the palestinefreevoice

The Zionist's Settlement Industry

2012-01-28T04:28:00.000+02:00

The PalestineFreeVoice January 27 2012

Since the 1967 military occupation of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and the Golan Heights, Israel has built in these occupied territories civilian colonies, or settlements, and encouraged Israeli citizens and industries to move into them. Presently there are 135 Israeli settlements in the occupied territories and dozens of additional “outposts” – settlements not yet officially recognized by the Israeli government. These house over 562,000 Jewish Israeli residents: 282,000 in the West Bank (excluding Jerusalem), 260,000 in neighborhoods built in Arab Jerusalem or annexed to Jerusalem, and 20,000 in the Golan Heights.

The Israeli civilian construction has been one of the methods in which occupied areas were effectively annexed, partially or in full, into Israel. The on-going construction includes housing developments as well as extensive infrastructure projects such as roads and water systems for the exclusive use of Israeli settlers, on lands confiscated from Palestinians or declared “state lands” in various ways. The Israeli colonizing efforts are illegal by international law that stipulates that an occupying power moving its citizens into an occupied area is in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention, and any permanent changes made in the occupied land for such settlers is in violation of The Hague Regulations.

In this section of the database, we distinguish between three different forms of corporate involvement in the settlement industry: Israeli companies which are located in the settlements and thus use the resources of Palestinian land and labor in their production; Companies involved in sustaining the settlements and connecting them to Israel; Companies involved in real estate deals and the construction of Israeli infrastructure and settlements on occupied land.

InvolvementCategories Settlements' Products Israeli Construction on Occupied Land Services to the Settlements

Settlements' Products

Israeli industrial zones within the occupied territories hold hundreds of companies, ranging from small businesses serving the local Israeli settlers to large factories which export their products worldwide. Several settlements, especially in the Jordan Valley and the Golan Heights, produce agricultural goods, such as fruits and flowers, and sell them in Israel and abroad.

Settlement production benefits from low rents, special tax incentives, lax enforcement of environmental and labor protection laws and other governmental supports. Palestinians employed in these industrial zones work under severe restrictions of movement or organization, and with hardly no governmental protections, this many times results in exploitative employment practices and labor rights violations.

The origin of exported settlement products is often intentionally obscured. Companies hold marketing addresses within Israel, or market their products under a label which mixes their products with products from within Israel.

A.L. Five Stars A.S. Cohen Marketing Abadi Bakery ("Mizrahiot" Cookies)Ability Computer and Software Industries AdaFresh Adir Plastic Packaging Adumim Food Additives Afic Printing Products Agrexco Agricultural Export Company Ahava Dead Sea Laboratories Ahdut Factory for Tehina Halva and Sweets Almog Tradex Aluminum Construction C.L. Israel Amir Marketing and Investment in Agriculture Amnon and Tamar (Pyramid Herbal Seasonings)Amphorae Vineyard Apax Partners Arava Export Growers Aridan Printing Productions Aroma Nama Arza Wine Cellars T.R.Z.Assa Abloy Assaf Winery Atid Packaging Atzei Shitim Avgol Nonwoven Industries Ayelet Barkan B. Gaon Holdings B.R.B. Industries, BarBur Laundry Balfour Industries M.I.T (Balfour Springs Industry)Bar Mazon Produce Barkan Mounting Systems Barkan Wineries Bashan Winery Bazelet Hagolan Winery Beigel and Beigel Beita Improving the Quality of Building Best Stones Beton Atarot (formerly: Elad Imported Cement)Better and Different Binyamina Winery Blue Square Israel Bustan Hameshushim Winery Caesarea Carpets California Shayish and Carpenters Carmel Carpets Carmel Holdings (E.L.) (Betili)Cemex Chano Textile Chateau Golan Winery Chen Eastern Industries Chic Design Ltd. G&o Harel CIM Lustigman Citybook Services Clima Israel Aluminum Contact International (Kalia Israel Ammunition Co.)D.N.M Technical Equipment and Tools Danshar Holdings David Nona Dekel Acher Group (Dekel A.H.R)Delta Galil Industries Dispobud Distek Doron Furniture Design E.P.R. Systems Eastern Lines Easy Clean Eden Springs Edom UK Eitan and Inon Herbs El Ez Electra Elyahu Zalman & Sons Metal Tubes Industries Elyakim Ben Ari Emek Ayalon Furniture Enercon Ariel Enter Net Computers and Equipment Evyg Advanced Technology Extal FiberTech Formula Systems Fried Brothers Feather Industries Fun Bak Galran S.E. Industries Gat Shomron Winery General Mills (Pillsbury)Geshuri Advanced Technologies Geshuri and Sons Industries Givon Winery Golden Ryd Dyl Green Oil Energy Greenkote (Summet Hitech Coatings)Gush Etzion Winery H. Wagshal (H. Vagshal)Ha'alonim Marble 2000 (Haalonim)Ha'argaz Technopach Metal Industries Hacormim Vineyard Hadiklaim - Israel Date Growers Cooperative Hamashbir Holdings Hanson Israel (formerly: Pioneer Concrete Israel)Hatehof HeidelbergCement Hishtil Housing and Construction - Solel Boneh Infrastructures (formerly Solel Boneh)Housing and Construction Holding Co.I.R.P.C. Rubber Products Co.Idan Camping IDB Group Ikoo Designs Impertec Industries Intellitech Engineering Mechanical and Aviation Ishai Zion and Sons Israel Salt Company Israel Weg Engineering Israphot Industries Isratoys Italek, Aldo Ice Creams, Tartufo Ice Creams Ivgi Morris Jordan Plains Development Corporation Jordan River Herbs K. Schleisner Works Katzenstein Adler Kerur Habikha Keshet Prima Keter Plastic (Keter Group)Kfar Giladi Quarries Koralek Almog Sifting Machines and Production Systems Krashin Shalev Metal Industries Kravitz Land of Choice Olive Oil (Meshek Achiya)Lipski Plastic Industries Lithotech Medical Lotar Malam Team Mapal Plastic Products Matrix IT Maxima Air Separation Center Maya Foods, The Jerusalem Spice of Life Mayer's Cars and Trucks Medan General Contracting Earth Roads and Quarries Mega Print Mehadrin Group Meitarim Quarry Menachem Wagshal Meshek Zuriel Dairy Meytag High Tech Ventures Miriam Shoham Mofet B'Yehuda Mordechai Aviv Construction Industries Mordechai Binyamin and Sons Earth Works Mortan Marketing and Trade Motola Preserves Mul-T-Lock (formerly Rav Bariach)Neetuv Management and Development Co. New Noga Light Nitzanei Shalom Paper Industries Odem Mountain Winery Ofertex Industries Palphot Paz El Sinun Pelter Winery Plasto Polish (Barkan)Plustic Solutions Psagot Winery Ram Quality Products B.R. (Tip Top Toys Star)Ramat Hagolan Dairies Ratek Industries Readymix Industries Renaissan Rolbit Electronic Thermostats and Controllers Romix Mixing Equipment RonoPolidan Packaging Rosentoys, Buba-Li Industries SA.D.R. Construction Works Co.Salit (Mishor Edomim) Quarry and Plant Shai Key Metal Trade Shaked Carpets (Vinter Carpets)Shalgal (Food)Shamir Salads Shamrock Holding Shapir Civil and Marine Engineering Shomron Barkalit Tires Shufersal Si Kirsum SodaStream (The Soda Club Group)Spiral Glass Spray Metal Coatings Spyro Plastics Star Night Technologies Superbus Supergum Industries Susya Dairy T.A.C. Accessory Corporation Israel Tal El Collection and Recycling Tara (Milco Industries)Tayar Doors Tekoa Mushroom Farm Tel Bar Industries for Health Institutions Teltone Electronics Tempo Beverages Teperberg 1870 Tescom Software Systems Testing The Archivists The Arison Investments The Central Bottling Company (Coca Cola Israel)The Metrontario Group The Solor Group The Trendlines Group Tishbi Estate Winery (Habaron Wine Cellars)Tnuva Top Greenhouses TopTrans Translation Services Twitoplast Tzarfati Metals Industries Tzifha International Unikowsky Maoz Unilever Villar International Von Roll Transformers (formerly: Enerco Industries)Yahav Oranit Yamit E.L.I. Filtration and Water Treatment Yatir Quarry Ye'ela Quality Furniture Yerushalmi Rope Industries Zakai Agricultural Know-how and Inputs Zeev`s Technics Zriha Hlavin Industries

Israeli Construction on Occupied Land

In the occupied territories, including East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, Israeli housing and infrastructure projects effectively serve two goals: annexing more land and resources to Israel, and cutting off the local residents from the same.

In the West Bank, the jurisdiction area of the settlements takes up approximately 40% of the area while the built-up area covers only 3%. The construction of an Israeli road system, the use of which is forbidden for Palestinian residents, supports the creation of a separate Jewish-Israeli space on top of the fragmented Palestinian space. The roads and the settlements thus become part of the separation system, which also includes fences, walls, gates and checkpoints.

The Israeli construction industry in the West Bank and the Golan Heights includes real estate dealers and realtors, contractors, planners, and suppliers of materials, security and maintenance services to the construction sites.

A. Barkan and Co.A.B. Plan A.M.S. Barzani Brothers Ackerstein Industries Ahim Hasid Ahim Uzan Ahuzat Adi Construction Company Allied Holdings Almog C.D.A.I Alstom Aluel Construction Amos Hadar Properties and Investments (Hadar Group)Amy Metom Engineers and Consultants Ashdar Building Company Ashlad Ashtrom Group Aspen Real Estate Avi Cranes Avisror Moshe & Sons B. Yair Building Corporation Bank Leumi Barad Company for Landworks, Development and Roads Baran Group Ben Hasharon Bezeq - The Israeli Telecommunication Corporation Binyanei Bar Amana Construction and Development Biri Barashi Land Works, Development, Infrastructure and Roads Bobcat Company British Israel Investments C. Refael Projects Cape Gate Caterpillar Cellcom Israel Cement Roadstone Holdings (CRH)Cemex CIM Lustigman Clal Group CNH Global (Fiat Kobelco)Covenant Group D. Rotshtein Dalia Eliasfor - Building Contracting Company Danya Cebus DB International (formerly: DE Consult)Dekel Acher Group (Dekel A.H.R)Digal Investments and Holdings Dona Engineering and Construction E.D.I.G Construction Management Efgad Engineering and Construction Works Egis Rail Electra Electra Construction Eli Yohanan Engineers Emcol Euro Israel (I.S.)Eyal Itzkin Architects G Infinity Promotion and Investment H.Y.S. Nofei Israel (Israel View)Hagihon Company Haim Zaken Construction and Investments HBI Haerter Hofrey Hasharon Housing and Construction - Solel Boneh Infrastructures (formerly Solel Boneh)Housing and Construction Holding Co.IDB Group Industrial Buildings Corporation (IBC) - Mivney Taasiya Isra Marine Manufacture of Structures Israel Discount Bank JCB (J. C. Bamford Excavators)Jerusalem Economic Kal Binyan Kal Binyan - Tarmak Kiryat Sefer (Diur Modi'in)Kotler Adika Building Company Leader Management and Development (formerly: Leader Company)Liebherr Magen Constructional Engineering Works Maoz Daniel Construction Contractors Company Mei-Tal Engineering and Services Mery Building Works Contracting Company Meshulam Levinstein Group Contracting and Engineering Metal Factory Hamachresha Minrav Group MIRS Communications Mishab Building and Development Mishkan Eliyahu Construction and Investment Company Mitzpor Adumim Mizrahi Tefahot Bank Mordechai Aviv Construction Industries Moscow Metrostroy (Mosmetrostroy)N. O. A. Management and Consulting Neot Hapisga Modi'in Illit Nesher Israel Cement Enterprises Neuman Steel Industries for Construction New Way Traffic Olenik Transportation Earth Work and Road Constructions Om Brothers Construction Works Investment and Development Company Parsons Brinckerhoff (PB)Partner Communications (Orange)Peled - Klein Civil Engineering Pelephone Communications Peretz Bonei Hangev Peretz Louzon Construction & Development Peretz Sela Civil Engineering Pizzarotti & C.Ramet Rami Levi - Hashikma Marketing Readymix Industries Rubin Landsman Building Engineering S.P.R. Construction SA.D.R. Construction Works Co.Salit (Mishor Edomim) Quarry and Plant Sasi Building Earth and Road Contractors Shahaf Hasharon Investment and Finance Shapir Civil and Marine Engineering Shikun Dayarim Shlomo Cohen Construction Company Siemens Stern Group Tahal Group International Terex The Arison Investments The Metrontario Group Tzifha International Veolia Environnement Volvo Group Y.D. Barazani Y.D. Barazani Y.H.Dimri Construction and Development Yael Hill Yatz-Ar Yehezkel Morad Yehuda Welded Mesh YuGan Engineering Z.F. Building Company Zoko Enterprises (Zoko Shiluvim)

Services to the Settlements

This section of the database includes companies that provide services to the settlements, with an emphasis on discriminatory services that are provided solely to the Jewish settlements and not to their surrounding Palestinian neighbors, services that help connect the settlements to Israel and normalize their status, and security services dedicated to keeping Palestinians out of the settlements.

A.B. Plan A.M.S. Barzani Brothers Ace Hardware AdaFresh Afikim - Public Transportation Almog Tradex Alon Group Alstom Aluel Construction Amir Marketing and Investment in Agriculture Amisragas Amy Metom Engineers and Consultants Anglo Saxon Israel Aroma Espresso Bar Artivision Technologies Ashlad Aspen Real Estate Avi Cranes B. Gaon Holdings Bank Hapoalim Bank Leumi Bank Otsar HaHayal Bank Poalei Agudat Israel (PAGI)Ben Hasharon Bezeq - The Israeli Telecommunication Corporation Blockbuster Blue Square Israel BO Technologies British Israel Investments Cafe Cafe Castro Cellcom Israel Chen Eastern Industries Clal Group Commax Covenant Group Dan Public Transportation Co.Delek Israel Fuel Delta Galil Industries Dexia Group Dexia Israel (formerly: Local Municipality Treasure Bank)Discount Mortgage Bank Dor Alon E.P.R. Systems Eastern Lines Egged Israel Transport Cooperative Society Egis Rail Electra Export Investment Co First International Bank of Israel G.M. Advanced Fencing and Security Technologies Group4securicor (G4S)Hadiklaim - Israel Date Growers Cooperative Hagihon Company Haim Zaken Construction and Investments Hishtil Hofrey Hasharon IDB Group Industrial Buildings Corporation (IBC) - Mivney Taasiya Israel Discount Bank ISS ISS Israel Comprehensive Business Services Jerusalem Bank Jerusalem Economic Jordan Plains Development Corporation KalRam Yacobowitz Kerur Habikha Leumi Mortgage Bank Magen Constructional Engineering Works Marom Technologies Matimli ml Mayer's Cars and Trucks Mehadrin Group Mercantile Discount Bank Merkavim Transportation Technologies Meytag High Tech Ventures Minrav Group Mizrahi Tefahot Bank Modi'in Ezrachi Mofet B'Yehuda Momentum S.O.S.Motorola Solutions Motorola Solutions Israel NaanDan Jain Irrigation Partner Communications (Orange)Paz Oil PazGas Peled - Klein Civil Engineering Pelephone Communications Peretz Sela Civil Engineering Radwin Rami Levi - Hashikma Marketing RE/MAX Israel (Impact Property Developers)SAE Afikim (AfiMilk)Shahaf Hasharon Investment and Finance Shamrad Electronics Shufersal Siemens Super Pharm (Israel)Superbus Tahal Group International The Solor Group The Trendlines Group Tuv Nord Group Tzarfati Car Services Veolia Environnement Y.D. Barazani Y.D. Barazani Yahav Bank for Government Employees Yahav Oranit Yatz-A

Relevant Links : Settlement Map from Betselem B'tselem about the Settlements Peace Now List of Settlements Peace Now about the Settlements The Economic Cost of the Settlements by Shir Hever The 4th Geneva Convention The Hague Regulations

More relevant links: Corporate Watch
http://www.corporatewatch.org/?lid=3600

Source : Whoprofits?

