hardware and “Laptop” being taken by our own security services in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, but we are saying that young people have decided to give a rose for each element of police Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza during the first hour of the demonstrations, saying, “We get young men in a spontaneous march in the Gaza Strip days before the police and shouted to the societies of young people and police together to end the division, stressing that the youth revolution of the March that we have today we will distribute 1000 rose to the elements of the police.”
Legitimacy belongs to the Palestinians wherever they are:
Sheikh Yusuf saying: “Our response to Palestinian organizations, that he would not only represents the youth and young people will not be able to impose one view, but the view of all Palestinian Society.
Joseph another youth said: that the field will not allow any party whatsoever, or any one that tries to impose party color or class, because the field will not only receives a campaign of the Palestinian flag and raise the slogan of the people wants to end the division and a single emblem of the Palestinian people at this point.
“We will not allow anyone to Tahir March 15, in the interest of partisan or institutional and that it is not only the legitimacy of the field.”
Sheikh Yusuf called on all Palestinian to go on March 15, raising the Palestinian flag only.
He said: We call on Hamas, we also call for Fatah and other factions to get off wearing the Palestinian dress and the Palestinian flag and get free societies in this day of the party and our only goal during this phase is to protect the national project and protect the blood of the martyrs and call for unity, it is a call for great leaders Yasser Arafat and Khalil al-Wazir Ahmed Yassin, Abu Ali Mustafa, George Habash, Shakaki and decided that the young Palestinian leaders invited to meet the bone and split ends and restores unity to strengthen the Palestinian unified.
Sheikh Yusuf said the most important success of the revolution until the moment is to break the deadlock and break the barrier of fear and activation of the silent majority and people express their views and rights of what is going on.
And about gathering places, said Joseph Nouri, a militant revolution Onalamancn March 15 are:
In the central Gaza Strip, the crowd will be in the field of the Unknown Soldier at 12 noon.
West Bank crowd in the central Manara Square in Ramallah
For the rest of the areas in the West Bank, which will not be able to reach the lighthouse in Ramallah, the crowd will be in Bethlehem Church of the Nativity in Jenin in the field of the Jenin Martyrs. It will also be in the crowd in front of the Palestinian diaspora Palestinian embassies or offices of the Palestine Liberation Organization.
Joseph Nouri said that the call would be to sit in the same places of the crowd, unless they decided that the field is saying to let the field decide.
As for the organization of the crowd and fields, “said Nouri, said the idea began by inviting youth groups to the crowd after crowd sleep youth work to organize the crowds and space management, explaining that he had been set up committees to the system of committees flags and committees supporting and unifying slogans stressing that young people have all the preparations for the management of post-crowd.
WHEN Israeli Jets Bombard Gaza Strip
Posted on February 27, 2011 by Omar Karem from Gaza, Palestine in collaboration with Marivel Guzman
How to be safe and help others?
Israel bomber plane
How to react and help others in Gaza if Israel bombard this tiny peace of land in the Mediterranean?
Gaza more than an occupied nation under siege look more like a big open prison, where close to two millions residents live under the military boot of Israel.
With the daily military excursions invading our land and air space, disrupting every bit of life in Gaza.
When the Israel planes come in the middle of the night blasting their sonar bombs, braking windows, and dreams, what we suppose to do?.
When the tanks cross inside Gaza destroying farm land, and the bulldozers come to destroy the houses and business of Palestinians, how we suppose to react?.
When the F16 show up sending missiles to an unarmed population, inflicting terror, destruction and death, what we do?
When the Jenin Massacre occurred ambulances were not allowed to enter the refugee camp for 12 days to help the wounded, how Palestinians supposed to help each other when Israel bombard Gaza?
Do not be gross with the next images, they were Palestinians like me before they were shred to pieces by Israel Bombs, I do not like these images, and I do not want to be one of those images. I hate those images, but when they were alive they were part of Jenin Camp Population, please! do not be gross out. Have pity for us, be compassionate and tell our story, our true story to the world, we need help.
By Jennifer Loewenstein Article Posted 19 April 2002 :”Eyewitness Report of the Atrocities in Jenin, Palestine”
http://www.aztlan.net/jeninmassacre.htm
Don’t believe what CNN and BBC among other western news agencies are telling you. You be the Opinion Maker. Ask why can be an investigation; why it must be called a “humanitarian tragedy” rather than a crime against humanity; why the EU has not imposed sanctions on Israel for its actions; why no international monitoring force is immediately leaving for the region; why Israeli political and military spokespeople are telling reporters that “only (sic) 45 people died” and that they were all armed “militants”. Why no one challenges these comments or reminds these spokespeople that Israel conducted a massive military offensive against people who have the right to resist the occupation of their land. If your blood doesn’t run cold when US President George W. Bush calls Ariel Sharon a “man of peace” then you’re getting nothing but lies packaged as news and information by a massive propaganda machine. Americans, you are paying for the dehumanization and destruction of an entire people. Jenin is only the most ominous and recent reminder of where Israel’s 54 year old policies against the Palestinians are leading.
