Abbas’s Election Scare

29/08/2009 - 12:05 PM

By Khalid Amayreh

Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, whose term in office had expired in January 2009, has been vowing to organize general elections in January 2010, giving the impression that these elections will be a magical cure for the many problems facing the Palestinian people and their enduring just cause.

The call for elections, however, doesn’t seem to be motivated by goodwill as the main real aim behind this gambit is apparently to outmaneuver the Islamic resistance movement, Hamas.

In fact, it is very difficult to be euphoric or even optimistic about elections held under a sinister foreign military occupation.

In 2006, Palestinians were cajoled by the Bush administration into holding general elections and were told that the polls would be a paramount task embodying Palestinian sovereignty.

True, many Palestinians eager to see a loosening of the Nazi-like Israeli stranglehold on their lives and also to see an end to the rampant corruption infesting the Fatah-led PA, accepted the idea, preferring to give the idea the benefit of the doubt.

However, even before the elections began, it was amply clear that Israel was insisting on exercising its repressive function as the occupation authorities began arresting “the wrong” candidates and brazenly interfering with election campaigns.

As we all know, the elections did take place, and Hamas won a landslide victory. However, neither Israel and her guardian-ally, the United States, nor Fatah came to terms with the democratic outcome of the elections.

Israel, as soon as the initial results showed that Hamas was having the upper hand at the ballot boxes, decided to impose draconian and vengeful punishments on the West Bank and Gaza Strip, including laying a hermetic siege to the Gaza Strip and barring its 1.5 million inhabitants from accessing food and essential consumer products.

Similarly, the Zionist-controlled Bush administration bullied the entire world, with the exception of a few courageous states that wouldn’t cave in to American coercion, to boycott the democratically-elected government of Hamas.

The arrogant coalition, led by the US and directed behind the scenes by international Zionist circles, clamped a tight and suffocating financial siege on the Gaza Strip, preventing financial transactions to the coastal enclave.

The manifestly murderous siege pushed Gaza to the brink of famine and hundreds of innocent Gazans succumbed to preventable illnesses caused by the absence of appropriate medical care due to the cruel siege.

In addition, the US intelligence agencies began funding and arming Fatah elements in the Gaza Strip in order to overthrow Hamas and create a quisling-collaborationist regime that would make “peace” with Israel according to Zionist terms.

Fortunately, Hamas preempted the vicious conspiracy, forestalling a civil war that would have shed a lot of Palestinian blood for Israel’s sake.

In light, one is prompted to ask what guarantees Abbas and his aides have that Israel would allow free and fair elections to take place.

Indeed, the bulk of the Islamic-oriented candidates who won the elections of 2006 are still languishing in Israeli jails and dungeons for the “grand crime” of participating in the elections, the very elections that had been Okayed by Israel and the Bush administration.

I am talking about dozens of Palestinian politicians, people like Nayef Rajoub, Muhammed Abu Jheishe, Azzam Salhab, Nizar Ramadan, and others, who committed no violation apart from wining a seat in the Palestinian legislative council.

More to the point, it is clear that even if the Israeli occupation army, which controls every corner and street in the West Bank, didn’t interfere with the elections, which is very unlikely given Israel’s hostile fixation on Hamas, the police state apparatus now prevailing in the West Bank, would make the idea of conducting free elections not only unlikely but impossible.

We are talking about a total absence of basic civil liberties whereby political opponents are arrested, tormented and often tortured to death.

Furthermore, every conceivable political activity, even an act as simple as raising an Islamic flag, is immediately criminalized. In some cases, the “perpetrators” wouldn’t live to regret their “misdeeds.”

In fact, it is perfectly safe to claim that insistence on holding elections under these morbid circumstances reflect a malicious intent to falsify the results of the elections beforehand.

Finally, it is difficult to fathom how elections can be organized in an extremely unhealthy atmosphere in the midst of the enduring crisis between Fatah and Hamas.

There is no doubt that Hamas will not succumb to the fait accompli created by Abbas, possibly in coordination with his foreign backers, along with the Israelis, who are perpetuating the criminal siege on Gaza and preventing building materials from reaching the blockaded enclave. Needless to say, these building materials are badly needed for rebuilding homes and civilian infrastructure destroyed by the Zio-Nazi war machine earlier this year.

Unfortunately, there are clear signs that Mr. Abbas and his PLO have been active conspirers in prolonging the Gaza suffering in order to weaken Hamas in the eyes of the people.

For all these reasons, it is imperative that Hamas must not fall into the trap and reject this trick by the man who had called resistance “futile” and who voiced his willingness to compromise inherent Palestinian rights pertaining to al-Quds al Sharif and the refugees.

The Prophet Muhammed (peace be upon him) said “A true believer shouldn’t be bitten from the same snake hole twice.”

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See You at Michael Jackson's Remembrance in Brooklyn this Saturday !

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Hiyam Noir

It's gonna be a joyous, festive, celebratory party."said Spike Lee who will host a giant neighborhood party for Michael Jackson on Saturday 29 of August,the day which would have been MJ’s 51st birthday.

The party will take place in Brooklyn at the famous Prospect Park in commemoration of the King of Pop.A little more than two months have past since Michael Jackson died of cardiac arrest in his rented Hollywood Hill L.A. mansion,at the hands of his personal physician,Conrad Murray, who is under criminal investigation, and probably will be charge with manslaughter or – murder..