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"Palestine is the heart of Arab countries" - Hiyam Noir

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Opinions expressed are those of their respective authors and do not necessarily reflect those of The PalestineFreeVoice,all publishing is for information services only.

PA must resign free-willingly or be forced to leave !

2012-01-23T12:36:00.000+02:00

January 21 2012

Hiyam Noir

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Before the latest Palestinian democratic election 2006, and throughout the years thereafter, to this very day tensions in the domestic Palestinian political environment has threatening the viability of a Palestinian self-rule, resulting in an increased political, social, and economic deterioration in the occupied Palestinian territory.

Hamas movement, which on its anti corruption, change and social reform program "social, welfare, cultural, and educational activities program, won 76 of 132 Parliamentary seats defeated the formerly governing Fateh who only secured 43 seats. Hamas assumed power on 29 March 2006, and faced an immediate international boycott because of it’s morally justifiable inimical position towards the Israeli assailant and Palestinian land besetter, the Zionist enterprise Israel - and exactly, as it was covertly planned ahead of the Palestinian elections, the Palestinian unity government was shortly thereafter dissolved.

Despite a democratic electoral result, donor countries began withdrew funding from the Palestinian economy, and the Israeli occupant withheld the $750 million in tax revenue it collects on behalf of the PA. The United States froze an estimated $400 million, and the EU terminated its transfers amounting to approximately $600 million annually. The Arab League,Iran,and Saudi Arabia declared their willingness to commit funds, but the banking restrictions by the end of the reporting period posed transfer-problems ; the Amman-based Arab Bank, for example, frozed the PA’s Single Treasury Account.

The oppressive condition of physical, mental, social, and economic distress of the Israeli occupation has caused a dire economic situation, entrenched into every corner of the Palestinian society, including among the previous rather economically well-off Palestinian middle class.

The devastating effects of continued closure, occupation and separation have caused a high level of unemployment. Extreme poverty is spreading in the Palestine territories. Humiliation at the hands of Israeli soldiers, combined with an extensive network of curfews, closures and blockades has not only restricted the Palestinians’ movement outside of their towns or villages, but also placed millions under a devastating house arrest.

The Israeli occupant is withholding Palestinian tax revenues, growing is the rift between donors and the Palestinian Authority (PA), the withdrawal of funding, ensuing economic repercussions. The loss of ability to provide and protect the Palestinian family from harm, combined with home demolitions have had an extremely negative impact on the Palestinian family, in particular to the women. The unemployed Palestinian man is left with a deep sense of frustration and hopelessness as he feel a loss of ability to provide economical security for his family.

The PA West Bank interim - government, which until this very day in its governing, still is collaborating with the Zionist enterprise Israel through it’s security services, embodied by Fatah extremists, must resign or be forced to leave.The PA has not been able to produce any solutions, unwilling and unable to compromise with Hamas and other Palestinian political parties to breach the political gridlock, PA has in it’s immaturity – carelessness and callousness, caused mountains of problems and unspeakable suffering to the Palestinian people.END

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January 21 2012

Israel crushing middle-class Palestinians

The slow economic collapse being witnessed across the occupied territories, while worsening now, is inevitable so long as Palestinians languish under occupation, writes Khaled Amayreh in Hebron

With high consumer prices, static or dwindling salaries, rising unemployment and over-taxation, many ordinary Palestinians are no longer able to make ends meet.

The situation has been described as both explosive as well as potentially destabilising as the Palestinian Authority (PA) stands virtually powerless to overcome or even mitigate the harshest economic crisis hitting the occupied territories since the PA's founding in 1994.

Some families have been forced to take their children out of college because they can no longer afford to pay tuition fees amounting to a thousand dollars per semester.

During Yasser Arafat's era, somewhat generous subsidies were paid to universities, enabling poor students to pursue college education even if they didn't pay tuition. However, nearly all subsidies and student loans have now ceased, leaving a crippling effect on the financial wellbeing of many institutions of higher learning.

An official from Al-Quds University at Abu Dis near Jerusalem told Al-Ahram Weekly last week that, "only the rich can now afford to get a college education; if you don't have the money, you simply can't register in college, even if you happen to be brilliant and have high scores."

The situation becomes even harsher when a given family has two, or three, or even four who want a college education. In this case, the choices become stark and harsh, as the family is forced to choose between putting food on the table on the one hand and having their children educated on the other.

Traditionally, Palestinians attached enormous importance to education, viewing it as a secure investment for the future. Hence the frustration and desperateness exuded by poor families unable to pay rising tuition fees for their children.

What is especially sad is the fact that those students who are refused entry to college because they can't afford tuition often seek employment in Jewish settlements. They say they have no choice and the PA seems to silently agree with them.

This is especially disturbing as the expansion of Jewish colonies is considered the single biggest threat to Palestinian dreams for a viable independent state on the West Bank and Gaza.

But if one can survive without receiving a college degree, one definitely can't survive without food. According to consumer prices data, food prices in the occupied Palestinian territories are amongst the highest in the world. And when one combines high food prices with ever-soaring inflation, the situation becomes untenable.

For example, a kilogramme of rice is sold at a dollar and a half in the West Bank, while a kilo of sugar is sold at nearly two dollars.

Similarly, a standard cooking gas (butane) cylinder (12 kilogrammes) is sold at 75 Shekels or $21. As to fuel, a litre of unleaded gasoline is sold at $1.80 while a litre of diesel has reached $1.70. The overall outlook becomes ever bleaker if we remember that the average monthly salary for most Palestinian civil servants doesn't exceed $600-700. In comparison, the annual per capita income in Israel reaches $20,000.

So no matter how hard one would try to tighten one's belt and adopt the severest austerity measures, one would still be at loss as to how to make ends meet.

This week, Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad appeared on television to explain to the public the financial plight besetting the PA. He said his government was trying to do the utmost to keep the situation under control. He vowed to help the "weakest sectors of society," saying he won't allow electricity and water supplies to be cut off from those who can't pay the bills.

The problem, however, is that his "utmost" and best efforts may not be sufficient or good enough to bring solace to tens of thousands of families, thoroughly crushed, even to the point of starvation, by the present economic crisis.

Fayyad said his government would soon impose taxes on those untaxed or under-taxed, stressing that the new taxes wouldn't hurt the poor. However, some economists have already dismissed the new taxation plans as "deformed and inequitable".

"These are basically deformed plans which will make our taxation system even more deformed and more unjust," said Nasser Abdel-Karim, professor of economics at Birzeit University.

Many PA officials go to great lengths to justify the current policy outlook, giving economic data and explaining how the Palestinian economy can't stand on its own feet. However, only few would be honest enough to face the fact that a truly viable and prosperous economy is impossible under foreign military occupation. The two are simply an oxymoron.

Such an economy inherently lacks the oxygen to grow and prosper, which means that Palestinians, including Prime Minister Fayyad, would be deceiving and cheating themselves if they thought they could attain their economic goals while nearly every aspect of their life, economic and otherwise, is still tightly controlled by Israel.

Another relevant issue that should be kept in mind is the fact that the financial survival of the PA depends to a very large extent on politically motivated donations or aid from Western countries, especially the United States. Many pundits understand that Western aid to the PA, that prevents the Ramallah regime from reaching complete financial collapse, is inextricably tied to political conditions that keep the PA in a perpetual state of subservience to Israel.

This, some commentators argue, suggests that the PA should ask itself some really hard questions regarding the wisdom of its very existence under current circumstances whereby it is burdened with the task of catering for five million people while being utterly deprived of basic financial and economic freedoms that would enable it to carry out this task properly.(end)

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"Palestine is the heart of Arab countries" - Hiyam Noir

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Opinions expressed are those of their respective authors and do not necessarily reflect those of The PalestineFreeVoice,all publishing is for information services only.

ANONYMOUS : Don't Mess With Us !

2012-01-20T19:55:00.003+02:00

A New Era Has Come, Anonymous is no longer playing nice, and we do not intend to ever play nice.We have seen you Corrupt our People, Corrupt our country and we will not sit and watch while you allow bills such as SOPA and PIPA to be passed.

On January 19, 2012 a popular sharing website named Mega-upload was taken down. We were not hesitant and reacted quickly. Remaining to our word, we took down their main sources (??), MIAA and FBI are down.

Our Power is too strong and soon they will have to listen to the people. This is a time of action. We as a nation must come together and fight the tyrants!

Do not sit and watch Do not sit and cheer! Use your powers.

Artists be creative, Singers be lyrical, writers spread our word! We will not besilenced!We are Anonymous! We are legion! We do not Forgive ! We do not forget ! Expect Us!

NEWS ON THE REVOLUTION :

https://twitter.com/#!/bioniK_
https://twitter.com/#!/anonops
https://twitter.com/#!/YourAnonNews
https://twitter.com/#!/AnonymousIRC

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The word is spread !

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"Palestine is the heart of Arab countries" - HiyamNoir
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Opinions expressed are those of their respective authors and do not necessarily reflect those of The PalestineFreeVoice,all publishing is for information services only.

War Plan Iran Dispelling the Lies, Telling the Truth about Western Aggression in the Persian Gulf

2012-01-16T22:54:00.000+02:00

GR Online News Reader Series

N-Book No. 1 - 2012

January 16, 2012

Note to Readers:

Remember to bookmark this page for future reference.

The year 2012 may become known as a watershed for humanity – the year when mankind was precipitated into a global conflagration involving nuclear weapons. The signs are indeed grimly ominous as formidable military forces converge on the Persian Gulf in the long-running stand-off between the United States and Iran.

On side with the US are its European allies in NATO, primarily Britain, Washington’s Middle East client states: Israel and the Arab monarchies of the Persian Gulf – all bristling with weapons of mass destruction. Recent naval exercises by Iran in the Strait of Hormuz have also displayed a fierce arsenal of missiles and military capability, and Iran has strategic alliances with Russia and China, both of whom will not stand idly by if their Persian partner is attacked.

As we have consistently analysed on Global Research, the conflict between the US-led powers and Iran has wider ramifications. It is part and parcel of Washington’s bid to engineer the social and political upheavals across the Arab World in order to redraw the region in its strategic interests. It is no coincidence that fresh from NATO’s conquest of and regime change in Libya, the focus has quickly shifted to Syria – a key regional ally of Iran. As Michel Chossudovsky has pointed out “the road to Tehran goes through to Damascus”. Regime change in Syria would serve to isolate Iran. Subjugating Iran and returning it to Western tutelage is the prize that Washington and its allies have been seeking for the past 33 years ever since their client the Shah, Mohammad Rezā Pahlavi, was deposed by the Islamic Revolution in 1979.

Iran is an energy-rich colossus, with oil and, more importantly, natural gas reserves that put it, with approximately 10% of global reserves in the world’s top three oil economies alongside Washington’s client states of Saudi Arabia and Iraq. In sharp contrast, the US has less than 2% of global oil reserves.

The conquest of Iran's oil riches is the driving force behind America's military agenda.

The US-led conquest of Iraq – costing over a million lives in a nine-year occupation – is part of Washington’s long-held plans to dominate the globe’s vast energy resources that reside in the Persian Gulf and Central Asian regions. The decade-long war in Afghanistan is another flank in this US bid for hegemony over the fuel for the capitalist world economy. For nearly three decades, the US-led Western capitalist world has been deprived of exploiting Iranian energy wealth. The Islamic Republic has remained defiantly independent of Washington’s control, not just in terms of its vast hydrocarbon riches, but also politically. Iran is no puppet of the West as it was formerly under the despotic Shah Mohammad Rezā Pahlavi.

Tehran has shown itself to be a trenchant critic of Western imperialist meddling in the region and fawning over the criminal Israeli persecution of Palestinians. Another important source of Western animus towards Iran and the deeply held desire for regime change is the loss that the Iranian revolution implies for the lucrative American, British and French weapons industry. When Shah Mohammad Rezā Pahlavi was kicked out in February 1979, so too was a massive market for Western arms dealers. The recent $50 billion arms sales to Saudi Arabia – the “biggest-ever in history” – that had the Pentagon salivating, would be easily replicated in Iran, if a similar client regime could be installed there.

From the Western powers’ point of view, Iran is both an elusive prize and a frustrating obstacle. Bringing Iran back into the orbit of Western capitalist control has the added significance of depriving energy and other geopolitical advantages to rival powers, in particular Russia and China. In a strategic review earlier this month, Washington highlighted China as its pre-eminent global competitor in the coming decades. The militarized agenda towards China was also heralded by US President Barack Obama during his Asia-Pacific tour at the end of 2011. China is heavily dependent on Iranian oil. Some 20 per cent of all Iranian crude oil exports are traded with China. The latter has billions of dollars worth of energy investments in Iran, in particular the natural gas sector, which energy analysts view as the primary fuel in forthcoming decades. Washington’s policy of hostility and regime change towards Iran and furthering its hegemony over this vital region is as much about wresting control from its perceived competitors, Russia and China. That factor takes on added importance as America’s economic power wanes.

These issues form the bigger picture that explains the drive for war in the Persian Gulf, which the mainstream media has chosen to carefully ignore. The broader implications of this war are either trivialized or not mentioned. People are led to believe that war is part of a "humanitarian mandate" and that both Iran as well as Iran's allies, namely China and Russia, constitute an unrelenting threat to global security and "Western democracy"

While the most advanced weapons system are used, America's wars are never presented as "killing operations" resulting in extensive civilian casualties. While the incidence of "collateral damage" is acknowledged, US-led wars are heralded as an unquestionable instrument of "peace-making" and "democratization".

The selection of articles below is intended to give readers a condensed overview of the events and issues at stake in the so-called stand-off between the US, its allies, and Iran. We have selected articles with a news emphasis while also providing a historical background.

In Part I, Playing with Fire: Covert Acts of Aggression, Provocation and War, our reports and analyses show how the military build-up in the Persian Gulf has an alarming deliberation and potential for an all-out regional conflict. We also expose Washington’s criminal covert war against Iran, including the assassination of Iranian scientists and the incursion of the country’s territory with spy drones. However, we don’t merely report the occurrence of these events, our writers show how this mainly US-led militarization is part of the wider strategy for American global dominance.

We also demonstrate in Part II, War-Making is a Crime: The Latest Episode in America’s Long Record, that the belligerent policy of Washington and its allies is criminal. Before even firing a shot, the Western powers are violating international laws and protocols of diplomacy. Equipped with this legal insight and knowledge is essential for citizens to mount an effective anti-war movement. In this section, we also provide a historical background showing that Washington’s hostility towards Iran is but the latest episode in a long history of criminal war-making by the US.

Central to the Western powers' avowed rationale in the Persian Gulf is their presentation of Iran as a threat to world peace, in particular from its alleged development of nuclear weapons. In Part III, Media Manipulation: Lies, Distortions and Selling Yet Another War to the Public, we dispel the myths, fog and fabrications behind these allegations to show that Iran does not have, nor is intending to build, nuclear weapons. Its “nuclear ambitions” (a phrase so often said with sinister connotations) are to develop civilian energy and medical capabilities – well within the provisions and entitlements of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Countless inspections over several years by the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), have not found any evidence to support Western claims. Yet these well-worn and hollow claims continue to be recycled in the mainstream media. The IAEA has also shown itself to have become a willing political tool for Western governments and intelligence agencies by casting sinister doubt on the Iranian nuclear programme even though the IAEA has not found any proof to justify such doubts. We show that the supposed nuclear threat feared by the Western powers is a specious pretext for their otherwise criminal aggression towards Iran and its 80 million people.

Finally, in Part IV Towards a Global Conflagration, we point to the very real danger of a horrendous cataclysm – if Western governments persist in their criminal drumbeat for war in the Persian Gulf. Russia and China are fully aware that a war on Iran is a stepping stone towards a broader war. The Russian government, in a recent statement, has warned the US and NATO that "should Iran get drawn into any political or military hardships, this will be a direct threat to our national security.”

The region is on a hair-trigger for a conflagration that would involve nuclear weapons and the collision of global powers in what would constitute World War III. The consequences are barely imaginable for the loss of life in such a scenario and for the very future of the planet. Yet all the while, the mainstream media has served to justify this march to war or to downplay its horrific possibilities.

