Hamas Founder's Son Worked for Shin Bet

PalestineFreeVoice Editors note;

"You see what the Jews are doing to our families, to our people. Our parents teach children at a young age who the enemy is, never to associate with them. - Our parents also learn us to take responsibility for our own actions. We will read this book and than we will make the judgment, so will God ( Allah)." Hiyam Noir February 27 /2010

By Avi Issacharoff

The son of a leading Hamas figure, who famously converted to Christianity, served for over a decade as the Shin Bet security service's most valuable source in the militant organization's leadership, Haaretz has learned.

Mosab Hassan Yousef is the son of Sheikh Hassan Yousef, a Hamas founder and one of its leaders in the West Bank. The intelligence he supplied Israel led to the exposure of a number of terrorist cells, and to the prevention of dozens of suicide bombings and assassination attempts on Israeli figures.

The exclusive story will appear in this Friday's Haaretz Magazine, and Yousef's memoir, "Son of Hamas" (written with Ron Brackin) will be released next week in the United States. Yousef, 32, became a devout Christian 10 years ago and now lives in California after fleeing the West Bank in 2007 and going public with his conversion.
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Yousef was considered the Shin Bet's most reliable source in the Hamas leadership, earning himself the nickname "the Green Prince" - using the color of the Islamist group's flag, and "prince" because of his pedigree as the son of one of the movement's founders.

During the second intifada, intelligence Yousef supplied led to the arrests of a number of high-ranking Palestinian figures responsible for planning deadly suicide bombings. These included Ibrahim Hamid (a Hamas military commander in the West Bank, Marwan Barghouti (founder of the Fatah-linked Tanzim militia) and Abdullah Barghouti (a Hamas bomb-maker with no close relation to the Fatah figure). Yousef was also responsible for thwarting Israel's plan to assassinate his father.

"I wish I were in Gaza now," Yousef said by phone from California, "I would put on an army uniform and join Israel's special forces in order to liberate Gilad Shalit. If I were there, I could help. We wasted so many years with investigations and arrests to capture the very terrorists that they now want to release in return for Shalit. That must not be done."

The story of Yousef's spiritual transformation appeared in Haaretz Magazine in August 2008. Only now, however, is Yousef exposing the secret he kept since 1996, when he was first held by Shin Bet agents seeking to enlist him in infiltrating the upper echelon of Hamas.

Their efforts proved successful, and Yousef was released from prison in 1997. His former handler, who no longer serves with the security service, says Yousef collaborated with Israel because he wanted to save lives.

"So many people owe him their life and don't even know it," said the handler, named in Yousef's book as Captain Loai. "People who did a lot less were awarded the Israel Security Prize. He certainly deserves it."

Loai makes no secret of his admiration for his former source. "The amazing thing is that none of his actions were done for money," he says. "He did things he believed in. He wanted to save lives. His grasp of intelligence matters was just as good as ours - the ideas, the insights. One insight of his was worth 1,000 hours of thought by top experts."

Loai recalled one time when the Shin Bet received information that a suicide bomber was going to be picked up at Manara Square in Ramallah and be given an explosives belt.

"We didn't know his name or what he looked like - only that he was in his 20s and would be wearing a red shirt," he said. "We sent the Green Prince to the square and with his acute sense, he located the target within minutes. He saw who picked him up, followed the car and made it possible for us to arrest the suicide bomber and the man who was supposed to give him the belt. So another attack was thwarted, though no one knows about it. No one opens Champagne bottles or bursts into song and dance. This was an almost daily thing for the Prince. He displayed courage, had sharp antennae and an ability to cope with danger. We knew he was one of those who in any situation - rain, snow, summer - give their all."

With his memoir, Yousef hopes to send a message of peace to Israelis. Still, he admits he is pessimistic over the prospect of Israel signing a peace agreement with the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority, let alone Hamas.

"Hamas cannot make peace with the Israelis. That is against what their God tells them. It is impossible to make peace with infidels, only a cease-fire, and no one knows that better than I. The Hamas leadership is responsible for the killing of Palestinians, not Israelis," he said. "Palestinians! They do not hesitate to massacre people in a mosque or to throw people from the 15th or 17th floor of a building, as they did during the coup in Gaza. The Israelis would never do such things. I tell you with certainty that the Israelis care about the Palestinians far more than the Hamas or Fatah leadership does."

Source:Haaretz exclusive
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Mosab Hassan Yousef- Facebook

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Tormenting the Dead

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In a typical move, Israel is building a "museum of tolerance" right on top of an ancient Muslim cemetery, writes Khaled Amayreh

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As if all the persecution and brutalisation meted out to the Palestinians were not enough, Israeli authorities are finalising preparations for the construction of a museum on top of an ancient Muslim cemetery in West Jerusalem.

Photo - Edit/PalestineFreeVoice - Courtesy PalestineRemembered

Maamanullah (Sanctuary of God), contains the remains of over 70,000 Muslims. Some say many more are buried there. Some of the remains go back to the time of the great Muslim general Saladin. Some archaeologists believe the cemetery may even date to the time of the Prophet Mohamed.

In the early 1960s, the Israeli government -- which then, as now, was trying incessantly to obliterate the historical Arab identity of the land -- built a parking lot on a part of the cemetery, in disregard of Arab and international protests.

Now, on 10 February, the Israeli Court of Justice gave final clearance to the city of Jerusalem and the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Centre to build a complex with the name of the Centre for Human Dignity-Museum of Tolerance. Palestinians and Muslims in general are not impressed.

Rabbi Marvin Hier, a fanatical Chabadi leader and dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, is claiming that the ancient cemetery is no longer a cemetery since people have been parking their cars there for over half a century. Seemingly proceeding from supremacist view that non-Jews, whether living or dead, have no sanctity, Hier sees no difference between parking cars on top of a graveyard and digging it out for the new construction site. What is important for Hier is that none of the dead are Jewish.

Hier, along with other Israeli apologists, has been searching for a Muslim religious edict that would allow authorities to obliterate Muslim graveyards after 40-50 years. However, while some edicts allow the relocation of the remains of the dead for necessity sake, no edict has ever been made allowing the construction of buildings on top of cemeteries. One Muslim scholar scoffed at Hier's quest, arguing: "If we are to take Hier seriously, then according to him, it is permissible to destroy the graves of prophets and saints who have been dead for thousands of years. What he is saying is nonsense and reflects ignorance and arrogance."

Rashid Khalidi, a prominent Palestinian scholar based in the United States, describes Hier's allegations as "misleading and mendacious". "This is a cemetery where people have been buried since the 12th century. People who fought with Saladin in the Crusades are buried there. The Israeli authorities are basically pushing ahead with the desecration of a cemetery that they have been, unfortunately, slowly nibbling away at for over three decades. We and other families are taking action as a group to try to stop this after other families failed in the Israeli Supreme Court."

Khalidi dismissed Hier's claims that no protests were made in the early 1960s when the parking lot was built on top of the cemetery. "This is not true. Many protests were made. There were protests from the early 1960s, when the first of these desecrations started. What Rabbi Hier said is false. And the fact that it was desecrated in the 1960s doesn't mean that it is right to desecrate it further."

In Jerusalem itself, the demolition of the Maamanullah cemetery is generating fury and indignation among Muslims. The Palestinian League of Muslim Scholars strongly condemned the "brutal ugliness" of the Israeli move. "This is an act of blasphemy. How would Jews react if they saw heavy machinery crush the bones of their dead?" asked Sheikh Ikrema Sabri, an imam of Al-Aqsa Mosque. "Besides, what kind of tolerance are the Israelis talking about when they build a museum on top of the remains of dead people?"

Another scholar remarked: "What can we say when you call cruelty 'tolerance'? This is like building a museum at Auschwitz and calling it a museum of self-abnegation."

Diana Butto, a lawyer representing several families and relatives of people buried in the cemetery, lamented the brazen disregard of Israel for the "very essence of human dignity". "We have exhausted all our other legal means. Even what the UN can do is limited, but they can investigate and raise awareness." Butto revealed that Palestinian families didn't know what was being done with the human remains uncovered by heavy machinery.

Dalia Husseini Dajani, a middle-aged East Jerusalem woman, says many of her relatives were buried in the cemetery. "This is my history, my family, everything. One day, I want to be buried there, and I want my grandchildren to come and pray for me there."

Michael Ratner, president of the US- based Centre for Constitutional Rights, which is assisting the legal case of families against Israel's actions and plans, relayed the following after visiting the site: "I was really shocked by what I saw. I went into West Jerusalem, and I see a wall that's probably 25 feet high, surrounded by surveillance cameras, which is where they're building this so-called 'Museum of Tolerance'. Right up to the edge of it, you see Muslim graves, Palestinian graves, all around it.

"And within even the part of the cemetery that still exists, which is only a few acres, because the Israelis have paved over other parts or built a park, it has been desecrated... [O]ne archaeologist called this an archaeological crime. This is an Israeli archaeologist. And you see they took out bones in cardboards boxes, relatives of the descendants of the people on this [legal] petition. The archaeologist said there's at least 2,000 graves under this site. So to hear the rabbi from the Simon Wiesenthal Centre talk about 'there's no bones, there's no bodies under here' is just -- it is just a lie. That is all I can say. That is what it is."