Michael stressed and “wired” by all expectations on his upcoming new tour “This is It”,.scheduled for 50 concerts in the next 2 years,suffered from back- pain and insomnia. According to investigation and to Conrad Murray himself, Michael Jackson was injected the anaesthetic Propofol ( Diprivan) in the late morning before he died.The coroner have also found traces of other drugs, that had been given to MJ.During more than six weeks.The anaesthetic,Propofol ( Diprivan) was injected in to Michael daily, by Murray,who had been employed by Michael Jackson as his personal physician, for only a couple of months prior to the devastating day in June 25, when Michael died.

As the writer of this article, Spike Lee, a well known film maker from Brooklyn,was an avid Jackson fan, he watched 5 cartoons on Saturday mornings and wanted his Afro "to be perfectly round like Michael's." In the beginning of the 1990ties, a surprised and very happy Spike Lee received a phone call from his idol, MJ, asking him if he would like to collaborate in a music video for the lyric "They Don't Care About Us,"The collaboration planes begin during a day when MJ paid a visit to Spike Lee, in his Brooklyn home.

Lee who like other fans, colleagues and friends has been deeply affected by Jackson's death, felt compelled to pay a tribute to Michael, and what would be a better place to arrange a special tribute to MJ than in the beautiful Brooklyn Prospect Park. Despite the weather forecast, which predict thunder storms and rain tomorrow, tens of thousand of MJ fans are expected to attend this epic event.

So very welcome to Brooklyn and Prospect Park, on Saturday between 12 noon to 5pm. You should enter by the Willink- entrance, that is off Flatbush Ave at Empire Highway and Queens Blvd.How to travel to Prospect Park;The Q- train from Atlantic Avenue station is probably the best option .

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Palestinian Fisherman on Gaza Territorial Waters Murdered by Israeli Soldiers in Naval Vessels

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August 27 2009

GAZA - Israelis in naval vessels killed a young Palestinian man on Thursday when the Israeli navy shelled their fishing boat on the coast of Gaza. The director of Emergency Services and Ambulances Dr Mu’awiyah Hassanein confirm the dead of 25 year old Muhannad Nady Al- Attar's. Muhammad died when Israeli missile shells severed Muhannads head from his body. One other Gaza fisherman was injured in this criminal attack, which occurred while the men were fishing from their boat on Palestinian territorial waters.



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" Walled Horizons": A Film by UN on the West Bank Wall

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Walled Horizons Part 1

A United Nations ( UN ) documentary about the Israelis Separation Wall crime....

Editor Hiyam Noir

On the first occasion of World Humanitarian Day, and marking the fifth anniversary of the International Court of Justice Advisory Opinion on the Wall, the United Nations Jerusalem film " Walled Horizons" on the humanitarian impact of the West Bank Wall, had its premiere for a limited public on the 19th of August, at the Al-Hakawati National Theatre, in East Jerusalem.

Walled Horizons Part 2

The film is narrated by and features Roger Waters, the founding member of the former Pink Floyd rock band, who visits the Wall on the West Bank and comments on his observations. The film also features Palestinians affected by the Wall and three Israeli senior security officials, two of whom were directly responsible for planning the route of the Wall, and explain the Israelis position for constructing the Wall.

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Israel Block Access to Docens of Palestinian Holy Places