The complacency of Western public opinion --including segments of the US anti-war movement-- is disturbing. No concern has been expressed at the political level as to the likely consequences of a US-NATO-Israel attack on Iran, using nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear state.

Such an action would result in "the unthinkable": a nuclear holocaust over a large part of the Middle East. It should be noted that a nuclear nightmare would occur even if nuclear weapons were not used. The bombing of Iran's nuclear facilities using conventional weapons would contribute to unleashing a Chernobyl-Fukushima type disaster with extensive radioactive fallout.

The "Globalization of War" involving the hegemonic deployment of a formidable US-NATO military force in all major regions of the World is inconsequential in the eyes of the Western media.

War is not front page news in comparison to the most insignificant issues of public concern, including the local level crime scene or the tabloid gossip reports on Hollywood celebrities. The broader implications of this war on Iran are either trivialized or not mentioned. People are led to believe that war is part of a "humanitarian mandate" and that both Iran as well as Iran's allies, namely China and Russia, constitute an unrelenting threat to global security and "Western democracy".

In the face of ceaseless media disinformation, We at Global Research are committed to raising public awareness of the injustice and criminality being perpetrated by Western governments. We began this News Reader by saying that 2012 could be a watershed year for ominous reasons. It could also be a watershed year for a better future in which citizens rise up to avert war and overthrow their oppressive governments, to create societies that are worthy of human beings. In order to achieve that, we first need to know what is at stake and why. This Online News Reader (N-Book) aims to do that.

Finian Cunningham, Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, January 16, 2012

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"Palestine is the heart of Arab countries" - Hiyam Noir
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Opinions expressed are those of their respective authors and do not necessarily reflect those of The PalestineFreeVoice,all publishing is for information services only.

The Zionization of American politics and how it could be terminated

2012-01-12T22:47:00.000+02:00

By Allan Hart

10 January 2012

Alan Hart maps out a way for the de-Zionization of US politics: making politicians accountable to those who elect them and not the big money special interest lobbies through new legislation requiring that all elections be funded from taxation, with the revenue ring-fenced so that it could be used only for elections.

The first headline I thought of for this article was “The Zionization of American democracy and how it could be terminated”, but then I said to myself: “Don’t be silly, Alan, there’s no democracy in the ‘Land of the Free’.”

Leaving aside the fact that any American can now be arrested and detained without due process, there’s no mystery about why.

There’s much more to democracy than voting every few years for the lesser of two or three evils or in America’s case naked political whores (with the exception, among the would-be Republican presidents, of Ron Paul).

A truth is that for democracy to exist, the voters have to be informed enough about critical issues in order to participate in, or at least follow, debate about policy options and choices and call and hold their politicians to account, between elections if necessary. On that basis I know of no country in the world where democracy exists.

“A truth about America is that what passes for democracy there is for sale to the highest lobby bidders, not only (I must emphasize) the Zionist lobby in all of its manifestations.”

In the so-called democratic or what used to be called the “free world” we have the framework for democracy but not the substance. When I joined Britain’s Independent Television News (ITN) as a very young reporter very many years ago, its great editor-in-chief, Geoffrey Cox, gave me the mission statement in one short sentence. “Our job is to help keep democracy alive.” Today I charge the mainstream media with betraying democracy. So I say thanks for the internet, warts and all. (The jury is still out on how far it will be allowed to propel Arab demands for democracy but it might assist Russians to prevent a return to Stalinism under Vladimir Putin and his state Mafia.)

A truth about America is that what passes for democracy there is for sale to the highest lobby bidders, not only (I must emphasize) the Zionist lobby in all of its manifestations.

On 9 December, quoting the latest findings of Public Campaign, a non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to “sweeping campaign reform that aims to dramatically reduce the role of big special interest money in American politics, International Business Times reported this amazing fact.

By employing a plethora of tax-dodging techniques, 30 multi-million dollar American corporations expended more money lobbying Congress than they paid in federal income taxes between 2008 and 2010, ultimately spending approximately 400,000 dollars every day – including weekends – during that three-year period to lobby lawmakers and influence political elections.

But that’s not all. Citizens for Tax Justice, the sister organization to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, reported that 68 of the 265 most consistently profitable Fortune 500 companies did not pay a state corporate income tax during at least one year between 2008 and 2010, while 20 of them paid no taxes at all during that period.

Top political lobbies

Apart from the occupant of the White House and those who advise him, probably nobody really knows which are the most influential lobbies in America, but a list of the top 10, as compiled by the Business Pundit website, made a lot of sense to me. The following are the 10, not necessarily in order of actual influence wielded:

The defence industry or, as named by President Dwight Eisenhower when he warned his fellow Americans to be on their guard and not let it call the policy shots to secure a disproportionate amount of taxpayers’ money, the military-industrial complex. It needs conflict and war in order to be able to quench its thirst for taxpayers’ dollars and sustain its position as the biggest creator of jobs and wealth. (According to a recent report in the Economist, the US Department of Defence is the biggest employer in the world with 3.2 million on its payroll, ahead of China’s army with 2.3 million.) The heaviest hitters in the defence industry are Lockheed Martin, Boeing and General Dynamics.

Big oil which is said to spend more on lobbying than any other single special interest group – nearly 150 million dollars in 2010.

The financial lobby which in its various manifestations – banks and other financial institutions – is by far the biggest spender on Capitol Hill, contributing hundreds of millions of dollars to campaigns and political parties. (In return, and as noted by Business Pundit, financial institutions are allowed free reign with other people’s money. A senate committee on the financial crisis of the late 2000s found that, “The crisis was not a natural disaster, but the result of high risk, complex financial products; undisclosed conflicts of interest; and the failure of regulators, the credit rating agencies, and the market itself to rein in the excesses of Wall Street.”)

Big pharma – along with the financial lobbies, the pharmaceutical and health products industries have historically been one of the biggest and most powerful lobbies in Washington. Drug companies enjoy more power and influence in America than with any other government in the world.

The agribusiness industry which represents a diverse collection of special interest groups, including large food manufacturers like Kraft and Uniliver, huge agricultural companies like Monsanto, tobacco companies such as Phillip Morris, biofuel producers like UNICA, and logging companies like International Paper and Weyerhauser. These companies spend upwards of 150 million dollars each year, funding campaigns and pushing legislation through Congress or blocking it.

The tech lobby which includes the economic fire power of Google, Apple, Amazon and Microsoft.

The mining industry – this lobby, particularly the coal industry, has had its fingers in American politics for a long time. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, it was responsible for some of the most dramatic labour uprisings in history. In the last three years, in the face scepticism on the part of environmental advocacy groups, it spent nearly 100 million dollars on seeking to persuade politicians that “clean coal” really will make a major contribution to averting an energy supply crisis.

The NRA (National Rifle Association) – has been one of the most consistently influential political lobbies in American politics for the past 30 years. Its power is less in money and more its ability to mobilize its members. It puts major effort into opposing candidates who advocate gun control. (Al Gore, for example, lost the 2000 election in his own home state of Tennessee primarily because of his pro-gun-control stance.)

The AARP (American Association of Retired Persons) – is a non-governmental and special interest group for people aged 50 and over and one of the largest lobbying groups in Washington.

The pro-Israel lobby which is more accurately described as the Zionist lobby. As my regular readers know, I insist that it’s wrong to call this lobby pro-Israel because to do so implies that it speaks for all Israeli Jews and it does not. Headed by AIPAC (the American Israel Public Affairs Committee), which speaks for not more than about 25 per cent of Jewish Americans, it has been called the NRA of foreign policy lobbies because of its ability to make or break politicians, including presidents.

Glimmer of hope?

The statement that best sums up for me the consequences of all this financial fire power on America’s political system was the one made by the man I would like to see as America’s next president, Rocky Anderson. Who is he?

“The constitution has been eviscerated while Democrats have stood by with nary a whimper. It is a gutless, unprincipled party, bought and paid for by the same interests that buy and pay for the Republican Party.”

Rocky Anderson, US politician and founder of the Justice Party

On Monday 19 December, at a news conference in Washington DC, he announced the creation of a new third party, the Justice Party, and his intention to run for the presidency under its banner.

Just turned 60, Rocky Anderson, a former two-term mayor of Utah’s Salt Lake City, has an impressive record of service to what could be called the public good on many fronts. For reasons of space I have to ask readers who want to know more about him to take a look at his Wikipedia entry.

On 11 August last year he denounced the Democratic Party and resigned his membership of it. In his letter to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, he said:

Until the Democratic Party shows some spine and draws a line in the sand – that an end to the tax breaks for the wealthy needs to be part of any debt/budget bill – please take my name off your list… I'm done with the Democratic Party. As I said on Amy Goodman's show a couple years ago, I've put my proud Democrat coffee mug in storage. I think now I'll just throw it in the garbage and have done with it... The constitution has been eviscerated while Democrats have stood by with nary a whimper. It is a gutless, unprincipled party, bought and paid for by the same interests that buy and pay for the Republican Party.

I was inspired by Amy Goodman’s interview with Anderson for Open Democracy very shortly after his announcement of the formation of the Justice Party.

The great thing about television is that it gives viewers the opportunity not only to listen to what speakers are saying but also to study their body language as they are speaking and listening to the questions. In other words, television gives viewers the opportunity to ask and answer an important question: do I believe this guy or gal? With Tony Blair, for example, my answer was always “No”. And I regret to say it has become “No” when I listen to President Barack Obama and watch his body language. Anderson’s body language told me he is a man I can believe and that makes what he had to say more than important – even though he has no chance of becoming president in 2013. (After that...?)

Here is what he said in answer to one of Goodman’s questions.

We launched the Justice Party because the entire system is so corrupt. It's so diseased. We know that the public interest is not being served by anyone in the system right now, particularly the two dominant parties who have sustained this corrupt system and who are sustained by it... Obama received more money from Wall Street than any presidential candidate ever. And they got a great return on their investment... We need people in public office who are pledged not to just represent the people's interest in the same system, but to change the system and get the corrupting influence of corporate and other concentrated wealth out of our electoral system and out of our system of governance.

“A real clean-up would require legislation giving effect to the proposition that all elections will be funded by only one source: public money raised from taxation, with the revenue ring-fenced so that it could be used only for elections.”

Common sense says that the only way to end the financial corruption of American politics is by the people, the voters, demanding that it be ended.

A real clean-up would require legislation giving effect to the proposition that all elections will be funded by only one source: public money raised from taxation, with the revenue ring-fenced so that it could be used only for elections. There are about 100 million voters in America and 10 dollars added each year to their tax bill would provide enough money for all election funding. Ten dollars a year is surely a very small price for each voter to pay for something approaching real democracy.

Given that Congress’s approval rating is closer to 10 per cent than 20 per cent according to the latest polls, organizing a rolling and rising tide of people power to demand the necessary constitutional amendment or amendments to get the corrupting influence of lobby funding out of the electoral system ought not to be a mission impossible.

In other words, if enough American voters were aware of how corrupt their political system actually is, and if then they cared enough, they could cause the corruption to be terminated. What a demonstration of real democracy in action that would be!

In an opinion piece for the Electronic Intifada on 27 December, Ilan Pappe wrote the following.

If we had a wish list for 2012 as Palestinians and friends of Palestine, one of the top items ought to be our hope that we can translate the dramatic shift in recent years in world public opinion into political action against Israeli policies on the ground... We know why this has not yet materialized: the political, intellectual and cultural elites of the West cower (crouch or cringe in fear) whenever they even contemplate acting according to their own consciences as well as the wishes of their societies. This last year was particularly illuminating for me in that respect. I encountered that timidity at every station in the many trips I took for the cause I believe in. And these personal experiences were accentuated by the more general examples of how governments and institutions caved in under intimidation from Israel and pro-Zionist Jewish organizations.

In America Zionist intimidation which causes the “caving in” manifests itself in two ways.

One is funding for election campaigns and the threat, actually the promise, not only to deny funding to candidates who won’t commit to toeing Zionism’s line but to fund their opponents.

The other is delivery of Zionist-lobby-organized Jewish votes in close election races. (In a few states that are home to large Jewish populations – New York, California, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Florida – the Jewish vote can be decisive.)

Once upon a time, when most Jewish Americans voted for Democratic Party candidates, Republicans running for office did not bother to grovel for Jewish campaign funds and votes. An indicator of how times are changing is that in the current race for the White House, and with the exception of Ron Paul, Republican candidates are grovelling for Jewish campaign funds and votes as much if not more than Obama. In that context it can be said that the Zionization of American politics has been completed.

Can it ever be ended? Yes if enough Americans insist that their politicians be accountable to those who elect them and not the big money special interest lobbies.

At the time of writing the signs are that Obama will get a second term by default, this because no Republican challenger is credible to enough Americans. If that is the outcome of November’s election, probably a majority of Americans will be very far from happy with the way their electoral system operates; and that discontent might just be enough to cause them to demand an end to the corruption of the lobby system.

My hope for 2013 and beyond is that they will. (Could it be that Rocky Anderson’s time will come?)

Related videos by Anthony Lawson

Source
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"Palestine is the heart of Arab countries" - Hiyam Noir
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Opinions expressed are those of their respective authors and do not necessarily reflect those of The PalestineFreeVoice,all publishing is for information services only.

Swedish Zionists praise new sanctions against Iran

2012-01-11T02:52:00.001+02:00

By Mohamed Omar

January 10 2012

Two Swedish Zionist extremists recently published an article praising the new set of American sanctions against Iran (“USA:s nya sanktioner mot Iran en viktig markering”, Newsmill 2/1 2012).

The reason, they claim, why further sanctions are warranted, is, as usual, the dire human rights situation in the Islamic Republic.

This claim is easily dismissed by the fact that both of the signatories of the article are staunch and uncompromising supporters of the Zionist regime, one of the worst violators of human rights in the world today. Caroline Szyber, a parliamentarian representing Kristdemokraterna (Christian Democratic Party), is a also a member of Limmud, a pro-Israeli organizations, while the other signatory, Daniel Radomski, is a committed activist for Förenade Israelinsamlingen, which collects funds for the Zionist colonial project in Palestine.

The two Zionist activists invoke the moral authority of the United Nations but fail to mention that the Zionist regime has shown nothing but contempt for this international organization. No regime has systematically ignored as many UN-resolutions. We have never heard, and we will probably never hear, these two, condemn the behavior of this arrogant, occupying regime. They will only refer to the UN when it suits their purposes, which are to advance the interests of the Zionist regime, nothing else.

By weakening Iran through sanctions they hope to ensure the hegemony of Israel and its allies in the region, mainly the Wahhabi dictatorships of Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

Besides “human rights”, Szyber and Radomski, also refer to the neocon conspiracy theory of the sinister Iranian “nuclear weapons program”.

- - Let’s get things right. Iran has no ambition whatsoever in developing nuclear weapons. On the contrary it has been working towards making the entire Middle East a nuclear weapons free zone, an effort which of course includes dismantling the more than two hundred nuclear warheads stored by the Zionist regime. Iran’s nuclear activities are fundamentally peaceful and within the framework of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the Non- Proliferation Treaty (NPT) regulations.

During the last two hundred years Iran has not started any armed conflict with any neighboring country. It is the Zionist regime which, throughout its existence, has been waging wars of aggression on its neighbors and conducting ethnic cleansing on occupied territory.

It was the Zionist regime that invaded Lebanon in July 2006, thereby undermining the stability of the region, an invasion which was fortunately repelled by the resistance movement Hezbollah. With Israel’s record of hostility and warmongering in mind peace loving people should naturally be more worried about the real nuclear weapons arsenal of Israel than with the imaginary “nuclear weapons program” of Iran.

The real motive behind the new American sanctions against Iran is of course control over the regions resources in competition with Russia and China and to secure Israel’s role as the only great power in the Middle East, in alliance with the Wahhabi dictatorships of Saudi Arabia and Qatar, two de facto American colonies, which use Wahhabism as a tool to isolate Iran religiously, ideologically and culturally in the Arab world. The US-Zionist Empire views Iran as the greater challenge in the long term, because of its cultural, political, religious and scientific influence, than the Wahhabis, who they know can destroy, but not build.