Both Simon Wiesenthal and the centre named after him have been accused of flagrant lying, exaggeration and half-truths. One researcher contended that Wiesenthal's confabulations were never discussed among scholars, but "he would rarely let the facts get in the way of a good story. In fact, many of the things he claimed to have done were fabrications."

In June 2009, British author Guy Walters published a book entitled Hunting Evil in which he characterised Wiesenthal as "a liar -- and a bad one at that". "He would concoct outrageous stories about his war years and make false claims about his academic careers." Walters found that there were "so many inconsistencies between his three main memoirs and between those memoirs and contemporaneous documents it is impossible to establish a reliable narrative from them. Wiesenthal's scant regard for truth makes it possible to doubt everything he ever wrote or said."

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How do we safeguard this very important historical Muslim Sanctuary.. I have been in contact again, with the UNESCO Heritage Center, one would expect that people whom get the fat paychecks and free tickets paid to travel the world around, to protect historical sites of high value, should be alert and act accordingly. Save Muslim ( Palestinian) heritage from demolition, but these people are dormant and have a biased agenda, we need armed guards to protect Muslim and Islamic Holy grounds. - hn-

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Fabricating History

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Click to view caption
Palestinian children look on as an illegal Israeli settlement expands in the West Bank (top); orthodox Jewish children look on as a model of Solomon's Temple is installed in front of the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem and pray that the mosque will be replaced by a replica of the mythical edifice.

Israel's attempts to establish historical grounds for its existence include stealing, destroying and substituting Islamic heritage, reports Khaled Amayreh in Hebron( Khalil)


Tension in the occupied Palestinian territories rose significantly this week following a decision by the rightwing Israeli government to add two ancient mosques in the West Bank to a list of alleged Jewish heritage sites.

The two mosques are the Bilal Ibn Rabah Mosque, which Israelis call Rachel's Tomb, near Bethlehem, and the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron, named after the patriarch Ibrahim (Abraham), widely considered the common forefather of both the ancient Hebrews and northern Arabs.

The Hebron mosque, site of a massacre of Arab worshipers by a Jewish terrorist in 1994, is widely considered the fourth most important Islamic shrine, coming directly after the Sacred Mosque in Mecca, the Prophet's Mosque in Medina (both in Saudi Arabia), and Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem.

Israeli officials didn't explain the decision by Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to add the two Islamic sites to a list of some 130 so-called Jewish heritage sites. Netanyahu said the sites would be renovated "in order to reconnect Israelis to their history".

The two mosques are located in the heart of Palestinian population centres where no significant Jewish population exists. The city of Hebron has a population of over 200,000 and a further half a million living in surrounding villages. There are nearly 400 fanatical Jewish settlers living in the City's Old Quarter, protected round the clock by thousands of Israeli soldiers who routinely repress and harass local Palestinians in order to provide the settlers with optimal security.

The Ibrahimi Mosque is considered one of the most ancient mosques in Palestine and the Levant as it was built around 635 AD.

Bilal Ibn Rabah Mosque, which is off limit to Muslims and is located at the northern tip of Bethlehem, has been completely annexed to Israel and is separated from the rest of Arab city by a huge concrete wall that is part of the gigantic barrier Israel has built for the purpose of annexing to Israel large chunks of the West Bank.

When Netanyahu announced the original plan on 3 February, the two mosques were not included, probably due to political sensitivity. However, after Jewish settlers and their allies in the government exerted pressure on the Israeli premier he decided to add the two sites to the original plan. The decision, which comes on the heel of several Israeli provocations, including the suspected assassination by Mossad of Hamas leader Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh in Dubai recently, has infuriated Palestinians.

Several Palestinian towns have already witnessed demonstrations and sporadic clashes with Israeli occupation soldiers. In Hebron itself, school students took to the streets, shouting slogans against the "criminal act". "These murderous thieves are trying to steal our Islamic symbols. We must never allow them to realise their evil designs," said Hazem Hirbawi, one of the protesters. "The Ibrahimi Mosque has been an exclusive Islamic house of worship for 1,400 years. The Israeli claim that this place is a Jewish archaeological site is just beyond the pale."

Hebron's mayor, Khaled Al-Asali, urged UNESCO and the international community to check "this Israeli insolence and arrogance". "We urge UNESCO to protect the Ibrahimi Mosque, prevent its desecration, and act against alterations to its features." He asserted that international law obliges the occupation authorities "not to change the historical heritage of the occupied territories".

Al-Asali denied any Israeli connection to the mosques. "We are dealing with two mosques that have been in existence for hundreds of years in both Khalil [Hebron] and Bethlehem. Hence, this decision by the Netanyahu-Barak- Lieberman government indicates their plan to continue the occupation and the bloodshed in the region." Al-Asali warned that the Israeli provocation was transforming Hebron into a powder keg.

Both Hamas and Fatah -- as well as the rest of the Palestinian political factions -- strongly condemned the "provocative and criminal" Israeli act. Hamas officials called on the Muslim world to take a meaningful stand to counter "this criminal assault on one of Islam's holiest places".

"They are trying to demolish Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, and now they have decided to seize the Ibrahimi Mosque in Khalil and another mosque in Bethlehem. This means that Israel is carrying out ethnic cleansing of our people, changing the identity of the land. Muslims must not remain silent in the face of this provocation," said Gaza-based Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh.

Haniyeh told reporters that the Israeli decision to effectively annex the two mosques showed that Israel was never sincere about reaching a peace settlement with the Palestinians and was trying instead to liquidate the Palestinian national cause.

Similarly, Palestinian Authority (PA) official Saeb Erekat strongly denounced the Israeli decision, saying that Israel was an occupying power, not a peace partner. "Unilateral decisions to make Palestinian sites in Hebron and Bethlehem part of Israel show that there is no genuine peace partner, but an occupying power that is intent on consolidating the occupation of Palestinian land."

Several Arab and Muslim countries, as well as the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC), have strongly condemned the Israeli decision, with Jordan accusing Israel of adopting measures that derail the peace process. "Jordan condemns this and all other unilateral measures that affect holy places and offend sentiments of Muslims throughout the world," said Nabil Sharif, Jordanian information minister.

The UN has also censured Israel for including the two mosques in a planned Jewish heritage trail, with one UN official reminding Israel that the two sites are located in the West Bank.

The latest Israeli provocation comes 16 years after Baruch Goldstein, an American Jewish terrorist and reserve soldier in the Israeli army, sprayed Muslim worshipers at the Ibrahimi Mosque with a machinegun, killing at least 29 worshipers and injuring dozens of others. An Israeli commission of inquiry looking into the massacre recommended the partitioning of the mosque between Jewish settlers and Muslims, with the settlers taking over the bulk of the site.

Israel also undertook several other draconian measures against the Palestinians, including sealing off numerous roads to the city and separating the town's Old Quarter from the rest of the city. The punitive measures were largely viewed as intended to make daily life for Palestinians so unbearable that they would leave the area so that Jewish settlers could take over.

Goldstein, who was killed on site following his attack, was accorded a saintly status by hundreds of thousands of Israeli Jews who came to consider him a hero and great rabbi. His grave in the nearby settlement of Kiryat Arbaa became a pilgrimage site.

The bulk of Jewish settlers are religious Zionists who follow an extremist stream of Orthodox Judaism that calls for the expulsion, enslavement or outright physical extermination of non-Jews in occupied Palestine. Some streams of Orthodox Judaism, such as the influential Chabad movement, consider non-Jews in general as subhuman.(end

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Living Under Israel's Jewish Law

The "Torah Way"

Opinion
The Status of Non-Jews Under the Halacha


By Khalid Amayreh

Journalist — Occupied Palestine

Remarks by the Israeli Minister of Interior Yaakov Neeman suggesting that the Jewish religious law (Halacha) should be adopted as the "law of the land" in the Jewish state has drawn strong reactions from both Jews and non-Jews.

"Step by step, we will bestow upon the citizens of Israel the laws of the Torah and we will turn Halacha into the binding law of the nation," Neeman told Rabbis at a Jewish law convention in occupied Jerusalem in December 2009.

"We must bring back the heritage of our fathers to the nation of Israel," he said. "The torah has the complete solution to all of the questions we are dealing with."

Neeman's statements were met applauds from participants who included high-ranking Rabbis, as well as representatives of religious parties.

However, for non-Jews, who now constitute nearly 50 percent of the total population in occupied Palestine, Neeman's remarks are a serious cause for concern since Halacha, at least according to the Orthodox Jewish interpretation, does not recognize the full humanity of non-Jews.

Hence, non-Jews living under Halacha must accept to live under a perpetual state of inferiority, if not persecution.

Lesser in Every Aspect

The difference between Jews and gentiles, Rabbi Govoha argued, is racial, genetic, and scientifically unalterable.

According to Orthodox Judaism, a non-Jew (goy) is inferior to a Jew in every conceivable aspect. This inferiority is absolute, inherent, intrinsic, and not subject to any related or unrelated factors.