Jonathan Cook

Monday, 24 August 2009 16:16

The walls have been freshly plastered and painted white, the sculpted stone window frames are filled with frosted glass and the builders are hanging spotlights from the ceiling. The municipality of Beersheva, the capital of southern Israel, is racing to put the finishing touches to repairs of the city’s long-neglected and unused Great Mosque, built more than 100 years ago by the Ottoman rulers of what was then Palestine. But, over the protests of Beersheva’s thousands-strong community of Muslims, the Jewish-run municipality is not planning to restore the city’s only mosque to its former glory as a place of worship. It wants to convert it into a museum. The building’s fate now rests with the Supreme Court, which is expected to rule in the coming months on whether to give the go-ahead to the municipality or insist on the mosque’s return to local Islamic authorities from whom it was confiscated 61 years ago. Muslim campaigners, however, are not hopeful. After seven years of foot-dragging by the judges, they fear the court will not risk setting a precedent that might force the return of dozens of other Islamic holy places seized decades ago by Israel. “There is so much paranoia from the government, the municipality and the courts about Muslims using this mosque again,” said Nuri al Uqbi, a 67-year-old Bedouin activist in Beersheva. “It was built with money raised from the local Bedouin and we should have the right to pray in it.” Israel’s treatment of the Great Mosque has been a major source of friction for decades with the country’s 1.3 million Palestinian citizens, and especially the 180,000 Bedouin living close to Beersheva in the southern semi-desert area known as the Negev. Following Israel’s establishment in 1948, when Beersheva was emptied of its Palestinian population, the mosque’s status as a holy place was ignored, and officials approved its use first as a prison and then for the exhibition of archaeological finds. The building has been unused since it was declared structurally unsound in 1991. Through the early 1990s, the mosque became distinctive chiefly for a giant menorah, a candelabrum used in Jewish religious rituals, that was mysteriously erected and left in place on the roof. “The authorities let it become an eyesore,” said Mr al Uqbi, one of the leading campaigners for the mosque’s restoration. “The courtyard was filled with graffitied curses in Hebrew, it was strewn with rubbish, beer bottles and pigeon droppings, and it attracted drug addicts and prostitutes.” Opposition to what Mr al Uqbi called the “desecration” of the mosque has been slow in building. Military rule, which was imposed on the Negev’s surviving tribes of Bedouin until the early 1970s, ensured that Beersheva was mostly off-limits. “Today, the situation is entirely different,” said Morad al Sana, a Bedouin lawyer based in the city. “There are several thousand Muslims living here and thousands more come to work, shop, use the banks and so on. But they have nowhere to pray.” A small group, including Mr al Uqbi, first tried to pray in the mosque in 1977. When they were leaving the building, he recalled, they found police had confiscated their shoes, which, as is customary, had been left at the entrance. “I was barefoot as they arrested me for trespassing,” said Mr al Uqbi. “As I was taken away, I asked the policeman: ‘Can I have my shoes back, please?’” Several hundred members of the Islamic Movement, the main Islamic party in Israel, tried to stage prayers at the mosque in 1997, provoking scuffles with right-wing local Jewish residents and council officials. Tipped off by police beforehand, the council had sprayed cow manure in the yard, forcing the worshippers to pray on plastic sheets. Mr al Uqbi was arrested for a second time in 2000 after he painted “The Great Mosque of Beersheva” on its gates. He still faces the threat of jail for refusing to pay a fine of $1,200. “The walls were full of graffiti and yet no one apart from me has ever been charged,” he said. Another campaigner, Sheikh Uda Abu Sirhan, a resident of the nearby Bedouin town of Tel Sheva, told the Haaretz newspaper that Muslims in Beersheva were desperate for the mosque’s restoration. “People pray in streets, in parking lots -- it’s a disgrace, especially when they are so close to a holy site.” The nearest mosque, he pointed out, was 15km away. The council’s obduracy partly reflects a fear that Beersheva, which has a growing Arab population, may one day be recognised as a “bi-national city”, said Oren Yiftachel, a geography professor at the city’s Ben Gurion University. In recent years, Beersheva’s 180,000 Jewish residents have been joined by at least 5,000 Muslims, mostly Arab professionals from the Galilee in northern Israel. The Bedouin visit from the surrounding Negev. Mr al Sana, who works for Adalah, an Arab legal centre, pointed out that there are more than 250 synagogues in Beersheva, or one for every 700 Jewish residents. Parity with Jews would entitle the city’s Muslims to at least eight mosques, he said. Mr al Uqbi and Adalah jointly submitted a petition to the Supreme Court in 2002 demanding the mosque be used as a place of worship again. Officials responded in 2004 that the petition was motivated not by religious conviction but by “the ultranationalist aspiration to turn back the wheels of history to the situation that prevailed before 1948”. In short, the state’s defence is that the use of the mosque would open the door to wider Palestinian claims for a right of return, thereby threatening Israel’s existence as a Jewish state. To bolster their case, officials have cited security arguments, including that opening the mosque would create civil unrest between Jews and Arabs and that anyone climbing the minaret would have a bird’s-eye view of the army’s nearby southern headquarters. An eight-member committee established by the government in 2003 to find a solution failed to include an Arab or Muslim representative. Its report published a year later argued that Beersheva was a Jewish town and that Muslims should pray elsewhere. Itzhak Nevo, a philosophy professor at Ben Gurion University who testified before the committee, said Beersheva had a duty to acknowledge its Ottoman history. “The Bedouin cannot help but feel humiliated, and that their history, rights and identity are being denied,” he said. “This is not a wise policy.” The judges have been slow to make a decision, said Mr al Sana, because they are aware it could set a precedent entitling Israel’s Palestinian citizens to reclaim many of the other Arab holy places they have been denied access to for decades. A report published in 2004 by the Arab Human Rights Association, based in Nazareth, identified 250 places of worship, both Islamic and Christian, that had either been destroyed or made unusable since Israel’s establishment in 1948. Nearly 200 were razed in the wake of the 1948 war, but the threat of destruction hangs over many surviving places of worship too. The century-old mosque of Sarafand, on the coast near the northern city of Haifa, was bulldozed in July 2000 after local Muslims started restoring it. Other buildings, including mosques in Tiberias and Beit Shean, have been the target of repeated arson attacks. The famous Hasan Bek mosque in Tel Aviv is regularly vandalised and was desecrated in 2005 when a pig’s head bearing the name of the Prophet was thrown into its yard. Two historic Galilee mosques that are still standing, at Ghabsiyya and Hittin, have been left to fall into ruin surrounded by fences and razor wire. The latter was built by Saladin in the 12th century to celebrate the defeat of the Crusaders. In Palestinian villages now re-invented as Jewish communities, such as at Ein Hod and Caesariya, mosques have been refurbished as bars or restaurants. In at least four cases, mosques have been converted into synagogues. And Jewish farming communities sometimes use remote holy places as animal pens or warehouses. In the case of the Beersheva mosque, the court tried to settle the dispute three years ago by urging the parties to reach a compromise. It has suggested that the building be converted into an Islamic heritage centre where no prayer would take place or that it become a coexistence centre. Both sides rejected the offers. Adalah discovered in 2004, two years after it launched its petition, that the municipality had secretly issued a tender to convert the mosque into a museum. The court ruled the renovations could go ahead but only if they were restricted to protecting the structure. A visit last month revealed that the municipality had ignored the injunction and was close to completing the mosque’s refurbishment as a museum. 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). His website is www.jkcook.net. A version of this article originally appeared in The National

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Yellowstone, Where the Buffalo don't Roam Anymore

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Buffalo near sunset

By Tim Preso Earthjustice Northern Rockies Office

Powerful commercial interests in Montana are pressuring government agencies to harass and slaughter wild buffalo outside Yellowstone during their annual migrations.