In their article, Szyber and Radomski, also reiterate the silly myth of Dr Ahmadinejad wishing to “erase Israel from the map”, of course trying to imply that what he really meant was “exterminating the Jews”. If the Iranian president ever had such plans, which he doesn’t, the Iranian Jews would be a much easier target. If all you want is to kill Jews, why send a missile towards Israel when there are plenty of Jews on your own backyard?

It is quite obvious to any rational person that what Dr Ahmadinejad was referring to was the “Zionist regime” and not the “Jewish people”, whether ethnically or religiously defined. The Iranian Jews are an integrated part of society and love their country as much as any other Iranian. Questioning the Zionist regime’s right to exist is not the same as questioning the Jewish people’s right to exist. There were Jews before the Zionist regime and there will be Jews after the Zionist regime.

Moreover Dr Ahmadinejad cultivates friendly, even cordial, relations with Anti-Zionist Jewish organizations such as Neturei Karta, which clearly shows the president has no grudge against the Jewish race (if there is such a thing) or the Jewish religion per se. What he does object to though is the illegal Zionist regime founded on Palestinian land.

If these two Zionist activists honestly care about nuclear disarmament and peace they should start by pointing a finger of blame towards the Zionist regime, the only regime in the region which actually owns nuclear weapons. And, if they honestly care about human rights, they should start by condemning the inhuman Zionist occupation of Palestinian land. If the Zionist regime does not deserve sanctions then no regime does.

The American philanthropist Jane Addams once said: “The essence of immorality is the tendency to make an exception of myself.”

Psykologisk krigföring mot Iran (4/8 2008)

Israel har ingen rätt att existera. Intervju med en medlem av Neturei Karta (28/12 2010)

Swedish parliamentarians call for action against Iran (11/11 2011).

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"Palestine is the heart of Arab countries" - Hiyam Noir

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Opinions expressed are those of their respective authors and do not necessarily reflect those of The PalestineFreeVoice,all publishing is for information services only.

THE WAR ON IRAN: Deployment of Thousands of US Troops to Israel, The Integration of US-Israeli Command Structures

2012-01-08T18:04:00.000+02:00

By Michel Chossudovsky

January 4, 2012

The Islamic Republic of Iran has been threatened with military action by the US and its allies for the last eight years.

Iran has been involved in war games in the Persian Gulf. The US Navy is deployed. Iran's naval exercises which commenced on December 24th were conducted in an area which is patrolled by the US Fifth Fleet, based in Bahrain.

Meanwhile, a new round of economic sanctions against the Islamic Republic of Iran has been unleashed, largely targeting Iran's Central Bank, leading to a dramatic plunge of Iran's currency.

Reacting to US threats, Iran declared that it would consider blocking the shipment of oil through the Strait of Hormuz:

"Roughly 40 percent of the world's oil tanker shipments transit the strait daily, carrying 15.5 million barrels of Saudi, Iraqi, Iranian, Kuwaiti, Bahraini, Qatari and United Arab Emirates crude oil, leading the United States Energy Information Administration to label the Strait of Hormuz "the world's most important oil chokepoint." (John C.K. Daly, War Imminent in Strait of Hormuz? $200 a Barrel Oil? Global Research, January 3, 2012)

The Globalization of War and the Demise of the American Republic

There is a symbiotic relationship between War and the Economic Crisis.

The planning of the Iran war is being carried out at the crossroads of a worldwide economic depression, which is conducive to widening social inequalities, mass unemployment and the impoverishment of large sectors of the world population.

Crushing social movements on the domestic front --including all forms of resistance to America's military agenda and its neoliberal economic policies-- is an integral part of the United States' hegemonic role Worldwide.

Does Constitutional Government in the eyes of the Obama Administration constitute an encroachment to "The Globalization of War"?

History tells us that an Empire cannot be built on the political foundations of a Republic.

In this regard, it should come as no surprise that the new Iran sanctions regime adopted by the US Congress became law on New Year's Eve, December 31st, on the same day Obama signed into law the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA 2012), which suspends civil liberties and allows for the "Indefinite Detention of Americans". (See Michel Chossudovsky, The Inauguration of Police State USA 2012. Obama Signs the “National Defense Authorization Act ", Global Research, January 1, 2012)

The Obama administration is intent upon crushing both social dissent as well as antiwar protest. The American Republic is incompatible with America's "long war". What is required is the instatement of a "democratic dictatorship", a de facto military rule in civilian cloths.

Thousands of Troops to Israel

Advanced war preparations are ongoing. Barely mentioned by the Western media, although confirmed by Israeli press reports, the Pentagon is preparing to send several thousand US troops to Israel.

In the context of ongoing war preparations, these troops are slated to participate in joint US-Israeli military maneuvers in Spring 2012, described by the Jerusalem Post as "the largest-ever missile defense exercise in [Israel's] history." (emphasis added)

Last week [11-18 December], Lt.-Gen. Frank Gorenc, commander of the US’s Third Air Force based in Germany, visited Israel to finalize plans for the upcoming drill, expected to see the deployment of several thousand American soldiers in Israel. (US commander visits Israel to finalize missile... Jerusalem Post December 21, 2011 emphasis added)

These war games involve the testing of Israel's air defense system, which is now fully integrated into the US global missile detection system, following the installation (December 2008) of a new sophisticated X-band early warning radar system.(See www.defense.

gov/news/, December 30, 2011, .See also Sen. Joseph Azzolina, Protecting Israel from Iran's missiles, Bayshore News, December 26, 2008).

The US global missile detection system includes satellites, Aegis ships in the Mediterranean, Persian Gulf and Red Sea as well as land-based Patriot radars and interceptors. In the context of planning the US-Israel Spring war games:

"The US will also bring its THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) and shipbased Aegis ballistic missile defense systems to Israel to simulate the interception of missile salvos against Israel.

The American systems will work in conjunction with Israel’s missile defense systems – the Arrow, Patriot and Iron Dome.

Gorenc came to Israel for talks with Brig.-Gen. Doron Gavish, commander of the Air Force’s Air Defense Division.

He toured one of the Iron Dome batteries in the South and the Israel Test Bed lab in Holon where the IAF holds its interception simulation exercises.

The IAF is planning to deploy a fourth battery of the Iron Dome counter-rocket system in the coming months and is mulling the possibility of stationing it in Haifa to protect oil refineries located there.

The Defense Ministry has allocated a budget to manufacture an additional three Iron Dome batteries by the end of 2012. IAF operational requirements call for the deployment of about a dozen batteries along Israel’s northern and southern borders.

The IAF is also moving forward with plans to deploy Rafael’s David’s Sling missile defense system, which is designed to defend against medium-range rockets and cruise missiles. Rafael recently completed a series of successful navigation and flight tests of the David’s Sling’s interceptor and plans to hold the first interception test by mid-2012. US commander visits Israel to finalize missile... Jerusalem Post December 21, 2011)

Integrated US-NATO-Israel Command Structures

Pursuant to these joint US-Israel games, there are indications that the US is also planning to increase the number of American troops stationed in Israel.

Moreover, these military exercises planned for next Spring are accompanied by a fundamental shift in US-NATO-Israel command structures.

What is now unfolding at Washington's behest is an integration of US-Israel military command structures.

Washington is not a reluctant partner, as some observers have suggested, "with the Obama administration attempting to distance itself" from an Israeli sponsored war on Iran. Quite the opposite!

Given the integration of Israel's air defense system into that of the US, Israel cannot, under any circumstances, wage a war on Iran without the US. Moreover, since mid-2005, following the signing of a protacol between NATO and Tel Aviv, Israel has beocme a de facto member of the Atlantic Alliance.

The Pentagon calls the shots. The planned deployment of US troops in Israel is part and parcel of a US sponsored war.

In the context of the Spring 2012 military drills, the United States military will establish Command Posts in Israel. In turn, Israel's IDF will establish Command Posts at United States European Command headquarters (EUCOM), in Stuttgart, Germany. (Ibid).

The ultimate objective of these command posts is to establish "joint [US-Israeli] task forces in the event of a large-scale conflict in the Middle East", (Ibid). In other words, these task forces will be involved in planning the deployment of troops and weapons systems directed against Iran, with Israel playing an important role as a launchpad for military action.

What these developments suggest is that the war on Iran --which has been on the drawing board of the Pentagon since 2003-- will involve the direct participation of Israel under a unified US military command.

The people of Israel are the unspoken victims of America's global military agenda as well their own government's war plans directed against Iran.

They are led to believe that Iran possesses nuclear weapons when in fact Israel possesses an advanced nuclear arsenal, which is directed against Iran.

The people of Israel as well as Western public opinion, more generally, are also led to believe that Iran's president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad wants "to Wipe Israel off the Map", when in fact this statement was concocted by the Western media, as a means of demonizing the Iranian head of state as well as presenting Iran as a threat to the security of Israel:

"Across the world, a dangerous rumor has spread that could have catastrophic implications. According to legend, Iran's President has threatened to destroy Israel, or, to quote the misquote, "Israel must be wiped off the map". Contrary to popular belief, this statement was never made" (See Arash Norouzi, Israel: "Wiped off The Map". The Rumor of the Century, Fabricated by the US Media to Justify An All out War on Iran, Global Research, January 20, 2007)

Who wants to "wipe Israel off the Map"? Tehran or Washington? Ahmadinejad or Obama?

In actual fact, the Obama administration as well as the Netanyahu government indelibly constitute a threat to the people of Israel.

Tehran has since 2005 warned that it will retaliate if attacked, in the form of ballistic missile strikes directed against Israel as well as against US military facilities in the Persian Gulf, which would immediately lead us into a scenario of military escalation.

This war would engulf a region extending from the Mediterranean to the heartland of Central Asia. It would have devastating consequences, resulting in a massive loss of life.

It would precipitate humanity into a World War III scenario.

URL of this article

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"Palestine is the heart of Arab countries" - HiyamNoir

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Opinions expressed are those of their respective authors and do not necessarily reflect those of The PalestineFreeVoice,all publishing is for information services only.

Palestinians castigate 'illogical' Amman meeting

2012-01-07T23:14:00.000+02:00

January 6, 2012

Fatah officials downplay a meeting between the PA and Israel in Jordan, amid no change on Israel's side in its colonial policies, writes Khaled Amayreh in Ramallah

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Palestinian leaders from across the political spectrum have castigated the latest meeting in Amman between Israeli and Palestinian Authority (PA) officials.

Hamas, which last month charted a unity deal with Fatah, criticised the PA leadership for "repeating the same mistakes and reproducing the same failures".

Sami Abu Zuhri, a Hamas spokesman based in the Gaza Strip, said the meeting in Amman would only weaken the overall Palestinian position and further embolden Israel.

The leftist camp described the meeting as "illogical: in light of the unrelenting continuation of Jewish settlement expansion in the West Bank as well as seizure of Palestinian land for settlement purposes.

The PA consistently said it wouldn't agree to resume stalled talks with Israel until and unless Tel Aviv agreed to freeze all settlement activities in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.

However, the US has been warning the vulnerable Palestinian leadership that it wouldn't continue to bankroll the PA unless it agreed to resume talks without preconditions with Israel.

Some PA officials have pointed out that the "warnings" are becoming "threats" and that the Obama administration is treating PA President Mahmoud Abbas as if he were an autocrat who is not answerable to his people.

In other words, from the American perspective, the PA would have to drop the main condition for resuming stalled talks, namely the linkage between the resumption of talks and halting settlement expansion.

However, doing so would probably be certain political suicide for the PA leadership, especially the Fatah camp.

Last month, Fatah, which is preparing for Palestinian general elections, said it might withdraw its recognition of Israel if the latter kept up its rejection of Palestinian statehood.

The warning, which remains informal, is viewed as a defence reflex on Fatah's part to keep pace with the spirit of the Arab Spring and emulate growing Islamic triumphalism in the region.

It might indicate nonetheless that Fatah will get more radical if its leader, Abbas, fails to convince the international community to allow for the creation of a viable and sovereign state on all the territories Israel occupied in 1967.

Visibly embarrassed by PA participation in the Amman meeting, former chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Ereikat has sought to downplay the importance of the Amman encounter, saying it didn't constitute a resumption of talks.

"We are only responding to the kind invitation of his majesty King Abdullah. We will once again present our position, namely that in order for peace talks to be resumed Israel would have to freeze all settlement activities and agree to the establishment of a viable Palestinian state on the basis of 4 June 1967 [borders]." He added: "It is only an occasion for representing and clarifying our views, nothing more."

Some political observers in the West Bank expressed mixed feelings over the meeting. "It is true that the PA leadership wants to utilise this meeting to prove that the proverbial ball is in the Israeli court and that pressure ought to be exerted on Israel, not the Palestinians," said Hani Al-Masri, a noted political analyst based in Ramallah. "However, it is also true that the meeting will give Israel a certain feeling that the PA can eventually be pressured and bullied into making further concessions. I am also afraid that the Quartet may try to circumvent the Palestinian stand and cajole the PA leadership to resume talks without preconditions. And that would be a real disaster."

It is not clear what prompted Jordan's Abdullah to invite Israel and the PA for a meeting that most, if not all, observers agree would have a little chance of succeeding in reviving the peace process. It is no secret that the Jordanian ruler considers the failure of the peace process, especially on the Palestinian-Israeli track, a source of existential anxiety for the Jordanian state and regime. Jordan is worried that non-resolution of the Palestinian problem could revive dormant Zionist demands for making Jordan an alternative Palestinian homeland.

King Abdullah's father, the late King Hussein, who died in 1999, had suggested that foiling Israeli designs of resolving the Palestinian issue at Jordan's expense -- eg, by turning Jordan into a Palestinian state, probably through a combination of war, forced migration, mass deportation and possibly genocidal ethnic cleansing -- played a big part in the Jordanian decision to sign its unpopular peace treaty with Israel.

King Abdullah, whose country also depends to a large extent on Western economic and financial aid, is often perceived as prodding the PA into showing "flexibility".

Another likely and relevant factor in the Jordanian mediation efforts may lie in the Jordanian regime's desire to reach a peace deal between Israel and the PA before the deepening and consolidation of the Arab Spring whose ramifications and repercussions have already reached Jordan, threatening the erstwhile absolute powers of the king.

The International Quartet for Peace in the Middle East, which includes the US, EU, Russia and the UN, had given the parties -- Israel and the PA -- three months to resume stalled talks. The grace period will end on 26 January after which new horizons would have to be explored in order to keep the hope for salvaging a peace deal.

This happens as the Israeli government, arguably the most hawkish and extremist since the establishment of the Jewish entity, continues to narrow Palestinian horizons in a variety of ways, including granting paramilitary Jewish settlers a virtual carte blanch to attack Palestinians and vandalise mosques, torch cars and set fire to Arab fields and olive groves.

The latest Israeli provocation, as reported by the Israeli media, took the form of employing Jewish minors to assault Palestinian labourers seeking to find work across the Green Line, the former armistice line between the occupied territories and Israel proper.

This manifestly racist act is meant to inflict maximum harm on Palestinians, even including death, without risking prosecution or punishment. Crimes committed by Israeli soldiers against Palestinians, even innocent Palestinians, are usually extenuated by Israel's biased justice system manned by Talmudic rabbis who view non-Jews as lesser mortals.

With the peace process going nowhere, and the Obama administration facing an elections year, while the EU demonstrates shocking impotence vis-a-vis Israel, it is likely that 2012 will witness the burial of the two-state solution peace process. This is not a matter of gloomy prognostication; it is rather a realistic assessment of the reality on the ground, as ubiquitous Jewish settlements leave no room for a viable Palestinian state to emerge. (end)

Sourse

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"Palestine is the heart of Arab countries" - Hiyam Noir

______________________________________________________

Opinions expressed are those of their respective authors and do not necessarily reflect those of The PalestineFreeVoice,all publishing is for information services only.

Tyranny in the Forecast: The Outlook for the New Year

2012-01-07T05:59:00.000+02:00

By Paul Craig Roberts

January 2, 2012

In March 2010 when I resigned from my column with Creator’s Syndicate and put down my pen, I received so many protests from readers that two months later I began writing again. This renewed activity has resulted in this new year in a website of my own.

My columns will first appear on my site. Sites on which readers are accustomed to find my columns are permitted to continue to post my columns as long as they link to my site and indicate my copyright.

