Action Alert: Palestinian Declaration

PLEASE SIGN THIS DECLARATION IF YOU AGREE WITH ITS CONTENTS:  (send Hahida Izzat  your name and country if you approve)

Palestinian Declaration

An invitation to ALL Palestinians and their supporters to unite under the banner of LIBERATION, affirming our alienable rights and clarifying our aims and aspirations to ourselves and to the world

For the sake of historical truth, and for defending, preserving and protecting the rights of future Palestinian children, we present this document:

• Whereas, no foreign government, international institution or individual, has any form of legitimacy or jurisdiction to dispossess any other Nation by distributing their land and property,

• Whereas, all colonial dealings regarding Palestine, whether by the “League of Nations” or the subsequent land confiscations by British colonial forces, as well as coerced transactions by early Zionists, did not invalidate the irrefutable fact that Palestine is the sole indigenous representative of all people of Palestine, settled and anchored culturally to the land since time immemorial,

• Whereas, the religious component of Palestine’s cultural heritage is the central heritage for 31% of people who are Christians, 23 % who are Muslims, and  0.2 % who are Jews. Therefore, Jewish Zionists arguably attempted to usurp and destroy the heritage of almost 55% of humankind, namely Christians and Muslims, contrary to historical Palestinian society, known for its social cohesion, irrespective of religion, and for protecting all monuments and all worshipers of all faiths, prior to the Jewish-zionist invasion,

• Whereas, we the Palestinian Nation, the sole indigenous people of historic Palestine, had neither been consulted with, nor did we agree to or undersign any partition of our homeland, Palestine, when the UN put partition to the vote in the General Assembly in 1948. The UN has never done so again,

• Whereas, the UN General Assembly adopted resolution (181) recommending the adoption and implementation of the Partition Plan, allocating to “Israel” a defined area significantly smaller than the areas was overridden by Zionist Terror groups such as Irgun and Haganah, using ethnic cleansing, genocidal massacres, and massive destruction of over 530 Biblical villages and cities in the spring of 1948,

• Whereas, the admission of “Israel” to the UN was conditional on its implementation of Resolutions 194, i.e., ceasing aggression and allowing the Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties, as well as implementing Resolution 181 of the partition plan, (which Israel did not commit itself to any specific action or timeframe, and later rejected the resolutions all together),

• Whereas, the decision to partition Palestine was never passed through the UN Security Council, which renders it non-binding, (serving only as advisory),

• Whereas, Zionism, as materialised and manifested by the Jewish state of “Israel”, is a colonial settler ideology, advocating the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians and confiscating their properties, abrogating their basic rights, and establishing an exclusive Jewish state in Historic Palestine,

• Whereas, the Declaration of Human Rights, the post WW II Nuremberg Principles, and the Geneva Conventions have laid the foundational work for the Definition, Prevention, and Punishment of Crimes of Genocide, Crimes Against Peace,  War Crimes,  War of Aggression, and Crimes Against Humanity,

• Whereas, seven decades on, Jewish-Zionist terrorism, massacres, torture, imprisonment of civilian populations, torture of children, collective punishment, theft, land robbery, destruction of cultural heritage, ethnic cleansing, and slow-motion genocide, have only intensified,

• Whereas, their offspring have had a full century (since the beginning of the first Jewish-Zionist invasion) to learn to coexist peacefully; yet they, along with the new-comers, choose to continue on the same path of aggression, oppression, exclusivity, and racism,

• Whereas, the vast majority of Palestinians have been living in forced exile, forbidden to exercise their basic Human Right of Returning to their homes in their own homeland, and denied their basic human right of holding their National Identity,

• Whereas, the entire humanity has the moral maturity which makes it unacceptable to acquire land and property by wars of conquest and aggression,

• Whereas, we the Palestinian Nation have been victims of almost one century of insanely sadistic cruelty, assassinations of pregnant mothers, torture of children, psycho-terror, loss of land, loss of peace, security and independence, loss of health, destruction of our architectural and archeological cultural heritage, loss of collective and personal property, loss of economic means (i.e. loss of earning and sustenance), all at the hands and policies of a foreign and psychopathic body of Jewish Zionist terrorists and their international network of accomplices, for more than seven decades,

• Whereas, myriads of Jewish-Zionist funds and foundations continue to raise and collect sums in the billions from international Jewish communities, to finance (either overtly or covertly) the destruction of our nation and our homeland, by means of a full spectrum destruction, be it genocide, be it destruction of landscape, be it destruction of architectural and cultural heritage, be it imprisonment and torture of children, be it systematic programs of assassination of social and political leader, be it use of toxic weapons,

• Whereas, calling “Israel” a mere apartheid system which could be “fixed” with some cosmetic arrangements, such as granting Palestinians “Israeli” citizenship to “upgrade” their status from “occupied” to “slaves” in their own homeland, and demanding marginal improvement of the treatment of Palestinians, does not constitute in any form or shape a realistic approach enabling a viable project wherein even the most elementary basis of Justice could be established,

• Whereas, participating in absolving individuals guilty of Crimes Against Humanity and other ongoing crimes since over seven decades, and whitewashing these crimes, is not only a betrayal to all things human and moral, but also is the fertile ground for justifying future repetition and amplification of such crimes,

For those reasons, we hereby, the undersigned Palestinians and our supporters affirm the following:

Palestine is located from the Mediterranean Sea to the River Jordan and cannot be divided, leased, given away or sold.

Palestinians, whether living in any part of historic Palestine or in forced exile, are one people and shall not be divided.

The Palestinian Nation is the only one owning the land of Palestine, with the human right of full and unrestrained sovereignty over our historic land, Palestine.

That the “Nakba” with its massacres and daily atrocities, continues to this day, beginning with the forceful uprooting of our people by terror organizations such as Irgun and Haganah in 1948. The lapse of time since the beginning or this “Nakba” (the word means “catastrophe”) does not diminish our inalienable rights in Palestine, including the inalienable right to return to our homes and properties, and to participate in the re-building and development of our society and its institutions, and adopt any political, economic and Judicial system we Palestinians would chose.

Our people inside and outside of Palestine form one Nation, and yearn for their reunification in their ancestral homeland, Palestine. Contrary to the defamation we have been subjected to, we have always been an extremely tolerant nation, and we yearn to restore this quality to our land and country, for the benefit of all humankind, irrespective of religion or cultural origin.

We Palestinians, just as any other nation under attack and occupied, have the ultimate and unabridged right to define our aims, choose our strategy and tactics of resistance suitable for achieving our liberation from our oppressor, and the reinstatement of our rights, and establishing diplomatic and commercial relations with neighboring countries and beyond.

Palestinians have the moral and legal right to pursue the legal prosecution of the usurpers and destroyers of our land within the recognized international laws.

It is ominously dangerous for everyone’s security, to refuse to prosecute perpetrators of terrorism, crimes against humanity, atrocities, and the systematic fomenting of wars and racial and religious hatred. It is ominously dangerous to step back from such prosecution under the ludicrous grounds that the perpetrators would merit leniency on grounds of being Jewish.

Only the Palestinian people through our legitimate institutions and elected representatives can speak for our rights and aspirations.

No organization, party, group or individual is empowered to cede our rights to historic Palestine. In fact, we explicitly express here our intention, as soon as we recover our rights, to prosecute anyone who engaged or attempted to cede land and rights without having any mandate to do so.

Only the Palestinian people gathered in Palestine and in exile can determine their future and the future of the country.

We the signatories of this document, call for either the creation of a new Liberation Party, or the rejuvenation of the PLO, as the only recognized and accepted legitimate organization of the Palestinian people. Such an organization must be strengthened to unify the people and their capabilities, in order to be justified to speak on their behalf, and structure our fight for liberation.

This party, (whether the PLO or otherwise), must unambiguously stand for, and implement a program for liberation of all of Palestine. It must be democratic, accountable, transparent and truly representative of the entire spectrum of the Palestinian Nation.

The aims and aspirations of Palestinians are not confined to a symbolic change of “Zionist regime” or a declaration of abandonment of Zionism by the Jewish-Zionist occupiers, but rather to the FULL liberation of Palestine and the restoration of all our inalienable rights

We call for a just and peaceful solution; we acknowledge that the only real road to peace is the full and unconditional liberation of Palestine, (which also means liberation from the supremacist ideology that is imposing its cruel occupation) and liberation from the racist Jewish-Zionist experiment, Liberation from the violence of colonizers and liberation from the perpetrators. That will inevitably mean a return to the original, peaceful society Palestine was before the Zionist invasion, albeit embracing all technological and societal developments. Our true and sincere aspirations are long lasting peace, justice and freedom.

