The PalestineFreeVoice is an unwearied researcher and defender of freedom of speech and the written word, where matter is written and published every day.The PalestineFreeVoice is documenting, collecting and archiving the social-ideological-political-cultural-history of the Palestinian people. PalestineFreeVoice argues in favor of the principle of the permanent sovereignty of people under foreign occupation over their natural resources (UN resolution 51/190). The PalestineFreeVoice advocate and promote a sovereign Palestinian statehood in the occupied Palestinian territories including Jerusalem. The PalestineFreeVoice is documenting Israeli war crimes on Palestine Territories. The PalestineFreeVoice is supporting the Palestine Resistance Movement, in their inherent, inalienable right to protect their Palestine homeland. Organized armed defense of any homeland to guard and protect its citizens, to stop, detain, expel, arrest, subdue, execute, armed defiant hostile trespassers (assassins, land-thieves etc.) is not only a legitimate duty, but a moral right.
The PalestineFreeVoice ( PalestineFreeVoice ) is founded by Hiyam Noir in January 2003.
Dr.Mahmoud al - Zahhar with wife and son PalestineFreeVoice Images
Hiyam Noir
GAZA -After returning to Gaza some weeks ago, from touring in several European countries and attending formal meetings in Geneva invited by the Foreign Ministry of Switzerland, the Hamas diplomat, Dr.Mahmoud al-Zahhar, co-founder of Hamas, elected Palestinian foreign minister and a member of Hamas political bureau in Gaza, participated on Tuesday in a memorial ceremony to honor the martyrs, all the wounded and the prisoners of the severely tormented war - worn neighborhood of Al-Zeitoun in Gaza City.
During the memorial ceremony, Dr. al- Zahhar said in a statement that Hamas Movement have decided, as long as Fatah ( PA) continues its manhunt and abduction of Hamas cadres and supporters on the West bank, Hamas will not permit Fatah leaders to leave Gaza for the West Bank to participate in their sixth conference.
“If members of Fatah want to leave Gaza freely and attend the conference, they have to release all political prisoners," Dr. Zahhar stated."The hostile and violent transformation of Fatah, we in Hamas wish never would have happened. The violations of Human Rights laws and Palestinian law have continued. Hamas affiliated and supporters have been tortured and confined in the dark cells and dungeons of Fatah since 1995. "
Dr. Zahhar added that - "Hamas compliance, our serious efforts to bring our people together during the final Palestinian national dialogue meetings in Egypt, ended in abduction of more than 1.000 Palestinian citizens ( Hamas affiliated) in the West Bank."
And the Fatah harassment and illegalities against Hamas continues on the West Bank. On Monday the Fatah militia closed the Al- Zahra Center of Holy Quran studies in Qalqiliya, on Tuesday the manhunt of West Bank citizens affiliated with Hamas continued. The Fatah militias in Nablus and Al-Khalil ( Hebron) abducted seven Palestinian citizens affiliated with Hamas, including a community board member of the Saida village, and a highly respected Mosque imam.
Lebanon is emerging as one of the few positive stories in 2009 with remarkable growth in its tourism industry and overall economy, according to a branding expert. Concerted nationwide rebranding initiatives will help further accelerate Lebanon's transformation into one of the world's premier tourist and business destinations, as the government and the business sector need to take advantage of new developments to collaborate in creating fresher and more attractive images for "Brand Lebanon," said Ibrahim Lahoud, Director of Strategy and Brand Communication, BrandCentral.
Lahoud pointed out that the national rebranding efforts will have a dramatic impact in redefining the way the world looks at this key Middle Eastern country, helping promote Lebanon as a major business and tourism destination like Brazil, Greece and Turkey. He also noted several gaps in the promotion of Lebanon, particularly in the area of tourism wherein a great number of people around the world are still unaware that Lebanon has so much more to offer than its cedar trees.
Another key measure that will enhance "Brand Lebanon" as a business destination according to Lahoud is to create dedicated districts that cater to various business and technological pursuits such as IT parks, banking and financial centres, and other business-centric development projects. Moreover, he emphasised the important role of prominent public figures such as singers and actors as well as ordinary citizens to serve as "Brand Ambassadors" of Lebanon.
"Lebanon is one of the rare success stories of the global financial crisis. Branding efforts focusing on its unique geography and way of life have opened up numerous opportunities in growth areas such as tourism, banking and construction, which continue to generate substantial capital from internal and external investors. Another important milestone that underscores the importance of branding strategies is the recent top-ranking performance of Beirut in an exclusive list of places to go in 2009, which has certainly boosted Lebanon's image as a leading leisure, lifestyle and business destination," said Lahoud.
"Furthermore, it is critically important to maintain the momentum generated by the country as a tourist hotspot and a safe and secure business destination. As such, there is an urgent need to develop more specific branding ideas and strategies that will further excite the world over the positive transformation of Lebanon. Although the Lebanese economy has gained so much this year, it is important to remember that competition remains tough as ever with other international travel and business destinations likewise aiming to improve their own stake in the global market. Our goal is to ensure that 'Brand Lebanon' remains firmly entrenched in the consciousness of our target audiences all over the world," added Lahoud.
Lahoud noted that significant achievements of the country need to be promoted vigorously to further enhance Lebanon's image as one of the most inspiring success stories in the midst of the global economic downturn. He further pointed out that the Lebanese economy has been projected to enjoy GDP growth of 3 per cent in 2009 and 4 per cent in 2010, according to the latest issue of the International Monetary Fund's (IMF) bi-annual World Economic Outlook (WEO), even as the Lebanese Government expects a much more impressive 6 per cent growth this year. Lebanon's projected growth rate in 2009 easily eclipses the average growth in the Middle East (2.5 per cent) and among emerging and developing countries (1.6 per cent), while performing way above advanced economies and the world economy, which will record average negative growth rates at -3.8 per cent and -1.9 per cent, respectively.
On the other hand, a recent report by London-based investment firm Blakeney Investors has described Lebanon as a safe banking haven because of abundant liquidity and unprecedented inflow of deposits; the same report also highlighted Moody's upgrade of Lebanon's local and foreign currency government bond ratings at a time when several countries around the world have been downgraded. Lebanon's tourism sector also achieved dramatic growth, enjoying a 56.8 per cent surge in tourist arrivals for a total of 434,418 visitors in the first four months of 2009 compared with the same period in 2008.