America's last remaining herd of continuously wild buffalo is under attack. Descended from just 23 individuals who managed to survive the mass slaughter of the 1800s, this herd now faces a perilous future.

Commercial cattlemen have gone to court to cut off the herd's natural migration path and restrict its movements to Yellowstone National Park -- pressing for their harassment and slaughter -- based on unjustified fears that buffalo might spread disease to commercial cattle. Worse still, no cattle grazing operations even exist in the area at issue.

Earlier this month, my legal team and I (representing two environmental organizations and eight local landowners who want buffalo to be able to access their property) made our case for defending the buffalo against the Montana Stockgrowers Association's demand for continued harassment and slaughter.

But we cannot succeed without your support.

In the late winter and early spring, the herd migrates to the snow-free lower elevations in search of food and birthing grounds, much as they have for centuries. Restricting this migration path is senseless, unnatural, and, in many cases, tragic.

In the last two years alone, more than 1,400 buffalo out of a herd of just 4,000 were slaughtered while leaving Yellowstone in search of food. And this year's hazing operations sank to new lows with the heartbreaking hazing of a newborn buffalo calf with a broken leg.

We cannot allow this cruel policy to continue.

It's too soon to say whether we will prevail in this round of legal wrangling, but regardless of the outcome, this is not the last stop on the path to secure a more tolerant approach toward Yellowstone's wild buffalo.

A win would help us clear the first hurdle -- meaning the cattlemen wouldn't be able to force the state livestock department to harass and kill buffalo. But we still will have work to do to provide a year-round, disturbance-free refuge for buffalo that migrate from Yellowstone National Park.

We are in this for the long haul, but we need your help to carry through.

On behalf of everyone at Earthjustice, thank you for all that you do.

Sincerely,

Tim Preso
Attorney
Earthjustice Northern Rockies Office

Please support our work to protect America's last wild buffalo herd.

Please make a special gift today to help us stop the wild buffalo slaughter.

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Michael Jackson: Manslaughter Evidence Found at Doctor's Clinic

Photo: AP

Police have found evidence pointing to manslaughter during a search of a clinic used by Michael Jackson's doctor, Conrad Murray.


Telegraph co.uk
By Tom Leonard
Published: 6:28AM BST 25 Aug 2009

Michael Jackson's funeral has been postponed, so he will not be laid to rest on what would have been his 51st birthday. Photo: AP

The discovery appeared in court documents unsealed in Houston, Texas, where the late star's personal physician is based.

It was revealed on Monday, when the Los Angeles coroner was also reported to have ruled that Jackson's death was homicide and confirmed the singer had lethal levels of the powerful anaesthetic propofol in his body.

The court documents revealed that Dr Conrad Murray had admitted to detectives that he gave the singer several different drugs in the hours before the star died, after the star repeatedly complained of insomnia.

These included propofol, a powerful anaesthetic usually only used in surgery, which the coroner said had been found in high levels in the body of the "King of Pop".

Forensic tests reportedly showed that propofol, acting together with at least two sedatives, caused his death.

The coroner's findings increase the likelihood that Dr Murray will face criminal charges, police in Los Angeles said.

The cardiologist was reportedly offered $150,000 a month to look after Jackson. He was with the singer at his rented Los Angeles mansion on the morning of his death.

Under Californian law, a homicide does not have to be intentional killing and investigators are understood to be looking at whether the doctor's decision to give propofol to Jackson outside a hospital environment constituted a level of negligence required for an involuntary manslaughter charge.

Since Jackson, 50, suffered cardiac arrest and died on June 25, police have searched Dr Murray's home and his two clinics in Las Vegas and Houston.

According to a search warrant affidavit, Dr Murray told police he had been treating the singer for insomnia for around six weeks and had administered several drugs, including propofol. He claimed Jackson had already been given it by other doctors and referred to the drug as his "milk".

Dr Murray told investigators that he feared that Jackson was becoming addicted to the drug and halved his dosage from 50 milligrams a night to 25 milligrams, administering the drug via an intravenous drip.

On the morning he died, Dr Murray said he gave Jackson a cocktail of drugs, starting with valium at 1.30am, an intravenous injection of lorazepam half an hour later and, when the singer was still awake at 3am, some midazolam.

After giving various drugs over the next few hours, Dr Murray told officers he finally gave in to Jackson's repeated demands for propofol and administered 25 milligrams.

Returning from making phone calls to find his patient not breathing, he told police he tried to resuscitate him and one of Jackon's staff called for an ambulance. Jackson was later declared dead at hospital.

Dr Murray's lawyer has previously said he never administered anything that "should have" killed Jackson.

In a statement, a representative of the Jackson family said its members have "full confidence in the legal process, and commends the ongoing efforts of the LA County Coroner, the LA District Attorney and the LA Police Department."

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Editors note: Would not be surprised, it's probably much more to it -
some of MJ's " advisers" and " friends" need to be carefully scrutinized !

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Unfolding Mubarak's Visits to Washington

Analyzing Arab Responsibility for Israeli Insolence

Source: Islamonline

By Khalid Amayreh

Journalist — Occupied Palestine

In his recent visit to the United States, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak surprised his American interlocutors when he said that Arab states would not normalize relations with Israel before the termination of the Israeli occupation and establishment of a Palestinian state.