We believe that restoring Palestine for all its people will lay out the true foundations of Palestinian society, and inscribe us harmoniously in the international community, contrary to the present day occupation entity, “Israel,” which is the root cause of so many difficulties and excesses in the world community, whether in the UN or elsewhere, where “Israel” and its multinational lobby groups are fomenting wars and racial-religious friction, making international cooperation extremely difficult.

As Palestinians, we are grateful and appreciative of the hard work of all our supporters; however, we are under no obligation to hold back our march for freedom, to curtail our aims or to abandon our rights for the sake of accommodating and not offending some of the Jewish supporters who still believe that “Israel” has the right to exist as a Jewish state inside the 1948 borders.

Palestinians have the ultimate right to choose their vision for their future, of a free Palestine, including the type of government, writing of our constitution, constructing and implementing legal and systems, all of which stems from and corresponds to our ethics and reflects and protects our culture.

A Palestinian legal team of professionals and advisors must be established to prepare the legal framework and procedures, upon which laws of immigration and citizenship are defined, on the basis of which Palestinian citizenship are granted, including defining who has a Right to Remain in liberated Palestine, depending on the place of birth and providing s/he is able to respect Palestinian law, and adopt a conduct respective of the community around.

All Palestinian refugees and their descendants have the unconditional right to come back home; we, the rightful indigenous owners are also entitled to the reinstatement of ALL confiscated (stolen) land and property, compensation for all our losses over the many years of exile, and we are also entitled to Palestinian citizenship wherever we are.

We Palestinians have not given up before, and have no intention to give up now. We will continue to pursue the course of JUSTICE and LIBERATION by all means deemed necessary and appropriate, by upholding universal humanist ethics, within the frame of International Law.

Thus, our vision for a just and peaceful settlement entails:

REVOKING ISRAEL’S UN MEMBERSHIP:

The settler/colonial occupation is in breach of all foundational UN Charters, and has violated and defied more UN resolutions and charter principles than any other country. This illegitimate entity has none of the qualifications necessary, neither moral nor legal nor political, required to obtain and maintain UN membership. Its current membership represents a mockery of international law, and is a disgrace to humanity. Israel’s UN membership should have never been granted in the first place. The revocation of Israel’s UN membership is a necessity, as a step towards the rehabilitation of the already-battered framework of International Law. Concurrently, all of Israel’s institutions, laws, policies and practices must be abolished, since they discriminate against people based on religion and ethnicity.

FULL LIBERATION of HISTORIC PALESTINE:

Palestine, known as “The Holy Land”, must be free from racist atrocities. Contrary to all failed attempts, road-maps and fake negotiations which serve as dilatory measure enabling more land grabs and atrocities, the concept of full liberation and full sovereignty for Palestinians carries only advantages; including the ability to prosecute them for crimes against humanity. To bring reason to the Holy Land, it is necessary to first recognize the fact that the Jewish-Zionist occupation is the sole reason there is strife in this land in the first place, and secondly, it is necessary to look back at the status pro ante, to discover that a liberated Palestine whose institutions will inevitably reflect Palestinian culture and social fabric, will be endlessly more apt to be a good standing member of the UN, and a good neighbor and partner to the world.

FULL SOVEREIGNTY of the Palestinian Nation over their ancestral country:

The Palestinian Nation has like any other nation has the aspiration and the right to select a political system, to adopt a constitution and re-construct the country. For the sake of international peace and security, it is time to return Palestine to its peaceful owners.

PROSECUTION OF WAR CRIMINALS:

A Palestinian judiciary and immigration system, will respectively prosecute former Israeli criminals and their associates, and/or grant or decline (on an individual basis), a Right to Remain in Palestine, based on criteria solely to be defined by said Immigration and Integration Services. This system should be put into place immediately.

RETURN, RESTITUTION and COMPENSATIONS:

Palestinian refugees have the unconditional Right of Return. Palestine and the Palestinian Nation at large, are entitled to full and unconditional restitution of the land and property whenever possible, coupled with appropriate compensation for more than seven decades of deprivation and slow genocide, cultural destruction, and a whole array of atrocities and usurpation.

PALESTINIAN CITIZENSHIP and NATURALISATION:

In the future democratic state of Palestine situated from the Mediterranean Sea to the River Jordan, Palestinians are the rightful citizens. Palestinians include those who live in the occupied homeland, and include all refugees living abroad and their descendants, all those have unrestricted right to Palestinian citizenship. For former Jewish Israelis, plans should be set on course to grant or decline on an individual basis a right to remain, based on criteria defined by an Immigration and Integration Service. Such criteria could take into consideration place of birth and the irrefutable proof of non-participation in the former Israeli occupation apparatus and its crimes, and the demonstration during a certain period, of the candidate’s ability and willingness to be law-abiding; respecting land, culture and his/her compatriots irrespective of religion or race. Subsequently the right to remain would be followed by unrestricted Palestinian citizenship, with equal rights. The whole procedure would be within the future framework of Palestinian Laws of Immigration and Naturalization. Undoubtedly, Palestinian immigration policies will adhere to international norms.

We hereby, call upon our friends and supporters -who hold the tragedy of Palestine, the dispossession of Palestinians of their own ancestral land dear at their heart-, to reflect upon the meaning of justice in the context of a history saturated with war crimes and crimes against humanity.

We consider any negotiations that do not lead to implementing the above as null and void. Also, we consider any and all individuals and institutions that do not adhere to our call as illegitimate representatives of our people and rights.

Thus, we call upon our people and institutions to rally behind this APPEAL and to work diligently to implement it.

We, also call upon our friends and supporters to join us in our declaration and our endeavors.

Furthermore, we call upon Jewish organizations and individuals, to take their responsibility seriously, we invite them to actively participate in restoring justice, righting the wrong, and facilitating the peaceful resolve of this chronic injustice by engaging positively, effectively and wholeheartedly to bring real change of “facts on the ground”, thus offering a remedy for healing of the Holy Land and its people, once and for all.

Moreover, we suggest they create a new Jewish fund, with agreement of every donor, to support the full and unconditional liberation in an effort to begin the lengthy process for Restitution, Reparation and Compensation for the Palestinians. A long overdue process, that will inevitably erase the seven decades long and ongoing Jewish crimes against the land of Palestine and its indigenous people.

LET US UNITE TO STOP THE MACHINE

LET US UNITE TO STOP THE SELL OUT

Signatures:

1) Nahida Izzat (AKA Exiled Palestinian) ………    Al-Quds/ Palestine

2) Mariam George ………………….. Palestine

3) Nadia Gheith ………………….. Palestine

4) Ibsal Assi Assi ………………….. Palestine

5) Ibtisam  Harb (Ibti Smile)………………….. Palestine

6) Abed Nakhleh

7) Peter Alan Foley ……………………………UK

8) Daniel Dewulf

9) Tanya Mango

10) Robert Elias Abu Shanab

11) Steven Wertheim

12) Deema Ash

13) Shawn Ryan

14) Ivan Maffei

15) Marlene Newesri

16) Rahma Yassin

17) Roger Tucker     ……………………….. Mexico

18)  Jacqueline Conway

19) Gennifer Hope

20) Aliyah Rehman ……………………………UK

21) Daniel john Morgan ……………………………UK

22) Sofia Rehman ……………………………UK

23) Mazhar Rehman……………………………UK

24) Ian Ligertwood  ……………………………UK

25) Hassan Al Nimer ………………………….. Palestine

26) Mick Breen

27) Greta Berlin

28) Amaneh Margaret Brown
29) Raya Jaser ………………………Palestine

30) Aman Syr

31) Redaa Ameeroedien

32) Abdool Karrimbaccus Subratty

33) Lothar Jung

34) Brian Edouard Curdy

35) Sri Utami

36) Indo Alam

37)  Dean Sofić

38)  Reem Ghaith

39) Bader Yousef

40) Maria Rita Pirastu

41) Michel Iffrig

42) Maher Azzam  ………………….. Palestine

43) Wim Wimman

44) Sana Amawai……. Yaffa/ Palestine

45) Roohi Aamir Noor Khan

46) Greta Berlin

47) Samira Ahmad

History of USA Funding Al Qaeda

History of USA Funding Al Qaeda http://www.kosovaonline.info/?page=1%2C3%2C26534

PRISTINA – Wikileaks cables revealed by “Wikileaks” show for a while, at least in the years 2001-2002, Osama Bin Laden had his people in Kosovo, KTV reports. ”Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation” was the financial arm for terrorist activities Al-Qaeda anywhere in the world, and has its head office in Indonesia.

From there and in many branches around the world, including such in the U.S., “Al-Haramain,” except humanitarian activities for orphans, to recoup millions had intended to leave the other orphans.