Lebanon's tourism industry is expected to generate around 9.3 per cent of the country's GDP and account for about 9.6 per cent of total domestic employment in 2009. It is also projected to provide indirect revenues worth USD 7.78 billion and indirectly create around 439,600 jobs or at least one out of every 3.6 jobs within the year, equivalent to 28.1 per cent of total employment.
Lebanon's diverse and captivating natural resources, particularly its mountains, world-renowned cedar forests, and beaches, have helped earn the country a reputation as a travel haven. Other factors that continue to attract local, regional and global travellers are its excellent dining establishments; hospitable citizens; significant improvements in travel infrastructure through the Beirut International Airport and Lebanon's official carrier Middle East Airlines; and abundance of artistic pursuits involving film, music, food and design, among others.
Beirut, on the other hand, has topped the global list of "The 44 Places to go in 2009" published recently by the New York Times. The Lebanese capital edged out popular tourist destinations such as Washington, D.C., Galapagos, Las Vegas and Hawaii by garnering consistently high ratings in all criteria, which included Luxury, Ecology, Family, Frugality, Food, Culture, and Party. The top ranking affirms Lebanon's success in rebranding itself as a regional and global tourism hub.
BrandCentral has been a key contributor in promoting Lebanon as a leading regional and international travel and tourism gateway. The consultancy provides turnkey solutions for brand development, corporate identity, and strategic design. Its mission is to provide a thoroughly positive impression of a company or product to existing and potential customers.
Kai Chase, Michael Jackson's personal chef, is photographed in Beverly Hills, Calif. on Tuesday, July 28, 2009. On the day Michael Jackson died, his personal chef says her first hint of something amiss was when his doctor didn't come downstairs to get the juices and granola he routinely brought the King of Pop for breakfast each morning.
By Associated Press
Published: July 29, 2009
LOS ANGELES - On the day Michael Jackson died, his personal chef says her first hint of something amiss was when his doctor didn't come downstairs to get the juices and granola he routinely brought the King of Pop for breakfast each morning.
Kai Chase, a professionally trained chef hired by Jackson to maintain a healthy food regimen, recalled the singer's final days in an interview with The Associated Press. She also spoke about the role of his personal physician, Dr. Conrad Murray, who is now the focus of a manslaughter investigation.
Chase said Tuesday that she had gotten used to seeing Murray coming and going from the mansion.
The doctor usually arrived about 9 or 9:30 p.m. and would go upstairs to Jackson's room, and she said she would not see him again before she left — sometimes late in the evening — but understood he was staying the night.
In the morning, when she arrived for work, Chase said she would see the doctor coming down the steps carrying oxygen tanks. When Murray didn't come downstairs the morning of June 25, "I thought maybe Mr. Jackson is sleeping late," Chase said.
"I started preparing the lunch and then I looked at my cell phone and it was noon. About 12:05 or 12:10 Dr. Murray runs down the steps and screams, 'Go get Prince!' He's screaming very loud. I run into the den where the kids are playing. Prince (Jackson's oldest son) runs to meet Dr. Murray and from that point on you could feel the energy in the house change.
"I walked into the hall and I saw the children there. The daughter was crying. I saw paramedics running up the stairs."
At that point, Chase said, the small group that was gathered — the children, their nanny, a housekeeper and Chase — held hands and began to pray. As paramedics raced up to the room, Chase recalls, "We were all praying, 'Help Mr. Jackson be OK.'
"Then everyone was very quiet."
At about 1:30 p.m. she said security guards told her and other staff to leave the property because "Mr. Jackson was being taken to the hospital."
When she came outside, she said, ambulances were in the courtyard and a crowd had gathered.
Chase, 37, who has cooked for other celebrities and comes from a show-business family, was hired by Jackson in March, let go in May, then returned on June 2. She said the pop star's focus was on fresh, healthy food for him and the children.
She said she prepared meals for the family and occasionally for Murray. She said Jackson was in training for his upcoming shows in London and told her: "You have to take care of me."
On most days, she said, Murray would bring Jackson the special fruit juice drinks Chase prepared for him, followed by granola with almond milk. For lunch, Jackson would eat with the children from a menu that included such things as spinach salad and chicken.
Murray sometimes joined them for dinner, which might be a seared ahi tuna. She said the doctor conferred with her about the 50-year-old pop singer's food and made sure that he ate.
The only oddity was the oxygen tanks. Chase said she never asked about the purpose of the oxygen and she saw no sign that Jackson was on drugs or was in failing health.
"Normally in the morning, he would bring oxygen tanks from upstairs downstairs, one in each hand," she said.
Authorities searched Murray's Las Vegas home and medical office Tuesday as part of an investigation that included raids last week of his clinic and storage in Houston.
With toxicology reports pending, investigators are working under the theory that the powerful anesthetic propofol caused Jackson's heart to stop, a law enforcement official told The Associated Press. Murray told investigators he regularly administered the drug to help Jackson sleep, and had done so sometime in the early morning of June 25, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing.
Propofol is supposed to be administered only in monitored medical settings by trained personnel; the official told AP that Murray left the bedroom and returned to find the star unresponsive. Police have said Murray is cooperating and have not labeled him a suspect, and his lawyer, Edward Chernoff, has said the doctor "didn't prescribe or administer anything that should have killed Michael Jackson."
Like Murray, Chase said she was hired to accompany Jackson to London for his comeback concerts and the request was personally made to her by his 12-year-old son, Prince Michael II.
"Prince said, 'Daddy wants me to tell you he wants you to go to London with us,'" she recalled. "I said, 'Tell your daddy that I'm pleased and honored."
She said she had already filled out paperwork and submitted a copy of her passport to the Jackson staff and expected to leave for London on July 3.
On June 23, she said Jackson told her: "I'm packed and I'm ready to go." Two days later, he was dead.
It was the end of her dream job and an idyllic time in Chase's life, a time that had begun in March with a call from Jackson's assistant, Michael Williams. She was told that "a client" wanted her services as personal chef but she was not told the client was Jackson until she was hired.
"I couldn't believe it," she said. "I asked him if I was on 'Candid Camera.' I said, 'Am I being punked?'"