Sabra and Shatila is another of the massacres perpetrated by Israel on unarmed population, and gone unchallenged by US, UN Club and other Israel allies. Why? Who is going to bring Israel to Justice?
The Sabra and Shatila Refugee Camp Massacre took place between 15 to 18 September 1982. This massacre is considered the bloodiest single atrocity committed against the Palestinian people in living history.
Can the world please tell us, how after 62 years of empty talks and promises, how we suppose to sit and cross our arms and wait for another attack, while the US keeps stopping resolution in The UN security council.
We the residents of Gaza are fighting an every day battle, with little or no arms to defend ourselves.
What can we do?
And the world leaders after all the carnage Israel have done to our brothers and sisters Palestinians in the last 62 years, we are portray as criminals and terrorist, what we need to do to be seen as we have been since Israel was created? The displaced population, murdered, terrorized and wronged.
Why would the US veto any resolution that promise justice for Palestinians? How can they go to sleep at night knowing that we are being massacred, we are being exterminated slowly.
Can you see that Israel is committing genocide? How many of us need to die under Israel war planes and tanks before someone come to our rescue?
I live in Gaza, Palestine and I m tired of waiting for the world to help us to bring justice and peace, at least the certainly that tomorrow we can have a full day of peace, a whole night without sonar bombs, a day where I can plan my day without having to be worry if I will come back home to write or enjoy a peaceful dinner with my family.
I do not want to be part of the numbers, I want to Live in Peace and Freedom, I want my land back.
What can I do when Israel jets bombard Gaza again?
“I m not just another Palestinian writing about the horrors that we are forced to live every day, I m a human being, a young Palestinian that is a witness and victim of Israel criminality. I do not know other life but this one that I m narrating to you, it is in my mind, in my heart, my genes, my reality is now, in this moment only, I can not have the luxury to dream a better future, I do not see another future but my present reality.” Omar Karem
During Gaza Massacre 2009, that the Main Stream Media insist in calling it a war, where more than 1400 Palestinians died under the bombs, and hundreds were burn alive under the white phosphorous bombs, we were like sitting ducks, unable to defend ourselves, we lived in a giant prison, where there is no way out. We were continuously bombarded for 22 days, and the world did not moved a finger to help us.
The US did not even call Israel to slap her in her wrist, for the contrary they were accomplices in our slaughter, as most of the bombs, white phosphorous and other weapons are either made in US, or directly financed by American dollars.
What the world is waiting to say “Enough” , will they want to wait 50 years after Israel have exterminate us, and then declare it in for “HISTORY” A GENOCIDE, as happen with so many massacres gone unnoticed in the world?
If the US and UN club do not change their position about Israel, me and the other close to 2 millions Gaza Residents have the same bleak future as me. It is not fair, we all born equals and free.
Tell me, What can I do next time that Israel War Planes come and Bombard Gaza again?
STATEMENT FROM HOSTAGES ON BOARD STROPHADES IV…URGENT
Posted by Marivel Guzman
HOSTAGES ON BOARD STROPHADES IV…GREEK SHIP..
We have been kidnapped at the Libyan port of Derna, by the Captain and crew of the Straphades IV. The Captain and crew have since left and the Greek authorities are now holding us hostage on board the Strophades IV.Ten of us are being held …at gunpoint by a… Greek SWAT team, in a small room 8x8ft. We have been told if we move we will be shot. We have requested sleeping facilities, showering facilities, access to telephones/internet and consular assistance – all have been denied. In the last 48 hours we have had one tin of coke and one sandwich to eat. We have had no access to water other than that in the toilets. We have to ask permission to do anything, including using toilets. We have no status. We do not know the nature of the charges we are being held under and feel extremely vulnerable. We ask that everyone please put pressure on the Greek government and demand that they end this nightmare. We want the Greek authorities to release us and allow us safe passage to Libya, where we can join the remaining members of the Road to hope convoy and proceed with humanitarian aid to Palestine.
Message ends…..
ARE THE MASTERS of deceit playing with our intelligence? this is atrocious .ridiculous and non sense act of piracy.theatery and blatant abuse of power.What the people is waiting to yell your outrage.
Yesterday when finally few outlets News picked up the SOS from the hostages and the attention was in the hijacked ship, Israel f16 were bombarding Gaza and terrorizin the children with sonar bombs. Off course Zio-terrorist Israel and her puppets are behind this distracting tactical event.