Mubarak argued that as far as the Arabs were concerned, previous normalization endeavors were not encouraging as successive Israeli governments interpreted the Arab goodwill in this regard as connoting tacit acceptance of the consolidated Israeli occupation of Palestinian land, including the colonialist Jewish settlement expansion.

The Egyptian President could have argued further, perfectly correctly, that Israel, especially the current right-wing government of Benyamin Netanyahu, is effectively using the “normalization issue” as a sort of distraction or “red herring” to divert attention from the settlement expansion issue as well as Israel’s adamant refusal to give up the spoils of the 1967 war.

Indeed, Israeli intellectuals, especially those who value honesty, have repeatedly argued that the current Israeli government is only interested in “posturing” and “prevarication” and that it is pointless to pin any serious hopes on it for a true partnership for peace

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Liberman was only saying publicly what many Israelis say privately.

This candid appreciation of the most fascist-minded government in Israel’s history was plainly vindicated by Netanyahu’s own gung-ho speech at the Bar-Illan University near Tel Aviv on 14 June. In that infamous speech, Netanyahu made it clear that as far as Israel was concerned, any prospective Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip would have to be tightly and completely controlled by Israel.

Israel, he said amid cheers from the audience, would have to control the borders, border crossings, harbors, airports, airspace, territorial waters and international relations of such a state which he said would have to be completely demilitarized.

In other words, the contemplated Palestinian state would have to be more or less a Palestinian Judenrat under Israeli supervision and control.

Unfortunately, this clarion Israeli insolence passed unchallenged, not only by key Arab states, such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia, but also by the bulk of the international community, including the United States and the European Union.

Needless to say, the stark absence of any meaningful challenge to Netanyahu’s blatant arrogance seemed to have convinced the Israeli government that neither the Arab states nor the international community ought to be taken seriously and that a policy based on posturing and verbal maneuvering would suffice in managing the crisis, at least for the time being.

There is no doubt that Israel is interested in normalization with Arab states only to the extent to which these states can be used to degrade Palestinian interests.

For example, it is an open secret that Israel has been using the Egyptian regime for the past few years as an effective and harsh tool for tormenting Gazans and perfecting the nearly hermetic siege imposed on the coastal enclave.

The same thing can be said of other Arab states, such as Jordan and the Gulf-states, whose “cooperation” had been enlisted by Israel and her western allies to impose a harsh financial blockade on the elected government of Hamas, thus contributing to the impoverishment and degradation of the Gaza-Strip’s 1.5 million human beings whose only “crime” was their audacity to elect a political party that Israel, the US and their allies didn’t like.

The scandalous Arab propensity to collaborate with these cruel designs against a fellow Arab people must have emboldened the Zionist state to wage its Nazi-like blitzkriegs on Lebanon in 2006 and Gaza in 2008/9 in which thousands of innocent civilians were murdered, maimed and incinerated while thousands of buildings and private homes were utterly destroyed.

The disgraceful official Arab reaction to these crimes against humanity made Israeli officials, like Avigdor Lieberman, calls openly for dropping a nuclear bomb on Gaza.

Lieberman is not a black sheep in a society that breathes and consumes racism. He was only saying publicly, what many Israelis say privately.

Absence of Real Deterrence

The game of normalization with Israel has a beginning but has no end.In a certain sense, the Arab regimes, especially key Arab states, can’t absolve themselves of responsibility for Israeli insolence and rejection of a dignified peace that would end the occupation and grant the thoroughly tormented Palestinians a semblance of justice and dignity.

For decades, these Arab regimes preferred to behave as “nice guys” by refraining from building up a true strategic deterrent that would make Israel thinks twice before going too far in bullying Arab-Muslim states from Morocco to Persia.

All of this happened while Israel was building a huge nuclear arsenal and other weapons of mass destruction that put hundreds of millions of Arabs, Turks, Iranians and other Muslims under the mercy of Israeli whims.

*It is this clarion impotence that enabled racist thugs like Lieberman to threaten to bomb the Aswan dam in upper Egypt and blanket-bomb Tehran as well as threaten to flatten Palestinian towns and villages in the West Bank.

What is even worse than basking in their despicable impotence and powerlessness, some Arab regimes have shamelessly resorted to the logic of appeasement, thinking that by endearing themselves to fanatical Zionist leaders, Israel would relent and allow Palestinians to live as dignified human beings and grant them self-determination.

But appeasement only invites more blackmail and more bullying, and Israel would only be encouraged to demand more and more and still more conditions.

We who live here in Occupied Palestine watch the Israeli media and engage ordinary Israelis in lively discussions about their concept of peace with Arabs and Muslims. And, unfortunately, the Israelis, or most of them, don’t accept the concept of human parity and equality and insist that Jews, by virtue of being Jews, must receive a distinctive preferential treatment in every conceivable sphere of human activity, form security to religion.

This is why the issue of normalization ought to be placed in its proper context, as public relations ruse aimed first and foremost at making sure that the proverbial ball remains in the Arab-Muslim court, while Israel continues to pulverize and Judaize Palestinian land.

Wolfs attack unguarded ranches, but fear the ferocity of the lion-hearted.More over, it is nearly certain that the game of normalization with Israel has a beginning but has no end because Israel and Zionist circles around the world would never be satisfied until all Arabs and Muslims become bona-fide Zionists.

A few years ago, an Israeli pundit explained that normalization with the Arabs and Muslims should also include “psychological and religious normalization” including allowing Jews free access to Makkah and Madina, altering Quranic texts which some Jews may find objectionable, as well as changing Arab and Muslim textbooks that are critical of Zionism.