She said Jackson had seen her resume which included jobs cooking for Macy Gray and Jamie Fox as well as catering a fund raiser for President Barack Obama. She said he also knew she was from a multiracial background and her godfather was Redd Foxx.
But before she started she had to pass muster with three other people: the Jackson children.
"I came to the house and the first people I met were the kids. They started interviewing me," she said. "They told me: 'We're into healthy eating.'"
When they approved her, she went to work and "we developed a really great bond."
Most days, she said, Jackson made a point of having both lunch and dinner with the children, Prince, 11-year-old Paris and 7-year-old Prince Michael II, known as Blanket, and each meal was preceded by Paris saying grace. After weeks of healthy food, she said she wrote Jackson a note with a suggestion:
"I said, 'What about doing comfort-food Saturdays? We could do barbecued chicken and corn on the cob, maybe Mexican food or soul food.'" She said he loved the idea, but as the concerts approached, healthy eating returned full time.
"He said, 'I'm a dancer,' and he wanted food that would not make him cramp up while he was dancing."
She now treasures little notes she received from the children and from Jackson and a present he gave her.
"One day he handed me a little gift bag and said, 'This is for you from me and the children.' He had given me an iPod Touch because the children told him I still had a Walkman. It had the 25th anniversary 'Thriller' album loaded on it."
She said she has visited with the children since Jackson's death and they are doing well. "They have so many cousins to play with."
As for Chase's future, she said Jackson encouraged her to write a cookbook and she has written one tentatively titled, "Fit for a King." It includes recipes she cooked for Jackson and the story of the time she worked for him.
Last week the Israeli Transportation Minister ordered the removal of all signs and placards carrying Arabic names of Palestinian towns, villages and cities in historical Palestine. A few days ago a ring of Rabbis and corrupt US politicians were caught for illegally profiteering in the human organ trade and money laundering to finance Israeli settlements on Arab lands.
Palestine Now and Then
By Nidal Sakr
At an Israeli university stop during her campaign for the 2009 elections, Tsipi Livni argued that a two-state solution is to the best interest of Israel, as a future Palestinian state will be home for the nearly one-and-a-half million Arabs living within the 1948 borders. Not long afterwards, a recent Russian immigrant who founded a party to ethnically cleanse Arabs from “historical Israel” came in third in elections, and now heads Israeli diplomacy.
Last week the Israeli Transportation Minister ordered the removal of all signs and placards carrying Arabic names of Palestinian towns, villages and cities in historical Palestine. A few days ago a ring of Rabbis and corrupt US politicians were caught for illegally profiteering in the human organ trade and money laundering to finance Israeli settlements on Arab lands.
As US Administration and the international community demanded a halt to settlements, Israeli government announced unprecedented plans to build thousands of housing units for which Israel will invite an influx of foreign immigrants to occupy. All such settlements are being built on illegally-confiscated Arab lands. Jerusalem, the spiritual capital to over three billion Muslims and Christians worldwide, which is comprised of Muslim and Christian holy sites while yet to have a single historically-verifiable Jewish land mark, is being increasingly turned into a massive Israeli settlement where Arab homes and properties are continuously confiscated, raise, and replaced with housings and parks for Israelis.
However, the wide array of violations and transgressions against the Arab community should come as no surprise. The Israeli community today has turned more militant and extremist than Israel has ever been, while the worse is yet to come.
Israel’s defiance is fueled by a perceived notion of impunity and unyielding, unconditional support from the US and the West. Such defiance is also encouraged by complacency of some Arab regimes that choose to align with Israeli interest against aspirations of their own peoples.
In this sense, Israeli problem to many Arabs on the streets mirrors that of totalitarian dictatorships who are removed from people’s aspirations for life with dignity at home, and freedom for their brethren in Palestine.
However, for ordinary Arabs the picture is not as bleak as it may appear. For the first time in Arabland, aside from Lebanon, free transparent elections were held in none other than Palestine. People spoke their mind about which agenda they wanted to represent them. And they chose the one that may have seemed to be the least likely to win. People chose resistance, and politics that is rooted in selflessness, public service, and clean handedness. Israel, the US, and their allies may not be jubilant about elections outcome, but the formidable winners of Palestinian elections are in fact the only party in Palestine that the world community can talk to with any credibility, and is the only party that is intact enough to deliver on any deal the world may broker with the emerging Palestinian leadership.
Hamas is not going anywhere and will only grow stronger and more deeply rooted in the Palestinian fabric and the conscious of the billion and a half Muslims and the many more freedom lovers behind it. The world community may choose to reach out to their self designated foe and will definitely find them more pragmatic, credible, and trustworthy than any of the Arab faces they have chosen to deal with so far. Alternatively, they may continue “talking to the hand” with no guarantees as to what that hand may be holding. Or they can plunge into a Gaza-war-like quagmire.
For those who do not know Palestine or Palestinians well enough, Palestinian quagmire has not stopped since the day they welcomed that first tourist, who chose to bite the hand that fed him, into their homes some eighty years ago . They learned that their tree only grows stronger when fed with blood and sacrifice, and that floods always wash away the debris while the roots stay inseparable from the earth, hugging them so tightly with the unbreakable promise “never to let go.”
This excellent article written by Nidal Sakr is submitted by Khaled Safi
Avigdor Lieberman, the brashly-racist foreign minister of the apartheid Israeli state, reportedly recently ordered Zionist embassies around the world to circulate a 1941 photo showing the former Mufti of Jerusalem Hajj Amin Husseini meeting with German Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. Lieberman hopes that the picture would help counter growing international pressure on the Zionist regime to stop ethnic-cleansing measures against the Palestinians, especially in occupied Jerusalem .
The release of the picture is widely viewed as a desperate feat by the widely-reviled Lieberman to make a difference as a foreign minister.
Lieberman has been largely boycotted by the international community, mainly due to his radical and expressly racist views.
Given his pariah status around the world, the Israeli government went as far as asking other Israeli officials, such as Defence Minister Ehud Barak, to carry out the Foreign Minister’s functions, especially in talks with American and European officials.
Lieberman’s desperate act is likely to raise many eyebrows since it comes from a man whose mindset and ideological convictions differ little from those of Adolf Hitler.