The situation created by this twist of events with the Internationals peace activists was clearly planned and calculated by Israel Egypt Uk to disrupt the land convoys and knowing that all the activists are exhausted.
We only can do so much from our stand as International peace activists. Sharing the News raising awareness to the world, we must brake this block of indifference and impunity that keep us lethargic and divided, and showing to our governments that we are united and not be deterred by gimmicks.
Do not let them distract you, keep the pressure. Write to the diverse embassies of the governments involved in this outrageous incident, demonstrate in front of the embassies.
The activists Stranded in the Libyan/Egyptian border need our help.
Raise money to send them to finish the mission to deliver the humanitarian aid to Gaza…Thanks.
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.)
Road to Hope convoy stalled at Egyptian border
Via <ahttp://kenokeefe.wordpress.com/Ken O'keefe Blog
Posted by Marivel Guzman on October 31, 2010
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Road to Hope convoy stalled at Egyptian border
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.)
Egypt’s Facebook front: Power to the People
Posted on October 23 by Marivel Guzman
from Original Post on Haaretz by Zvi Bar’el
Blog it–Share it — Tweet it– Youtube it– Digg it Mubarak human rights abuses must to stop, the assault in free speech of every individual is sacred and should be respected, Mubarak! is over, your reign of oppression is over..POWER TO THE PEOPLE.
Could Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, who this month began his 30th year in office, have imagined he would have to conduct his political battles via computer? Via the “curse of the Internet”? Against bloggers and Facebook? Could he have conceived that one day he would have to relinquish his monopoly over public discourse to young people aged 18 to 25, who send messages to millions of potential voters in Egypt with the tap of a finger?
The Kafia (Enough ) movement, which was formally established in 2004, became active online during the 2005 election campaign. In its wake a dozen movements have arisen demanding regime change. Around the time when the Kafia website was established, the Muslim Brotherhood was also working on its own site. Each of these movements was immediately joined by long lists of bloggers, who helped foment demonstrations, strikes and an entire, new national discourse in which the regime has hardly any presence.
ccording to statistics published at internetworldstats.com, which tracks the distribution of Internet usage around the world, in 2000 there were only 450,000 internet users in Egypt. Now there are 18 million – approximately 22 percent of the population. This is also about the same proportion of the population that is between the ages of 18 and 27 – the segment likely to determine the outcome of the next election.
Mohamed ElBaradei, former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency and a Nobel Prize laureate, is now devoting most of his energies to this public. Although he has not yet declared himself a presidential candidate for next fall’s election, his slogan is “Change will come via the young.” His supporters have launched a Facebook group listing his demands for changing the constitution, and have more than 129,000 followers.
Supporters of the president’s son Gamal Mubarak, considered the front-runner at present, set up their own Facebook group attacking ElBaradei, and published photos of his daughter Laila wearing a bathing suit.
The presidential election campaign, which has started early, is closely linked to the parliamentary elections scheduled for next month, under the assumption that the latter will be an early test of the presidential race. However, it appears the regime has not yet appreciated the essence of the demographic change: It believes the main threat is not young people, but rather the Muslim Brotherhood, which until recently was torn over whether to participate in the elections or to boycott them along with other opposition movements.
As the group wavered, debates flared online between bloggers and on Facebook. “For whom should I vote when it is the government that determines who gets elected?” wrote one reader in response to the coverage in the Al-Masri Al-Youm newspaper. “Don’t make a laughingstock of yourselves – after all, you know that whether or not we vote, it’s the government that decides,” wrote another reader.
In the end the Brotherhood decided to run, and put together a list of about 160 candidates. Though it is an illegal movement and is prohibited from forming a political party, its candidates’ identities are known and they will run as independents. In the previous elections they got 88 representatives (out of 454 ) into Parliament, and are now expecting to win nearly double that number of seats and become a powerful faction.
However, the number of candidates the Brotherhood hopes to get into parliament indicates it is not aspiring to “conquer the legislature” per se. It wants to demonstrate power but not be a threat. Otherwise, it would have put together a list of at least 300 candidates.
The regime is not impressed by the Muslim Brotherhood’s “modest” approach, and considers it to be the main political threat. The regime is working against the movement both on the “traditional” level – nearly 200 activists have been arrested – and on the “electronic” level. First, the regime shut down four satellite stations that broadcast religious programming and informed them they would no longer be able to use Nilesat satellite services unless they upheld the terms of their licenses. These terms prohibit broadcasting content harmful to Christians and Shiites, limit religious content to 50 percent of all broadcasts, ban the broadcast of items “liable to disturb order and arouse civil war,” and mandate allocating specific amounts of airtime to films and music.
Now, media and official bodies are also required to apply for a permit to disseminate messages via SMS. Movements that do not enjoy official status, like the Muslim Brotherhood, the Kafia movement, the National Association for Change headed by ElBaradei and the Nasserist Al-Karama party, cannot receive permits.