In other words, Israel would stop at nothing, and would continue to make deliberately impossible demands upon Arabs and Muslims, all for the purpose of evading real peace, the peace that would require ending the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land.

Strength Pays Off

The former Pakistani Prime Minister Zulfigar Ali Bhutto was not particularly known for his piety and religiosity. However, he deserves to be lauded for nurturing the Pakistani nuclear program which eventually enabled that important Muslim country to stand tall, once and for all, in the face of nuclear-armed India, which had invaded and humiliated Pakistan several times.

Pakistan, unlike oil-rich Arab states, is a poor country. However, unlike these Arab countries, Pakistan had a will of its own.

Similarly, North Korea, one of the most impoverished countries under the sun, decided to build a nuclear weapon and actually detonated one a few months ago despite all the hectoring and saber-rattling from the US, Japan, South Korea and other countries.

Well, North Korea, irrespective of the repugnant character of its tyrannical regime, can exercise its sovereignty without being bullied by predator states such as Israel.

The Arab poet said:

Wolfs attack unguarded ranches, but fear the ferocity of the lion-hearted.

Perhaps Arab leaders, such as Mubarak and the King of Saudi Arabia, ought to return to elementary school to learn old Arab poetry in order to know what it takes to get Israel to walk in the path of peace.

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Khalid Amayreh is a journalist living in Palestine. He obtained his MA in journalism from the University of Southern Illinois in 1983. Since the 1990s, Mr. Amayreh has been working and writing for several news outlets among which is Aljazeera.net, Al-Ahram Weekly, Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA), and Middle East International.He can be reached through politics.indepth@iolteam.com.

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Editors note:*The nasty old Zionist,Avigdor Lieberman,an Eastern European Jew is talking skitttt, he cant be taken seriously - we should attach a rocket under his ass and send that garbage out in orbit !!!!

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Murdered Palestinian Organs Extricated and Transplanted In Jewish Patients

Photo Donald Bostrom

The young man, Bilal Achmed Ghanan, 19,was taken away alife by an Israeli military helicopter and brought back by the Israeli state terrorist army five days later, dead. As his family members buried him, they saw a large scar running from his stomach to his chin.”
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Arrested by FBI

This is Levy Rosenbaum - the Jewish Rabbi & his Jewish Termites who pays $10,000 for Kidneys from kidnapped Palestinians for his American based Human Organ Business

"The reporter Donald Bostrom, Aftonbladet claim that Levy Rosenbaum, a Jewish resident of New York Brooklyn, is involved in human organ trafficking.Bostrom stated that nearly half of kidney transplants conducted in Israel since 2000 were illegally purchased from Latin America, Turkey and Eastern Europe.The reporter also claimed that Israel’s Foreign Ministry is aware of the illegal trade but acted against it.Rosenbaum was arrested in July after he told an undercover FBI agent that he is a “match maker”, the agent was taping him while posing as a customer. Later on, Rabbis and elected officials were arrested in New Jersey for human organ trafficking.Rosenbaum said that he buys bodies from poor families in Israel for $10.000 and would then sell the organs to patients in the United States for $160.000.In its report the Aftonbladet newspaper noted that Israel is the only Western state that does not condemn illegal organ trade, and fails to take any legal action against the doctors and persons involved in it."

Murdering Palestinians for their organs

20/08/2009

From Khalid Amayreh

OCCUPIED EAST JERUSALEM -- Israeli officials and spokespersons have been railing against a leading Swedish newspaper for publishing a report claiming that the Israeli occupation army murders Palestinians in order to use their organs for transplants for Jewish patients.

The tabloid Aftonbladet, one of Sweden’s most popular newspapers, on Tuesday, 18 August, reported that Israeli occupation soldiers had been murdering Palestinian youngsters in the West Bank in order to extricate their organs and sell them. The report carried a photograph showing the body of a victim of such an execution, with a large scar running from his chin to abdomen.

The report quotes the family of one of the victims as saying that “our sons were plundered from their organs.” The report also makes a connection with the recent corruption scandal in New Jersey involving elected officials, rabbis, and illegal organ trading.

The author of the report, Donald Bostrom, spoke of a strong suspicion among Palestinians that young men’s organs were harvested by the Israeli army. He suggests that the International Court of Justice in the Hague should open an investigation into the matter.

Witness

Bostrom quotes a Palestinian witness as describing one case in which the Israeli occupation army shot dead a young Palestinian from a West Bank village and then extricated his organs. The Palestinian victim is identified as Bilal Ahmed Ghniyan.

“He was taken away by a military helicopter and brought back by the army five days later, dead. As his family members buried him, they saw a large scar running from his stomach to his chin.”

Bostrom also quotes other eye-witnesses testifying that their sons were used as “forced organ donors.”

“Blood libel”

Israeli spokesperson and Foreign Ministry officials were raving and ranting against Aftonbladet accusing the mass circulation newspaper of indulging in “blood libel” and making “canards” against Israel .

Israeli spokesman Yigal Palmor said the Swedish newspaper had “turned the demonization of Israel into a sacred cause.”

Other Israeli officials threatened to sue the Swedish newspaper for libel, claiming that the report was an expression of anti-Semitism.

Israel has been reacting with exaggerated sensitivity toward international criticisms of its manifestly harsh treatment of Palestinians and the brazen racism associated with this treatment.