The site will stay up if reader support justifies it. Otherwise, I will conclude that the cost of the site exceeds the value of what I have to say.

This past year has not been a good one for the 99%, and the new year is likely to be even worse. This column deals with the outlook for liberty. The next will deal with the economic outlook.

The outlook for liberty is dismal. Those writers who are critical of Washington’s illegal wars and overthrow of the US Constitution could find themselves in indefinite detainment, because criticism of Washington’s policies can be alleged to be aiding Washington’s enemies, which might include charities that provide aid to bombed Palestinian children and flotillas that attempt to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/24/us-israel-usa-flotilla-idUSTRE75N4A620110624

The Bush/Obama regimes have put the foundation in place for imprisoning critics of the government without due process of law. The First Amendment is being all but restricted to rah-rah Americans who chant USA! USA! USA! Washington has set itself up as world prosecutor, forever berating other countries for human rights violations, while Washington alone bombs half a dozen countries into the stone age and threatens several more with the same treatment, all the while violating US statutory law and the Geneva Conventions by torturing detainees.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2008/06/18/41514/general-who-probed-abu-ghraib.html

Washington rounds up assorted foreign politicians, whose countries were afflicted with civil wars, and sends them off to be tried as war criminals, while its own war crimes continue to mount. However, if a person exposes Washington’s war crimes, that person is held without charges in conditions that approximate torture.

Bradley Manning is the case in point. Manning, a US soldier, is alleged to be the person who released to WikiLeaks the “Collateral Murder” video, which, in the words of Marjorie Cohn, “depicts U.S. forces in an Apache helicopter killing 12 unarmed civilians, including two Reuters journalists. People trying to rescue the wounded were also fired upon and killed.”

One of the Good Samaritans was a father with two small children. The video reveals the delight that US military personnel experienced in blowing them away from the distant skies. When it became clear that the Warriors Bringing The People Democracy had blown away two small children, instead of remorse we hear an executioner’s voice saying: “that’s what he gets for bringing children into a war zone.”

The quote is from memory, but it is accurate enough. When I first saw this video, I was astonished at the brazen war crime. It is completely obvious that the dozen or so murdered people were simply people walking along a street, threatening no one, unarmed, doing nothing out of the ordinary. It was not a war zone. The horror is that the US soldiers were playing video games with live people. You can tell from their commentary that they were having fun by killing these unsuspecting people walking along the street. They enjoyed killing the father who stopped to help and shooting up his vehicle with the two small children inside.

This was not an accident of a drone, fed with bad information, blowing up a school full of children, or a hospital, or a farmer’s family. This was American soldiers having fun with high tech toys killing anyone that they could pretend might be an enemy.

When I saw this, I realized that America was lost. Evil had prevailed.

I was about to write that nothing has been done about the crime. But something was done about it. An American soldier who recognized the horrific war crime knew that the US military knew about it and had done nothing about it. He also knew that as a US soldier he was required to report war crimes. But to whom? War crimes dismissed as “collateral damage” are the greatest part of Washington’s 21st century wars.

A soldier with a moral conscience gave the video to WikiLeaks. We don’t know who the soldier is. Washington alleges that the soldier is Bradley Manning, but Washington lies every time it opens its mouth. So we will never know.

All we know is that retribution did not fall on the perpetrators of the war crime. It fell upon the two accused of revealing it--Bradley Manning and Julian Assange.

Manning was held almost two years without charges being presented to a court.

In December’s pre-trial hearings all Washington could come up with was concocted accusations. No evidence whatsoever. The prosecutor, a Captain Fein, told the court, if that is what it is, that Manning had been “trained and trusted to use multiple intelligence systems, and he used that training to defy that trust. He abused our trust.”

In other words, Manning gave the world the truth of a war crime that was being covered up, and Washington and the Pentagon regard a truth teller doing his duty under the US military code as an “abuser of trust.”

In the 1970 My Lai Courts-Martial of Captain Ernest L. Medina, the Prosecution Brief states:

“ A combat commander has a duty, both as an individual and as a commander, to insure that humane treatment is accorded to noncombatants and surrendering combatants. Article 3 of the Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War specifically prohibits violence to life and person, particularly murder, mutilation, cruel treatment, and torture. Also prohibited are the taking of hostages, outrages against personal dignity and summary judgment and sentence. It demands that the wounded and sick be cared for. These same provisions are found in the Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War. While these requirements for humanitarian treatment are placed upon each individual involved with the protected persons, it is especially incumbent upon the commanding officer to insure that proper treatment is given.

Additionally, all military personnel, regardless of rank or position, have the responsibility of reporting any incident or act thought to be a war crime to his commanding officer as soon as practicable after gaining such knowledge. Commanders receiving such reports must also make such facts known to the Staff Judge Advocate. It is quite clear that war crimes are not condoned and that every individual has the responsibility to refrain from, prevent and report such unwarranted conduct. While this individual responsibility is likewise placed upon the commander, he has the additional duty to insure that war crimes committed by his troops are promptly and adequately punished.

http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/mylai/Myl_law3.htm

At the National Press Club on February 17, 2006, General Peter Pace, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that “It is the absolute responsibility of everybody in uniform to disobey an order that is either illegal or immoral.” General Pace said that the military is prohibited from committing crimes against humanity and that such orders and events must be made known.

However, when Manning followed the military code, his compliance with law was turned into a crime. Captain Fein goes on to tell the “court” [a real court would throw out the bogus charges, but Amerika no longer has real courts] that “ultimately, he aided the enemies of the United States by indirectly giving them intelligence through WikiLeaks.”

In other words, the “crime” is an unintended consequence of doing one’s duty--like the “collateral damage” of civilian casualties when drones, bombs, helicopter gunships, and trigger-happy troops kill women, children, aid workers, and village elders. Why is Washington only punishing Manning for the collateral damage attributed to him?

Captain Fein could not have put it any clearer. If you tell the truth and reveal Washington’s war crimes, you have aided the enemy. Captain Fein’s simple sentence has at one stroke abolished all whistleblower protections written into US statutory law and the First Amendment, and confined anyone with a moral conscience and sense of decency to indefinite detention and torture.

The illegal detention and treatment of Manning had a purpose, according to a number of informed people. Naomi Spencer, for example, writes that Manning’s long detention and delayed prosecution is designed to coerce Manning into implicating WikiLeaks in order that the US can extradite Julian Assange and either prosecute him as a terrorist or lock him away indefinitely in a military prison without any recourse to the courts, due process or the law.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article30075.htm

Assange’s case is mysterious. Assange sought refuge in Sweden, where he was seduced by two women. Both admit that they had sexual intercourse with him voluntarily, but afterwards they have come forth with claims that as they were sleeping with him in the bed, he again had sexual intercourse with them, and that they had not approved this second helping and that he was asked to use a condom but did not.

The Swedish prosecutorial office, after investigating the charges, dismissed them. But, strangely, another Swedish prosecutor, a woman suspected of connections to Washington, resurrected the charges and is seeking to extradite Assange to Sweden from the UK for questioning.

The legal question is whether a prosecutor can seek extradition for investigative purposes. The UK Supreme Court thinks that this is a valid question, and has agreed to hear the case. Normally, extradition requests come from courts and are issued for persons formally charged with a crime. Sweden has not charged Assange with a crime.

The real question is whether the Swedish prosecutor is acting on behalf of Washington.

Many who follow the case believe that Washington is behind the prosecutor’s re-opening of the case, and if Sweden gets hold of Assange Sweden will send him to Washington to be put in indefinite detention and tortured until he says what Washington wants him to say--that he is an Al Qaeda operative.

This is the way that Washington intends to absolve itself of its war crimes revealed, allegedly, by Manning and Assange.

Meanwhile, Washington in a brazen display of hypocrisy accuses other countries of human rights abuses, while Congress has passed and President Obama has signed an indefinite detention and torture bill that US Representative Ron Paul says will accelerate America’s “slip into tyranny” and “descent into totalitarianism.”

In signing the Bill of Tyranny, President Obama indicated that he thought that the tyranny established by the bill did not go far enough. He announced that he was signing the bill with signing statements that reserved his right, regardless of any law, to send American citizens, deprived of due process and constitutional protection, abroad to be tortured.

This is the US government that claims to be a government of “freedom and democracy” and to be bringing “freedom and democracy” to others with bombs and invasions.

The past year gave us other ominous tyrannical developments.

President Obama announced that he had a list of Americans whom he intended to assassinate without due process of law, and Homeland Security, itself an Orwellian name, announced that it had shifted its attention from terrorists to “domestic extremists.” The latter are undefined and consist of whomever Homeland Security so designates.

None of this was done behind closed doors. The murder of the US Constitution was a public crime witnessed by all. But like Kitty Genovese, who was stabbed to death in New York in 1964 in front of onlookers who failed to come to her aid, the media, Congress, bar associations, law schools, and the American public failed to come to the defense of the Constitution.

In my lifetime the collapse in respect for, and authority of, the Constitution has been an horrific event. Compare the ho-hum response to the Obama regime’s police state announcements with the public anger at President Richard Nixon over his enemies list.

Try to imagine President Ronald Reagan announcing that he had a list of Americans marked for assassination without impeachment proceedings beginning forthwith.

Local and state police forces have been militarized not only in their equipment and armament but also in their attitude toward the public. Despite the absence of domestic terror attacks, Homeland Security conducts warrantless searches of cars and trucks on highways and of passengers using public transportation. A uniformed federal service is being trained to systematically violate the constitutional rights of citizens, and citizens are being trained to accept these violations as normal. The young have no memory of being able to board public transportation or use public roadways without intrusive searches or to gather in protest without being brutalized by the police. Liberty is being moved into the realm of myth and legend.

In such a system as is being constructed in public in front of our eyes, there is no freedom, no democracy, and no liberty. What stands before us is naked tyranny.

While America degenerates into a total police state, politicians constantly invoke “our values.” What are these values? Indefinite imprisonment without conviction in a court. Torture. Warrantless searches and home invasions. An epidemic of police brutality.

Curtailment of free speech and peaceful assembly rights. Unprovoked aggression called “preemptive war.” Interference in the elections and internal affairs of other countries.

Economic sanctions imposed on foreign populations whose leaders are not in Washington’s pocket.

If the American police state were merely an unintended consequence of a real war against terror, it could be dismantled when the war was over. However, the evidence is that the police state is an intended consequence. The PATRIOT Act is a voluminous and clever attack on the Constitution. It is not possible that it could have been written in the short time between 9/11 and its introduction in Congress. It was waiting on the shelf.

The dismantling of constitutionally protected civil liberties is purposeful, as is the accumulation of arbitrary and unaccountable powers in the executive branch of government. As there have been no terrorist events within the US in over a decade except for those known to have been organized by the FBI, there is no terrorist threat that justifies the establishment of a political regime of unaccountable power. It is being done on purpose under false pretenses, which means that there is an undeclared agenda. The threat that Americans face resides in Washington, D.C.

Of the presidential candidates, only Ron Paul addresses the Constitution’s demise.Yet, the electorate is concerned with matters unimportant by comparison. Propagandized 24/7 by the Ministry of Truth, Americans are not sufficiently aware of their plight to elect Ron Paul president.

It might be too late for even a President Ron Paul to turn things around. A president has no power unless his government supports him. What prospect would President Ron Paul have of getting his appointees confirmed by the Senate? The military/security complex is not going to vacate power. Powerful monied interests would block his appointments. If he persisted in being a problem for the Establishment, he would be victimized by a scandal and fail to be reelected if not forced to resign.

Remember what the Washington Establishment did to President Carter. His budget director and chief of staff were framed, thus depriving Carter of the powers of his office. Even Ronald Reagan had to give away more than half of his government, including the White House chief-of-staff and vice presidency, to the Establishment. President Reagan told me that he wanted to end stagflation in order that he could end the cold war, but that he could not sign a tax bill if I could not get one out of his administration that he could send to Congress.

I do not know, but I suspect that turning things around internally through the political system is not in the cards. Our chance to resurrect liberty might come from Washington’s hubris.

Imperial ambitions and drive for power can produce unmanageable upheavals and a loss of allies. Overreach abroad with a demoralized, unemployed and downtrodden population at home are not the ingredients of success.

How much longer will the Russian government permit NGOs funded by the US Endowment for Democracy to interfere in its elections and to organize political protests? How much longer will China confuse its strategic interests with the American consumer market? How much longer will Japan, Canada, Australia, Britain, Germany, Italy, Turkey, Egypt, and the Middle East oil states remain US puppets? How much longer can the dollar retain the reserve currency role when the Federal Reserve is monetizing vast quantities of debt?

How much longer can a “superpower” survive when it is incapable of producing political leadership?America’s salvation will come when Washington suffers defeat of its hegemonic ambitions.

Many readers, especially those who watch Fox “News” and CNN and read the New York Times, might see hyperbole in my outlook for 2012. Surely, many believe, the draconian measures put in place will only be applied to terrorists. But how would we know? Indefinite detention and torture require no evidence to be presented. The American public has no way of knowing whether tortured detainees are terrorists or political opponents. The decision to detain and torture is anunaccountable decision. It relies on nothing but the subjective arbitrary decision of someone in the executive branch. Why are Americans prepared to take the word of a government that told them intentionally the lie that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and was a threat to America?

Like cancer, tyranny metastasizes. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, the Soviet Union’s most famous writer, was a twice-decorated World War II Red Army commander. He made mild critical comments about Stalin’s conduct of the war in a private letter to a friend, and for this he was sentenced, not by a court, but in absentia by the NKVD, the secret police, to eight years in the Gulag Archipelago for “anti-Soviet propaganda.” Not even Stalin had indefinite detention. The closest the Soviets came to this medieval practice resurrected by the Bush and Obama regimes was internal exile in distant parts of the Soviet Union.

During much of the Soviet era, even art, literature and music were scrutinized for signs of “anit-Soviet propaganda.” America’s Dixie Chicks suffered a similar, but more frightening, fate. Bush did not need the NKVD. The American public did the job for the secret police. Wikipedia reports:

“During a London concert ten days before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, lead vocalist Maines said ‘we don't want this war, this violence, and we're ashamed that the President of the United States (George W. Bush) is from Texas.’ The statement offended many Americans, who thought it rude and unpatriotic, and the ensuing controversy cost the band half of their concert audience attendance in the United States. The incident negatively affected their career and led to accusations of the three women being "un-American", as well as hate mail, death threats, and the public destruction of their albums in protest.”

In Nazi Germany, the mildest criticism could bring a midnight knock at the door.

People with power use it. And power attracts the worst kind of persons. As Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo prove, democracies are not immune to the evil use of power. Indeed, identical inhumane treatment of prisoners goes on inside the US prison system for ordinary criminals.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8451.htm

A December 30, 2011, search on Yahoo for police brutality produced 20 million results.

Over-fed goon cop thugs taser little children and people in wheel chairs. They body slam elderly grandmothers. The police are a horror. They represent a greater threat to citizens than do criminals.

Preventative war, indefinite imprisonment, rendition, torture of people alleged to be “suspects” (an undefined category), and assassination are all draconian punishments that require no evidence. Preventative war is an Orwellian concept.

How do you prevent a war by initiating a war?

How do we know that a country that did not attack us was going to attack us in the future?

Preventative war is like Jeremy Bentham’s concept of preventing crime by locking up those thought by the upper crust to be predisposed to criminal activity before they commit a crime. Punishment without crime is now the American Way.

The concepts that the Bush/Obama regimes have institutionalized are totally foreign to the Anglo-American concepts of law and liberty. In one decade the US has been transformed from a free society into a police state. The American population, to the extent it is aware of what has occurred, has simply accepted the revolution from the top.

Ron Paul is the only American seeking the presidency who opposes the tyranny that has been institutionalized, and he is not leading in the polls.

This tells us all we need to know about the value Americans place on liberty.

Americans seem to welcome the era of tyranny into which they are now entering.

URL of this article

Global Research announces Dr. Paul Craig Robert's New Website at http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/

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"Palestine is the heart of Arab countries" - Hiyam Noir
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Opinions expressed are those of their respective authors and do not necessarily reflect those of The PalestineFreeVoice,all publishing is for information services only.