However, these restrictions – which have made Egypt a focus of international criticism – cannot prevent activity on Facebook or stop bloggers from disseminating messages via their own personal sites.
When both the demography of Egypt is working against the regime and the “arsenal” is changing, perhaps Mubarak himself – like his colleague President Shimon Peres – will also have to open a Facebook group.
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.
Bar’el has been with Haaretz since 1982, and has written extensively on the Arab and Islamic world. In 2009, he was awarded the Sokolov prize for lifetime achievement in print journalism.
Bar’el has a Ph.D in the History of the Middle East. He teaches at Sapir Academic College and is a research fellow at the Truman Institute at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, as well as at the Center for Iranian Studies.
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Power to the people.
By Marivel Guzman
Blog it–Tweeter–Digg it– Stumpt it–Youtube it—Myspace it—Share it–
Human rights abuses must stop in Egypt and every where in the world
Free Speech is a right every citizen of the world must enjoy
No President, Prime Minister, King, or anyone can suppress our rights, support Egyptian in their struggle
POWER TO THE PEOPLE
The era of instant communications is here, regardless of the propaganda still expensive and paid by the high hierarchy, we the people have in our hands powerful tools than can change the balance to our favor.
We are not talking of war or violence, not at all, the dissemination of the truth is sufficient to educate people and make them part of the social change that is inevitable.
Mubarak,Natajahu, to Obama..I mean any “smart” leader have to take notice of the reach of the social networks.
We are not talking of something sporadic and out of place, we are talking of facebook as a social phenomenon that can not be stopped.
Facebook even if it was put in place by the spy agencies and with the idea to gather information or control us, has got out of their control. Now we control it, we move the information, we are making the News from our keyboards, we decide what to believe, because we all are thinkers, in one level or other, we all are in the process of evolving to the next level.
It is not by chance of accident that we are in this point of history, society is continuously changing, and we being in the informatics age should not be surprise that we are making history, we are writing the history of our time.
Facebook is one tool, but without YOU is of no use.
30 Survivors of the Mavi Marmara made it to Gaza
Posted by Marivel Guzman
On Thursday, October 21, at 4pm local time, Viva Palestina – Lifeline to Gaza 5 Convoy passed the Rafah crossing, and entered the besieged Gaza Strip
Out of the 600 passengers of the Mavi Marmara, the Turkish ship that suffered the deadly attack in Internationals Waters by Israeli commandos killing 9 peace activists, 30 of those have risked their life again joining the land convoy from the UK based organization Viva Palestine.
Today October 22 marked a day in the calendar for the besieged Gaza whom has suffered a blockage of goods for more than 1300 days.
The highly publicized news from Israel of the ease of the blockage is nothing but propaganda aimed to calm the public opinion for its inhumane siege, that has been criticized by international organizations and heads of state.
The entrance of the convoy is just a bandage in the deep wound of Gaza, after being almost paralyzed for this siege.
This convoy and the previous can bring so little being the great necessity of Gaza after 5 years of Israel continuous attacks, and the blockade that Israel imposed under the indifference and almost official approval of the United Nations and its signatories countries.
The situation in Gaza is sad and deplorable after more than 5 years of assaults, destruction of her infrastructure and destruction of thousands of homes, added to the blockade imposed by Israel, with lame excuses, as the imports come to Gaza throughout the thousands of Tunnels between Gaza and Egypt. Illegal corridors that are more difficult to control than the established borders that count with military personal.
Dear Online Activist Friends-Share Everything
Posted by Marivel Guzman
Original post by Vahid Razavi
On October 15, 2010
Dear online activist friends,
Social and Peace Activist, author Vahid Razavi
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
Too Small for social change?...Not at all
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.
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.
For the Fearful and Naive Global Citizenry
For the Fearful and Naive Global Citizenry
Author: Raja Mujtaba, Editor in World
Posted on 12. Aug, 2010 by Marivel Guzman, Original Posted by Raja Mujtaba in Opinion
Heavy Chatter War Coming to America
By Tommy Tucci
Philadelphia, PA, August 2010…… For The fearful and the Naive Global Citizenry Heavy Chatter War Coming To America. “Controversial billboard comparing the “change” of U.S. President Barack Obama with Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin raised a few eyebrows before it was papered over one day after it appeared in Mason City, Iowa.” Posted by Cristopher Bollyn
Terrorist Deceptions Will Overpower You
American underachievers self admitted FAILURES. Mentally over medicated on shill pills and physically repulsive on $10 figure bonus checks greed. Their dereliction of duty has accelerated America into the greatest ‘To Big To Fail’ criminal empire in history. Their ongoing lack of success has impacted U.S. demise resulting in supreme criminal global crimes; an unhinged failed state, a Global Plague on Humanity; Genocide, Crimes against Humanity, War Crimes, Crimes against Peace, Destruction of Civilizations, Narco-Nexus Drug Cartel Dealing, Repeal of the US Constitution, Articles Bill of Rights, Habeas Corpus, Geneva Conventions, Nuremberg Tribunals, US Military Code of Honor, and the continued theft of its citizenry including global masses of labor, property, and assets.