Rabbi Abraham Kook, the religious mentor of the settler movement, taught that "the difference between a Jewish soul and souls of non-Jews — all of them in all different levels — is greater and deeper than the difference between a human soul and the souls of cattle."

The teachings of Kook are based on the Lurianic Cabala (Jewish mysticism), which teaches the absolute superiority of the Jewish soul and body over the non-Jewish soul and body. This means, according to one Rabbi who is member of the Chabadi Lubovitcher sect, that "every simple cell in a Jewish body entails divinity and is part of God."

In 2003, Rabbi Saadya Grama of the Beth Medrash Govoha, the renowned Talmudic school of Lakewood, NJ, published a book in which he claimed that Gentiles were completely evil and that Jews constituted a separate, genetically superior species.

The book published under the Hebrew Title "Romemut Yisrael Ufarsahat Hagalut" quoted numerous classical Jewish sources to prove Jewish superiority over the rest of humankind.

The difference between Jews and gentiles, he argued, is not religious, historical, cultural, or political. It is rather racial, genetic, and scientifically unalterable. The one groups is at its very root and by natural constitution "totally evil" while the other is "totally good"

"Jewish successes in the world are completely contingent upon the failure of all other peoples. Only when the gentiles face total catastrophe, Jews do experience good fortune."

"The Jews themselves brought about their own destruction during the Holocaust, since they arrogantly endeavored to overcome their very essence, dictated by divine law."

While castigated by many Jewish figures, religious and secular, for its brazen racism, Grama's thesis is not really in conflict with the Rabbis of Gush Emunim (the settler camp) and the rest of the National religious movement in Israel today.

He readily applies Torah passages against idolaters, other pagans to Christianity and Islam, and other monotheists who worship the God of Abraham, the very God proclaimed by the Torah.

He also ignores extensive Rabbinic deliberations during the medieval period, which concluded that both Islam and Christianity as "licit, monotheistic faiths."

Hence, Muslims and Christians could not be lumped in one category with the idol-worshipers of earlier times.

Sub-human Slaves

According to the code of Maimonides (Rambam): "A Jew who killed a non-Jew is exempt from human judgment."

If gentiles (goyem) are inherently inferior to Jews, and if their very humanity is presumed to be denied, it is axiomatically inferred from this that these gentiles have inherently lesser rights than Jews do.

Indeed, some Talmudic references do refer to gentiles as "animals walking on two feet instead of four".

Even today, some Rabbis, such as David Batsri, invoke the "bestiality" of non-Jews, claiming that the Creator created them with two legs instead of four in deference to Jews, because it is not appropriate that Jews be served with four-legged animals.

It is true that this view is not shared by all Rabbis, especially the enlightened ones. However, it is also true that some prominent sages holding both Halachic and historical weight are among the main advocates of this pure racism.

For example, according to the code of Maimonides (Rambam): "A Jew who killed a non-Jew is exempt from human judgment, and has not violated the prohibition of murder."

This code is implicitly practiced by Jewish settler judges when dealing with Jews convicted of killing Palestinians, which explains the extremely light punishments meted out to the perpetrators, especially in comparison to Arabs convicted of the same felony.

It also explains why Israelis in general and religious settlers in particularly dwell so much upon "shedding Jewish blood" while never showing the slightest concern about Arabs killed by Jews.

Following the 1994 massacre of dozens of Arab worshipers at the Ibrahimi Mosque at the hands of an American-born Jewish terrorists, Moshe Levinger, a settler leader in the City of Al-Khalil (Hebron) was quoted as saying : "I am not only sorry for dead Arabs, but also for dead flies."

The application of Jewish law in occupied Palestine (Israel plus the West Bank and Al-Quds) would mean that Palestinians who do not convert to Judaism (at the hands of an Orthodox Rabbi) would have to be treated as "residents alien".

According to Maimonides, a gentile permitted to reside in the land of Israel, "must accept to pay taxes and to suffer the humiliation of servitude."

Such gentiles, some modern Rabbis insist, "must be held down and not raise their heads against Jews. Non-Jews must not be appointed to any office or position of power over Jews. If they refuse to live a life of inferiority, then this will signify rebellion and the unavoidable necessity of Jewish warfare against their very presence in the land of Israel."

Chutzpah

A Jew who murders a gentile, even deliberately, is guilty of committing a sin against the "laws of heaven" and ought to be published by God rather than man.

This inferiority accorded to non-Jews, which is summarized by the phrase "water carriers and wood-hewers", is actually an award for the submissiveness of the pacified and subjugated gentiles.

As to "restive" gentiles in the land of Israel, like those demanding equal human and civil rights as citizens, their punishment is usually expulsion or outright extermination.

According to Shulhan Aruch, widely viewed as the most authoritative legalistic source of Jewish religious law, the murder of a Jew is a capital offence and one of the three most heinous sins (the other two being idolatry and adultery).

Jewish religious courts are commanded to mercilessly punish anyone guilty of killing a Jew. However, a Jew who murders a gentile, even deliberately, is guilty of committing a sin against the "laws of heaven" and ought to be published by God rather than man.

However, a gentile murderer living under Jewish jurisdiction must be executed, regardless of whether the victim is Jewish or gentile.

However, if the victim is gentile and the murderer is a Jew who had converted to Judaism, he is not to be punished.

Maimonides also rules that while Jews are forbidden to save the lives of non-Jews in peacetime, they are also forbidden to murder them outright.

"As for gentiles with whom we are not at war, their death must not be caused, but it is forbidden to save them if they are at the point of death; if, for example, one of them is seen falling into the sea, he should not be rescued, for it is written. Neither shall thou stand against the blood of thy fellow, but a gentile is not your fellow."

Bluntly, anti-gentile codes are also proscribed against non-Jews living under Jewish (religious) rule. This covers the entire penal code. For example, there is an obvious discrimination against non-Jewish citizens in applying punishment for rape and adultery.

According to Israel Shahak's classical book "Jewish History, Jewish Religion: The Weight of Three Thousand Years," Halacha presumes that all gentiles are promiscuous and presumed not to have paternity."

For an example, a sexual intercourse between a gentile and a married Jewish woman is a capital offense for both parties, which is punishable by death for both.

However, a sexual intercourse between a Jewish male and a gentile woman — it does not matter if she is married or not since the concept of marriage doesn't apply to gentiles — is not viewed as gravely as the Talmud equates such intercourse with an intercourse with animals.

A Biblical verse states: "For she doted upon their paramours, whose flesh is as the flesh of asses, and whose issue is like the issue of horses." [King James Bible, the Book of the Prophet Ezekiel 23:20]. That verse is presumably applied to non-Jews"

In this case, death is proscribed for the gentile woman, while the Jew, even if it is a case of rape, is given a much lighter punishment, like flogging.

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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.

Source Islamonline

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My Decision To Take A Lover

Dear Alex...

I can't help it, I just had to publish,this is sooo good food for the soul.....

Hiyam


By Alex Pearlman

on February 17th, 2010

This article is part of the TNGG Sex Week series on Gen Y and sex. Read more from the series here.

When you can’t even find time between classes, the internship that pads your resume and the waitressing gig that pads your wallet to take a 20-minute power-nap, how can you be expected to keep up with a normal, 24-7, all-inclusive and ever-stressful romantic relationship?

We’ve moved on from the idea that a significant other is a must to be a complete and functioning adult. After our parents’ divorces and one failed, bullshit relationship after another, Gen Y kids know better. Through inhabiting the world we do, we know that our careers are more important to our livelihoods now than romance is. None of us is looking to get married or find a life partner until we’re settled, career-wise.

But where does that leave us? Friends with benefits agreements? Open relationships? We know better than that too. The only logical thing left to do, since we’re all human and we all crave that most basic of human cravings (no, not food or water), is to take a lover.

A lover is not a boyfriend. A lover is not a friend with benefits. A lover is a person you meet who you maybe go out with once or twice, but, let’s face it, you don’t have time to devote yourself to. A lover is more than a booty call, and although they do serve a similar purpose, a lover is more than just sex.

The best kinds of lovers are the ones who have respect for each other, genuinely like each other, but don’t feel pressured to be together all the time or introduce each other to parents or friends. The best kinds of lovers are the ones you only see every week or so. Or maybe less than that – when you have time to chill out with someone after writing papers, having drinks with your friends, and showing your bosses that you really are the most brilliant intern they’ve ever seen.

A lover is a necessary 21^st century accessory, like a MacBook or iPhone, but a lover also serves a much more important function, one that’s even more important than Facebook mobile: relaxation.

We live in such a high-stress, fast-paced world now that it really is impossible to juggle everything happily without being on serious mood-enhancing drugs or ADHD pills. A lover is that one person in your life that isn’t stressful. A lover is stress-relief. There’s nothing more relaxing than a good screw followed by a glass of wine, a movie in bed with someone you can laugh with, and a slow walk home with a smile on your face and Coldplay pumping through your headphones.