Earlier this year, the Israeli army, using internationally-banned weapons launched a massive and deadly blitzkrieg on the virtually unprotected population of the Gaza Strip, killing, maiming and incinerating thousands of innocent civilians, including hundreds of children.

Human rights organizations described the huge rampage of terror and death, which lasted for more than 20 days, as “clear war crimes” and “crimes against humanity.”

Similarly, Israel had killed thousands of innocent civilians in the West Bank , and many of the victims were sent to the Abu Kabir forensic institute for autopsy operations.

However, it is unclear if the vital organs of these young victims were always disposed of or taken out for transplant in Jewish patients.

The Israeli army, which exerts huge political and legal influence in Israel, nearly always resisted scrutiny of its operations in the West Bank which are carried out in utter violation of international law, especially the international humanitarian law.

Precedent

In January, 2002, an Israeli cabinet minister tacitly admitted that organs taken from the bodies of Palestinian victims might have been used for transplants in Jewish patients without the knowledge of the Palestinian victims’ families.

The minister, Nessim Dahan, said in response to a question by an Arab Knesset member that he couldn’t deny or confirm that organs of Palestinian youths and children killed by the Israeli army were taken out for transplants or scientific research.

“I couldn’t say for sure that something like that didn’t happen.”

The Arab Knesset member who posed the question to Dahan is believed to be Ahmed Teibi. Teibi pointed out that he had received “credible evidence” proving that Israeli doctors at the forensic institute of Abu Kabir extracted such vital organs as the heart, kidneys, and liver from the bodies of Palestinian youth and children killed by the Israeli army in Gaza and the West Bank .

During an interview with al-Jazeera TV in 2002, the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat accused the Israeli apartheid regime of murdering Palestinian infants, children, and youths and harvesting their vital organs for transplants.

"They murder our kids and use their organs as spare parts` Why is the whole world silent? Israel takes advantage of this silence to escalate it's oppression and terror against our people," said an angry President Arafat.

During the interview, which took place on 14 January, 2002, Arafat held up photos of the mutilated bodies of the children.

"I'm not worried about myself", as the President is under house arrest, "I'm worried about the Palestinian people who have been under siege for the past 15 months."

Israel had admitted that doctors at the L. Greenberg Institute of Forensic Medicine at Abu Kabir had harvested the organs of 3 Palestinian youth killed by the Israeli army near Khan Younis.

After 10 days the bodies of the three victims were returned to their families for burial but with their organs and even their eyes removed.

Israel never carried out a serious investigation into this and other incidents involving the extrication of vital organs from the body of Palestinian victims killed by the Israeli occupation forces.

According to reporter Saira Soufan, the illegal harvesting of the organs of Palestinian soldiers and freedom fighters has been documented since before the 1990's.

“Upon return of the soldiers' bodies to their mourning families, the pillage of body parts is discovered during the burial process.

“ The empty cavities have been filled with garbage such as cotton wool, garden hoses, and broomsticks, then sewn up as a result of a so-called ‘autopsy.’”


Occasionally, Israeli authorities steal body organs from the bodies of tourists who die in Israel .


An unpublicized instance occurred in 1998, when a Scotsman, Alistair Sinclair, died under mysterious circumstances in the Ben-Gurion Airport lockup.


Mr. Sinclair's parents sued the Israeli authorities upon finding that their son's heart and other organs missing. A replacement heart and organs were sent to his mother, who didn’t believe that these were those of her son's.

Submitted by Free Palestine

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Spike Lee Remembering Michael Jackson

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Spike Lee Remembers Michael Jackson
By Tim Morrison

In 1996, Spike Lee — director of films from Do the Right Thing to Malcolm X to the recent documentary Kobe Doin' Work — traveled to Brazil with Michael Jackson to produce the music video for his controversial song "They Don't Care About Us." He talked to TIME about his experiences, Michael Jackson's legacy and having the Gloved One as a house guest.

What's your favorite Michael Jackson song?
I was born in 1957; he was born in 1958. And so I grew up, literally, with Michael Jackson. We both reached adolescence at the same time. And I had a big Afro like he did, and I hoped that the girls would like me the way they liked Michael — but that wasn't happening. And you know, I loved him as a solo artist, but I have a special place in my heart for the stuff he did with the Jackson 5: "I'll Be There."

Do you remember the first time you heard it?
No. My memory's shot. I'm in Cannes, France, for a conference; I left dinner last night, got home, I turned on CNN and there it was — him being rushed to the hospital. I didn't go to bed the whole night. I just kept watching CNN. So it's a big, big, big, big loss for the world. And I'd like to make this comment: I've seen too many people talking about Michael like they knew exactly what he did. Let's celebrate his genius, his musicality, his gift, his talent, and leave the other stuff at least till he gets buried. Let's celebrate his life now. That's the way I feel.

I can hear Michael Jackson in the background right now.
Yeah, my friend is driving me to Monaco for dinner, and I went out to this store and bought Michael Jackson's greatest hits. So, as we got in the car I said, "This is our driving music!" Going from Cannes to Monaco, listening to the greatest hits of Michael.

What was he like when you worked with him on the video for "They Don't Care About Us?"
Michael was great. He had a sense of humor. He worked hard. People talk about how hard Kobe Bryant works; he didn't work harder than Michael Jackson. This is what I've come to learn. You know, I did a documentary on Kobe, I know him; Michael Jordan, I worked with him a little; Michael Jackson — when you love what you do that much, it's not work. So you can go longer and harder and faster and quicker because it's not a burden. You love what you're doing.