Hillary Clinton promised to implement the equivalent of twelve holocausts against Iran’s 70 million citizens in her rant to ‘We will Obliterate Iran’ ” Posted by James Petras. Now Hillary Clinton is someone to really look up to in the annals of American Exceptionalism !!! A dysfunctional misanthrope trying to imitate Josef Stalin Jew’s in a man’s pants suit outfit. ‘LET THEM EAT CAKE’ Posted by Paul Craig Roberts
War Against Humanity Chatter Propaganda and Deceptions
War against humanity heavy chatter propaganda and deceptions. Admitted over medicated and physically repulsive fools conning the naive. “Phony Terrorist Leader being “Branded” by Associated Press, the Voice of Israel” senior Staff writer Veteran Today Posted by Gordon Duff. “Adnan Shukrijumah, 35 formerly of Brooklyn, New York and Miami Beach is more likely to carry the real name Levine or Goldstein. The “legend,” intelligence jargon for a false background constructed for an imaginary person, created for Shukrijumah is paper thin. An FBI Agent named Brian LeBlanc in an “exclusive interview” with the Associated Press warned the world of this new “bin Laden” clone. Posted by Gordon Duff
As you keep up your guard fearful and naive of terrorists and get ready to celebrate your favorite deception September 11, 2001, you’ll miss the entire takeover of USA. “The war on terror, invented by the George W. Bush/Dick Cheney regime, destroyed the US Constitution and the civil liberties that the Constitution embodies.” Posted by Paul Craig Roberts
Fallujah The Snapshot of American Cities at War With Itself
Fallujah the snapshot. No revolution is from the bottom up its always from the top down. As America accelerates and compounds failure exponentially it will begin to eviscerate its very own citizenry and nation with Iraq Fallujah type destruction. Its financial and economic systems are a final phase of epic shambles and total demise.
“Unreported in the New Zealand media and virtually unreported in the United States was the release of a report by public health academics who studied the cancer rate, infant mortality and the birth to sex ratio of children in Fallujah. The authors concluded that the findings, “show increases in cancer, leukaemia and infant mortality and perturbations of the normal human population birth sex ratio significantly greater than those reported for the survivors of the A-Bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.” Posted by Ukrunet
Snapshot of American cities to come. “The report is astounding. It shows that the residents of Fallujah have been collectively poisoned and genetically damaged since 2004. An entire city turned into a radioactive and toxic metropolis. The brain damaged, the deformed and the disabled babies who will be the living victims of this were not even born as the bombs rained on the city and the bullets tore the population apart in 2004.” Posted by Ukrunet
Communism Absolute State Ownership Control of Labor Property Assets
American astounding failures war trajectory against itself. “The billboard suggests that Obama is a radical socialist leader similar to Hitler and Lenin. This is, in fact, a true comparison, which is probably why it was papered over so quickly. Obama, Hitler, and Lenin were all initially financed by Rothschild money. If we look at the historical record, we can clearly see that all three leaders were originally puppets of the House of Rothschild.” Posted by Cristopher Bollyn
LENIN
There is no need to exaggerate the part played in the creating of Bolshevism and in the actual bringing about of the Russian Revolution by these international and for the most part atheistic Jews. It is certainly the very great one; it probably outweighs all others. With the notable exception of Lenin, the majority of the leading figures are Jews. Moreover, the principal inspiration and driving power comes from the Jewish leaders…
– Winston Churchill, “Zionism versus Bolshevism: A Struggle for the Soul of the Jewish People”, Illustrated Sunday Herald, London, February 8, 1920
Leon Trotsky was given $20 million in Jacob Schiff gold to help finance the revolution, which was deposited in a Warburg bank, then transferred to the Nya Banken (The New Bank) in Stockholm, Sweden. According to the Knickerbocker Column in the New York Journal American on February 3, 1949: “Today it is estimated by Jacob’s grandson, John Schiff,that the old man sank about $20,000,000 for the final triumph of Bolshevism in Russia.”
No revolution is from the bottom up it’s always from the top down so forget the TEA PARTY distraction. Democrats, Republications, Congress, Supreme Court they are all colluding with Wall Street bank barons Federal Reserve gang Banksters and crony mainstream media ultra admitted FAILURES operating in unison to the detriment of ‘We The people.’ Accelerating America and global nations into its final death knell. Cities nations and countries into a radioactive and toxic metropolis dump. .. Socialism is deception for communism the absolute state ownership control of labor property and assets.