Media Manipulation and the Drums of War: How Media is used to Whip the Nation into Wartime Frenz

2012-01-06T17:21:00.000+02:00

Faking It: How the Media Manipulates the World into War

By James Corbett

January 3, 2012

As the US and Iranian governments escalate tensions in the already volatile Straits of Hormuz, and China and Russia begin openly questioning Washington's interference in their internal politics, the world remains on a knife-edge of military tension. Far from being a dispassionate observer of these developments, however, the media has in fact been central to increasing those tensions and preparing the public to expect a military confrontation. But as the online media rises to displace the traditional forms by which the public forms its understanding of the world, many are now beginning to see first hand how the media lies the public into war.

	- by James Corbett - 2012-01-02
	The centuries-long history of how media has been used to whip the nation into wartime frenzy, dehumanize the supposed enemies, and even to manipulate the public into believing in causes for war that, decades later, were admitted to be completely fictitious.

As the drums of war begin to beat once again in Iran, Syria, the South China Sea, and other potential hotspots and flashpoints around the globe, concerned citizens are asking how a world so sick of bloodshed and a population so tired of conflict could be led to this spot once again.

To understand this seeming paradox, we must first understand the centuries-long history of how media has been used to whip the nation into wartime frenzy, dehumanize the supposed enemies, and even to manipulate the public into believing in causes for war that, decades later, were admitted to be completely fictitious.

The term “yellow journalism” was coined to describe the type of sensationalistic, scandal-driven, and often erroneous style of reporting popularized by newspapers like William Randolph Hearst’s New York Journal. In one of the most egregious examples of this phenomenon, Hearst’s papers widely trumpeted the sinking of the Maine as the work of the Spanish. Whipped into an anti-Spanish frenzy by a daily torrent of stories depicting Spanish forces’ alleged torture and rape of Cubans, and pushed over the edge by the Maine incident, the public welcomed the beginning of the US-Spanish war. Although it is now widely believed that the explosion on the Maine was due to a fire in one of its coal bunkers, the initial lurid reports of Spanish involvement stuck and the nation was led into war.

In many ways, the phrase infamously attributed to Hearst in reply to his illustrator “You furnish the pictures and I’ll furnish the war,” apocryphal as the story may be, nevertheless perfectly encodes the method by which the public would be led to war time and again through the decades.

The US was drawn into World War I by the sinking of the Lusitania, a British ocean liner carrying American passengers that was torpedoed by German U-boats off the coast of Ireland, killing over 1,000 of its passengers. What the public was not informed about at the time, of course, was that just one week before the incident, then-First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill had written to the President of the Board of Trade that it was “most important to attract neutral shipping to our shores, in the hopes especially of embroiling the United States with Germany.” Nor did reports of the attack announce that the ship was carrying rifle ammunition and other military supplies. Instead, reports once again emphasized that the attack was an out-of-the-blue strike by a maniacal enemy, and the public was led into the war.

The US involvement in World War II was likewise the result of deliberate disinformation. Although the Honolulu Advertiser had even predicted the attack on Pearl Harbor days in advance, the Japanese Naval codes had already been deciphered by that time, and that even Henry Stimson, the US Secretary of War, had noted in his diary the week before that he had discussed in a meeting with Roosevelt “how we should maneuver them [the Japanese] into the position of firing the first shot without allowing too much danger to ourselves,” the public were still led to believe that the Pearl Harbor attack had been completely unforeseen. Just last month, a newly-declassified memo emerged showing that FDR had been warned of an impending Japanese attack on Hawaii just three days before the events at Pearl Harbor, yet the history books still portray Pearl Harbor as an example of a surprise attack.

In August 1964, the public was told that the North Vietnamese had attacked a US Destroyer in the Gulf of Tonkin on two separate occasions. The attacks were portrayed as a clear example of “communist aggression” and a resolution was soon passed in Congress authorizing President Johnson to begin deploying US forces in Vietnam. In 2005, an internal NSA study was released concluding that the second attack in fact never took place. In effect, 60000 American servicemen and as many as three million Vietnamese, let alone as many as 500,000 Cambodians and Laotians, lost their lives because of an incident that did not occur anywhere but in the imagination of the Johnson administration and the pages of the American media.

In 1991, the world was introduced to the emotional story of Nayirah, a Kuwaiti girl who testified about the atrocities committed by Iraqi forces in Kuwait.

What the world was never told was that the incident had in fact been the work of a public relations firm, Hill and Knowltown, and the girl had actually been the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador. Once again, the public was whipped into a frenzy of hatred for the Hussein regime, not for the documented atrocities that it had actually committed on segments of its own population with weapons supplied to them by the United States itself, but on the basis of an imaginary story told to the public via their televisions, orchestrated by a pr firm.

In the lead-up to the war on Iraq, the American media infamously took the lead in framing the debate about the Iraqi government’s weapons of mass destruction NOT as a question of whether or not they even existed, but as a question of where they had been hidden and what should be done to disarm them. The New York Times led the way with Judith Miller‘s now infamous reporting on the Iraqi WMD story, now known to have been based on false information from untrustworthy sources, but the rest of the media fell into line with the NBC Nightly News asking “what precise threat Iraq and its weapons of mass destruction pose to America”, and Time debating whether Hussein was “making a good-faith effort to disarm Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction.” Reports about chemical weapons stashes were reported on before they were confirmed, although headlines boldly asserted their existence as indisputable fact. We now know that in fact the stockpiles did not exist, and the administration premeditatedly lied the country into yet another war, but the most intense opposition the Bush administration ever received over this documented war crime was some polite correction on the Sunday political talk show circuit.

Remarkably, the public at large has seemingly learned nothing from all of these documented historical manipulations. If anything, the media has become even bolder in its attempts to manipulate the public’s perceptions, perhaps emboldened by the fact that so few in the audience seem willing to question the picture that is being painted for them on the evening news.

Later that year, CNN aired footage of a bombed out Tskhinvali in South Ossetia, falsely labeling it as footage of Gori, which they said had been attacked by the Russians.

In 2009, the BBC showed a cropped image of a rally in Iran which they claimed was a crowd of protesters who assembled to show their opposition to the Iranian government. An uncropped version of the same photograph displayed on the LA Times’ website, however, revealed that the photo in fact came from a rally in support of Ahmedinejad.

In August of 2011, the BBC ran footage of what they claimed was a celebration in Tripoli’s Green Square. When sharp-eyed viewers noticed that the flags in the footage were in fact Indian flags, the BBC was forced to admit that they had “accidentally” broadcast footage from India instead of Tripoli.

Also that month, CNN reported on a story from the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights claiming that eight infants in incubators had died in a hospital in Hama when Syrian authorities cut off power in the area. Some news sites even carried pictures of the infants. The images were later admitted to have been taken in Egypt and no evidence has ever emerged to back up the accusations.

As breathtaking as all of these lies, manipulations and so-called “mistakes” are, they in and of themselves don’t represent the only functions of the media for the war machine. Now, the US government is taking the lead in becoming more and more directly involved with the shaping of the media message on war propaganda, and the general public is becoming even more ensnared in a false picture of the world through the Pentagon’s own lens.

In 2005, the Bush White House admitted to producing videos that were designed to look like news reports from legitimate independent journalists, and then feeding those reports to media outlets as prepackaged material ready to air on the evening news. When the Government Accountability Office ruled that these fake news reports in fact constituted illegal covert propaganda, the White House simply issued a memo declaring the practice to be legal.

In April 2008, the New York Times revealed a secret US Department of Defense program that was launched in 2002 and involved using retired military officers to implant Pentagon talking points in the media. The officers were presented as “independent analysts” on talk shows and news programs, although they had been specially briefed beforehand by the Pentagon. In December of 2011, the DoD’s own Inspector General released a report concluding that the program was in perfect compliance with government policies and regulations.

Earlier this year, it was revealed the the US government had contracted with HBGary Federal to develop software that create fake social media accounts in order to steer public opinion and promote propaganda on popular websites. The federal contract for the software sourced back to the MacDill Air Force Base in Florida.

As the vehicle through which information from the outside world is captured, sorted, edited and transmitted into our homes, the mass media has the huge responsibility of shaping and informing our understanding of events to which we don’t have first-hand access. This is an awesome responsibility in even the most ideal conditions, with diligent reporters guided by trustworthy editors doing their level best to report the most important news in the most straightforward way.

But in a media landscape where a handful of companies own virtually all of the print, radio and television media in each nation, the only recourse the public has is to turn away from the mainstream media altogether. And that is precisely what is happening.

As study after study and report after report has shown, the death of the old media has accelerated in recent years, with more and more people abandoning newspapers and now even television as their main source of news. Instead, the public is increasingly turning toward online sources for their news and information, something that is necessarily worrying for the war machine itself, a system that can only truly flourish when the propaganda arm is held under monopolistic control.

But as citizens turn away from the New York Times and toward independent websites, many run and maintained by citizen journalists and amateur editors, the system that has consolidated its control over the minds of the public for generations seems to finally be showing signs that it may not be invincible.

Surely this is not to say that online media is impervious to the defects that have made the traditional media so unreliable. Quite the contrary. But the difference is that online, there is still for the time being relative freedom of choice at the individual level. While internet freedom exists, individual readers and viewers don’t have to take the word of any website or pundit or commentator on any issue. They can check the source documentation themselves, except, perhaps not coincidentally, on the websites of the traditional media bastions, which tend not to link source material and documentation in their articles.

Hence the SOPA Act, Protect IP, the US government’s attempts to seize websites at the domain name level, and all of the other concerted attacks we have seen on internet freedoms in recent years.

Because ultimately, an informed and engaged public is far less likely to go along with wars waged for power and profit. And as the public becomes better informed about the very issues that the media has tried to lie to them about for so long, they realize that the answer to all of the mainstream media’s war cheer-leading and blatant manipulation is perhaps simpler than we ever suspected: All we have to do is turn them off.

References

The Media War on Libya: Justifying War through Lies and Fabrications
by Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya

Using Fake Intelligence to Justify War on Iran
by Michel Chossudovsky

Demonizing the Enemy: Preparing Americans and the World for an All Out Attack against Iran
by Russ Baker

Killing the Truth: Western Mainstream Media Complicit in NATO War Crimes in Libya
by Finian Cunningham

The Corporate Media Complex: Drawing Back the Veil on the U.S. Propaganda Machine
by Dr. Robert P. Abele

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URL of this article

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"Palestine is the heart of Arab countries" - Hiyam Noir

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Opinions expressed are those of their respective authors and do not necessarily reflect those of The PalestineFreeVoice,all publishing is for information services only.

The Future of the Bid for a UN Membership for a Palestinian State in the UN Security Council

2012-01-04T16:47:00.000+02:00

Strategic Assessment # 40:

Summary:

The Palestinian bid for full United Nations (UN) membership for a Palestinian state presented to the UN Security Council has come to a dead end, after it hit the obstacle of failing to obtain the nine required votes. Thus, the American administration was not compelled to use its veto power, as it had threatened; while the Palestinian leadership had not yet decided to press for a vote in the UN Security Council, to take the vote to the UN General Assembly UNGA to win the lesser position of enhanced observer status, or to take it to UN agencies to obtain full membership. The leadership is still studying the possibility of putting statehood bid to a vote, along with what this implies of facing possible defeat by not mustering the required votes, or facing an American veto in case it did; the matter which, in both cases, will have repercussions on American-Palestinian relations, especially in the second case.

Historical Background

Particularly after the defeat of 1967, and following the Arab and international recognition, in 1974, of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, the Palestinians and the Arabs tried to use this international legitimacy in favor of the Palestinian issue, through international law and UN resolutions. In spite of the historical injustice present in these resolutions regarding the Palestinian national historical and natural rights, they contain the minimum of these rights represented by: the right of the Palestinian people to self- determination, including their right to establish a Palestinian state within the 1967 lines, and the refugees’ right of return and compensation, based on UN Resolution 194.

Many resolutions were passed that reaffirmed past international resolutions that preserve the rights of Palestinians. New resolutions were passed that confirmed these rights, while tens of draft resolutions that came to the UN Security Council faced a US veto.

First there was the signing of the Oslo Accords and all the big concessions therein, among them bilateral negotiations independent of the UN and other international institutions, and until the end of the transitional period stipulated in the accords, without reaching a final agreement. Then came the failure of the Camp David Summit in which the American former President Bill Clinton tried to save the “peace process,” before its total collapse. There followed Israeli aggression against the Palestinian Authority (PA) and its late president Yasir ‘Arafat. After all of the above, the PLO returned to international institutions, and obtained a legal advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, which constituted an enormous political and legal treasure that can be used not only against the Wall but also against the occupation, being considered illegitimate and illegal. Consequently, this ruling can be applied against everything the occupation did, the settlements, walls and fences, confiscation and annexation, cutting up the land, in addition to other policies and measures that are illegitimate and illegal.

The advisory opinion of ICJ was not activated, in spite of its being an important weapon; because betting on negotiations has returned with force, particularly after the death of Yasir ‘Arafat on 11/11/2004. Negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians resumed in 2008, and were conducted throughout that year, but failed to reach an agreement. Then negotiations were resumed on 9/9/2010, but they too collapsed and ended in failure.

After a series of negotiations ended in failure and the peace process collapsed, the Palestinian leadership was convinced of the necessity to go to the UN to obtain membership for Palestinian statehood, and for the following reasons:

First: there was something “like an American promise” uttered by the American President Barack Obama in his annual speech during the opening of the annual UNGA Session in September 2010, in which he held out hope that “when we come back here next year, we can have an agreement that will lead to a new member of the United Nations -- an independent, sovereign state of Palestine, living in peace with Israel.”

Second: a statement was issued by the Quartet in which it expressed its strong support for the resumption of the bilateral Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, which should lead within a year to an agreement that includes the establishment of a Palestinian state by September 2010.

Third: The plan approved by the PA, Ending the Occupation, Establishing the State, aimed at ending the occupation and fulfilling the requirements for a Palestinian state, is a two-year plan that ends in September 2011.

Following the repercussions of the Goldstone report, the features of a Palestinian policy began to take shape. This became evident in the speech delivered by the Palestinian President Mahmud ‘Abbas in the 2010 Arab Summit in Sirte. There he spoke about seven options; among them, resorting to the UN for help and not as an alternative to negotiations, which are, as he continuously repeats, his first, second and third options.

The new policy became more pronounced after the Arab Spring began, and after the American administration and the Quartet reneged on their promises, and with the start of a pressing Palestinian youth movement to end the split.

The Palestinian leadership left the details of its trip to the UN vague, especially regarding whether it will continue in that direction, or agree to resume negotiations. Or what will it do? Will it submit the request to the UN Security Council first or to the UNGA? This ambiguity reached the point that sometimes it would insist on obtaining full membership, and other times it would imply that this is a mere maneuver aimed at improving the American and European stances, in order to put pressure on Israel to go along with the Palestinians’ demands, for the sake of resuming negotiations. That its real intent is to submit a request to the UNGA seeking enhanced observer status. Finally it resolved the matter by submitting a bid for Palestinian statehood to the UN Security Council.

Palestinian Attitudes

There were mixed Palestinian reactions to heading to the UN:

-The PLO, along with broad public circles, considered it a change in the traditional policy adopted since the signing of the Oslo Accords that deserves support.

- Other political and public sectors warned of the danger of such a step lest the UN bid to recognize the Palestinian state prejudice the right of self-determination for all the Palestinian people, their right of return and the standing of the PLO. This is based on the assumption that if the Palestinian request is accepted, the Palestine seat, currently occupied by the PLO, will be occupied by the Palestinian state.

- Furthermore, a third Palestinian political and public sectors rejected this step in principle, because it consecrates ceding 78% of Palestine and recognizes Israel as a Jewish state, as referred to in UN Resolution 181, and prejudices the refugees’ right of return. Furthermore, it is a unilateral step, done without the participation of other factions and sectors that are not part of the PLO, in particular Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) movements. Also it comes in the light of the continued schism that will hurt the Palestinian bid’s chances of success.

This is indeed what happened; for a report by a UN Security Council subcommittee looking into the Palestinian bid said that the Palestinian state does not exercise its sovereignty over part of the population and over 40% of the land where the Palestinian state is to be established. This rationalization was used by the states that threatened to reject the bid or abstain if it came to a vote.