In January 2003, the then Secretary of State, Colin Powell, widely reported to finance the “Al-Qaeda” and the fact that many organizations raise funds for humanitarian guise terrorist activities. Report Poweel secret CIA sent him, the Department of Commerce, Department of Treasury, Department of Defense, Government of Israel, the Government of Jordan and the Government of Saudi Arabia.

At one particular sector of activity dedicating Balkans and the “Al Haramain” in this region. ”Documents seized in the Balkans show that workers” Al Haramain “in Albania, Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo, supporting” Al – Qaeda “and groups related to it. Individuals in these offices or work financed by bin Laden. E-mails of members of “Al-Qaeda” found in 2002 in the seized computers in the offices of “Al – Haramian” in Travnik Croatia, contained instructions to attack an SFOR base in Tuzla, “wrote Powell . Secretary of State told the officials attempt to “Al-Haramain” in Kosovo to hide their illegal activity. ”After the September 11 terrorist attacks, officials of the” Al-Haramain “in Kosovo destroyed all documents can bind the organization with militant or terrorist activities.

At the end of 2001 officers “Al Haramain” decided to temporarily reduce the level of activities before they continue illegally, “Powell wrote. ”Al-Haramain Foundation” was created in Saudi Arabia and in 2004 was declared a terrorist organization with links to the U.S. and its activity was banned by the Committee of the Security Council of the UN. officials had planned her unsuccessfully killing American officials in Nairobi, Kenya in 1997 .

A year later, more than 200 citizens, including dozens of Americans were killed in terrorist attacks in Kenya and Tanzania. An official “Al-Haramain” Was Convicted Perouz Sedaghaty was sentenced to 33 months in prison in the U.S. in 2011 , after being found guilty lied to funds that were dedicated to religious extremists in Chechnya.

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian   The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this Blog!

In Afghanistan, NATO Now Committing Bald-Faced ‘Murder’

http://worldmeets.us/ http://worldmeets.us/derspiegel000012.shtml#ixzz2QEMWkIWG

http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/augstein-kolumne-afghanistan-krieg-ist-sinnlos-und-nicht-zu-gewinnen-a-893044.html

 

On Saturday, in northeastern Afghanistan’s Kunar Province: American and Afghan troops battled their enemies. After several hours, as reported by The New York Times, the Americans called in air support.  The house of the opposing commander was to be destroyed. When it was all over, the Taliban are dead. And according to the provincial government, ten children also lose their lives. Five women were also said to be injured. This is the reality of the war in Afghanistan – a war in which the Bundeswehr is participating. A war that is completely nonsensical. Because by the end of 2014 it should all be over. The foreign troops will pack up their things and withdraw – the way a circus packs up and moves on when a performance is over. But this is no game. Truth be told, it is murder. Because a senseless war can be called nothing but murder.

 

There was a similar attack in February. On that occasion, five children, four women and a man were killed. Afghan President Hamid Karzai subsequently forbade his own security forces from calling in NATO air support. Bombs from the air bring an indiscriminate death. And ISAF had already determined that it would no longer target residential buildings.

 

But apparently, that is no concern of the Americans. ISAF troops, among them Germans, are waging this war based on a meaningless routine. It is no longer about a goal – about victory or defeat, or about anything at all. It is just a matter of killing time until the troops pull out. One day, at midnight, the fight will simply end. This is surreal. Only the dead who fall victim to this madness are real.

 

That is why this war cannot be won

 

Expressing outrage over this has nothing to do with naïve pacifism. Very few people have the wherewithal to be pacifists. It is hard to imagine morals stronger than those held by a true pacifist. Most people cannot tolerate the complete absence of violence. They believe in violence and find ways of soothing their guilty consciences. The worse the violence, the better must be the reason.

Posted By Worldmeets.US

 

How good must the reasons be to justify killing ten children? Perhaps there are such grounds. Perhaps there is someone who thinks he can make that judgment. But in this case, we know there are no such reasons.

 

Like Worldmeets.US on Facebook

 

 

Who seriously believes that if one Taliban commander more or less is killed, it will make a difference for the future of Afghanistan? In this case, the individuals targeted by the Americans were called Ali Kahn and Gul Raouf. They allegedly organized attacks in the country’s mountainous northeast. According to everything we are able to read, these men are now dead. And now? Will the Kunar region now be more peaceful? Others will take the place of the dead, as it was in Afghanistan’s past. That is why this war cannot be won. That is why a date for the withdrawal of Western occupation forces has been set.

 

Every death is one too many

 

Everything is geared toward the withdrawal. ISAF troops are already trying to figure out how to get their stuff home. Not so easy with such poor infrastructure. If the withdrawal is to be accomplished on schedule, until the end of 2014, one container must to leave the country every seven minutes. The transit countries of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan will make a fortune allowing ISAF troops to retreat by land and through the air. Pakistan opens and closes its border to Western military materiel depending on its mood – and according to how many Pakistanis have just fallen victim to America’s drone war.

 

On the subject of German participation in the war, former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder recently said in an interview with Spiegel: “The decision was the correct one at the time.” But “whether the entire deployment of more than ten years was correct can only be assessed later, perhaps even many decades later.” So far, this was Schröder’s most critical statement on the war in Afghanistan. But it wasn’t enough. Schröder would have done himself and the SPD a favor by expressing what in any case, everyone already understands: This war is lost, it is senseless, and everyone already knows it.

 

Each additional day of fighting is one day too many. Every death is one death too many, and it weighs on our collective conscience. We have made ourselves into accomplices to a crime. A few years ago, it was said that Germans should again become accustomed to war. It was said that this was the global responsibility of an economically strong and politically sovereign nation. At least in this respect we can say: mission accomplished! We got used to war again. The senseless deaths of ten children don’t bother us anymore. Now we know the meaning of global responsibility. Thanks for the lesson.

 

SEE ALSO ON THIS:
Afghanistan Times: Karzai is Right – Taliban are in the Service of America
Asia Times, Hong Kong: Karzai’s Curious Counterblast
Die Zeit, Germany: Unwarranted Pessimism Over Leaving Afghanistan
The Nation, Pakistan: U.S. Withdrawal from Afghanistan: ‘Please Don’t Wait Until 2014!’
FTD, Germany: The Beginning of the End for the Bundeswehr in Afghanistan
The Nation, Pakistan: U.S.-Afghan-Taliban Talks Must Benefit Pakistan, Not India
Guardian, U.K.: U.S. Suspends Joint Military Operations with Afghan Forces

Telegraph, U.K.: Taliban Hit U.S.- U.K. Afghan Base; ‘Miss’ Prince Harry

The Independent, U.K.: Obama’s Foreign Policy of Reconciliation in ‘Tatters’

Frontier Post, Pakistan: Obama’s Drone War a PR Disaster for America

Der Spiegel, Germany: President of Dissapointment: How Obama Failed to Deliver

Frontier Post, Pakistan: Panetta Spills Beans: U.S. Handing Afghanistan to India
Thawra Al-Wada, Syria: Middle East Borders to Be Drawn in Arab Blood
Tunis Hebdo, Tunisia: A Method to Bush’s Madness?
The Frontier Post: Co-opted U.S. Media Will Always Blame Pakistan
The Frontier Post: Just Say ‘Thank You’ to Cut in American Aid
The Frontier Post: Letter to A.Q. Khan Resembles CIA Iraq War Forgery
Guardian, U.K.: Pakistani Generals ‘Helped Sell Nuclear Secrets’
Guardian, U.K.: Pakistan Hits Back at Mullen Over Journalist’s Murder Claim
Dawn, Pakistan: Even if U.S. Nuclear Accusations are True, Pakistan Broke No Law
Asia Times, Hong Kong: America Homes in on al-Qaeda’s New Chief
The Nation, Pakistan: CIA Chief Panetta Says Zawahiri Living in Pakistan
The Frontier Post, Pakistan: Obama Withdrawal Plans ‘Spell Doom’ for Pakistan
The Frontier Post, Pakistan: Karzai Finally Awakens to American Treachery
The Daily Jang, Pakistan: The Beginning of the End of U.S. in Afghanistan?

 

 

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian   The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this Blog!

Weekly Report on Israel’s terrorism against the State of Palestine

PCHR Weekly Report: 11 civilians wounded, 59 abducted; 350 trees cut by Israeli troops this week

 Friday April 12, 2013 01:06 by PCHR-Gaza  http://imemc.org/article/65319

In its Weekly Report On Israeli Human Rights Violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territories for the week of 04- 10 April 2013, the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) found that Israeli forces continued to use excessive force against peaceful protesters, wounding 11.

Young protester abducted by Israeli undercover unit during protest in Al-Eesawiya village (PCHR photo)

In the Gaza Strip, Israeli forces continued to open fire at Palestinian fishing boats, restricting the permitted fishing area to 3 nautical miles instead of the 6 nautical mile limit that was agreed in the ceasefire agreement reached between Israel and Palestinian armed groups in November 2012.