Fearful and Naive No Recourse
Summary of the fearful and naive. If the future of our planet is going to replicate the crimes committed in Iraq, and Afghanistan then the zenith of ultimate self admitted supreme failures will have failed absolutely. In their fanatical failure and psychopathic hyper militaristic quest for world domination and the total state ownership control of all labor property and assets, their self inflicted failure will have succeeded to render the planet uninhabitable to all humanity, creatures, animals, flora, fauna, and life as we have known since recorded time. A toxic world metropolis dump.
As the fearful and naive continue to be conned by failures and fools while looking in the bath tub for terrorists you’ll have missed the entire takeover of USA going on outside your front door. There is no recourse to the manufactured collapse and total destruction of America and the world as we know. Goodbye America Posted by Occidental Observer “A Nation Cannot Survive Treason from Within” c.103BC Cicer
AUTHORS SOURCES
http://21stcenturyreversepyramid.blogspot.com/
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2010/05/10/gordon-duff-rats-in-wolves-clothing/
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2010/08/07/gordon-duff-new-al-qaeda-leader-may-be-israeli/
http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v14/v14n1p-4_Weber.html
http://wapedia.mobi/en/Crime_against_humanity
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism
http://www.bollyn.com/index.php#article_12327
http://petras.lahaine.org/articulo.php?p=1786
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3342999,00.html
The Zionist Power Configuration in America and Israel’s War with Iran
http://www.rense.com/general91/chel.htm
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=19458
http://deoxy.org/wc/wc-nurem.htm
http://uruknet.com/?p=m68629&hd=&size=1&l=e
http://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/authors/Darkmoon-GoodbyeI.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-10721562
http://www.opinion-maker.org/2010/07/opinion-maker-where-truth-is-the-news-and-readers-are-the-opinion-makers/
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.
Why Obama is Subjected To Blackmails
Posted on 08. Aug, 2010 by Marivel Guzman
Editor Raja Mujtaba
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.
Men who have reportedly had sexual relations with Barack Obama
Donald Young, TUCC Choir director
Larry Sinclair, gay escort
Reggie Love, White House presidential assistant and Obama’s “body man”
Artur Davis, US Representative from Alabama and gubernatorial candidate
Bill Frist, former GOP Senate Majority Leader
Deval Patrick, Governor of Massachusetts
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.
His story is hided from history
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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PALESTINE: Arabs Damaging The Palestinian Cause
PALESTINE: Arabs Damaging The Palestinian Cause
Posted on 01. Aug, 2010 by Raja Mujtaba in Palestine
Saudi regime is the most reactionary and the most backward regime in the whole region. They’re closer to the Taliban than to anything else in terms of regime and society. Saudi rulers are better advised to change their own regime rather than trying to change the regimes in other countries.
Prof Gilbert Achcar
Arabs’ ties with Israel damages the Palestinian cause: Prof Gilbert Achcar
By Kourosh Ziabari
Prof Gilbert Achcar
Prof. Gilbert Achcar is a renowned Lebanese academician, writer, socialist and anti-war activist. He left Lebanon in 1983 and taught international relations and politics at the University of Paris VII for several years. Since 2007, Achcar has been Professor of Development Studies and International Relations at the School of Oriental and African Studies of the University of London. He is a frequent contributor to Le Monde Diplomatique and ZNet.
Prof. Achcar joined me in an interview to discuss the latest developments related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Israel’s attack on the Freedom Flotilla and the prospect of Israel’s occupation of West Bank and Gaza.
Kourosh Ziabari: Dear Prof. Achcar, what’s your estimation of the prospect of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?
Gilbert Achcar: This is extremely difficult to answer because the situation of the Middle East is changing so quickly and frequently that any kind of prediction about the future is always very risky, so what I can say in reply to your question is that in the foreseeable future, there can’t be any serious and acceptable compromise leading to a peaceful coexistence between Israel and the Palestinians. The reason is that the Israeli society has been continuously shifting to the right so that more and more extreme branches of Zionism are governing Israel, and therefore it’s extremely difficult to imagine that governments like the present government of Israel would make all of the concessions that are required for a true peace with the Palestinians. There can’t be any beginning of peace actually without an end to the occupation of the territories that were occupied since 1967, the dismantlement of the separation wall which Israel has been building and the dismantlement of the settlements. These are basic conditions to which of course one should add the immediate lifting of the blockade of Gaza. So, there’s absolutely no indication at present that the Israeli government as it is, has any inclination to go in that direction.