The trick, though, is how to alter the romantic relationship values system we were brought up with: either you’re a monogamist or you’re a whore. You’re dating to find someone to date or you’re dating to get laid. But these aren’t the only two choices available now. Some people simply aren’t able to commit themselves in a way that is positive to another person while they’re still trying to work out their own lives – and such lives we have now. How can we expect ourselves to be happy in such a limited sphere of acceptable relationship rules?

Taking a lover is not the same as sleeping or dating around – sex with one person is complicated enough, there’s no need to add drama to an already hectic lifestyle. But it does necessitate a certain amount of maturity. The only way to be comfortable in a sexual relationship is to be comfortable with every aspect of that relationship, and if it isn’t right, it isn’t right.

We are such scattered individuals, with so many broad and far-reaching interests, activities, hobbies and ideas that make up our daily lives that for Gen Y, its close to absurd to assume that we will find one person to be all the interpersonal relationship we need. Thus, with friends to confide in, classmates and colleagues to talk to and debate with and roommates (because who can afford to live alone in 2010) to hang out with on weeknights, all we need to add to our Rolodex of people we have relationships with is a lover to support us sexually and intimately – whenever we feel like it.

Photo Credit: mikebaird

Author: Alex Pearlman – blog – I’m a 23-year-old journalism and philosophy student, I love the John Adams miniseries, Aaron Sorkin, and reading Time magazine in bed with a glass of red wine. I work for GlobalPost.com and I’m the Editor in Chief of The Suffolk Journal, Suffolk University’s student newspaper. My interests range from libertarianism to beer bongs to the New York Times crossword puzzle. Hopefully, this box will one day read: Alex Pearlman, Pulitzer Prize-winning foreign correspondent

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Open Letter to Obama's Envoy to the OIC

Opinion

Rashad Hussain New US Envoy
to the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC).


Our problem with the United States stems from
hostile American policies that are killing us and murdering our children.

The US Has to Repair a Long History of Mistrust

By Khalid Amayreh

Journalist — Occupied Palestine

Dear brother Hussein, like many Muslims around the globe, I am glad that President Obama has appointed you as his Envoy to the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC). Needless to say, the repair of American-Muslim relations require, first and foremost, honesty, integrity, and good will — characters I am sure you exemplify as an Islamic scholar and Hafez of the Book of God (Qur'an).

Hence, I think that you are probably one of the best people qualified for this difficult job, because, for several decades, the relations between the United States and the world of 1.6 billion Muslims have been marred by tension, lack of trust, and a lot of bitterness.

Hence, I urge you to go about carrying out your mission with utmost care, wisdom, and sagacity. I also want to remind you that several American envoys to the Muslim world have effectively failed to achieve what they were supposed to achieve, namely fostering healthy relations between Muslims and America that would be based on mutual trust, respect, and friendship.

It is my firm belief though that these people, whose efforts should never be underestimated, failed in their missions, not because of the lack of trying nor the absence of good will and rectitude.

My impression, which I believe is shared by many Muslims, is that these honorable men and women did not correctly diagnose the serious ailments plaguing America's relations with the Muslim world. In truth, past American envoys to the Muslim world acted very much as Public Relations emissaries, whose central concern was that Muslims misunderstood America.

In short, they thought that America was only having an "image problem" in the Muslim world, and that if only the United States worked a little bit harder in terms of presenting itself and its policies more skillfully, that tarnished image would be rehabilitated and Muslims would fall in love with Uncle Sam.

History of Wrong Deeds

Whenever we sought to redress that bad situation at the UN Security Council, America would just veto any resolution that would have given us a modicum of justice.

My Brother in Islam and humanity: From our vantage point, the real problem besetting America's relations with Muslims goes far beyond the image problem. We truly feel that the US government is "tormenting" Muslims in many parts of the world, such as Palestine, Afghanistan, Iraq , Pakistan, Lebanon to mention some examples.

In occupied Palestine, America has been enabling and empowering Israel — a state that has much in common with Nazi Germany — to kill us, destroy our homes, steal our land, and banish us from our ancestral land. Moreover, whenever we sought to redress that bad situation at the UN Security Council, America would just veto any resolution that would have given us a modicum of justice.

This brazen alliance with the oppressors on America's part frustrated many Muslims and Arabs, prompting them occasionally to embark on doing things they probably should not have done. You know, people to whom evil is done, often do evil in return.

Even today, the United States, which was as silent as a graveyard during Israel's manifestly criminal onslaught against the helpless people of the Gaza Strip last year, is trying now to kill the Goldstone report, which exposed Israeli criminality and called for the possible prosecution of suspected Israeli war criminals.

The United States has had more than fifty years to make peace in Palestine. However, instead of forcing Israel to give up the spoils of war and grant Palestinians the right to freedom from the shackles of occupation and racism, America has always made sure to further strengthen Israeli militarily and bolster its arrogance of power.

Eventually, this unrestricted embrace of Zionism enabled Israel to irreversibly kill the two-state solution, leaving us with the ominous, but realistic alternative of open-ended conflict.

One Palestinian intellectual, Walid Khalidi, once referred to the United States as "the tormentor of the Palestinian people." Khalidi's words are not an overstatement. In fact, the opposite may well be true.

In Lebanon, a few years ago, Israel blanket-bombed Lebanon, annihilating and maiming thousands of innocent people whose only "guilt" was their weakness and military inferiority vis-à-vis Israel.

In fact, the Israeli air force dropped more than 2 million cluster-bomblets on Lebanon, enough to kill two million children, including people yet to be born. Instead of hearing the United States saying: "Stop it", we heard American officials from the president downward singing the songs of praise for Israel as if these innocent victims were children of lesser humanity.

Iraq and Afghanistan

The US policy toward Muslims has been almost completely devoid of honesty and fairness.

Moreover, In Iraq, one is really frustrated as to where to begin and where to end when talking about America's crimes and days of infamy in Iraq. America invaded, occupied and destroyed that Arab country based on the mendacious claim that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction (WMD). True, Saddam Hussein was a tyrant, but are America's Arab puppets paragons of virtue and democracy?

A few years before the American occupation of Iraq, former secretary of state Madeline Albright made some telling remarks about the death of nearly a million Iraqi children as a result of US-led sanctions against the Arab country. She said, "If it is good for America, it is worth it."

I am sure you understand that only a human devil can reach this level of depravity and evil.

Regarding Afghanistan, American and other NATO forces are raining death on Afghan people in the Helmand province, killing many civilians. US military officials would claim it happened by mistake. Well, but mistakes are done a few times, and when made nearly on a daily basis and thousands of people are killed, it means "mistakes" are actually "the real policy".

In any case, when the number of civilian victims is so high as in Afghanistan and Palestine, even intent becomes irrelevant.

I am sure that had these unwept, helpless civilians been Jews or Christians, the NATO pilots would have been much more careful.

Dear Brother: Muslims want a relationship with America based on honesty and fairness, and above all on justice. I am saying so because the US policy toward Muslims has been almost completely devoid of honesty and fairness.

Nearly every new American administration declares from the outset that fostering democracy and human rights in the Arab world would be at the top of its agenda. However, the truth is that the policy pursued then represents the exact antithesis of America's declarations.

In the past few years, the United States actually encouraged certain Arab states to torture their own citizens by transferring "terror suspects" to these police states, where they underwent all sorts of physical and psychological torture. The so-called "renditions" were a stigma of shame at the forehead of both America and the Arab regimes.

In fact, the United States has effectively transformed several Arab regimes into agents helped by the American intelligence to serve America's illegitimate global interests.

Conflicting Interests?

Muslims all over the world, including in Palestine, have no inherent hostility toward the people of the United States.

These regimes do not represent the free will of the Arab-Muslim people. They are more answerable to Washington than they are to their own masses. In addition, they value the "legitimacy" that comes from America's acceptance more than that which comes from their own people's acceptance.

For example, the American-envisaged steel wall being built along the border between Egypt and the Gaza Strip is rejected by up to 99 percent of the Egyptian people. Yet it is being imposed, thanks to America's approval of the evil structure.

Does not the United States realize that this wall amounts to passing a death penalty on more than 1.5 million innocent human beings, whose only "crime" was that they elected a political party that Israel and America did not like?

To be sure, America has the right to protect its interests. However, America has no right, moral or legal, to murder and starve people because they exercised their democratic right and elected a political party called "Hamas".

Besides, why is it that Israel has the right to elect clear-cut thugs and certified war criminals, such as Avigdor Lieberman, Ehud Barak, and Benyamin Netanyahu, just to name a few, while the Palestinian people are not supposed to elect a party like Hamas?

Do terror, criminality, and racism become kosher when assuming a Jewish face? Is Israel above the laws of God and man?

Muslims all over the world, including in Palestine, have no inherent hostility toward the people of the United States.

We have no problem with the American First Amendment and civil liberties. We are not against the United States because we hate the American life style. Our problem with the United States stems from hostile American policies that are killing us and murdering our children.

In short, America must reconcile what it preaches with what it does, because otherwise, America cannot just keep lying to Muslims (and non-Muslims) as if our people were blind, deaf, and dumb.

Finally, I hope and pray that you will have the courage to communicate our grievances to the White House, as I am sure you will communicate its concerns to us.