A look at the Palestinian map in light of the UN Palestinian bid, in particular after the important historical speech delivered by Mahmud ‘Abbas in the UNGA, we find that the bid has enjoyed broad support. However, in all factions without exception, even in Fatah and the PLO, there were voices that supported, rejected, or were reserved with regard to it, for principled or tactical reasons. For there are those who wish to return to bases and principles; others give priority to unity; and yet others have reservations, being convinced that going to the UN is useless (whether to the UN Security Council or UNGA, to either or both), because it leads to a sharp confrontation with the US and Israel, and lessen the chances of resuming negotiations.

The bid was submitted to the UN Security Council in spite of Arab calls and the European initiative, specifically France, which asked that the bid be submitted to the UNGA in exchange for European support; provided not to resort to the Security Council, resume negotiations, and not submit requests to join UN agencies. All of the above proves that the Palestinian leadership is keen on gaining full membership, while simultaneously, it does not wish to enter into a confrontation with the American administration that opposes going to the UN Security Council and UNGA, even if the latter option is less embarrassing to it as it lets it avoid using its veto.

It also proves that the Palestinian leadership is committed to negotiations, and going to the UN is not a substitute for them, rather it enhances the prospects of their resumption. This makes going to the UN a mere tactic to improve the chances of resuming the negotiations and not a new integrated strategy.

It is not hard to obtain the lesser position of enhanced observer status from the UNGA, even without meeting the conditions of the European initiative. This is because the needed majority for a decision by the UNGA is guaranteed. For in tallying the votes, those states for and against are counted, while those absent or had abstained are not counted.

Changing the Palestine seat at the UN from that of an observer entity to an observer state may allow it to accede to international agreements and obtain full membership in UN agencies. This will also enhance Palestine’s political and legal standing and help the Palestinian position which calls the territories, of the state about to be recognized, occupied and not disputed. There is nothing that prevents submitting the bid to the Security Council over and over again, until it is approved. However, attention should be paid to legal repercussions, of which Palestinian, Arab and international parties had warned.

The Israeli stance

Israel is absolutely opposed to referring the Arab-Israeli conflict to the UN, because it realizes that UN participation will bring in international law and UN resolutions, putting their weight in the service of the Palestinian issue. This will satisfy the Palestinian demand to base the negotiations on an international authority that enforces implementation and not merely negotiating. For this is the policy that successive Israeli governments had followed and led to the erosion of the Palestinian negotiating position, ranging from the declaration of independence and the national plan approved by the Palestinian National Council in Algiers in 1988, approval of the principles of land swap, dividing Jerusalem, annexing settlement blocs, and finding a fair solution “agreed upon” to the refugee problem according to the Clinton parameters, which fail to include the refugees’ right of return to their homes and properties, without putting the blame on Israel and let it bear the legal, historical, and political responsibility for what have been happening to them since the Nakbah and until now.

Israel has always preferred bilateral negotiations, away from international law and UN resolutions; and without the participation of any other party, even the US. That is because it wants to face the Palestinians alone, so that the Palestinian negotiator will find himself weak and helpless in the face of the gross imbalance in the balance of power, the accelerating pace of expansion and settlement plans that threaten whatever hope there remains in reaching a balanced solution.

The Repercussions

It is noticed that going to the UN and becoming a full member of UNESCO led to a temporary freeze of US aid to Palestinians and to withholding the transfer of tax revenues owed to the PA and collected by Israel, totaling $100 million a month, and representing two thirds of Palestinian revenues. These Israeli and American measures may lead to undermining the PA and prejudicing the role of the Palestinian security forces that have security coordination and cooperation with the Israeli forces. These measures may also lead the Palestinians to look for other options and alternatives far from bilateral negotiations, such as returning to the option of resistance, even if popular resistance, and to the campaigns to boycott Israel. Other alternatives could be threatening to dissolve the PA or reconsider its form, functions and commitments, or achieving national reconciliation and recovering the Arab dimension of the Palestinian issue.

The PA has taken several measures that reflected frustration over the impasse in the peace process. It organized a campaign to boycott products made in Israeli WB settlements. It also called for intensifying popular resistance and expanding the boycott campaigns, and on 4/5/2011, it signed a national reconciliation agreement in Cairo. On 22/12/2011, a provisional PLO leadership was established, which includes Hamas, the PIJ and other factions. Today, there are increasing calls for the complete implementation of the national reconciliation agreement. If this was done democratically, and on the basis of real partnership and common grounds, it would strengthen the Palestinians and add to their inviolability in the face of American and Israeli threats and pressures.

On the other hand, the PA made a commitment to not take any unilateral step in the UN, in particular, not to present any new requests to the UN General Assembly and its agencies, and to postpone the formation of a Palestinian consensus government until after 26/1/2012 (the deadline set by the Quartet for Israel and the Palestinians to submit their views on borders and security). This means that the PA wants to keep its options to return to the negotiations open. As for Israel, it will not submit its vision of the peace settlement unless the direct bilateral negotiations are resumed. The American administration supports this position, for it called once again for resuming negotiations first.

Possible Scenarios

The first scenario: continuing to submit the bid to the UN Security Council, but not call for a vote on it until the required votes are obtained, which is impossible now and could become harder with the coming of the new year. In 2012, five countries will no longer be members of the UN Security Council, four of which were likely to vote in favor of the Palestinian bid. Five new countries will replace them, three of which will vote in its favor.

This scenario has the possibility of putting statehood bid to a vote, even if it failed to obtain the nine required votes. Then submitting the request to the Security Council a second, and a third time, and so on, until it gets approved and Palestine acquires full membership.

This scenario embarrasses the US, but it does not lead to any American-Palestinian confrontation; thus it is likely in light of the facts currently on the table.

The second scenario: putting Palestinian statehood bid to a vote and obtaining the required votes or more. This leads to a US veto and results in a Palestinian confrontation with the American administration that does not want to appear to the world, especially after the Arab spring, as a party that stands against the right of the Palestinian people to determine their destiny and establish their state. This is especially so, as the US, years ago, had supported its establishment, and considered that to be an American strategic and security interest. This scenario is unlikely unless some of the countries that are planning to abstain changed their position.

The third scenario: submitting a request for an enhanced observer status in the UNGA, with or without submitting requests for full membership in UN agencies. This scenario leads to a less acute Palestinian confrontation with the US and Israel. However, it could lead to suspension of aid, freezing relations, and withholding the transfer of tax revenues to the PA.

Recommendations

1. The need to adhere to the Palestinian position of a complete moratorium on settlement activity, and to approve the establishment of a Palestinian state within the 1967 lines as a prerequisite for resuming negotiations; and to consider the above the Palestinian national position’s minimum requirements.

2. To submit requests for an enhanced observer status in the UNGA and its agencies, and not succumb to American and Israeli threats and sanctions. To put the Palestinian request to a vote, and repeating the process, no matter whether this request faces America’s veto or does not get the required nine votes.

3. To adopt an effective policy in the UN, based on the implementation and activation of all the resolutions and recommendations relative to the Palestinian issue, including the legal advisory opinion from the ICJ and the Goldstone report.

4. Give precedence to ending the schism, implementing the reconciliation agreement and restoring national unity.

5. To Stress that resorting to the UN in no way means waiving any of the inalienable and legitimate rights of the Palestinian people, including liberation of their land, the refugees’ right of return, the right of self-determination and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state.

The Arabic version of this Assessment was published on 22/12/2011.

Al-Zaytouna Center thanks Mr. Hani al-Masri for authoring the original text on which this Strategic Assessment is based.

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"Palestine is the heart of Arab countries" - The PalestineFreeVoice ______________________________________________________

Opinions expressed are those of their respective authors and do not necessarily reflect those of The PalestineFreeVoice,all publishing is for information services only.

Interview with Abo Imad Alrifai, the leader of Palestinian IJ (Islamic Jihad) in Lebanon,

2012-01-04T02:11:00.000+02:00

By Mousa Almllahi and Natalie Beser

January 3 2012

Do you think that Israel will attack Gaza again?

- The Zionist entity has an aggressive nature; it has been established by killing another people, and robbing their own homeland. The international community couldn’t even impose the cessation of settlement on Israel, and used to justify its crimes in every war against the Palestinian people. Thus, it’s not surprising that this entity could resort to wage more wars, against Gaza Strip or anywhere else. However, the current situation in the region, particularly in Egypt, may not allow the Zionist entity to launch a new aggression. The Zionist entity examines well the variables that are going on in the countries of the region, especially in the surrounding countries. It realizes the magnitude of the reaction of the Arab peoples in respect of such an aggression. Although it is threatening to wage war against Gaza, it does so to cover the operations of the Judaization of Jerusalem and the expansion of settlements and the expulsion of the original Arab citizens from Jerusalem. Currently, the negotiations that the international Quartet has called for in Amman, provides Israel with such a cover.

Arabs have different opinions about protests against regimes in Bahrain and Syrian, why?

- It’s not about this or that country, but about the nature of the conflict in the region. Peoples of the region are mostly Muslims, so it’s natural that they support the demands of the people to get their full rights of freedom and political and social reforms, whether in Bahrain or in Syria, or anywhere else. Therefore, the difference in evaluation is a difference in degree and not a difference in nature; it is not linked to the regimes, but to the position concerning the conflict against the Western project and the Zionist enemy. We believe that reforms should be supported in Syria without being dragged behind the plan which aims to remove Syria away from its influential role in the ingoing conflict against the Zionist enemy. Unlike Bahrain, Syria enjoys a geopolitical position in the region; thus it is natural to get more attention. Moreover, media plays a major role in directing people’s concern and attitudes. Major media channels in the region talk about what’s happening in Syria without saying a word about what’s going on in Bahrain. For these reasons, we believe that Muslims across the Arab region support the calls for reforms in Bahrain too.

How will it affect Islamic Jihad if Assad falls?

- We do not see that President Assad’s regime is going to fall in the foreseen future. We believe that the logic of reforms will win in Syria at the end of the day. Anyhow, the Islamic Jihad, like other resistance movements in the region, went through more difficult situations, especially during the U.S. occupation of Iraq. At that time, many people thought that this would affect our morale and our efforts, but the opposite has happened. And US occupation of Iraq has been defeated. Moreover, resistance movements went through two major wars in Lebanon, 2006, and in Gaza Strip, 2008, and prevented the Israeli aggression from achieving its goals. The fall of the Assad’s regime will affect the entire international system, and will re-mixing all the papers across the region. This, in turn, will open the door for new opportunities. Resistance against the Zionist occupation is not related to this or that country; it is a natural response to the occupation itself; so it will continue as long as the occupation exists, under all circumstances.

What kind of dialogue has IJ had with Hezbollah on this subject?

- What is happening in the region, in general, is the focus of Islamic Jihad with all national and Islamic forces, not with Hezbollah alone, because the current variables will affect the Palestinian cause positively or negatively. It is said that, the risks have the opportunities within them. The issue of the Palestinian people is a cause of an oppressed people, which has been expelled from his own land by the force of terrorism of the Zionist occupation. The peoples of the region are linked by historical, ideological, and intellectual ties to Palestine, and they will not abandon the land of Palestine and its people, no matter how long; and the Crusades, which lasted 100 years, are the biggest proof of that.

Egypt Islamists will maintain Camp David agreement! What you say about that?

- Islamists in Egypt said that the People's Council will discuss the agreement, and possibly subject it to a referendum. We are not afraid of the Islamists, because they have historical, realistic, and Quranic ties to Palestine. And this will prevent the Islamic Movement from the recognition of the Zionist entity. Masjid al-Aqsa (Al Aqsa Mosque) does not represent the Palestinians alone, but is a fundamental pillar of the faith of all Muslims, regardless of their political visions. Arafat himself was unable to give up Al-Aqsa Mosque despite all the temptations and pressures imposed upon him. Even more, the rules of procedure of the Fatah movement still consider that Palestine, from the river to the sea, is a property of the Palestinian people. We do not believe that the Islamic movement can say otherwise, under any circumstances.

What is the future for Israel, how you see the Middle East future?

- The Zionist Entity is a state of occupation; and by nature, occupation can’t stay or last forever. Israel is a need for the Western governments, and when it is no longer in need, and becomes a burden on the West, it will be abandoned. The Zionist entity may start to collapse internally, particularly in the fields of human values, which has become so obvious today; then, collapse will spread in all other areas in a way that it can’t meet the Western needs and ambitions.

For the Middle East, we believe that it will go through a difficult era in the coming years, but the future will be an ally of the peoples of this region. As people started to smell the odor of freedom, and tomb down regimes supported by Western governments for decades, this positive change will impact the region’s future, which we look at with great optimism.

How do IJ see the call for negotiation in Jordan?

- This meeting gives the enemy more opportunities to continue its policy of Judaization of Jerusalem, expanding settlements, and neglecting the Palestinian cause. Past experiences should have been taught the Palestinian Authority that it shouldn’t be dragged behind the illusion of more bets on the international community; Quartet Committee was biased to Israel, and could not impose on Israel to halt settlement activity. This meeting is throwing dust in the eyes; it is a continuation of the approach of negotiating with the occupation, which has been proved nonsense and a waste of time for the past two decades. Moreover, the orientation of the Palestinian Authority towards negotiations could lead to the failure of the Palestinian reconciliation.

Source

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"Palestine is the heart of Arab countries" - The PalestineFreeVoice ______________________________________________________

Opinions expressed are those of their respective authors and do not necessarily reflect those of The PalestineFreeVoice,all publishing is for information services only.

The American-Iran Cold War in the Middle East and the Threat of Broader War

2012-01-02T16:04:00.000+02:00

By Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya

December 30 2011

A cold war has been ongoing between Tehran and Washington. U.S. spies, drones, assassinations, and accusations against Tehran have all been a part of this package. Washington and its minions have been using every means possible, including international organizations, like the United Nations, as a battleground against Tehran in this cold war. The destabilization campaign being waged against Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon are also a critical front in this cold war...

The Obama Administration has used 2011 to unleash Washington’s so-called “Coalition of the Moderate” against the Resistance Bloc, which pins together all the countries and forces united by their opposition to U.S. and Israeli hegemony in the Middle East-North Africa (MENA) region. The two camps that are becoming more and more visible in the MENA region are falling along the lines of what Washington, Tel Aviv, and NATO planned on forming after the 2006 Israeli defeat in Lebanon as a means of tackling Iran and its allies. In 2007, the United States of America, represented by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defence Secretary Robert Gates, held a meeting in Cairo under the “GCC + 2” formula with the Gulf Cooperation Council – Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, the U.A.E., Oman, and Qatar – plus Egypt and Jordan to form a strategic and all encompassing front against Iran, Syria, and their regional allies. This “Coalition of the Moderate” formed by Washington was a direct extension of NATO that also included Israel and Turkey as important and central participants.

The Balance of Power is being played out in Syria and Iraq

While Syria is being targeted for regime change as a means of re-orienting the balance of power in the Middle East, Iraq is also being destabilized as a means of catalyzing a sectarian civil war between Muslim Shia Arabs and Muslim Sunni Arabs. The bombings in both Iraq and Syria carry all the trademarks of Washington and its network of allies, as do the murder of civilians by Salvador-style death squads. For years Iraqi refugees have been reporting that U.S. and British forces were leading the death squads in Iraq and that they were the main perpetrators behind the explosions targeting civilians in Iraq. In regards to Syria, even the press in North America and Western Europe has been forced to admit that there are “mysterious death squads” killing Syrian civilians. One example is the National Post in Canada, which admitted on December 7, 2011 that unknown death squads were causing havoc in Syria by killing civilians.

The massive waves of explosions in Iraq targeting civilians are a means of not only destabilizing Iraq, but igniting sectarianism as the U.S. pulls out. It is no coincidence that the neighbourhoods in Baghdad and its galaxy cities were quickly turned into sectarian enclaves under U.S. administration. It is also worth noting that the current Vice-President of the United States, Joseph Biden, was the man that in 2006 authored a plan – or more correctly stamped his name on the plan – called the “Biden Plan” to divide or balkanize Iraq into three sectarian entities. It is in this context that the political tensions between Prime Minister Nouri Al-Malaki and Vice-President Tariq Al-Hashimi are being played out and utilized. If a genuine sectarian civil war occurs in Iraq it could galvanize the region along the lines of Sunnites and Shiites as Washington, Tel Aviv, NATO, and the Arab dictatorial families wish. Regional chaos is their goal. Such chaos and divisions would preoccupy and distract the peoples of the region with internal fighting and allow the U.S. and Israel to maintain advantageous positions while the petro-sheikhdom rulers would be able to maintain their illegitimate hold on power.