Indeed, Lieberman’s infatuation with Jewish nationalism (the correct term is Jewish fascism) can be viewed as a virtual carbon copy of Hitler’s obsession with German nationalism.
Moreover, Lieberman’s brazenly racist discourse against non-Jews in general and Israel’s Palestinian population is nothing short of a later-day echo of the Aryan Nazi ideology.
Furthermore, Liberman’s strident bellicosity and pugnacity resemble to a large extent the Nazi rhetoric against Germany’s neighbours which later found expression in the invasion of Poland and occupation of large parts of Europe .
For example, Lieberman has called for dropping a nuclear bomb on Gaza, blanket-bombing Palestinian streets, shopping centres, banks, and neighbourhoods for the purpose of forcing hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to flee their homeland in order to make a “lebensraum” available for Jewish settlers.
He also called for drowning Palestinian political prisoners in the Dead Sea, bombing Tehran and the Aswan Dam in Egypt.
In fact, this thuggish petty criminal is the last person on earth who is morally qualified to criticize Amin Husseini for having a brief encounter with the leader of the Third Reich.
Well, does Lieberman dare to tell us how many Jewish Zionist leaders allied themselves with Hitler? Does he dare to tell us how many Jewish soldiers and officers served in the Wehrmacht, Gestapo and SS? And then what about the close relationship between the Third Reich and Jewish terrorist groups operating in Palestine, such as the Stern Gang? And what about the tacit understandings between the Zionist and Nazi leaderships according to which the Zionists accepted that hundreds of thousands of European Jews be annihilated rather than allowed to immigrate to North America?
According to the late Israeli writer and intellectual Israel Shahak, Jewish soldiers serving in the Nazi security apparatus were most feared by the local Jewish population. Shahak, a holocaust survivor himself, related that when a Jewish mother sent her son to do an errand, she taught him that he might pass through a German checkpoint but never through a Jewish-manned checkpoint.
Besides, Husseini was a man who saw his country, his ancestral homeland, being devoured by the British-backed Zionist movement, and thought, rightly or wrongly, that enlisting the support of a contemporary world power like Germany might help his people save their country and regain their freedom and independence.
Hence, one might really ask why it was perfectly acceptable for Zionists to collaborate with the Nazis in order to save Jewish lives whereas it was totally wrong for the leadership of a people facing near extermination at the hands of Zionism to behave similarly for the purpose of saving their people.
True, Hitler was a mass murderer, par excellence. But how about Jewish mass murderers, before and after Hitler?
Today, in Israel, school students complete their high school education without ever hearing the name “Genrikh Yagoda” (Genrich Grigorivc Yagoda), who is one of the greatest murderers of all time.
Yagoda diligently carried out Stalin’s collectivization orders and was responsible for the death of at least 10 million people. His Jewish deputies established and managed the genocidal Gulag system. And after Stalin no longer viewed him favourably, Yagoda was demoted and subsequently executed, and was replaced as Chief Hangman in 1936 by Yezhov, the ‘bloodthirsty dwarf’ who had a Jewish wife.
Another Russian Jew named Lazar Kaganovitch, also an aide to Stalin, was responsible for the extermination of millions of Ukrainians. During the harsh winter of 1932-33, mass starvation created by Kaganovitch reached critical levels and Ukrainians were forced to eat their pets, boots and belts, plus bark and roots. Some parents even ate infant children.
More to the point, it is really ironic in a certain sense that Zionism projects itself as an antithesis of Nazism when nearly all Nazi characters have been nearly literally copied by the Zionist leadership.
Zionism, for example, has declared all Jews a distinct ethnicity, just as the Nazis had declared all Germans a distinct ethnicity.
Both Zionism and Nazism strove to build a ‘state’ that would be ‘redeemed’ through violent purification (in the case of Nazi Germany) and ‘an Iron wall’ (in the case of Zionist Israel).
In both instances, ethnic cleansing was the main tool used to obliterate the ‘inferiors,’ the ‘water carriers and wood hewers’ in order to create ‘German-only’ settlements in Europe and ‘Jewish-only’ settlements in Palestine .
In all honesty, there are no fundamental differences between Jewish national socialism (Zionism) and German national socialism (Nazism). The Nazis preached the ‘Master Race’ to justify Nazism while Zionists adopted the ancient myth of the ‘Chosen People’ to justify Zionism.
Moreover, we can’t really ignore the absolute similarity between the Zionist ethnic conquest of Palestine and the implanting therein of ‘Jewish settlers’ at the expense of the native Palestinian Muslims and Christians, and the Nazi drive for ‘Lebensraum’ in Poland and the importation of ‘Aryans’ at the expense of the indigenous population.
Yes, there in Europe, the Nazis sought to steal the Sudetenland and here in Palestine , the Zionists are stealing the West Bank . The arguments are the same, the lies are the same and the means are nearly identical.
We need to highlight these similarities and the ‘common ground’ between Zionism and Nazism, irrespective of how many people will be upset by these comparisons. The truth is always a paramount value in itself.
The Nazi-like occupation of Palestine by Israel is not the act of a few Israeli Jews. It is not even the act of the military establishment alone. It is the collective act of a morally desensitized society that has nearly lost its humanity and succumbed to a collective psychosis that is not unlike the moral blindness that struck the German people more than sixty years ago.
In some ways, Palestinians have fared far worse than Hitler’s victims; for the Palestinian tragedy is ongoing and Palestinians, unlike Jews, who still receive compensation for losses dating back sixty years, receive no reparations for lost personal property, not even an acknowledgment from their tormenters of any responsibility for their dispossession.
Sixty years ago Zionists demolished 438 Palestinian villages and poisoned or destroyed wells to ensure that their rightful owners would not return. Today, Zionists keep on behaving more or less along the same traditions, demolishing homes, destroying farms, and narrowing people’s horizons, all with the goal of making them emigrate.
Today in every junior high school in America , students read Anne Frank, while in every high school Elie Wiesel’s ‘Night’ is requisite reading. This is the man who says brazenly that he readily identifies with Israeli crimes and that he couldn’t bring himself to say bad things about Israel.
The victims of the first Kristallnacht enjoy the world’s approbation and sympathy, while at the same time having succeeded in demonizing an entire people, for whom Kristallnacht still remains a night without end.