Furthermore, I would advise you to be always mindful of the Qur'an's eighth Aya (verse) of Surat Al-Ma’idah:

"O ye who believe! stand out firmly for Allah, as witnesses to fair dealing, and let not the hatred of others to you make you swerve to wrong and depart from justice. Be just: that is next to piety: and fear Allah. For Allah is well-acquainted with all that ye do." [Al-Ma’idah, 8]

I have chosen this verse because justice is not only a Muslim value; it is actually a universal value, without which life on earth is corrupted.

Once again, I call on the Almighty to help you carry out your mission in the best way.

______________________

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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The Jews' War Against Islam

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By Ahmed Rami

Zionists in Sweden are using the Jewish propaganda accusation of "anti-Semitism" and the Jewish law of "incitement to racial hatred", to silence any criticism of their ill- doings.The law on incitement to "racial hatred" was already enforced in the 1940s by Jewish pressure and Holocaust propaganda.The Zionists have also succeeded in enforcing similar legislation, in all the countries in which they gained power and influence.Zionists were thus absent in very good time, they acquired the weapons to take on as a gag on it's opponents.We see here again how well the plan is followed, set out in writing the Elders of Zion Protocol.

The accusation of "anti-Semitism" and the law on 'incitement to racial hatred "is used today to silence any criticism of the Jewish state of Israel and its cruel occupation of Palestine. The law of incitement to racial hatred is also used to silence any criticism of the Jewish anti-democratic forces here in Sweden.It must be acknowledged that the Zionists apply their gag-law in a diabolically clever way. Using mutes the Zionists are not only critical of themselves, but, as a delaying tactic, the law also lets them apply any power from the point of view of for instance insignificant minorities, such as the Gypsies. Zionist followers can thereby convince themselves that they are enlightened and humane people, who see them self as above racial prejudice and other forms of vulgar opinions.

This feeling of sublimity is extremely important for many GOY,( the tongue-tied). If this had been the complete law on incitement to racial hatred,the Jews has still not been able to obtain such acceptance among the Gentiles (non-Jews in Hebrew - the Gentiles who eats animal meat). We must not think that gojen in common is a Christian individual who walks around and just loves his neighbor. No, Christ, according to the Zionists, used to articulate the hatred he may feel towards other people and groups.

And here comes the Zionist brilliant move. They have simply excluded the two major groups from the application of the law on hate, namely the Muslim Arabs and the Palestinians, secondly, the Germans! So can the little gojen both have its cake, and eat it! He may feel nobly magnanimous when he refrains from criticism of Jews and Gypsies, at the same time, he is without the least risk to be caught breaking the law, when he continues his incitement of Muslims and the Germans. And the Zionists-owned or-controlled media can uninterrupted, continue its mission of directing the Jewish propaganda.

We are all living evidence, exposed daily to the hateful depictions of Germans in the Zionist-controlled media. A conspiracy carefully engineered, to replace the Germans against Jews, a conspiracy of the Zionist's. The Post Office should burst of notifications for incitement of hatred! Equally obvious, is the witch hunt against Muslims, Arabs and Palestinians, then the so-called Islamophobia, which has its roots in the old Jewish war propaganda against Islam, which encourage the Palestinian resistance to fight against the Jewish occupation of Palestine.

Let us use one example. On the 24th of May 1989, the Jewish-owned Swedish mainstream newspaper,the Daily News, published an oped piece, titled, "Muslim apartheid can get a foothold." These incitements about Islam, as being a "threat to our fragile equality." and further, "the Muslims are already a strong pressure group,". "What are their ambitions ( the Muslims) determining the degree of the resistance they encounter." Here we have a classic example of how the Jew use incitement, to discriminate Islam, which the Zionists otherwise is so quick to condemn !

Moreover; - "the religious loyalty ( of Islam) takes precedence over loyalty to their new country( Sweden)." Here we have the allegation of dual loyalty, which is considered a crime. What a false hypocrisy ! The oped in the Daily News concludes with the assertion, that Muslims want to live according to their religion their pattern of life in Sweden!

Take all these allegations and replace Muslims and Islam with Judaism and Jewish. We get exactly the counts for which the Radio Islam and my book "What is Israel?" was condemned in the Stockholm District Court 1990, guilty of an offense! Where is the difference when comparing my book "What is Israel?"and Salman Rushdie's book, which received many Jewish Prices? My book criticizes the ideology of Israel, a subjugator, a state who defeats and enslaves. Rushdie's book (Satanic Verses), made a mockery of, and humiliated the Muslims, whom were resembled as oppressed and weak.The "Satanic Verses" was endorsed and praised in the name of freedom of expression!

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Hedonism in Ramallah

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Fahmi Shabana

On top of political failure, the regime of Abbas and Fayyad has now to contend with charges of moral degeneracy and criminality, writes Khaled Amayreh in Ramallah

---

Fahmi Shabana, a high-ranking Palestinian Authority (PA) intelligence officer, had been warning the Ramallah leadership that corruption was rampant throughout the PA regime and that effective steps had to be taken immediately to stem its tide. However, very few people in the PA hierarchy took him seriously.

One of the main reasons for ignoring Shabana's warnings had to do with the fact that the problem, in its multi- faceted forms, was so widespread that stemming it would be a formidable task the execution of which could seriously destabilise the PA and undermine its public image.

Last week, Shabana, who has been until recently in charge of the Anti- Corruption Department in the PA regime, made serious revelations that would indict a number of PA officials for decidedly criminal behaviour, including sexual misconduct, financial embezzlement, breach of trust, nepotism, favouritism, graft, misappropriation of public funds and indulging in behaviour unbecoming a public official.

In an interview with the rightwing Israeli newspaper, The Jerusalem Post, and later with the Israeli Television Channel 10, Shabana disclosed two main cases of corruption. He revealed that unnamed Fatah officials embezzled much of the $3.2 million bribe given by the US to Fatah ahead of the 2006 legislative elections. The money had been intended to enhance Fatah's image and boost its chances of winning. Some of the sum was used as "inducements" to make young people vote for Fatah. However, the bulk of it evaporated, using the words of one Fatah official from the Hebron region.

This had been public knowledge in the occupied territories for several years. However, due to the dysfunctional nature of the Palestinian justice system, especially since 2007, the issue passed more or less into oblivion. Moreover, neither the US nor other international donors pursued the matter in any serious manner, perhaps lest doing so would hurt Fatah, especially vis- à-vis Hamas that the US and its international and regional allies wanted to weaken and isolate at any price.

In addition, it was clear from the start that some of the senior PA officials involved in corruption were at the forefront of the onslaught against Hamas, which meant that hounding them publicly would have generated undesired repercussions for US goals in the region. "Some of the most senior Palestinian officials didn't have even $3,000 in their pockets when they arrived here. Now their bank accounts swell with tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars," Shabana told Al-Jazeera TV Sunday, 14 February.

"So, I had to act and speak up openly, because not a single corrupt official has been brought to trial for stealing public funds," he said.

Shabana named Azzam Al-Ahmed, the leading Fatah leader in the West Bank, alleging that he and his brother were involved in embezzling more than $1.5 million. He spoke of huge and half-fabricated land purchase deals in which many millions of dollars disappeared into the hands of PA officials.

The other important revelation Shabana made was a videotape showing Rafik Husseini, head of the president's office, lying in bed naked, having been lured to a Ramallah apartment by an unidentified East Jerusalem woman. The woman, according to some sources, was seeking a job at the president's office, so the story was a classic example of trading favours for sex.

Husseini didn't have sexual intercourse with the woman as Shabana and his men stormed the room minutes before the pre-arranged tryst was supposed to take place. In another section of the tape, Husseini is heard saying, "President Abbas has no charisma" and "is not in control". He also referred to the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat as "the biggest dajjal ". Dajjal means "liar and conman".

Shocked and obviously embarrassed by the revelations, PA officials issued a plethora of nervous reactions, calling Shabana a long list of names, such as "Israeli informer" "traitor" and "liar". Al-Tayeb Abdel-Rahim, a senior aide to Abbas, claimed that Shabana was a "petty intelligence officer" used by Israel in order to exert pressure on the Palestinian leadership to return to peace talks. Others berated him for "hanging our dirty washing in public" and "making Israel gloat over this affair".

Still others criticised Shabana for the timing of the disclosures, arguing that raising this issue at such a sensitive time was more than coincidence. These and other reactions were mostly defensive reflexes that wouldn't stand up to serious scrutiny.

Nonetheless, on 14 February, Abbas -- who had been reticent to engage the issue --"suspended" Husseini from his post. He also ordered the formation of an investigation committee comprising three Fatah leaders, including the secretary-general of Fatah's Executive Committee, Abu Maher Ghoneim, Azzam Al-Ahmed, and the head of Fatah's Court, Rafiq Natshe. That Al-Ahmed who is among those accused of embezzling money, was among those chosen now to investigate the charges raised eyebrows in the occupied territories. Some Fatah leaders, such as Jebril Rajoub, argued that Fatah was obliged to seriously and thoroughly investigate this "real scandal".