KZ: Both of the Palestinians and the Israelis, from a religious viewpoint, claim that the land of Israel belongs to them. Both of them cite the historical evidences and religious implications in this regard. What’s your idea about that? How should this interminable conflict come to an end?
GA: This should be hardly debatable among serious people because it’s absolutely clear that when the United Nations voted on the partition of Palestine and voted on creating a Jewish state on Palestine which was the goal of the Zionists, it gave 56 percent of the land of Palestine to the Jewish population which constituted only one third of the whole population. Moreover, the majority of this one third were immigrants, the overwhelming majority of whom had been in Palestine less than 15 years, so there is no fair standard on earth by which this kind of resolution could be considered as legitimate and just; it was completely unjust and completely unfair. No people on earth would admit that recently arrived immigrants have a right to establish their own state in their country. However, I believe that a just solution to the problem is one that would not involve any new expulsion of population; it should be a solution based on democratic principles and peaceful coexistence of Muslims, Christians and Jews, Arabs and Israelis in the region. But, for this to happen, the very nature of Israel’s relationship with its environment should change whereas what we’re seeing now is more and more violence, barbarity and cruelty on the part of Israel.
KZ: Israelis believe and claim that they should have a state with its borders spanned from Nile to Euphrates. This is the “Promised Land” which they recurrently refer to. What do you think about that? Is it a reasonable and justifiable claim?
GA: Even in Israel, very few people subscribe to this view. Only some extremist branches of Zionism believe in this idea. It sounds so absurd that only crazy people can uphold such perspectives. Now, if we had to redraw the map of the world to go back to how the world was 2,000 years ago, we can imagine what a terrible mess would happen in the whole world. Besides, there’s much debate even on the fact that the European Jews who came to Palestine in the 20th century are descendants of the Jews who were in Palestine 2,000 years ago. But even if that were the case, and again, if we had to redraw the map of the world as it was 2,000 years ago, why not 3,000 years ago or 1,000 years ago? So the only legitimate claim to a land is that of the people who were living on it in recent centuries. But no Palestinian group among the main Palestinian forces is calling for the expulsion of Jews and Israelis from the Middle East. All of them call for coexistence, but coexistence based on democratic principles and on equal footing, not the present situation of very harsh oppression of the Palestinians and the Lebanese by Israel.
KZ: Some Arab nations are progressively taking steps to normalize their ties with Israel. We can name the United Arab Emirates which invited the Israel’s transport and infrastructure minister to an international summit held in Abu Dhabi. Other Arab states, in turn, are making efforts to establish new relations with Israel. Isn’t it going to be harmful and destructive for the cause of Palestinian people?
GA: Four countries have established relations with Israel among the Arab states and they are Egypt, Jordan, Qatar and Oman. This is damaging for the cause of the Palestinians, especially when the country betraying them is Egypt which is the largest Arab country. This is a result of the increasing hegemony of the United States over the Middle East, which pushes the Arab governments to establish relations with the state of Israel against the will of their own people. If you look at Jordan and Egypt, you’ll see that the overwhelming majority of their population is opposed to Israel and its policies, and this creates a wide gap between governmental policies and what the population wants.
KZ: What’s your view regarding the recent Israeli assault on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla? What would happen if another country rather than Israel, say Iran, had attacked the flotilla of 600 international peace activists? Would the international community’s response have been the same?
GA: You should ask me what would happen if the United States had attacked the flotilla, because they do such things quite often. But, you’re right in saying that Israel gets the least protest in comparison with other countries when it comes to the violation of international law and perpetration of war crimes and crimes against humanity. This judgment is in line with the reports of Judge Richard Goldstone who is a devout Jew and even a devout Zionist, but honest enough for acknowledging the fact that Israel committed war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza. So of course Israel gets much less condemnation than any countries that are opposed to the United States and to Western hegemony. One should say, however, that Israel started to lose even the support of Western public opinion recently, especially since the Gaza war of 2008-2009 which was a brutal and cruel attack on defenseless civilians and was criticized even by traditional friends of Israel. After the attack on Freedom Flotilla, the international condemnation of Israel reached an unprecedented level. A few countries cut their diplomatic relations with Israel in Latin America like Venezuela and Bolivia in the last year and Nicaragua in the current year. A number of countries recalled their ambassadors: we have seen a shift in the stance of public opinion and even a wave of protests has taken shape in the United States. So there’s been a real impact and this shows that the Israeli state by its cruelty and brutality is losing more and more ground in the global public opinion.
KZ: The Saudi King has recently made remarks in which he likened Iran’s government to the state of Israel and said that these two countries don’t deserve to exist. Is this a fair and rational statement? Doesn’t it damage the Islamic solidarity and integrity?