But, unlike the German national socialists, Jewish national socialists are falsifying history and reality to justify their crimes against humanity. The Holocaust narrative, which has been elevated to the status of a religion, allows Yad Vashem, the Holocaust museum in Jerusalem, to invoke the mantra ‘Never Again’ while it sits on Arab lands stolen from Ein Karem and overlooking the unmarked graves of Palestinians massacred by Judeo-Nazi terrorists at Deir Yassin.
It is sad, really sad, that most Jews are now finding themselves in the shoes of their former oppressors, knowingly and consciously.
On August 23, 1947, nearly one year before Israel ’s birth, Harry Truman wrote the following to Eleanor Roosevelt, apparently in the wake of another Jewish atrocity in Palestine :
“I fear very much that the Jews are like all underdogs. When they get on the top they are just as intolerant and cruel as the people were to them when they were underneath. I regret this situation very much because my sympathy has always been on their side.
In light of Israel’s Nazi-like behavior in Palestine, it is difficult to view Truman’s prophetic words with indifference. In fact, it is a moral obligation of the first order to oppose Zionism with the same vigour and same determination the world demonstrated in the face of Nazism.
Accusations of conspiracy to murder continue to reverberate across the Palestinian arena, threatening to break the Fatah movement in two,writes the Palestinian journalist, Khaled Amayreh in the West Bank
Farouk Kaddumi's recent bombshell accusations that Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas and his aide, former Gaza strongman Mohamed Dahlan, had connived with Israel to murder late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat continue to reverberate throughout the Palestinian arena.
The allegations made by the second highest-ranking leader of the Fatah organisation during an impromptu press conference in Amman last week, have overshadowed the Hamas-Fatah rift and even the standoff over Jewish settlement expansion in the West Bank.
The increasingly ugly showdown between Fatah's two divergent camps is already polarising the group at all levels, including the grassroots level, with activists pointing fingers of accusation at either Kaddumi or Abbas.
Last week, the PA government decided to close down the West Bank offices of Al-Jazeera TV after the Qatari-based satellite channel carried live Kaddumi's press conference from Amman.
The Western-backed Ramallah-based government accused Al-Jazeera of "broadcasting false news, bias, incitement and fostering division and disunity in the Palestinian arena". The decision drew mostly negative reactions from several quarters, especially Palestinian civil society and the journalistic community, prompting Prime Minister Salam Fayyad to rescind the decision a few days later.
Clearly disquieted by the accusations, Palestinian leader Abbas lashed out at Kaddumi, accusing him of spreading cheap lies in order to abort the convening of Fatah's long overdue Sixth Conference, slated to take place in Bethlehem in the first week of August. Similarly, Abbas allies have been attacking and fulminating against Kaddumi, calling him names such as "senile", "liar", and "saboteur". The West Bank Fatah leadership has asked the movement's Central Council to discuss Kaddumi's "canards" and "eject him from our ranks".
Unfazed by the sabre rattling from Ramallah, Kaddumi reasserted the "veracity and authenticity" of the minutes of the March 2004 meeting in West Jerusalem during which the alleged plot to poison Arafat was discussed. Kaddumi has also reportedly hinted that he possesses further incriminating evidence against Abbas and Dahlan that further corroborates and consolidates his earlier charges. The secretary-general of Fatah also challenged Abbas and his allies to prove their loyalty to the group.
"You don't own Fatah, you have hijacked Fatah for the purpose of amassing wealth and stealing money. You have swerved off the true path of Fatah, the path of resistance and liberation, and chosen to be a pawn in the hands of our enemies," Kaddumi said.
As the two contentious camps within Fatah continue to trade recriminations, former political advisor to Arafat Bassam Abu Sharif reasserted charges he made shortly after Arafat's death in November 2004. Abu Sharif claimed that Arafat was killed as a result of a chemical substance provided by Israeli intelligence.
Abu Sharif argued that Israeli soldiers manning a roadblock outside Ramallah stopped the Palestinian ambulance that had regularly brought food and medicine to the besieged Palestinian leader. "When the soldiers were searching the ambulance, while its Palestinian staff was kept away, they substituted a medicine which Arafat had been taking with an identical substitute containing a chemical poison. This is how Arafat got sick and eventually succumbed to his illness."
Hamas's politburo chief Khaled Meshaal almost died in Amman in 1997 when Mossad agents disguised as Canadian tourists smacked a chemical substance into his ear. The two agents were captured and then-King Hussein of Jordan threatened to sever ties with Israel, forcing the Israeli government, headed at the time by Binyamin Netanyahu, to provide the antidote that saved Meshaal's life.
On Arafat, while Abu Sharif's hypothesis is mostly speculative in nature and may prove impossible to verify, the fact that the life of the leader of the Palestinian people is entrusted to Israeli soldiers manning roadblocks and checkpoints speaks volumes about the nature of the PA and its near total subservience to Israel.
Meanwhile, Arafat's widow, Suha, has been quoted as saying that "Israel was the only suspect in the death of my husband." Suha cleared Abbas and Dahlan of any wrongdoing, saying that they were Arafat's comrades. Most observers in occupied Palestine find it hard to rely on Suha's remarks, on the grounds that she often appeared detached from political realities in Palestine, living a lavish lifestyle in Paris while her husband was languishing under Israeli siege in Ramallah.
This is not to say that Kaddumi's accusations ought to be given the benefit of the doubt. But there is little doubt that the Kaddumi bombshell will cast a dark shadow on deliberations at Fatah's Sixth Congress when -- and if -- convened. It is expected that Abbas will try to take advantage of the charged atmosphere and the fact that anti-Abbas delegates are largely based outside occupied Palestine or in the Gaza Strip and are unlikely to attend the conference in Bethlehem.
However, a conference at which Abbas and his allies enjoy absolute hegemony will only deepen and widen the existing chasm between various camps within Fatah. More to the point, Kaddumi might resort to holding a rival Fatah conference of his own, possibly in Damascus or Beirut. If this were to happen, Fatah would disintegrate into two camps, one based abroad and enjoying "revolutionary legitimacy" and backed by Syria and Iran, and probably Qatar, and the other coalesced into the PA and enjoying "international legitimacy" and backed by the US, EU and the so-called moderate Arab regimes.