"It is not enough just to call these revelations a lie," Rajoub said. "We in Fatah must carry out a serious investigation into this matter and publish the results so that all our people will know the truth. We must also activate the principles of accountability throughout the movement and the PA, and rebuild the security apparatus on a national basis and terminate security coordination with Israel."

Visibly disgraced by the revelations, Husseini appeared in an impromptu press conference in East Jerusalem on 14 February in which he said that he was a victim of an entrapment plot carried out by a gang that doctored a videotape for the purpose of blackmailing him politically and financially. Speaking tersely, Husseini said the purpose behind the plot was to make him stop working for the liberation of Jerusalem and force him to leave the country for good.

Husseini retorted: "This is a classic example of the coalescence of corruption and collaboration with Israel." An appointed member of the Fatah Revolutionary Council, Husseini refused to take questions and left. His remarks did not succeed in dissipating public doubts about his credibility and moral integrity.

This new "Fatah-gate", as many journalists are now referring to the scandal, will surely further weaken and de- legitimise the Abbas-Fayyad regime. Even accepting Fatah's response to Shabana, some observers are wondering how the PA, which is calling Shabana an Israeli agent, could allow such an agent to reach the highest echelon of the Palestinian security apparatus and know the most intimate secrets of the Palestinian leadership.

Shabana also alleged that the family of Abbas has been directly involved in the scandal.

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"Zionism is a xenophobic ideology"

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- Interview with Sarah Al-Massri

By Mohammed Omar Upsala, Sweden
Founder of Anti-Zionist Party, to be officially launched 23 of February.

Edit & Translation Hiyam Noir

February 17 - 2010

Sarah Al-Massri, Lund in Sweden, is an Arabic women, born and raised in Egypt and Lebanon. She is a social pedagog, a practising Muslim, Palestine supporter, and member of the Anti-Zionist party.

MO: Why are you anti-Zionist?

SA: Zionism is a xenophobic ideology which has created many problems in the world. Problems that unfortunately only a few of the world's governments dare to admit. Zionism is the perfect example of systemic racism in its most repulsive form and the apartheid state of Israel came into being as a result of Zionism. Therefore, also Israel's legitimacy as a state must seriously be taken into question. The Zionists have been terrorising the Palestinians for over 60 years, without the world doing anything to stop them. The truth is that to justify Israel's oppression of the Palestinian people, has deprived the Palestinians of the protection which they are entitled to and which is stated in International Law, Humanitarian Laws and Human Rights Law.It is appalling that it is seen as OK for Israeli occupation forces to be engaged and continue it's eradication of the Palestinians.To the collective punishment of Palestinians by openly racially discriminate them, expel them from their land and homes by illegal settlements, and commit atrocities against them, it is pure madness.
MO: Do you have personal experience of the occupation?
SA: Even though I live in Sweden I am affected by the occupation. I follow my sisters and brothers constant struggle for survival and feel deep compassion for them. It is quite absurd how people there are denied access to obvious things such as health care, clean drinking water, electricity, education and so on. It is with great sadness I see how so many Palestinians still are forced to live their lives in refugee camps, and that so many Palestinian children have become orphans due to conflict.These realities are difficult emotions for me to handle.
MO: Do you feel as a Muslim that you have a special responsibility to engage in the Palestinian issue?
SA: Not just as a Muslim, but as fellow human being. I can not help thinking about it, if a European country would have to live and suffer under illegal occupation, It is quite obvious Europe and the rest of the world would have reacted immediately. Why then Palestinians, are the Arabs an exception? You can not ignore the fact that it was the Western powers who co-founded Israel and Zionism, without the help of these Western countries, the erection of the Zionist state Israel never would be able to emerge.Is it right that these countries should go free from responsibility? Is it not specifically their obligation to take the blame for what is going on in Palestine today. The Palestinian issue is therefore a global problem and for that reason it requires an international commitment.
MO: What should we do to combat Zionism?
SA: Restrict its power by actively increasing the resistance. By both local and global dissemination of knowledge and facts to others using the network, blogs, etc. Stopping the arms trade and military cooperation with Israel. Stop using Israeli products and call for a boycott of these products.
MO: What is the situation in the vicinity of Malmö? In response to the demonstration against Israel during the Davis World Cup, the tennis competition, did these activities increased the awareness of the Palestinian struggle, and the support of the Swedish and the international anti-Zionist movement?
SA: I think that more people now dare to protest publicly and demonstrate a clear solidarity with the Palestinian people. It is important not to stand passive!
MO: Do you think that Swedish Jews sufficiently have moved away from Zionism and terrorism carried out in their name?
SA: My understanding is that some Jews have actually been expelled from Israel for being critical and supportive of the Palestinians in combating Zionism, however,it is reprehensible that there are still so few Jews who does not condemn Israeli policies, taken a more critical stance regarding the occupation.The Jews are after all our fellow human beings together with the Arabs they should have a moral responsibility to support the Palestinians and condemn the occupation.
MO: Will Palestine be free one day? Are you hopeful?
SA: When the idea of justice and equal rights will take effect, only when the Palestinians and the "peace process" is based upon justice and equal rights for all, then Palestine will be free.
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"World Jewish Zionism, today, constitutes the last racist ideology still surviving and the Zionist's state of Israel, the last outpost of "Apartheid" in the World. Israel constitutes by its mere existence a complete defiance to all international laws, rules and principles, and the open racism manifested in the Jewish State is a violation of all ethics and morals known to Mankind."

Anti-Sionistiska Partiet - Anti-Zionist Party - لا-للصهيونية

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The Gaza " coup" - Complete Statement by Ellen Rosser

The intent: Reconciliation between Abu Mazen and Haniyeh.
Peace, Ellen Rosser


ELLEN ROSSER

to Hiyam Noir

9:08 AM

From September 2006 to June 2007, I had an office in Gaza and was witness to some of the events that led to Hamas’ takeover of Gaza. DidHamas stage a coup, a planned overthrow of the Palestinian Authorityin Gaza? The answer is definitely no. What then did happen?

My first experience of the conflict between Fatah and Hamas in Gaza occurred the first day that I arrived in Gaza City by taxi from theErez border crossing, I needed to use an ATM to get shekels, and the driver took me to a bank next to the central park. But people were running away from the area and at the bank the men waiting to use the ATM were standing flat against the wall. Bullets were flying a little farther down the street. I ran from the taxi to the ATM, where the men politely put me at the front of the line, as they always do for women,. I took the shekels, and ran back to the taxi, looking down the street to see where the bullets were coming from that I should dodge.

Some months later, the next events that I personally was aware of in the tragic series occurred when the Hamas minister of the Interior, Siam Siyad, wanted a video tape showing who had killed a Palestinian Authority soldier and wounded two others. It had been in the possession of Jad, who was killed, and then in the possession of Major Baha Balouja of Fatah, who refused to give it up.

Subsequently, Major Baha was threatened, and a few days later his two young sons were killed when gunmen opened fire on the car with darkwindows in which the children were being driven to school.I went with a Fatah friend to offer condolences to Major Baha,and while we were there, a man came from Prime Minister Haniyeh, who was waiting at the Rafah border to return from Egypt, and said that the Prime Minister wanted to come to offer his condolences and wanted to know if that would be alright. Major Baha said “yes.”

In other words, Prime Minister Haniyeh knew nothing about who killed the two ittle boys and wished to express his sorrow at the tragedy. A few days later, however, he may have heard Indications that Hamas members were involved, for on television he said that if “we,” i.e. Hamas, have done anything wrong, we will pay “diwa,” (blood money, a traditional Palestinian way of resolving such an issue)..

However, that night when Haniyeh was entering Gaza after being held at the border for eight hours while Egypt decided what to do about the millions of dollars he was bringing with him, there was an assassination attempt on his life by some men who guarded the border,Mohammed Dahlan’s men. Haniyeh was not hit by the bullets shot from the roof of the border crossing terminal, but his son and Ahmed Yusef, who were next to him, were wounded. Haniyeh did not dwell extensively on the attempt, saying merely on television that he was willing to be a martyr.

President Mahmoud Abbas, I am sure, was not aware of the attempted assassination of Haniyeh any more than Haniyeh was aware of who killed the two boys. Indeed, after the Fatah and Hamas men began attacking each other in the city every day, the two leaders both called for peace and an end of the fighting several times, and after a joint call for peace, the fighting would stop for a day or two, but then it would resume.

A number of times I had to wait in my office/apartment until the shooting moved away from my area, then hurry down to the street to go to the nearby bakery and vegetable stores to stock up on food for a few days. Usually an armed man on the corner--I never knew whether he would be Hamas or Fatah--would look up and down the street for me and then wave me across. Both sides were courteous and helpful to the old, American woman.

At one point, while the bullets were volleying back and forth down the main streets in Gaza City and elsewhere, the US or more precisely, I’m sure, Gen. Keith Dayton, tried to intervene on behalf of Fatah, by sending in a truckload or more of weapons. Hamas learned of the shipment, however, seized it and used it. But it is important to note that the anger of the Hamas men on the street was not directed against the Palestinian Authority nor President Abbas but rather against the Fatah leader who had arrested—and tortured—Hamas men during the second intifada: Mohammed Dahlan.