A photographer for the Popular Resistance Movement against the Annexation Wall and Settlements in al-Nabi Saleh village sustained burns to his face. 10 Palestinian civilians, including 3 children and 1 woman, were abducted during protests in support of prisoners in the Israeli jails.

Israeli attacks in the West Bank:

Israeli forces conducted 78 incursions into Palestinian communities in the West Bank. 55 Palestinian civilians, including 8 children, were abducted during those incursions. Among the abducted was the former prisoner, Tha’er Halahla.

During the reporting period, Israeli forces wounded 11 Palestinian civilians, including 3 children and a woman, in the West Bank. They were all wounded during peaceful protests organised by Palestinian civilians against the construction of the annexation wall and settlement activities and in support of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.

Israeli forces established dozens of checkpoints in the West Bank. 4 Palestinian civilians, including 2 children, were abducted at checkpoints.

Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip:

In the Gaza Strip, Israeli forces stationed along the border fence continued to open fire. On 06 April 2013, Israeli forces stationed along the border fence, east of Khan Yunis, in the south of the Gaza Strip, opened fire at houses and agricultural lands in al-Qarara village and around al-Sreij gate. No casualties were reported.

Israeli forces continued to chase fishermen at sea. On 08 April 2013, Israeli gunboats stationed off the coast of al-Waha resort, northwest of Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip, opened fire at Palestinian fishing boats that were sailing 2 nautical miles offshore. As a result, the fishermen returned to shore, fearing that they would be wounded or abducted. Neither casualties nor material damage were reported. A similar incident occurred on 10 April 2013.

It should be noted that, on Thursday, 21 March 2013, Israeli forces announced that the nautical mile limit would be reduced from 6 to 3 nautical miles. Israeli forces had permitted fishermen to sail up to 6 nautical miles offshore following the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Palestinian armed groups in November 2012.

Israeli forces continued to open fire in the border area in the Gaza Strip. Israeli forces opened fire at houses and agricultural lands in al-Qarara village, in the south of the Gaza Strip.

Israel has continued to impose a total closure and has isolated the Gaza Strip from the outside world. During the reporting period, Israeli forces completely closed the commercial border crossings between the Gaza Strip and Israel. They closed Karm Abu Salem crossing for 4 consecutive days because of Jewish holidays. This closure negatively affected the entry of goods, construction materials and medical consignments in the Gaza Strip. It also had a negative impact on the living conditions of Palestinian civilians.

Israeli forces also imposed comprehensive security restrictions due to the Jewish holiday of Passover. As a result, thousands of Palestinian workers were denied access to their work in Israel and occupied East Jerusalem. Moreover, Palestinian traders were denied access to Israel and/or travel via the border crossings between the Gaza Strip and West Bank.

Israeli settlement activities:

Israeli forces have continued to support settlement activities in the West Bank, and Israeli settlers have continued to attack Palestinian civilians and property.

On Saturday, 06 April 2013, a unit of Israeli soldiers, accompanied by three military vehicles, raided agricultural lands surrounding the Um Akhwas area, east of Yatta, south of Hebron. The soldiers were deployed in the area and prohibited Palestinian farmers and shepherds from working on the land, declaring that the land had been confiscated. The soldiers ordered the farmers and shepherds to leave the area and declared it a closed military zone. When the farmers and shepherds refused to leave their lands, the Israeli soldiers assaulted them, beat them severely and attempted to arrest some of them, but international peace activists intervened and stopped them.

On Sunday, 07 April 2013, a group of settlers from “Tekoa” settlement, established southwest of Taqou’ village, southeast of Bethlehem, raided the afore-mentioned village. The settlers wrote “Paying the Price” and drew the Star of David on Bilal Bin Rabah mosque and Salah al-Din al-Ayouby mosque in al-‘Amour neighbourhood, in the south of the village. In his testimony to a PCHR fieldworker, Mohammed al-Badan, Head of the Youth Council in the village, said that the settlers damaged the car tyres of vehicles.

On Tuesday, 09 April 2013, a group of settlers, from “Ramat Yishai” settlement outpost, established on land belonging to Palestinian civilians in Tal al-Remyda area, central Hebron, confiscated a tract of land belonging to a 48-year old man, extended an agricultural irrigation system and supplied it with water through the afore-mentioned settlement outpost, and planted it with vegetable seeds.

On Tuesday, 09 April 2013, Israeli forces, accompanied by a vehicle of the Planning and Building Department in the Israeli Civil Administration, raided al-Dirat area, east of Yatta, south of Hebron. They presented a 42-year old man with a notice ordering him to halt construction work on a tin structure, built on a 100 square metre area, which was being used as a barn for cattle, under the pretext that it had been built without first obtaining a permit from the Israeli authorities.

On Tuesday, 09 April 2013, Israeli forces, accompanied by a vehicle of the Israeli Civil Administration and a truck, raided the Emdimna area, located between al-Thaherya and al-Ramadeen villages, south of Hebron. Israeli soldiers were deployed in the farmlands and cut down 100 olive trees and 250 almond trees, which were 5 years old, with saws, confiscated them and loaded them into the truck.

Also on Tuesday, Israeli forces, accompanied by a number of military vehicles, a bulldozer, and a vehicle of the Planning and Building Department in the Israeli Civil Administration, raided al-Dirat area, east of Yatta, south of Hebron. They bulldozed a 70-cubic-metre water well, belonging to a 45-year old man, claiming that he had not obtained a permit.

On Wednesday morning, 10 April 2013, Israeli forces, accompanied by an officer of the Israeli Civil Administration, raided the Um Hadida area, east of Nahalin village, southwest of Bethlehem, and placed notices on the lands of two Palestinian civilians, aged 60 and 71. The notices ordered them to evacuate their 3 dunums of land.

Also on Wednesday, Israeli forces, accompanied by a vehicle of the Israeli Civil Administration, raided the Kherbat Qalqas area, south of Hebron. The Civil Administration officer presented a 48-year old man with a demolition notice for his family residence, under the pretext that it had been built without a permit. The 2-storey house was built established on an area of 200 square metres and shelters his family of 11 people.

Israeli attacks on non-violent demonstrations:

In the West Bank, in an example of the systematic use of excessive force against peaceful protests organised by Palestinian, Israeli, and international activists against the construction of the annexation wall and settlement activities in the West Bank, Israeli forces wounded Belal Abdul Salam Hassan al-Tamimi, 47, when they sprayed pepper spray in his face. It should be noted that al-Tamimi is a photographer for the Popular Resistance Movement against the Annexation Wall and Settlements in al-Nabi Saleh village. Many more civilians suffered from tear gas inhalation and others sustained bruises.

Palestinian civilians organised many peaceful protests in solidarity with Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, especially those on hunger strike. Israeli forces used excessive force against the protesters; as a result, 10 civilians, including 3 children and 1 woman, were wounded. In addition, many civilians suffered from tear gas inhalation and others sustained bruises.

On 04 April 2013, an 18-year-old man was wounded by a bullet to the right cheek during a peaceful protest near the annexation wall in the southern part of Beit Luqia village, southwest of Ramallah. In addition, 2 children were wounded in al-Khader village, south of Bethlehem, during a similar protest in the Um Rokba area at the southwestern entrance of the village.

On 05 April 2013, a 16-year-old boy was wounded by a plastic-coated bullet to the back of the head during a protest organised at the southern entrance of al-Jalazoun refugee camp, north of Ramallah. In addition, 1 child was wounded in al-Khader village, south of Bethlehem, during a similar protest in the Um Rokba area at the southwestern entrance of the village.

At approximately 12:00 on Friday, 05 April 2013, dozens of Palestinian civilians, activists with the Popular Committees against Settlement Activity and the Hebron Defence Committee, and international human rights activists gathered in al-Haraiek area, southeast of Hebron, for a peaceful demonstration calling for the route linking Hebron to its southern villages to be reopened; it has been closed for the past 12 years. These villages are al-Rayhia, al-Thaheria, Doura, and al-Fawar Refugee Camp. Upon arrival at the steel gate which blocks the road leading to Bypass Road 60, Israeli forces surrounded the area and declared it a closed military zone, ordering the demonstrators to leave immediately. The soldiers fired tear gas canisters and sound bombs at the demonstration. A number of protesters fainted as a result of tear gas inhalation.

Friday protests were also held in the towns of Bil’in, Naileen, Nabi Saleh (where a 45-year old photographer sustained burns in the face after being sprayed with pepper spray), Al Masara and Kafr Kaddoum.