Finally, the success of the Bethlehem conference will also depend to a large extent on the cooperation of the Hamas movement. Hamas, which has so far opted to remain outside the Kaddumi-Abbas confrontation, has hinted that it may not allow Fatah delegates from the Gaza Strip to leave for the West Bank if PA security agencies continue to round up and persecute Hamas leaders and activists and if hundreds of Hamas detainees are not released. Since the PA is unlikely to release these detainees, mainly because there is a strong lobby within Fatah against rapprochement with Hamas, it is probable that very few Fatah delegates from Gaza, if any, will make it to the West Bank.
The "Israeli factor" is also relevant. Israel has an established policy of barring Gaza residents from entering the West Bank as a matter of principle. Undoubtedly this, too, will be an important factor militating for or against the convening of the conference, as well as its success.(end)
Despite US demands to the contrary, Israel continues to expand Jewish settlement construction in the West Bank, especially in Arab East Jerusalem, writes the Palestinian journalist, Khaled Amayreh from Ramallah
Last week, the Obama administration informed Israel that the demanded freeze on settlement building applied to East Jerusalem as well as to the rest of the West Bank. Israeli sources said the State Department had summoned Israeli Ambassador to Washington Michael Oren, informing him that plans for the construction of a vast housing complex in Arab East Jerusalem must be terminated.
The "unusual" American message infuriated the Israeli government, prompting Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to declare that East Jerusalem was not occupied territory but rather "part of Israel's eternal and undivided capital". The brazenly mendacious remarks, however, seemed directed at Netanyahu's extreme right-wing partners who are firmly opposed to ending the decades-old Israeli occupation of the West Bank on religious and ideological grounds.
Israel occupied East Jerusalem from Jordan in 1967, annexing it shortly afterwards.Adding to his remarks, Netanyahu argued that it was unfair to bar Jews from building homes in the eastern part of Jerusalem when the city's Arabs were free to build or purchase homes in the western part. "We cannot accept the idea that Jews will not have the right to live and buy [homes] anywhere in Jerusalem," Netanyahu said.
In fact, since 1967, not a single Palestinian home gained permission to be built in West Jerusalem despite the propagandist claim that the city is "united and undivided" and all of its inhabitants are treated equally. Moreover, while Israel built more than 50,000 settler units for Jews in and around East Jerusalem, not a single apartment was built by the Israeli state for the town's Palestinian inhabitants.
Furthermore, it is well known that thousands of Palestinian families still own homes and property in West Jerusalem dating back to 1948 when entire Palestinian neighbourhoods, such as Ein Karem, Lifta and Al-Malha were purged of their Palestinian inhabitants and repopulated with Jewish immigrants from around the world. It is believed that as much as 95 per cent of land in West Jerusalem is actually owned by Palestinians.
This week, the building of the housing complex in the heart of the Palestinian Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood in East Jerusalem became the latest point of contention between Israel and the Obama administration. The huge complex, funded by Irving Moskowitz, a Florida-based bingo and gambling magnate, is designed to serve as an incentive for the acquisition of more Arab property and real estate.
The ongoing construction has infuriated the Palestinian Authority (PA) whose leader Mahmoud Abbas has accused the Israeli government of "being interested first and foremost in stealing and Judaizing Jerusalem and altering its Islamic and Christian identity". Abbas has also said that the PA would not return to the negotiation table with Israel as long as the Jewish state continued to build settlements.
Another Palestinian official, former chief negotiator Saeb Erekat, also warned that all "Obama's efforts, which we appreciate, could evaporate if Israel continues to build and expand settlements." He added: "Settlements and peace are two parallels that don't go together."
As part of "managing the crisis" with Washington over the settlement issue, Israel has been promising that it will dismantle illegal outposts and refrain from confiscating more Palestinian land. However, it seems that these promises, made to US Middle East Envoy George Mitchell by Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak earlier this month, contain very little substance.
In fact, Israel is continuing to confiscate privately owned Palestinian land for the purpose of expanding and servicing Jewish colonies built on stolen Arab land. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported 21 July, that Israel was planning to seize hundreds of hectares of private Palestinian land near the northern West Bank colony of Ofra. The plan of seizure blatantly contradicts assurances made by Netanyahu to US officials that the Israeli government would desist from confiscating more Palestinian lands as part of implementing the US-backed roadmap plan for peace.
Another Israeli tactic aimed at giving the impression that Israel is serious about dismantling "illegal" settler outposts takes the form of showing off Israeli soldiers struggling with fanatical settlers resisting the removal of their "homes". In fact, many if not most of the estimated 23 outposts the Israeli army has been ordered to remove happen to be unpopulated and merely used as rallying point for settlers who are bent on preserving the occupation.
But the settlers, most likely in connivance with the Israeli army and government, seem determined to make a big show out of this minor effort in order to give the impression that the Israeli government would risk a Jewish civil war if it carried out US demands for freezing settlement expansion and dismantling settler outposts in full.
This week, herds of Jewish settlers torched large swathes of Palestinian orchards and olive groves in retaliation against the evacuation by the army of a few mobile homes from a hilltop near Nablus in the northern West Bank. Settlers also attacked Palestinian motorists and vandalised Palestinian property, in full view of Israeli army troops who refused to intervene.
Mitchell and US Defense Secretary Robert Gates are due to visit Israel in the coming weeks in an additional effort to get Netanyahu to freeze settlement construction.
According to observers here, Netanyahu will likely throw, as always, the proverbial ball into the Arab or US court by linking any possible settlement freeze with the acquisition of high-profile gains for Israel, such as gaining Palestinian recognition of Israel's "right" to exist as a Jewish state, or obtaining a promise from Arab states of unconditional normalisation with Israel.
In the final analysis, the Obama administration will soon reach a "moment of truth" with Netanyahu. How the US administration deals with that moment will determine the success or failure of Obama's strategy not only in Palestine but also arguably throughout the Muslim world (end)
The coastline along the Gaza Strip has come under the fire of patrolling Israeli warships which invariably monitor the shores.
The barrages, which had taken aim at vast swathes of the littoral area on Friday, caused no casualties, the Palestinian Ma'an news agency quoted locals as saying.
Doctor Muawiyah Hassanein, the director of the Gazan Health Ministry's Emergency and Ambulance Services confirmed there had been no casualties.