One night I heard from my office window someone reciting through a very loud speaker what sounded like a poem. But in the middle of it I heard “Mohammed Dahlan, Israelian, Americaniya” In other words, Dahlan because of his previous actions was considered to be an Israeli and an American—not a Palestinian nationalist. One wonders what would have happened if Dahlan had not been the Head of Security for the P.A.;would the conflict in Gaza have happened?

The people of Gaza and all the other political parties were very angry at Fatah and Hamas for fighting and disrupting the lives of all the people. However, I must emphasize again that it was not the leaders—Abbas and Haniyeh—who were responsible. Indeed, one day the Gaza director of the Friendship and Peace Society, who is neither Fatah nor Hamas, and I organized a children’s demonstration against the fighting. Forty children in white shirts and white caps with signs saying in Arabic::“ Peace Fatah and Hamas”; “Stop the Fighting”; and a quotation from the Koran—“If Muslim kills Muslim of set intent, he has eternal punishment.”

When the bus full of children drove up to Haniyeh’s office, his office director welcomed us and thanked us, saying he agreed with us. And when the bus drove up to Abbas’ office, his office manager welcomed us and thanked us, saying he agreed with us.Then we went to the central park to join the other political parties and civil societies who were protesting the fighting.

Since the leaders were unable to prevent the fighting on the street and gunmen were shooting down the boulevards and from the tops of tall buildings, it was a relief for the people of Gaza when one party won, the fighting stopped and people could resume their lives without fear of becoming a civilian casualty.

Was there a “coup” in Gaza? I don’t think that is the proper word for what happened. There were some people on both sides who wanted to overthrow some individuals on the other side. Mohammed Dahlan was hated by Hamas, though he was not present in Gaza then, and there was an attempt to take the life of Haniyeh by Dahlan’s men. However, I think one might call what happened more a vendetta than a coup. And I think everyone should emphasize that the leaders—Haniyeh and Abbas—were not responsible for the fighting and indeed tried to stop it several times.

In other words, it would be appropriate for Abbas and Haniyeh to continue their peacemaking roles. Abbas could emphasize to the world, especially to Gen. Keith Dayton, that Hamas is not a“terrorist” organization, it should not be on the “terrorist” list,and its members should not be in prison for belonging to Hamas.

Moreover, Abbas could encourage the EU and US to talk to Hamas, which is currently being unjustly boycotted just as the PLO was boycotted from l987-1991, during which time Arafat was calling for peace just as Hamas is calling for the two state solution now. And Haniyeh could reciprocate by becoming part of the peace-loving unity government and by calling for elections so that the Palestinian people can exercise
their right to freely choose a new government.

Dr. Ellen Rosser, President
Friendship and Peace Society
_____________________________

RELATED Did Hamas Carry out a Coup in Gaza 2007 ?

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Arab-Korean Blood Spent Fighting Zionism

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Rally against Israel

6/3/2006

Ghassan Kanafani was a master-mind writer and member of the PFLP that was assassinated by the Zionist enemy when his car was blown up.

It was in a continued strategy of robbing the Palestinian people and struggle of its brain-power by killing and assassinating intellectuals especially those conducting revolutionary work on behalf of the cause of liberation of Palestine but it was also an attempt to rob the generations to come of their history.

The list is long but amongst it is yet another, one of the most important historic writers of Palestine’s history Abdul Wahab alKayyali who wrote the most important of books on the modern history of Palestine, completing the first part before the hand of treachery of the Zionist enemy assassinated him in his office in Beirut ahead of him writing his part two of the modern history of Palestine.

Kanfani as well as Kayyali had one main aim of writing their books and that is to historically document the heroic and self-less continued armed struggle tradition of the resistance of the Arab people of Palestine against the war machine of the Zionist enemy supported by the war machines of imperialist Britain and later imperialist America.

If it were just for the people of Palestine they would have most probably driven out the Zionist settlers-invaders, but the conspiracy against Palestine had never ever been a purely Palestinian issue.

Rather the regional comprador of traitor kings and selling-out Arab leaders with the help and support of British and American imperialism had always been an instrument of destruction and sabotage of the Palestinian cause and still are.

Therefore, it comes as no surprise that we should divert our attention to the defeat of world imperialism as well as Arab reaction when we embark upon the honorable mission of liberating our homeland as Arab Palestinians.

Not for an instance was the cause of the Palestinians isolated from the Arab struggle for independence and reunification on a national (Qawmi) level, nor has it ever been de-linked from the internationalist dimension to our struggle and that is of the necessity of instilling a decisive defeat on world imperialism particularly American imperialism.

If just for the record we must ask this question: would have Iraq been encircled like it was if it weren’t for regional (Iqlimi) treachery in its invasion and occupation and if it weren’t for the imbalance of the international scene in favor of American and British imperialism!

So within this understanding we present to the reader the short documented history of war against imperialism that the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) launched along-side the Arab people which is a history kept unknown to many especially in the Arab world and through Arab reaction and imperialist hiding of the facts of this history.

When imperialists and Jewish world power control the world, like they do now, it is easy for them to commit historical forgery. Their capacity for hiding facts of history is well documented in the big myths they spread of the hollowcause, but they are even more sinister and deliberate than that targeting and killing historians such as Kanfani and Kayyali to present their own deformed version of history a history forged and deceiving.

And as many now he who controls history controls the present and the future.

Many generations of Arabs will remember the great Arab victory of crossing the Suez Canal on October 6th 1973, but very few know the role the north Koreans played when they stood shoulder to shoulder with their Arab comrades to fight Zionism and spent their precious Korean blood doing so and without hesitation.

They were not fighting for Korean soil but Arab soil and they understood that where imperialism was anti-imperialists must be there to crush the head of the imperialist snake and its comprador agents. They were not fighting in Korea but in Arabia though in reality they were really fighting for Korea.

So when we fight for Korea we are fighting for Arabia and vice versa!

It was these Koreans who helped make that Arab victory against Zionism with humble quietness and not much flare that we must commemorate today but more importantly follow in their footsteps and learn the important lessons of how to confront imperialism-Zionism in our time.

The DPRK had dispatched its men and women in a show of international unity with the Arab people, fighting “Israel” in the 1973 Arab attack against the Zionist enemy that culminated in the crossing of the Suez Canal in October of that year.

A notable Korean figure of the October 6th 1973 war was general Cho Myong Rok(1) who was dispatched by great leader Kim Il Sung commanding (after the appeal for help by then Egyptian president Sadaat) a force of 1500 army members of the Korean People’s army (battle experienced veterans from the Vietnam and Korean wars), where general Rok along with Husni Mubarak led surprise attacks against Zionist airfields and the Koreans helped the Egyptian army cross the Suez canal on that famous crossing that landed “Israel” its first Arab military defeat. At the same time DPRK missiles were positioned to protect beloved Cairo of any retaliatory attack.

Great Leader Comrade Kim Il Sung without hesitation dispatched the heroes of Songun and Juche to the holiest of grains in Egypt and Syria where they with smiles on their faces gave their blood to the Arab people and in that glorious war of confronting Zionism and Western imperialism, drawing heroic model examples as they did that the current generations must learn from and emulate.

It was also at the same time in 1973 that beloved leader Kim Il Sung sent DPRK fighters to defend Syria and to mix the blood of Syrian and Korean fighters in the glorious war against “Israel”!

Here is an excerpt from the Association of Asian Affairs (2):

North Korea sent 25 pilots to Syria during the 3rd Arab-Israeli war of 1966 and 30 pilots to Egypt and Syria during the 4th Arab-Israeli war of 1973. In 1976, North Korea sent more than 40 pilots to Syria.

How can the Arab people ever forget the sacrifices of the DPRK soldiers and Beloved President Great Leader Kim Il Sung? How can we glance over these acts and be implicated in the historical cover-up of this great noble and historical act of internationalist solidarity and joint combat?

When the war was over, in return for this act the Egyptian president Awar Saadat, as a show of appreciation, sent the DPRK six scud missiles. This served as a profoundly thankful gesture in appreciation of General Rok’s heroism in service of the Arab people.

It was out of these scud missiles that the DPRK took apart, by which the DPRK missile program was kick-started, and out of which the DPRK learned how to build its own missiles, becoming a world exporter of missiles to the Arab nation for years to come.

The dialectical relationship of anti-imperialists in joint struggle is one that benefits all!

Western leftists of today who rally around Korea of Songun do not read this history of resolve against Zionism and how Korean blood was spent defending Arab lands against “Israel”. In their rush to appease their Zionist masters they want to erase or ignore these facts of history. We shall not let them commit this act of historical treason!

Likewise, reactionaries as well as liberals in the Arab world want to dissociate from this history. They want to ignore the DPRK sacrifices to the cause of the Arab people and to disaffiliate from communism. This is because they do not understand or do not want to understand the imperialist dimension of the fight against “Israel” and US imperialism.

They want to ignore the dialectical relationship of our joint struggle against imperialism!

That to successfully defeat “Israel” the Arabs must successfully defend the DPRK and that for the DPRK to defend itself it must safeguard the Arab cause against Zionism. The enemy is one! The cause is one!