On 06 April 2013, a 45-year-old woman was wounded by a plastic-coated bullet to the back while she was standing in front of her house in the Um Rokba area at the southwestern entrance of al-Khader village, south of Bethlehem.

On 07 April 2013, a 17-year-old boy was hit by a tear gas canister to the head during a peaceful protest in the Um Rokba area, south of Bethlehem. On the same day, an 11-year-old boy was wounded by a bullet to the right side of his face during a protest organised at the northern entrance of Ayda refugee camp, north of Bethlehem.

On 09 April 2013, an 18-year-old boy was wounded by a bullet to the right leg, while an 11-year-old boy was wounded by a bullet to the left side of his head during a protest organised at the northern entrance of Ayda refugee camp, north of Bethlehem.

Recommendations to the international community:

Due to the number and severity of Israeli attacks on Palestinian civilians this week, the PCHR made several recommendations to the international community. Among these was a recommendation that the United Nations provide international protection to Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, and to ensure the non-recurrence of aggression against the Occupied Palestinian Territories, especially the Gaza Strip.

In addition, the PCHR calls upon the High Contracting Parties to the Geneva Conventions to compel Israel, as a High Contracting Party to the Conventions, to apply the Conventions in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

For the full text of the report, click on the link below:

http://www.pchrgaza.org/portal/en/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=9411:weekly-report-on-israeli-human-rights-violations-in-the-occupied-palestinian-territory-04-10-april-2013&catid=84:weekly-2009&Itemid=183

 

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Who’ll mourn Maggie?

by Stuart Littlewood
Wednesday, April 10th, 2013

These last two days the airwaves have been awash with eye-dabbing tributes to former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher. She has been elevated almost to sainthood by commentators, political hacks and former colleagues. Such near-hysterical adoration, it seems to me, is a measure of the wretched scarcity of leadership talent in Britain over the last 50 years.
 

Yes, she demonstrated a few admirable virtues for which she is rightly remembered and which were sadly lacking in the wimps who surrounded her. But they are trumped by a catalogue of failings. When she took over the leadership of the Conservative Party in 1975 she ominously declared:

I am not a consensus politician. I am a conviction politician.

This was a deeply scary opening gambit. It’s fine as long as your convictions are soundly based. But when they are grounded in barmy beliefs you become a menace to party and country.

Almost straightaway Thatcher turned Britain’s manufacturing heart, known as the Black Country, into an industrial wasteland. I was there, working for a major engineering group. I saw the devastation first-hand and felt the anguish and despair of the local people. Big organisations shed jobs by the hundreds and thousands. Many shut their doors for ever. Countless highly skilled small businesses – jobbing contractors to the large companies – were crippled by sky-high interest rates, the new ‘wisdom’ dispensed by the inventors of ‘Thatcherism’. Base interest rates climbed to 15%, which meant that business owners were paying as much as 22%.

As George Galloway says,

she destroyed more than a third of Britain’s manufacturing capacity, significantly more than Hitler’s Luftwaffe ever achieved.

Thatcher had become a disciple of ‘monetarism’, a school of thought claiming that by juggling the money supply you could determine economic activity, keep a lid on inflation and manage the economic cycles. Demand would be boosted or damped by turning the money tap. This new approach was just the medicine for reviving Britain’s ailing economy, according to her bestest political friend Keith Joseph, aka the ‘Mad Monk’.
 

Then came de-regulation and the privatisation of our utilities (many ending up in foreign hands). There was little attempt to re-start manufacturing. Instead the emphasis was on expanding financial services. A financial sector free-for-all and an explosion of personal and corporate greed followed. It fitted perfectly her sickening statement that “there is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families… people must look to themselves first.” The self-centred revolution had arrived.

A prisoner of the Zionists?

Margaret Thatcher was kept in parliament by the considerable Jewish vote in her Finchley constituency, which adjoins the North London Jewish quarter of Hendon and Golders Green. Unsurprisingly, she was a member of the Anglo-Israel Friendship League of Finchley and the Conservative Friends of Israel (of which, I believe, she was a founder).
 

David Frum, who was one of George Dubya Bush’s speechwriters and credited with the ‘axis of evil’ speech vilifying Iraq, Iran and North Korea, wrote of Thatcher  that she “was elected from a heavily Jewish north London constituency… Altogether, five Jews served in her cabinets, including her strongest Chancellor of the Exchequer, Nigel Lawson, and her ideological mentor, Education Secretary Keith Joseph…  One of her favorite ministers, Malcolm Rifkind, went on to serve under her successor John Major as the first Jewish foreign secretary — voiding the taboo that had descended after the creation of the state of Israel against Jews in UK national security positions.

Thatcher’s sympathy for Israel especially worried and frightened British officials. When she became party leader in the mid-1970s, she succumbed to pressure and resigned from pro-Israel groups…

The fear was, of course, that Thatcher’s closeness with British Jews might suggest she was a ‘prisoner of the Zionists’. Charles C Johnson, writing in December 2011 , says that Thatcher reluctantly agreed to quit the Jewish groups she belonged to, but kept her relationships with pro-Israel parliamentarians. “In addition to Nigel Lawson, she appointed Victor Rothschild as her security adviser, Malcolm Rifkind to be secretary of state for Scotland, David Young as minister without portfolio, and Leon Brittan to be trade and industry secretary. David Wolfson, nephew of Sir Isaac Wolfson, president of Great Universal Stores, Europe’s biggest mail-order company, served as Thatcher’s chief of staff. Her policies were powered by two men — Keith Joseph, a member of Parliament many thought would one day be the first prime minister who was a practicing Jew, and Alfred Sherman, a former communist turned free-market thinker.”

Joseph and Sherman, with Thatcher, had set up the Centre for Policy Studies in 1974.  Joseph wanted to

fundamentally affect a political generation’s way of thinking.

Thatcher was generally supportive towards Israel but did not trust Begin and Shamir, whom she recognised for the shameless terrorists they were. In 1986, when Peres was prime minister, she became the first British premier to visit Israel, although she had previously been twice as a member of parliament – presumably on brainwashing trips organised by her party’s Friends of Israel.

During that landmark visit in 1986, reports Haaretz, she was asked why Queen Elizabeth had never found the time to tour the Holy Land. Thatcher replied: “But I’m here.”  And she didn’t seem to mind staying in the King David Hotel, the former British Army headquarters which was blown up by Jewish terrorists in 1946, killing 91 soldiers and civilians.

Nevertheless she was occasionally critical and, for example, condemned Israel’s bombing of Osirak, Saddam Hussein’s nuclear reactor, in 1981. It represented a grave breach of international law, she told The Jewish Chronicle. Bombing another country like that could lead to “international anarchy”.

All the same, under Thatcher’s eleven-and-a-half year watch important taboos were broken and Jews were appointed to such top Offices of State as chancellor of the exchequer and secretary for defence, foreign and home affairs. The floodgates opened for Zionist sympathisers or worse, such as Straw, Miliband and Hague to subsequently take up the crucial post of foreign secretary and make a toxic hash of our relations abroad.
 

At home she left a wide trail of social and industrial wreckage, sweeping away key industries and relying on the froth and fizz and corruption of a financial services boom. She all but switched off our engine of real wealth – manufacturing – making the prospect of real recovery a very distant one.

Those who’ll mourn for Maggie most will be the Old Etonians and other products of our public schools who make up our ruling ‘élite’ and whose tender upbringing fixated on Matron rather than the Laws of Cricket.

Stuart Littlewood

10 April 2013

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Gilad Atzmon Who?

Thursday, April 11, 2013 at 4:17PM Gilad Atzmon

 

A few words by GA: This is one of the most interesting articless on my work as a musician/writer and a public person. I spent two fascinating days with Ariadna in Buenos Aires. Reading this article helped me to understand my own work and the way it is perceived by others.

By Ariadna Theokopoulos

http://www.boldfacenews.com/gilad-atzmon-who/

One of the best international jazz musicians of today, philosopher, humanist thinker and author, Gilad Atzmon has been challenging all of us (and primarily Jews) for several years now to examine what defines Jewish Identity Politics (JIP), its core supremacist beliefs, and the many issues that arise from it: its strategies, the various disguises of racism, concealment and suppression of free speech.

The response has never been lukewarm: he has been hailed by some of the most distinguished intellectuals and academicians as “brilliant,” “original” and “profound” or he has been denounced with uniformly unsubstantiated accusations as being a “racist” and/or a “self-hating Jew.”
Since none of those charges carried any credibility, new ones will probably be manufactured in the attempt to silence him.

What is certain is that nobody has yet found him boring or inconsequential.

I have recently returned from a trip to Argentina where I had traveled to meet GA, who had been invited there upon the publication of The Wandering Who in Spanish (La Identidad Errante) by Editorial Canaán in Buenos Aires.