And did you talk to him on the set? Was he accessible?
Oh yeah! Michael was a citizen of the world. I said, "Mike, let's go to Brazil to do this." And he said, "Let's go, Spike!" And it's great when you work with people who say stuff like that — it's not a matter of budget. He wanted to do it? We were going!

Had you met him previous to that?
Yeah, I met him at dinners and stuff like that, but that was the most intimate time I had been with him. Can I tell you a quick story? Michael Jackson called me up and said, "Spike, I want meet you, I'm coming to New York." I said, "Well where you want to meet?" He says, "I want to come to your house." I live in Brooklyn! He wants to come to my house! So, Michael Jackson came to my house in Brooklyn, New York — this was when I was living in Fort Greene. And he said, I want you to direct a video for me. My new album's coming out, pick a song. So we listened to all the songs and I picked "Stranger in Moscow." And he said, I don't want you to do that one. And I said, "Michael, just tell me which one you want me to do! Why ask me to pick one?" And he laughed and he said he wanted me to do "They Don't Care About Us." That's how it happened.

How did he like Brooklyn?
Well, I dunno if he'd ever been there before. We spent like two or three hours just talking. I mean, we're the same age. I'm less than a year older than him. To be honest, I dominated the conversation, because I was trying to really tell him how much impact he had on my life. And I could just not believe that Michael Jackson was sitting in my living room in Brooklyn, New York. It was amazing.

I just want to get back quickly to "I'll Be There." What sort of associations did you have with that song? What did it mean to you?

I just remember being young, loving that song, starting to get interested in girls; it was just that period of time. And here's the thing that I remember: growing up, as far as girls, everybody didn't like Michael. They liked Tito, they liked Jackie, they liked Jermaine — it was like the Beatles, the girls had their favorites. It was not always Michael, Michael, Michael.

Was he always your favorite Jackson?
Oh yeah. But I wasn't a girl though.

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By the way,

Spike Lee is marking Michael Jackson's birthday with a block party-style celebration — in New York City's Borough of Kings.The filmmaker's bash for the late King of Pop will be held in Brooklyn on Aug. 29, when Jackson would have turned 51. Spike Lee, a Brooklyn native, and Michael Jackson collaborated on the music video for "They Don't Care About Us."The song was the lead motive in Michael Jackson's planned show " This Is It ". At the same day, on Michael's birthday, Michael will be buried in Glendale in the Hollywood Hills. He died on June 25 in California.

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Why is Rafah Border Crossing Still Closed ?

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Images from Rafah Crossing August 2009

Hiyam Noir

GAZA - The Rafah Border Crossing (معبر رفح‎, is an international border crossing between the Palestinian Rafah in Gaza and the Egypt. It was built by the Egyptian government and Israel after the 1979 Egyptian – Israel peace treaty and 1982 after the Israeli withdrawal from the Sinai Peninsula. It was managed by the Israel Air Port Authority until it was evacuated by the Israelis on the 11^th of September 2005 as part of the Israelis unilateral "disengagement" from Gaza Since then the Rafah border crossing became the mission of the European Border Assistance Mission Rafah ( EUBAM) to monitor the crossing.

Rafah border crossing opened on 25 November 2005 and operated almost daily until the 25^th of June 2006. Since then, it has been closed by the Israelis on 86% of days due to what the Israelis claim are “security reasons.” The Rafah border crossing was closed in definite in June 2007, after that Hamas Movement won a grand slam monitored democratic election, that was setting off violent clashes between the rival Fatah and the winner of the latest Palestinian democratic election, the Hamas Movement.

The EU Ambassador to Israel claimed that EUBAM monitors could not return to staff the crossing because the “legal basis for EUBAM”. - The November 2005 agreement on movement and access - specified that the terminal was to be staffed by the Fatah-aligned Force 17, who had already left Gaza Strip. Hamas Security Forces took over the official administration and control of the public security on Gaza Strip.

In January 23, 2008, Palestinian resistance in Gaza demolished the wall, and breached the Rafah border to Egypt. Several hundred thousand hungry and desperate Gazan’s entered Egypt, to bring their wounded and sick to hospital and to buy medicine,food and other supplies..

On December 27, 2008, Egypt opened the crossing for the thousands of wounded Palestinians after that the Israeli Cast Lead Operation (Massacre) in its violent outburst, had killed and wounded several hundreds of Palestinians, (members of Gaza police-force, resistense fighters,entire families including the children) . In the Israeli war on the already suffering, miserable and agonized Gaza Palestinians, this latest Israeli criminal assault. ( evidence have been collected and further international investigations are ongoing, to bring the warcriminals to court ) the Israelis killed more than 1.400, and wounded over 5.000 Gaza residents.

Gaza residents are still today, confined in the largest prison on the planet..People are standing by the Rafah crossing terminal under the hot sun,many without drinking water, waiting to cross the border in to, or out from.Gaza. And after Israeli troops ( I call then state terrorists ) completed their (official ) withdrawal from Gaza on January 21,almost seven months ago, the Gaza Strip still look like a war zone.

Gaza infrastructure is severely destroyed from thousands of Israeli bombs and missiles.Official and residential buildings, private homes and roads are in rubble.There is no cement to be found, on Gaza Strip, there is shortage of everything, building material, also food and clean drinking water and there are still electricity shortage in most of the areas. The world is watching stunned, by the evil, in astonishment,can not understand why the Gaza borders to the outside world, are still closed.

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