The naval bombardments frighten off the local fishermen further restricting the sources of livelihood for the blockaded sliver.
The patrols have been staged on a regular basis since the recent three-week-long Israeli attacks on the strip which killed more than 1,400 Palestinians and left thousands of others injured.
Just as anti-Semitism became official policy inGermany in the mid 1930s, itseems hostility towardArabs, especially Israel’s own 1.5 million Palestinian citizens,is becoming a de facto official policy of the Israeli state.
This ominous orientation is being constantly promoted by a number of manifestly racist cabinet ministers and Knesset members who declare openly that their aim is to make everyone in Israel “submit to the Jewish nature of the state.”
The brash racism is now permeating through the entire apparatus of the Jewish state, from the police, to the justice system, to the army, to the educational system and, of course, the media.
Last week, Israeli courtsshowed offtheirracist credentialswhen two Israeli settlers, a murderer and a would-be murderer were acquittedof murdering a Palestinian and seriously wounding two others.
In the first case,aWest Jerusalem judge acquitteda Jewish settler named Ze’ev Braude who had shot and seriously injured two unarmed Palestinians in al-Khalil ( Hebron )several months ago.
The settler was caught on video shooting at thetwo Palestinians who were pleading to Israeli troops to stop rampaging settlers from attacking their homes and families. The settlers were vandalizing Arab property and trying to set homes on fire in protest against the evacuation by the army of Jewish squatters whohad seized an Arab buildinga few years earlier.
Braude’s lawyer reportedly asked for “classified information” which he saidwould help clear his client of any wrongdoing.However, instead of meeting the lawyer’s request, the attorney-general decided to drop all charges against Braude.Thus the would-be killer, who had shot and seriously injured two innocent Palestinians,was effectively declared innocent.
In the second case, a Jewish farmer by the name of Shai Dromi was acquitted of manslaughter by a Bir al Saba’a (Beer Shiva) court despite damning evidence indicting him.
In 2007, Dromi shot and killed a Bedouin “infiltrator,” claiming that he was trying to steal his livestock.
Racist system
One doesn’t have to be a great expert on Israel to be able to describe the Israeli justice system as inherently racist, being based on religious-ethno centricism.
Indeed, had the victims been Jewish, there is not the slightest doubt that the perpetrators would have been given harsh prison sentences, without a chance for parole for decades.
However, in a state that murders innocent children at will “for self-defense” and lies as often as it breathes, this type of justice ought to be viewed as beingwithin the normal order of things.
Indeed, Israel itself, one might argue perfectly rightly, is a crime against humanity, having been created on the ruins of another people, the Palestinians.
Hence, it is only “natural” and “normal” that Israeli courts would deal with utmost flaccidity and utter leniency with Jewish perpetrators of crimes as long as the victim is not a member of the “holy tribe.”
This tradition goes back to the establishment of Israel more than 62 years when agiven Jewish murderer of a Palestinian was fined a dime on the ground that thelife of a non-Jew wasn’tworth more than a dime.
A few years ago, an Israeli soldier who was serving in southern Gaza murdered a Palestinian school child, Iman al Hums, as she was going to school.
The soldier, dubbed Captain R.shotand seriously wounded the young girl,and as he sawher agonize and wallow in pain, he walked toward her, empting an entire magazine of bullets into her tender body to make sure that she was dead and didn’t pose a threat to his life.
The practice isstill widely practiced in the Israeli army and is known as “verifying the kill.”
The reaction of the Israeli justice system to this event was very telling, indeed.
For instead of prosecuting and punishing the murderer, the Israeli army actually awarded him thousands of dollars in damageshe claimed he deserved because his reputation was tarnished by the media.
Westerners, especially North Americans, who have been consuming Zionist lies for decades may be prompted to think that the above-mentioned cases are an aberration and in no way represent Israel’s general behaviors.
However, the truth, which Israel and her supporters strive to hide from the eyes of the world, is that the Israeli justice system is inherently and profoundly racist, to put it mildly, especially when non-Jews, particularly Palestinians, are involved.
In recent years, hundreds of settler judges and others affiliated with extremistterrorist Jewish groups, such as the Kahana group, Gush Emunim and Chabad infiltrated the Israeli justice system.
These people are indoctrinated in the Nazi-like ideology that Jews are genetically and humanly superior than non-Jews and that Jewish lives are worth more than non-Jewish lives.
Hence, when a Jew and a non-Jew appear in court, the Jewish judge feels obliged to take all these considerations into account and refrain, as much as possible, frompassing stiff punishments against Jewish defendants.
This is often done by meticulously searching for or even concoctingextenuating circumstances, or by finding a procedural loophole, that would make the judge seriously reduce the proscribed punishment for the Jewish defendant or acquit him of any wrongdoing.
Israel claims to be a western country, a democracy and a state where the rule of law is upheld.
Well, this trinity of lies should be obvious for anyone who has had the opportunity to know Israel first-hand.
But, there is always a certain level of “veracity” in these claims. In Israel , the rule of law is indeedupheld just as the rule of law was also upheld in Nazi Germany .
But the question remains, what laws are exactlybeing upheld? (end)
(AFP) – MELBOURNE — Filmmaker and activist Ken Loach has moved to withdraw his work from Melbourne's International Film Festival in protest against partial sponsorship from Israel, a report said Saturday.
Loach, whose work The Wind that Shakes the Barley won the Palme D'Or at Cannes in 2006, wrote to the festival's director Richard Moore threatening to pull his film Looking for Eric because the event had received Israeli funds.
"Palestinians, including artists and academics, have called for a boycott of events supported by Israel," wrote Loach, according to The Age newspaper.
The boycott, aimed not at independent Israeli film-makers or films but "the Israeli state", was in protest at what Loach described as "illegal occupation of Palestinian land, destruction of homes and livelihoods" and "the massacres in Gaza".
Controversy hit the festival earlier this week when Chinese officials attempted to ban the screening of a documentary about a Uighur activist, in the wake of recent violence in Xinjiang involving the Muslim minority.
Moore refused to exclude the Uighur film, Ten Conditions of Love, and said he would not meet Loach's request to reconsider sponsorship from the Jewish state.
"I wouldn't do it. The festival wouldn't. It's like submitting to blackmail," he said.