GA: First of all, this statement, if true, is a really infamous statement. Putting Iran and Israel on the same level is totally absurd. Israel is a state that has been created through a colonial process and is violently oppressing the original population of the land it seized. Iran is a country which has been there for a long period of history and there was no involvement of colonial powers in its creation. Its government is certainly more legitimate than that of the Saudi kingdom, which was established by armed conquest less than one century ago, and never elected since then. However, the Saudi King meant probably that both the Israeli government and the Iranian government are extremist to his taste. The truth is that the Saudi regime is the most reactionary and the most backward regime in the whole region. They’re closer to the Taliban than to anything else in terms of regime and society. Saudi rulers are better advised to change their own regime rather than trying to change the regimes in other countries.
Kourosh Ziabari is Iranian media correspondent, freelance journalist and the author of Book 7+1. He is a contributing writer for websites and magazines in the Netherlands, Canada, Italy, Hong Kong, Bulgaria, South Korea, Belgium, Germany, the U.K. and the U.S. . Currently, he works for the Foreign Policy Journal as a media correspondent. He is a member of Tlaxcala Translators Network for Linguistic Diversity and World Student Community for Sustainable Development. Kourosh Ziabari is an Iranian freelance journalist and media correspondent. He has interviewed political commentator and linguist Noam Chomsky, member of New Zealand parliament Keith Locke, Australian politician Ian Cohen, member of German Parliament Ruprecht Polenz, former Mexican President Vicente Fox, former U.S. National Security Council advisor Peter D. Feaver, Nobel Prize laureate in Physics Wolfgang Ketterle, Nobel Prize laureate in Chemistry Kurt Wüthrich, Nobel Prize laureate in biology Robin Warren, famous German political prisoner Ernst Zündel, Brazilian cartoonist Carlos Latuff, American author Stephen Kinzer, syndicated journalist Eric Margolis, former assistant of the U.S. Department of the Treasury Paul Craig Roberts, American-Palestinian journalist Ramzy Baroud and the former President of the American Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Sid Ganis.
K Ziabari contribute regularly to Opinion Maker
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
Opinion Maker-where Truth is The News and readers are The Opinion Makers
What does it takes to write the truth? Regular Ordinary Citizens now days are engaged in the writing process and the dissemination of the truth. Be my truth or your truth is up to the Opinion Makers.
In this complex society that we are living, a world ravaged by wars, disperse by religions, divided by ideas, segregated by colors, is amazing that we can reunite in a virtual world where we chat as old friends, a virtual coffee shop where we drink a picture in your wall, where your ideas are spread, judged, misjudged, argued, deleted and at the end of the day and after a long day of differences you still be friend of your worse enemy.
The opinion makers are you, your opinion is my worse nightmare, my opinion distasteful to your morning coffee. We all become opinion makers.
We write what we feel, what we know, what we want, what we search, what we discover and we enjoy this non pay job that we do with an almost addiction, with a religious everyday observance. We the Opinion Makers are obsessed with the truth, we can’t take the main stream news any more as news, but as propaganda. We the Opinion Makers has discovered the way to make our opinion count, even thought is just in the social networks, we feel the satisfaction of have done a great justice to truth, when we sit for hours writing, posting, commenting in every single wall of our countless friends. We have become the active Opinion Makers of the world, when before, the broadcasting networks saw us as a clients of their advertisements adds, now we become the Opinion Makers, and we are seen as important as the Adds.
How this become to be?, we the public blogger, the free writers, the video editors, the photographers, and publishers are just Opinion Makers. We do not generate one penny for the Social Network that we subscribe, but in the long run we will be the writers of History as never written before, we will write our story and History will be just his-story.
The Truth is the News and can not be cover by beautiful and crafty words. The Truth is destined to survive the most entertaining fictional story of the editor of Fox or CNN, these networks are struggling to keep us hooked to their lies.
CSPAN is ready to interview the hard to get personages on the Political Spectrum to attract us back, but years of mingling with the Truth, and years of Editing lies had set us networks appart.
What can I say about evening news, in every station around the globe, they all fighting for ratings. “Charly Bit my finger” or “Blooood” boy have more viewers in an afternoon than all the broadcasting news in the US and Canada together, let alone all the youtube, meta caffee and others channels that attract us to the every day Truths and Realities.
I tell you times are changing, we have become the Opinion Makers, The Video Editors, The Free Press: The New Press of the world. We the regular citizens can not be attract any more for an add of Coca Cola, or a refreshing bath of Zeth.
There is no way that we can go back to be the passive spectators that for years, warmed the sofas in front to the TV’s. Now we are part of the making of the news, we are part of the story, we are making the story and the Opinion Makers of the Truth.
To know more of the truth, follow me to the place where the Truth is the News, and you are the Opinion Maker, and story teller.
http://www.opinion-maker.org
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