This dialectical internationalist relationship and understanding of the Arab struggle is what I wish to emphasize in this article. In the process, I also wish to give tribute to the heroes of Juche and Songun for having watered with their holy blood the soil of Arabia fighting Zionism.

Every now and then the imperialists and the Arab misguided ask us: why is an Arab interested in the DPRK cause, in response we must proudly and loudly say:

Long live DPRK-Arab internationalism and together for the destruction of “Israel” and American imperialism!

References:

1. Korea Web-weekly: http://www.kimsoft.com/korea.htm
2. Association for Asian Research(AFAR):http://www.asianresearch.org

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Time for an American Intifada?

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February 4, 2010 by Jeff Gates

During the 1960 Christmas season, Americans flocked to the theaters to see Exodus, a 3-1/2 hour epic film featuring handsome freedom fighters and a riveting romance amidst the heroic triumph of Jewish Destiny over Arab Evil Doers. Set against a Yuletide backdrop of Biblical prophecy, moviegoers marveled as exiled Jews returned to their fabled promised land, a staple of popular culture to which Americans are first exposed as children in “Sunday school.”

Many moviegoers failed to realize that Exodus was not fact but fiction. Even now, few Americans realize the storyline was adapted for the screen from a 1958 novel by Leon Uris. The biggest bestseller since Gone with the Wind—a novel set during the Civil War of the 1860s—the film adaptation was directed by Hollywood icon Otto Preminger. The blockbuster’s stars included a young Paul Newman with his leading lady a blond Eva Marie Saint.

The cast included character actor Lee J. Cobb and Peter Lawford, married to Pat Kennedy, a sister of John F. Kennedy who was elected president the same year. By then, Lawford was a famous member of pop culture’s high profile “Rat Pack” that included singer Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Jr. and Joey Bishop. Italian crooner Sal Mineo, then a teen heartthrob, received an Academy Award nomination for his portrayal of a Jewish émigré.

An Oscar should have been awarded to Israel and its supporters for portraying this extremist enclave as a legitimate nation-state when, in reality, its founding traces to an alluring storyline. Forty-five years after the release of Exodus, American naiveté was again targeted by Jewish storytellers to induce the U.S. to war in the Middle East—only this time for real.

Then as now, Americans are easily swayed by sympathetic portrayals of an enclave granted nation-state recognition by President Harry Truman, a Christian-Zionist. The Missouri Democrat had famously read the Bible cover-to-cover five times by age 15. Truman was a True Believer in the same way that fundamentalist Christians believe—truly believe—that their Messiah will not return until the “Israelites” recover their ancestral home.

Preying on similar beliefs, Republican George W. Bush, another Christian-Zionist president, was induced with phony intelligence to wage war in Iraq. The false intelligence was traceable to Israelis, pro-Israelis or assets developed for that purpose. That invasion had long been a priority goal of those who believe—truly believe—in their right to an expansionist Greater Israel.

Yet as Shlomo Sand chronicles in The Invention of the Jewish People (2009), the historical evidence is scant either for an exile or an “exodus.” As with the movie, the return of a “Jewish People” to a Jewish homeland is “a conscious ideological composition” meant “to claim a higher cultural lineage” than what can be supported by the facts.

In lieu of the novel-writing skills of Leon Uris, the Zionist narrative featured Biblical archeologists such as William F. Albright who, in the 1920s, traveled to the Holy Land to excavate artifacts that would, as Sand puts it: “reaffirm the Old Testament and thereby the New.”

By interpreting his finds in Christian-Zionist terms, Albright and his colleagues not only unearthed Biblical “facts” that shaped the Sunday school curriculum, they also helped pre-stage the perceived legitimacy of a Jewish people returning from exile to a Jewish homeland. As Sand points out, if there was no exodus, how can there be a return? If there is no “Jewish People,” how can there be a homeland?

Yet these widely held beliefs remain the premise underlying Israel’s expansionist agenda and its rationale for heaping six decades of abuse on Palestinians who have lived there for centuries.

Political Expedience or Biblical Prophecy?

White House counsel Clark Clifford cautioned Truman that his reelection was unlikely absent the funding that Jewish-Americans—with Israel’s recognition—were eager to provide. In early May 1948, General George C. Marshall, Truman’s Secretary of State, argued vigorously against recognition. Strong objections were also heard from the diplomatic corps, the fledgling Central Intelligence Agency and the Pentagon’s Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Marshall, the top-ranked U.S. military officer in WWII, was outraged that Clifford put domestic political expedience ahead of U.S. foreign policy interests. Marshall told Truman that he would vote against him if he extended sovereign status to an enclave of Zionist terrorists, religious fanatics and what Albert Einstein and Jewish philosopher Hannah Arendt called “Jewish fascists.” Marshall insisted that State Department personnel never again speak to Clifford.

In March 1948, a Joint Chiefs paper titled “Force Requirements for Palestine” predicted the “Zionist strategy will seek to involve [the U.S.] in a continuously widening and deepening series of operations intended to secure maximum Jewish objectives.” Those objectives included an expansionist agenda for Greater Israel that envisioned the taking of Arab land, ensuring armed clashes in which the U.S. was destined to become embroiled.

The Joint Chiefs listed Zionist objectives as:

• Initial Jewish sovereignty over a portion of Palestine,
• Acceptance by the great powers of the right to unlimited immigration,
• The extension of Jewish sovereignty over all of Palestine,
• The expansion of “Eretz (Greater) Israel” into Transjordan and portions of Lebanon and Syria, and
• The establishment of Jewish military and economic hegemony over the entire Middle East.

Akin to the fictional portrayal in Exodus, those Zionists lobbying Truman assured him they would remain within the initial boundaries. We now know that was a lie. They also promised that the Zionist state would not become what it quickly became: a theocratic and racist enclave—albeit widely marketed by pro-Israeli media as the “only democracy in the Middle East.”

To remove all doubt as to the extremist goals of the Zionist project, the Joint Chiefs assessment added ominously:

“All stages of this program are equally sacred to the fanatical concepts of the Jewish leaders. The program is openly admitted by some leaders, and has been privately admitted to United States officials by responsible leaders of the presently dominant Jewish group–the Jewish Agency.”

Deceit from the Outset

A beguiling combination of Hollywood fiction, manipulated beliefs and outright lies remain at the core of this entangled alliance and the U.S.-Israeli “special relationship.” The deceit deployed to advance the hegemonic goals of the Zionist project remains obscured by an undisclosed media bias reinforced by a widespread pro-Israeli influence in popular culture. As with the 1960 film, the ongoing manipulation of thought and emotion lies at the core of this duplicity a half-century later.

In The Persuasion Explosion (1985), author Art Stevens reports that Exodus was a public relations ploy launched by Edward Gottlieb who sought a novelist to improve Israel’s image in the U.S. The name Uris originates with Yerushalmi, meaning “man of Jerusalem.” The film rights to Exodus were sold in advance of the book’s publication. Translated into dozens of languages, this masterpiece of mental and emotional manipulation quickly became a global phenomenon as it created favorable impressions of Israel.

The rewards are real for those who offer aid and comfort to this trans-generational deceit. When Truman’s campaign train traversed the nation as part of a 1948 whistle-stop tour, grateful Jewish nationalists refueled his campaign coffers with a reported $400,000 in cash ($3.6 million in 2010 dollars). Those funds helped transform his anticipated loss into a victory with support from pro-Israeli editorial boards that—after recognition—boosted Truman’s sagging popularity.

The Creation of Reliable Assets

Clark Clifford was rewarded with his career goal when he emerged as a top-paid Washington lawyer. After proving himself a pliable personality, he remained a reliable asset. During the G.H.W. Bush presidency, his combination of political prominence and perceived credibility provided cover for a massive bank fraud involving the Bank of Credit and Commerce International aided by Roger Altman, his Ashkenazi law partner.

In 2009, Hollywood released an action thriller (The International) starring Clive Owen and featuring a similar storyline involving the International Bank of Business and Credit. Neither Clifford nor Altman had experience in banking when their law firm enabled what prosecutors charged was a global criminal operation.

Media reports described the BCCI scheme as the largest bank fraud in history. This $20 billion transnational operation even featured the requisite Hollywood component: Clifford’s protégé was married to Lynda Carter, the star of Wonder Woman, a 1970s fantasy-adventure television series.

The real fantasy in this long-running geopolitical fraud lies in why U.S. lawmakers continue to befriend and defend a “nation” that has for so long—and so consistently—deceived and betrayed its most loyal ally. As a badly miscast Eva Marie Saint asked in her most memorable line in Exodus: “When will it ever end?”

The greatest wonder will be if, based on facts confirming the depth and duration of this duplicity, those lawmakers urging continued support for Israel are not charged with treason. [See: How the Israel Lobby Took Control of U.S. Foreign Policy.]

To restore its national security, the U.S. must shake off its entangled alliance with this extremist enclave. “Shaking off” is the literal translation of “intifada.”Those who know the true facts behind this trans-generational deception are quickly reaching the conclusion that the recognition of this enclave as a legitimate state was key to this ongoing fraud. Others may be waiting for the movie, American Intifada.

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