Copies of his book were available in bookstores already.

Buenos Aires is a reading town: it is hard to walk more than four blocks in any direction without finding a bookstore. Gilad marveled at seeing philosophy books displayed in the window of one. (I do not know about the UK but in the US only a bookstore manager bent on bankruptcy would display philosophy books instead of the usual shop window fare, something like “Quick Guide to Having Great Sex While Eating, Shopping and Investing Smartly.”)

He was generous with his time: I ended up spending a couple of full days with him, talking for many hours on end, accompanying him to radio interviews, to a talk he gave to history professors, an engagement in a jazz club, browsing through musical instruments stores and simply walking and enjoying together the unique and stunning beauty of Buenos Aires.

His reception was enthusiastic everywhere we went, although “la identitad politica Judia” is nowhere near as familiar a term as JIP has become in Europe and North America. Here, in South America in general, he does not (or not yet) benefit from the unintentional but helpful marketing support he has received from zionists and “anti-zionist zionists.”

I observed his interactions with people and watched their reactions to his ideas and his music, and most of all talked with him in a desultory fashion on a wide range of topics from the politics of marginal identities to sexual identity (“Sex and Character”), the difficulties of translating German philosophy in other languages, pro-Palestinian activism and its new ‘dietary laws,’ the beauty of national cultures and music, his nostalgic love of his native land, Palestine, his itinerant life style (he had flown to Buenos Aires straight from Japan), people we both know, and even about what constitutes a perfect pizza.

Turning the tables on him, so to speak, and using his own premise, it seems fair to ask:

If GA, a born Israeli Jew (who occasionally refers to himself as a Hebrew-speaking Palestinian), musician, philosopher, humanist thinker and finally a man, insists on critically examining JIP, then we have a right to try to find out who is GA, the itinerant saxophone player and story teller and what is his identity? Gilad Atzmon Who?

For each of us personal identity is made up of many strands of qualifiers with which we identify: idiosyncratic personal identity, sexual identity, professional identity, allegiance to a family, to one’s ethnic group, religion, national identity, universal human family. One of them will always be primary. After all, we know that some men rendered impotent in battle prefer to die than live without their ‘sexual identity,’ while others turned paraplegic but with their intellectual functions intact wish to live, religious zealots would rather kill and die rather than not prevail over their “enemies,” and so on.

It is reasonable to make the assumption that one’s primary identity, that which one chooses as a defining descriptor above others (e.g., “As a Jew, I think that….”) is the allegiance in whose perceived service one is willing to make the most sacrifices, often to the detriment of other “identities. “

Using that assumption, Gilad’s primary identity is without a doubt that of an artist.
What follows is like Magritte’s pipe

 
It is not Gilad. It is only my impression and rendition of him.

The Musician

At Jazz & Pop in Buenos Aires

That he is a consummate jazz player and a talented composer needs no elaboration at this point. His music has been acclaimed worldwide and not just by those who ever listened to him live or bought his CDs. When I returned to Montevideo I went to my favorite neighborhood caffe to give a gift to the owner – a copy of La Identidad Errante. He looked at it, read the author’s name and said: “I know this guy. I listen to him on youtube.”

“Songs of the Metropolis” was discussed in both of the radio interviews to which I accompanied him. They played Buenos Aires and he explained his admiration for Astor Piazzolla whose music is beautifully evoked by his song.

Gilad also expressed his delight in the Argentineans’ proud attachment to and nurturing of their musical heritage and traditions. Indeed, everywhere we went we could hear tango tunes pouring out of stores, cabs and caffes. In fact, walking in La Boca we passed by an impromptu street scene of ordinary people dancing tango, which I felt worth capturing:

Pride in the tango can be fierce and the controversy about whether the great Gardel was really a Uruguayan or an Argentinean is a cause of rancor between the two neighboring nations. In this light, Gilad’s expression of sincere and deep admiration for Piazzolla alone could make him an honorary Argentinean citizen.

The format of the two radio shows was pretty much the same: a presentation of the artist by the interviewer as musician and writer, a discussion of Songs of the Metropolis, a few intelligent questions about the transformative effect of Gilad’s early acquaintance with jazz and its stellar black performers on his thinking and ethical view of the world, including his “discovery” of Palestinians and their national tragedy, and the message of The Wandering Who. They played Buenos Aires, Tel Aviv and Scarborough and at the end gave the listeners information about his upcoming shows and about the availability of his book in Spanish in local bookstores.

I have no way to gauge the reception of the radio interviews by listeners but later I recognized some of the radio station staff among the audience in the jazz club.

The show was memorable. The jazz club was packed and Gilad seemed, if anything, energized by lack of sleep and the jetlag and totally connected with the audience.

Women seem to be thronging around him at his shows and talks, a fact he dismisses and attributes only to his fame. That is entirely plausible for some of them. It is perhaps the “triangular desire” that Rene Girard describes in Mensonge Romantique et Verité Romanesque, “mediated desire” or “desire according to others.” In other words he is “vetted” as charismatic by the arbiters of fame. Others may find him attractive because—no offense to Gilad—almost any man can become attractive when he plays his saxophone with abandon. Bill Clinton, although he never seems to have advanced beyond the saxophone version of Chopsticks surely knows that. There is perhaps something about the sight of a man passionately immersed in his playing (not the tuba though) that makes some women wish to grab some of that intense concentration and try to have it turn on themselves. John Berger thinks that “to be passionately desired is perhaps the closest one can get in this life to feeling immortal” (“ser deseado con pasión es tal vez lo mas parecido que se pueda alcanzar en esta vida a sentarse inmortal”—El Cuaderno de Bento). Nevertheless his incessant talking about his beautiful wife, with evident admiration, must be a killer to the hopes of even the most determined female stalkers or the fakers wishing to test his “male chauvinism.”

The audience was electrified by his performance (with the somewhat self-effacing Juampi Juarez trio) and brought to an ovation by his scatting, pouring forth from somewhere deep, almost in a frenzied trance.

The Story Teller

It was his scatting also that made me think that, indissolubly linked to his identity as a musician, he has a twin primary identity as the Story Teller, in the mold of Mario Vargas Llosa’s main character in the eponymous novel.

In the Amazonian jungle, among the natives, Llosa narrates, there was a Story Teller, a man whose life mission was to roam from one isolated group/tribe to another and another, all across the vast and almost impenetrable jungle to sing the truth and to record and revise history. Given the difficulties and perils of the trek he only got to visit each community once a year.

Upon his arrival all gathered to hear him sing the Story that told them about themselves and others like them, from the beginnings of creation to present day events, like news of births and deaths and impending perils in all the places he had been visiting since his last meeting with them.

The Story was never quite the same from one visit to the next not only because it was growing with more additions of news and events but also because the memory of the past was changing and enriched by new learning.

The Story reminded them that they were not alone although they were isolated and only rarely got to really know any of the other tribes, with whom they became acquainted mostly from his Story. Nevertheless, it was clear from his Story that the others were very much like them.

To be the Story Teller was a function of great responsibility but also great personal sacrifice: enduring the life of a lone wanderer.

Llosa eventually reveals that the Story Teller was a Peruvian Jew who had abandoned his “tribe” and the larger urban culture he belonged to, and chose to live among the real people of the land, the old inhabitants pushed deep into the jungle by the “civilization” of the invading colonists. When they honored him by appointing him Story Teller, he became their singer of history, keeper of truth and teacher.

His recital, in the form of a sung epic, also contained a refrain, much like an invocation, a repetition that, when uttered fast over and over unraveled words and became only sound, like scatting.
In his own way, combining music with his Story and carrying the compact universal message to all as he wanders all over the world, Gilad Atzmon is also the Story Teller.
 

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What is the real American game in Syria?

 

US Joint Chiefs Chairman General Martin Dempsey (R) and Turkish Chief of Staff General Necdet Ozel inspect a guard of honour in Ankara on September 17, 2012.

Tue Apr 9, 2013 9:33AM GMT

 

By Jim W. Dean

My bet is that all of these carefully played cards are a set up for two things, one of which is already in motion. Enough arms and ammo have been prestaged to back a final push to collapse Assad.

General Dempsey was in the news this week with his very sensible comments about the spiraling down Syrian debacle, whose vortex may catch those who don’t expect it, but might be most deserving.

Seasoned observers are quite used to seeing mixed messages in diplomacy, especially when they are used as a tactic of war. If you take a variety of positions, even if a disaster does happen you can whip out an archive statement where you said this or that, but no one would listen to you.

As the Prussian military theorist Karl von Claueswitz said, “War is the continuation of diplomacy by other means.” America seems to have chosen this war diplomacy policy for Syria while pretending not to be responsible.