Israel's government had supported the festival in previous years, and their 2009 sponsorship involved paying the airfare for festival guest Tatia Rosenthal, Moore said.
Loach, 73, succeeded in a similar bid to have sponsorship withdrawn from the Edinburgh International Film Festival in May by threatening to boycott the program if they did not return funds from Israel.
The reality of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s promises of “economic peace” for the Palestinians is nowhere under greater scrutiny than in Jenin, the northern West Bank city being aggressively promoted as a potential model of co-operation with Israel.
Once known as the City of Martyrs for the high number of suicide bombers it despatched into Israel, Jenin was the site of a savage fight in 2002 as the Israeli army reoccupied much of the West Bank.
Israelis find it hard to forget that this was where they suffered the biggest loss of life in a single battle -- 23 soldiers killed retaking the city. Palestinians find it hard to forgive the bulldozing of Jenin’s large refugee camp, and the killing of 56 inhabitants in a few days.
But today Jenin, the first Palestinian city to be sealed behind Israel’s separation wall, is being feted -- at least by Israel -- as a successful experiment in peacemaking.
The Palestinian gunmen who once roamed the streets are gone, replaced, by day, by lightly armed Palestinian security forces trained in Jordan by a US general, Keith Dayton.
Israeli soldiers, meanwhile, have unfettered access to the city between midnight and dawn, though nowadays, say local people, the army rarely makes incursions.
For Mr Netanyahu, Jenin represents his best hope of persuading Washington that an “economic and diplomatic peace”, as he referred to it at the cabinet meeting on Sunday, rather than full statehood, will satisfy the Palestinians.
The process of easing restrictions began before Mr Netanyahu’s tenure in March. Last year, Ehud Barak, then as now the defence minister, called Jenin a “great success” in what was widely interpreted as a test of Palestinian readiness for limited statehood on Israeli terms.
Palestinian security forces were allowed into the city in May last year. Since then Israel has removed several of the checkpoints that cut Jenin off from the rest of the West Bank in a bid to boost trade.
Last week, Israel extended that policy by announcing that the King Hussein Bridge, the Palestinians’ only connection to Jordan and the Arab world, would be open 24 hours a day.
In addition, the Israeli government has backed the creation of a German-sponsored industrial park next to Jenin that could one day provide thousands of jobs. Four more such parks, all foreign funded, are planned for other West Bank cities, which are supposed to follow Jenin’s lead.
And a few hundred men from Jenin are being given permits to work inside Israel, most of them as manual labourers, while a handful of entrepreneurs have permission to do business in Israel.
But the most immediate effect on Jenin’s economy -- even if a relatively minor one -- has been felt from the decision to allow Israel’s own Palestinian citizens to cross into the West Bank on day trips.
Israeli estimates suggest that on Fridays and Saturdays, when Jewish towns are closed for business, hundreds of Palestinian citizens of Israel -- or Israeli Arabs as they are called by the government -- make the journey through Jalameh crossing to Jenin.
Nonetheless, business is not exactly booming, concedes Khaled Rabaya, the sales manager of Herbawi, a five-storey department store that opened in May on the hopes of an improved economy.
“Jenin is not being suffocated like it was before,” he said. “Things are getting better slowly and we hope they will get better still.”
But even Mr Rabaya had to admit that the number of shoppers wandering the aisles of European imported goods, from sofas to dinner plates, were easily outnumbered by the sales assistants.
Most people in Jenin cannot afford luxury items, while Israel’s Palestinian citizens, even if attracted by cheaper prices, are constrained by restrictions that allow them to enter only on foot.
Ali Kmaid, a taxi driver shuttling Israeli Arabs the two kilometres from Jalameh to Jenin, said the city was desperately hoping that the crossing would be open to cars from October, as has been promised.
The most obvious change in Jenin is to the refugee camp, which is no longer the devastated space of a few years ago. It has been rebuilt with funds from the Gulf, though the Israeli army insisted on planning constraints: the roads are wide enough for a tank to navigate them.
If few of Jenin’s inhabitants question the financial benefits of Israel’s more liberal policy, there is a widespread belief that “economic peace” is being tailor-made for Israel’s benefit in much the same manner as the rebuilt camp.
“If Netanyahu thinks we’ll be satisfied with a few more Israeli shoppers, he’s kidding himself,” said Mohammed Larool, a melon seller. “Our rights as a nation are more important than my selling a few extra melons.”
Khaled Hamour, 26, who runs the Mankal restaurant in Jenin, said the prosperity felt by businesses was relative. “Things have been so dire here that just a little relief feels like a major change.”
But “as long as the settlements are still here, our farmers are being shot at, and we have no control over our borders, then economic peace is hollow”.
Shir Hever, an Israeli economist based in Jerusalem, said he was sceptical Jenin’s industrial park would ever open, or that the fruits of economic peace would be more than temporary.
“Netanyahu has no long-term plan for peace,” he said. “This is a delaying tactic and an attempt to improve Israel’s image internationally without making significant concessions.”
He added: “There is also a political message for Jenin and the rest of the West Bank in this policy. It says: remember you’re lucky not to be in the same situation as Gaza. Don’t resist or you’ll end up like them.”
A decade ago, Jenin was packed on weekends with thousands of Israeli Arabs and Jews. But the long waits, intrusive security checks and need to pass through endless metal turnstiles -- all too reminiscent of Israel’s treatment of Palestinian workers in the days when they were able to leave Gaza -- may be putting off many Palestinian citizens.
“Israel is counting on Palestinians inside Israel being prepared to help Palestinians in the occupied territories,” said Tareq Shehadeh, a tourism official in Nazareth who has been invited to Nablus this week to lecture on co-operation across the Green Line.
“But they won’t go into the West Bank if they are treated like terrorists every time they do so.”
Samia Ziadat, from the Israeli Arab village of Mqeibleh, was waiting her turn to pass through the security checks with her five young children, after a brief visit to see her sick husband in Jenin.
“I have no choice but to go to Jenin, but it surprises me anyone is willing to endure this humiliation unless they have to.”
Global Arab Network
Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel. His latest books are “Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East” (Pluto Press) and “Disappearing Palestine: Israel's Experiments in Human Despair” (Zed Books). A version of this article originally appeared in The National.
Dr.Mahmoud al - Zahhar with wife and son