This murky policy gets further complicated when you actually have competing factions within an administration, where verbal sniping and even verbal car bombs can be used to remind the opposing side that your views have to be taken into consideration.

Because General Dempsey is so highly respected across many divides in America his every word is absorbed and analyzed for both obvious and hinted meanings. If an administration wanted to send a message of a sincere potential policy shift, Dempsey would be the gold plated messenger.

But herein we must go into the historical closet where an event happened which is referred to in casual Intel talk circles as “’pulling a Colin Powell” on them, regarding how he was used to justify the Iraq attack for bogus WMD. The current military brass are well aware of this bear trap, and I would bet that Dempsey would not be played for a chump. He’s way too smart for that. Powell was not Bush’s top military adviser, like Dempsey is to Obama.

Let’s review some of who said what and when, and then try to figure out why. The Sunday April 7th Press TV report had the startling Dempsey headline quote, “Syria could become another Afghanistan”. He continued, “I have grave concerns that Syria could become an extended conflict”, that drags on for many years.

These were not off the cuff statements. They aired on a US funded Arabic satellite TV channel. Every word was pre-scripted. In the analysis business we often refer to this as ‘a card being played’. So task number two is to figure out what is it really for.

Digging back to a March 18th Dempsey talk to a Washington think tank, “I don’t think at this point I can see a military option that would create an understandable outcome…and until I do, it would be my advice to proceed cautiously.”

But we knew from our own sources and later published ones that a big covert arms push was already in process, flowing into various rebel staging areas as preparation for a sustained final push to topple Assad.

We know the CIA coordinated the operation with Jordan and Turkey logistically involved and the Saudis and Qatar paying the bills. This is what the Obama administration calls not providing lethal aid…proxies do it.

Dempsey is on record having favored arming the rebels for a quicker overthrow to avoid a drawn out contest which would risk leaving the Syria in ruins. Obama objected back then…but not now. They are doing it under the radar, sort of.

When Dempsey was asked if anything short of military intervention might be contemplated he gave a prepared, and what we know now to be a partially honest answer, that any such opportunities would be led by U.S. Allies. 

He played another prepared card, “We very much do believe that the answer to Syrian is through partners, because…they’ll understand the complexities better than we would.”

I could only wish to have been able to ask the general if he was so concerned about the 100 ring circus of rebel and insurgent groups operating against Assad, then would he like to address the Saudis providing bases, training, funding and arming of a new generation of Jihad fighters, even in northern Iraq. The Saudis are even running terror operations against Iraq now to keep them back on their heels.

Dempsey has to be aware of this. Any statements of America not arming these Syrian insurgent groups is duplicitous because we know that the Saudis are. They are supporting the Wahhabi extremists, who are taking heads as I write. Dempsey has to understand that when headhunters are loose on the land the Syrian Army and their militias are going to fight to the death.

We picked up a leak that an arms push would be coming soon by a ‘card’ Dempsey played during an airborne press interview. He said he would potentially consider arming the insurgents directly to end the fighting sooner and preserve the country’s institutions from being destroyed in an uncivil war of attrition.

Dempsey acknowledged the obvious even back then that the end game of increased armaments could contribute to a more violent new civil war among the various groups after the fall of Assad. The Balkans analogy has been widely used in the media to describe it. Lots of heads got chopped of there, too.

All of these card clues are what we call psyops… ‘preparing the minds’ of the public for things you have in the works to test their reaction. This as standard ‘game theory warfare’. Senator John ‘Cowboy’ McCain even has an acting roll, asking for bombing of Syria now which makes the covert arming of the rebels look like the non wild, cautious approach.

My bet is that all of these carefully played cards are a set up for two things, one of which is already in motion. Enough arms and ammo have been prestaged to back a final push to collapse Assad. The Syrian army counter strategy can clearly be seen to breakup up the rebel forward positions, find their hideouts and get their weapons caches. Press TV has photos of these operations all the time.

But if the Jihadis look like they could be the dominant force in an overthrow then the U.S. would come in with major arms supplies, but only for certain groups who would not only fight the Syrian army, but also the Wahhabis.

What kind of weapons are we talking about here? Start with longer range anti-armor and add ground to air missiles. I would bet that selected insurgents have already been trained in these weapons and are waiting for the right time to be deployed.

The Arab League seems to already know the general plan. You can look back now and see their violating their own charter to pre-empt the outcome by giving one faction of the rebels the Syrian seat. This was their assigned role in this slow motion train wreck.

And I predict some of them will regret setting this precedent.

But there is a wild card…the Russians, Chinese and the Iranians. The Russians man the Syrian air defenses, and they are not going to quietly sit by while the walls come tumbling down around them. If the U.S. felt that a ‘deteriorating situation’ justified intervention to ‘save the country’…then other parties would thereby have permission to do the same.

I don’t think they are going to just sit back and watch the carving up of their own ally and the threat that would pose to them not only in loss of face, but in future aggression. A failed intervention would be a huge blow to imperial militarism, as would the supplemental war bills that would be hitting the steps of Congress, requiring more red ink to fund.

Assad was correct when he stated, “If the unrest in Syria leads to the partitioning of the country, or if terrorists take control…the situation will spill over into neighboring countries and create a domino effect throughout the Middle East and beyond.”

Some of you can dismiss this as a self serving statement, but I will pose one scenario for you. If there is an intervention where American weapons are used against the Jihadis, how long, how many days do you think it would take to see them with advance weapons themselves, like the very good Russian anti-tank one, and then ground to air defense missiles popping up out of thin air. Are they already there, and being saved?

The West killed any negotiated settlement with the big March arms push. They seem to be going for a military settlement, but one where a mess could be laid on someone’s doorstep. But we all know the rebel groups will not negotiate because they feel they have the West behind them and time is on their side.

We have the blind leading the blind here in a situation which could trigger an even larger blood bath. So far the main beneficiary with virtually nothing to lose, once again, is Israel. The Israeli role seems now to keep banging the attack Iran war drum. John Kerry made a fool of himself on his Israeli visit with the silly ‘all options on the table’ substitute for a real policy. I can’t think of a more stupid way to convince other nations that they need a nuclear deterrent.

Dempsey was right about not seeing ‘an understandable outcome’. What the Western dummies and their proxies are doing is tossing a live hand grenade around in a circle. The outcome of that does not require a genius, or even an analyst…just someone who isn’t crazy.

JD/MA

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Israel Opens Conduit for Turkish Trade

 

By: Yahya Dbouk
 

Published Thursday, April 11, 2013

 

Israel has opened its seaports and land border crossings for Turkish trade to and from Jordan, Iraq, and the Gulf states. In lieu of the Syrian route, the Israeli option is a safer alternative.

The weekly economic supplement of the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth said that the Israeli decision came after a series of secret meetings that took place recently between Tel Aviv and its neighbors Jordan, Iraq, and Turkey.

These meetings, said the newspaper, prompted a change in Israeli policy, which enabled Ankara to use Israel’s sea and land ports.

According to the newspaper, the Israeli decision relates to goods that can only be transported by land, as opposed to by air. It added, “Ships carrying goods come from Turkish ports unload at the Haifa and Ashdod seaports. [Then the goods are] transported in Israeli trucks to the Sheikh Hussein land border crossing with Jordan.”

An Israeli satellite channel reported that the Sheikh Hussein land crossing with Jordan is now the site of active commerce. It confirmed that “the Israeli-Jordanian agreement was reached in cooperation with Amman and Baghdad.”

Israeli TV broadcast scenes of trucks carrying Turkish goods. The reporter talked to Turkish truck drivers who welcomed Israel’s policy change. One said, “Israel is good and we don’t have any problems with it. We deal with it positively.” Another driver confirmed “Israel’s kind treatment.”

This article is an edited translation from the Arabic Edition.
 

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China will keep supporting North Korea against US

 

 

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un uses binoculars to inspect a live-fire drill using self-propelled drones at an undisclosed location in North Korea, March 20, 2013.

Thu Apr 11, 2013 8:40AM GMT

 

By Yusuf Fernandez

Although there have been some claims in Western media that China could be having second thoughts on maintaining its support for North Korea, the truth is that the latter remains a key Chinese ally. Most Chinese think that the links with North Korea, despite all the difficulties and disagreements, remain useful for China. The Chinese leadership is probably conscious that Washington, in order to advance its own strategy, would like to see a rift between both traditional allies.”

On April 3, Chinese officials called for calm in Korea as Washington announced that it would deploy missiles and more troops to East Asia, the island of Guam, Australia and the West coast of the US territory amid a crisis over North Korea’s nuclear program.

Shortly before, Chinese Deputy Foreign Minister Zhang Yesui expressed his country’s “serious concern” over the Korean stand-off in two meetings with the US and South Korean ambassadors. He also appealed to both sides to exercise restraint and avoid provocations which might lead to an unwanted conflict.

For its part, the US has been deploying nuclear-capable bombers, warships and other military systems. The Pentagon has sent two F-22 Stealth fighters to the Osan Air Base and a B-2 stealth bomber on a round-trip training mission over South Korea. It has also positioned two guided-missile destroyers in the waters near the Korean Peninsula.

According to USA Today, the American B-1 bomber pilots at the Dyess Air Force Base in Texas have changed their training programs to focus on flights towards East Asia, instead of missions to the Middle East and Afghanistan.

US Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel announced that the number of antimissile interceptors in Alaska and California will increase to 44 – 14 more than the current number. Although he claimed that this move was a response to Pyongyang’s “irresponsible and reckless provocations”, the plan to boost these systems had been in consideration for months.

At the same time, Washington has stepped up its threats against Pyongyang. US Secretary of State John Kerry said the US “will not accept North Korea as a nuclear state.” US Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew, who recently visited Beijing, asked Chinese leaders to use their economic and political influence over Pyongyang to persuade the North Korean government to renounce its nuclear and missile programs. Given that Pyongyang has no intention to destroy its small nuclear arsenal, the statements by both American top officials sounded certainly threatening.

The US is also selling more military systems to South Korea and Japan, two main rivals of China in the region having two right-wing and nationalist governments headed by Japanese Premier Shinzo Abe and South Korean President Park Geun-hye respectively. The US Defense Department approved on April 3 the sale of 60 fighters – F-15 or F-35 – to South Korea.

The US Administration wants to use the Korea crisis to show South Korea and Japan that they can rely on the US nuclear umbrella. In Seoul and Tokyo, some media and political circles have been calling on their governments to develop nuclear weapons. The US rejects this idea alleging that it would lead to wider proliferation of nuclear weapons. However, the real reason of this opposition is that Washington wants to perpetuate these countries’ military dependency on the US.

A strategy against China

However, Washington is not only deploying these forces as a result of the tensions in the Korean Peninsula but as a part of its strategy to maintain its predominance in East Asia. China is becoming the most powerful country in the world and is blocking, alongside with Russia, US global plans to achieve global hegemony. It is also holding massive US debt and blocking US actions seeking to justify wars against Syria and Iran. It has also been one of the founders of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and the BRICS group, which challenge US and Western hegemony and promote a multipolar world.

Washington has been enhancing its military ties and alliances throughout the region to contain and encircle China. In this sense, the target of the US deployments is not only North Korea but mainly China. In fact, USA Today already mentioned the training shift towards the Asia-Pacific region at Dyess in an article published in August 2012. The article added that the new strategy, which was announced in January 2012 by President Barack Obama, sought to “counter the rising power of China”.

Moreover, during a recent meeting of Obama with Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong in Washington, the US president announced the sending of more US warships to the area of the Malacca Strait, a waterway that connects the Indian and Pacific Oceans and is critical to Chinese energy imports and trade.

Warmongering Senator John McCain of Arizona has also used the Korea crisis to attack China. “Chinese behavior has been very disappointing, whether it be on cyber security, whether it be on confrontation in the South China Sea, or whether it be their failure to rein in North Korea,” he said.

For his part, James Hardy, the Asia-Pacific editor for Jane’s Defense Weekly – also thinks that Washington “is using the existence of this crisis as an excuse to ramp up its missile defenses in Asia.” He pointed out that this move is related to Washington’s plans for hegemony in the Asia-Pacific region.

For its part, China is logically concerned by the deployment of these military systems near its borders. Chinese leaders have also seen the deployment of missile defense systems as a threat for their country. They have openly criticized the US for announcing a large increase in its anti-missile interceptors based in Alaska. Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei warned that “strengthening anti-missile systems will intensify antagonism”.

Both China and Russia oppose the US deployment of these systems in Asia and Europe, which are not mainly aimed at Iran and North Korea, as Washington claims, but at undermining Chinese and Russian nuclear capacity. The ability to destroy missiles would allow the US to launch a “first nuclear strike” against China or Russia while avoiding a retaliation attack against its territory. As a response, Moscow and Beijing have already started to develop their military capacities, including the manufacture of new state-of-the-art nuclear missiles being capable of overcoming any anti-missile defense system.

No second thoughts on North Korea

Although there have been some claims in Western media that China could be having second thoughts on maintaining its support for North Korea, the truth is that the latter remains a key Chinese ally. Most Chinese think that the links with North Korea, despite all the difficulties and disagreements, remain useful for China. The Chinese leadership is probably conscious that Washington, in order to advance its own strategy, would like to see a rift between both traditional allies.

According to the Chinese publication Global Times, the economic importance of China-North Korea ties has grown in recent years. In terms of China’s total economic activity, it is still small, but in terms of Northeast China, it has gained importance.

On the other hand, “the strategic considerations that have kept China involved in the Korean Peninsula for hundreds of years have not suddenly disappeared”, wrote the Global Times. In this sense, North Korea is China’s sole ally in East Asia and a buffer state facing hostile powers as the US, Japan or South Korea. It is worth recalling that the Chinese army intervened in the Korean War in 1950 to prevent the occupation of North Korea by US and South Korean forces. Thus, it prevented the creation of a pro-US state directly on China’s border and a future US invasion of China itself.

Unlike Western countries, China has not blamed only North Korea for the current crisis but it has also criticized the US, Japan and South Korea’s hard-line positions and confrontational policies towards Pyongyang. Chinese media dismiss the idea that North Korea should eliminate its nuclear weapons, as the US demands. Actually, with examples such as Libya (denuclearized completely in accordance with US demands but subjected to US-backed regime change anyway), the North is not going to abandon its program because it is its best guarantee of survival.

Moreover, North Korea has already gone through a bitter experience over its negotiations with the US. In the 1990s and 2000s, Pyongyang sought to normalize its relations with Washington in exchange for putting an end to its nuclear program. In 2007, it shuttered the Yongbyon reactor, its sole one producing plutonium as a result of a nuclear disarmament agreement with the US. However, shortly after the deal collapsed and North Korea has just announced that the reactor will be restarted and used to produce more nuclear weapons from now on.

Therefore, China understands that it cannot abandon North Korea from a strategic perspective especially at a time when it has become the target of a policy of containment and strangulation by the US and its allies. Beijing can only go so far as to do “soft criticism” but not “hard criticism” of North Korean actions. Both countries have a common objective: opposing US-sponsored military alliances and deployments in the region, which are not just aimed at North Korea, but at China as well. Therefore, China’s policy of support for North Korea will continue.

YF/HSN

 

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Yusuf Fernandez is a journalist and the secretary of the Muslim Federation of Spain. He started to work for Radio Prague. He has been editor of several Islamic sites in Spanish and English and is currently editor of the Spanish site of Al Manar. He has also published articles in leading Spanish newspapers. More articles by Yusuf Fernandez

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Qatar Grants Egypt Extra $3Bn Financial Aid

Local Editor

Qatar Prime Minister announced on Wednesday it will grant Egypt an extra $3bn in financial aid. The announcement came after an unexpected trip this week by most of the Egyptian cabinet to the Qatari capital, Doha, after signs of discord emerged between the two countries, partly over a stalled banking deal. Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem al-Thani spoke of “the importance of relations between Egypt and Qatar continuing at the same pace and at the same momentum” during a press conference announcing the aid package. Bin Jassem said the latest round of financial support would be provided within days either as a deposit in Egypt’s central bank or purchases of Treasury bonds. Egypt’s main stock index remained flat on the news, dipping slightly after falling 5.7 per cent so far this year. The announcement followed talks with visiting Egyptian Prime Minister Hesham Qandil. Qatar has already given Egypt $5bn in financial aid since the 2011 revolution that ousted Hosni Mubarak. Amid signs of frustration with the competence of Cairo’s new leaders, (Muslim Brotherhood) the Qatari finance minister, Youssef Kamal, said a month ago that no new aid for Egypt was imminent. Egypt’s public finances have deteriorated significantly since the revolution which began an era of political turmoil. Foreign currency reserves have fallen 63 per cent, from $36bn, before the uprising to $13.4bn at the end of March. The country’s budget deficit is widening and its credit rating continues to drop. The government of Mohamed Morsi, the president, has been trying to secure a $4.8bn loan from the International Monetary Fund as well as financial aid from other oil-rich Arab countries. The loan would unlock budget support and aid from other countries and international organizations. However, many commentators doubted over Qatar’s intentions to give aid to Egypt, with the public minds see Doha’s support as suspicious outside meddling in the affairs of other states.

Source: Agencies 11-04-2013 – 10:21 Last updated 11-04-2013 – 10:21

• “Thank you Qatar” …. Basim Yusuf way

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