Turkey’s Central Role in Syria and the Middle East Spy War

In Libya, while Qatar was designated as the main Arab country, Britain and France were the NATO members that were outsourced the handling of the war by Washington (at least publicly). In Syria, the campaign was outsourced to France, Germany, and Turkey by Washington, while Qatar and Saudi Arabia, with the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan to follow in the future, were designated as the principle Arab players. Berlin was initially pushing for foreign intervention in the Syrian Arab Republic, but its role has seemed to have subsided as has the possibility of direct NATO military intervention in Syria. Focusing back on Turkey, Ankara is nonetheless the central player in besieging Syria and without Turkey’s participation the operations against Syria have a slim chance of success.
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From the end of November to the start of December, the Syrian Army begun to setup positions near the Syrian-Turkish borders, including Hatay Province where Alexandretta (Iskenderun) is located. As Syrian troops positioned themselves near the Turkish border a little after mid-December, U.S. or NATO aircraft violated Syrian airspace. The aircraft entered Syria’s airspace via Incirlik Air Base from the nearby Adana Province of Turkey and dropped off electronic spy devices near the predominately Kurdish-inhabited vicinity of the town of Afrin in the Governate of Aleppo.

This is part of the broader electronic monitoring and spy war that has also gripped Lebanon and Iran. Recently in Lebanon large numbers of Israeli and U.S. spies were apprehended with direct ties to the U.S. Embassy in Beirut. In parallel, U.S. spies and spy networks have also been ensnared in Iran by the Iranian intelligence apparatus. This spy war is tied to the stepped up efforts by Washington to infiltrate Iran. With this view, Washington has also augmented its Iranian special interest office in the United Arab Emirates with a virtual embassy for Iran.

Playing the Turks; Ankara May Back Down in its Syrian Gambit

Public in-fighting is not new to NATO states and in this respect Paris and Ankara have begun to squabble over the Armenian Genocide. For years Nicolas Sarkozy and legislators in Paris have talked about passing legislature that would outlaw the denial of the Armenian Genocide in the dying Ottoman Empire. This legislature was recently passed in France and has been widely analyzed as an elections stunt by Sarkozy to win Armenian support and votes in France. Nevertheless, it has to also be noted that Paris has also predicted that the situation in Iraq after the U.S. military evacuation could radically modify the stance of the Turkish government towards Syria. This is a key point.

If Iraq becomes an assertive single entity that aligns itself completely with Tehran and Damascus, then Turkey will be forced to change its position. Turkish trade could heavily be decelerated and a contour would be formed around Turkey going from Iran to Iraq to Syria that could cut Turkey’s land routes to North Africa, Jordan, the Arabian Peninsula, Central Asia, Pakistan, India, and East Asia. Along with the Republic of Armenia, Tehran, Baghdad, and Damascus could form a wall around Turkey. The only open borders to Turkey would be Greece, Bulgaria, and Georgia. The latter of which, Georgia, could be cutoff too by the Russian Federation.

Hence, the course of events in Iraq will be pivotal to Turkish foreign policy and to the shape of the balance of power in the Middle East. It is in this context that creating internal tensions in Iraq is being used to keep Iraq from asserting itself as a staunch Iranian and Syrian ally. Should the regime in Syria manage to holdout and should Iraq manage to maintain stability, Washington’s time in the Middle East will be over; followed by Israel’s capabilities to launch anymore wars.

Moreover, the Turks are slated for relatively short-term use. It is not in the interest of Washington or Israel to allow Turkey to become a major power. The U.S. and Israel have been working behind Ankara’s back to also weaken Turkey after it serves it purpose in their regional strategy. This is one of the reasons they have been supporting Kurdish separatist movements opposed to Turkey. Turkey itself is slated to erupt into internal fighting and divisions. Turkish involvement in Syria or a war with Syria involving the Turks will ultimately weaken Turkey itself and have disastrous side effects like Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Iran did for Iraq. If a war does erupt between Ankara and Damascus, the war itself will be damaging to Turkish national unity and could led to a civil war; such a war will also erupt into a conflict with Syria’s Iranian and Russian allies.

The Demonization of Iran in the International Commons

The international system that was setup after the Second World War is in increasing decline. The United Nations and other international bodies have become the scenes of struggles between two emerging global camps – on the one hand is the U.S. and what has become, since the end of the Cold War, the expanded Western Bloc and on the other hand are all those countries that are independent of Washington or that resist U.S. hegemony. These two camps are increasingly becoming visible on the basis of their positions in the international arena and how they vote in global forums. For example, albeit there were key abstentions, at the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva there were two diametrically opposed positions on Syria that saw countries like Ecuador, Cuba, Russia, and China siding with Syria against the U.S., Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Poland.

Much earlier, the International Atomic Energy Association (I.A.E.A.) in the same context of a battle ground also released a grossly manipulated report. The report took information from the intelligence services of the U.S. and its allies and old information that was discarded earlier for being false by the I.A.E.A. and reinvented the very same information as “potentially” meaning that the Iranian nuclear energy program had military applications. Director-General Yukiya Amano, a former Japanese diplomat, even violated the regulations of the I.A.E.A. in composing the report and its clandestine release to a few I.A.E.A. members. Amano’s report also knowingly released a list of Iranian scientists working on the nuclear energy program, knowing that it would place their lives in danger with assassinations attempts.

Washington with the collaboration of the Al-Sauds also tried to rally international support in October 2011 by claiming that Iran wanted to assassinate the Saudi envoy to Washington. After changing the outlandish narrative of the Iranian assassination attempt several times, the issue was brought to a vote at the U.N. General Assembly by Saudi Arabia and the U.S. in mid-November. One hundred and six countries voted in favour of the resolution calling for Iranian cooperation and condemning the plot. Forty countries abstained and nine voted against the resolution. The U.S. also took the opportunity to renew sanctions against Iran and present it as a threat to world peace.

A month later, a cyber warfare unit of the Iranian Armed Forces overrode U.S. controls over a Lockheed Martin RQ-170 Sentinel spy drone. It was a reenactment of the 1960 U-2 spy plane incident with the Soviet Union. The Pentagon originally denied that the U.S. had violated Iranian airspace or that a drone was captured and gave several conflicting stories, but was faced to admit the truth once the Iranians unveiled the U.S. spy drone in perfect condition under Iranian custody. In the process of taking over the controls of the spy drone when it violated Iranian airspace, U.S. satellites and command and control facilities were electronically manipulated by the Iranian military. In the same month a U.S. court in New York declared that Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah aided Al-Qaeda in the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 (9/11) and found Iran liable for a hundred billion dollars worth of damages.

The American-Iranian Cold War could lead to a Global Hot War

Now, close to the end of 2011, General Martin Dempsey, the U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has said several times that the U.S. Armed Forces are prepared to attack Iran. The Iranians have dismissed the ability of the U.S. to wage a war, but have not ruled out U.S. or Israeli attempts to launch strikes. It is in this context that Iranian naval forces have conducted naval drills in and around the Straits of Hormuz and in the waters of the Persian Gulf, Gulf of Oman, Gulf of Aden, and Arabian Sea.

The term cold war can be very misleading, because many hot events can take place in the context of such rivalries, as is the case of the events in Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq in regard to the cold war between Washington and Tehran. The actual Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States was actually played out via many hot wars in different parts of the world like Angola, Vietnam, and the Korean Peninsula. With this consideration in mind, the cold war in the Middle East between Tehran and Washington could erupt into a real and dangerous hot war with global ramifications.

On December 14, 2011, Nezavisimaya Gazeta reported that Russia is paying special attention to its military infrastructure in Armenia, which has greater geo-political importance now in regards to Russian involvement in the Middle East in the case of a U.S. or NATO war. On November 28, 2011 it was declared that Dmitry Rogozin, Mowcows’s envoy to NATO and now one of Russia’s deputy prime ministers (vice-prime ministers), would visit both Beijing and Tehran in mid-January 2012 to discuss collectively countering Washington’s missile shield project. This was after Rogozin speaking in late-September 2011 to the Rossiya-24 Television Network denied Iranian media reports that Moscow, Tehran, and Beijing were planning on jointly spearheading a response to Washington’s global missile project.

In the scenario of a U.S. war with Iran, the frozen conflicts in the Caucasus between Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Georgia, Nagorno-Karabakh, Armenia, and the Republic of Azerbaijan would also all be ignited. The Armenians, which are the allies of both Moscow and Tehran, have also made it clear that Yerevan would be forced to pick sides. From Central Asia and the Caucasus to Pakistan and the Middle East there would be major upheavals.

Neither Russia nor China will be able to stand idly in the case that a war is launched against Iran. In one way or another, if Russia enters a war against the U.S. and NATO then countries like Belarus, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Moldova would all be dragged into the conflict as it broadens. The Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) and Shanghai Cooperation Organization (S.C.O.) would be collectively involved. Rear-Admiral Zhang Zhaozhong, a Chinese military official and a director at the National Defence University of the People’s Republic of China has also acknowledged this and stated that China would not hesitate in entering a war against the United States should Washington attack Iran. Rear-Admiral Zhazhong has also addressed the importance of Pakistan as a bridge to Iran for Beijing during a possible war and the instability in Pakistan should also be examined in the context of its value to China. It is in this respect that the cold war in the Middle East has the dangerous potential of igniting into a broader war involving the core of Eurasia that would envelop the globe in disaster.

Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya is a Sociologist and award-winning author. He is a Research Associate at the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG) in Montreal, Quebec. He specializes on the Middle East and Central Asia. He has been a contributor and guest discussing the broader Middle East on numerous programs and international networks such as Al Jazeera, Press TV and Russia Today. Nazemroaya was also a witness to the "Arab Spring" in action in North Africa. While on the ground in Libya during the NATO bombing campaign, he reported out of Tripoli for several media outlets. He sent key field dispatches from Libya for Global Research and was Special Correspondent for Pacifica's syndicated investigative program Flashpoints, broadcast out of Berkeley, California. His writings have been published in more than ten languages. He also writes for the Strategic Culture Foundation (SCF), Moscow

Source

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"Palestine is the heart of Arab countries" - The PalestineFreeVoice ______________________________________________________
Opinions expressed are those of their respective authors and do not necessarily reflect those of The PalestineFreeVoice,all publishing is for information services only.

Jewish settler attacked with knive Palestinian beekeeper in the village of Husan.

2012-01-02T06:22:00.000+02:00

Jewish settlers / Photo Wattan Palestine

Hiyam Noir

January 2 2012

On Saturday night Jewish settlers attacked a Palestinian man while he was working in the illegal Jewish settlement of "Beitar Ilit", built on Palestinian land in the villages of Husan, at the Wadi Fukin beekeepers (apiarists )west of Bethlehem, in the southern part of the West Bank.

The director of ambulance and emergency service of the Red Crescent Society in Bethlehem, Abdel-Halim Djaavrh, said that the Red Crescent received a phone call from an Israeli "liaison", the informant told of that a Palestinian worker was victim of a serious injury in the settlement of "Beitar Ilit".

Mr. Djaavrh said in a press statement: that "it turned out that the injuries on the worker Khaled Hussein Hamamrah 40, was so serious.so the patient was provided emergency aid." When diagnosed at the medical clinic,the doctors found that his injuries were serious.Mr. Hamamrah had been attacked by a Jewish settler with a sharp knife, cutting of half of his left ear and injuring his face under his right eye, in addition the victim was hit many times in his head. Mr. Hamamrah was transferred to hospital in Beit Jala to be analyzed and examined with CAT scan in fear of internal bleeding's.

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"Palestine is the heart of Arab countries" - The PalestineFreeVoice ______________________________________________________

Opinions expressed are those of their respective authors and do not necessarily reflect those of The PalestineFreeVoice,all publishing is for information services only.

Palestinians must get their act together in 2012

2011-12-31T14:50:00.000+02:00

Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh (L), acting Palestinian Authority Chief Mahmoud Abbas ( Photo Press-TV)

December 30 2011 - 09:38 PM

By Khalid Amayreh

2011 was not a particularly bad year for Palestine. In this year, hundreds of Palestinian political and resistance prisoners were able to see the light, having been released from Israeli dungeons and detention camps.

Needless to say, many of these heroes would have spent the rest of their lives in Zionist jails, had it not been for the so-called Shalit deal and Israel's effective capitulation to Hamas's conditions for the release of the captive Zionist soldier.

Thanks to the deal, hundreds of Palestinian families, which had lost the hope for ever seeing their beloved ones alive again, breathed a sigh of relief as they were reunited with their children, brothers, husbands and daughters.

Needless to say, Israel had tried every conceivable effort and intelligence act to locate the captive soldier, but to no avail. After all, Shalit was held under Israel's nose somewhere in the Gaza Strip for more than 60 months.

This fact alone should make us look with admiration and gratitude to those unknown but heroic soldiers who were able to keep this valuable secret all these months and years.

2011 brought us the Arab Spring, which consigned several tyrannical pro-American regimes to the dustbin of history. Some of these regimes, such as that of ex-president Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, had been a serious liability for the Palestinian struggle and steadfastness.

For example, in 2008-09, the Egyptian regime colluded, connived and collaborated with the Zionist entity to murder, torment and vanquish the Gaza Strip, enabling Israel to carry out its Nazi-like onslaught on the virtually unprotected coastal territory, killing, incinerating and maiming thousands of Palestinians men, women and children.

More to the point, the regime sought effectively to consolidate the criminal Israeli siege on Gaza, by building another concrete wall to make it virtually impossible for Gazans to smuggle even a pack of milk from the Egyptian side of the borders to their starving children on the other side.

Hence, the removal of that regime is considered a great victory for both the Egyptian and Palestinian peoples, for the Egyptians because the corrupt Mubarak regime suppressed human rights and civil liberties in deference to Israeli and American interests, and for the Palestinians because the regime was viewed as a strategic asset for the Zionist regime since it allowed the Zionist entity to savage the Palestinians in exchange for American aid and political protection.

The elections that occurred in Tunisia and Egypt were also auspicious news for the Palestinian cause. The triumph of Islamic or quasi-Islamic parties, especially the Muslim Brotherhood, is probably some of the best news the Palestinian cause and people have received in many decades.

True, we don't expect to see miracles very soon as a result of the Arab Spring. However, there is no doubt that the strategic changes taking place in the Arab world have confused and unsettled Israel's strategic calculations in the region.

Israel, which is becoming a fully-fledged fascist state, had probably planned to embark on unthinkable measures against the Palestinians, possibly including genocidal massacres, induced emigration and ethnic cleansing.

However, thanks to the Arab Spring, especially the Egyptian revolution, Israel is very likely to think twice before pursuing its lebensraum policy against its neighbors.

The end of 2011 also brought the Palestinian people much closer to national reconciliation and unity.

Hamas agreed to join the PLO and all the sides agreed to form a government of national unity, release political prisoners and hold elections for the Palestinian Authority (PA) as well as for the Palestinian National Council.

What is especially important is that the psychology of the Palestinian people improved significantly during 2011 despite unrelenting Zionist aggressions and provocations.

None the less, there is much to be done in 2012. The National reconciliation must materialize on the ground and ordinary Palestinians must feel its tangible effects.

However, It is probably unlikely that true national unity between Fatah and Hamas will be achievable unless the PA and the Ramallah regime end the ignominious cooperation and coordination with the Zionist occupation army.

Indeed, the security coordination has been a sad chapter in recent Palestinian history and it must be ended sooner than later.

Moreover, with the unmitigated theft of Palestinian land continuing at the hands of the Zionist regime, the PA should have the courage to declare the end of the mendacious peace process.

Yes, dismantling the PA infrastructure may not seem easily done as said. However, if it becomes clear that the existence of the PA militates against and hinders the establishment of a viable and territorially contiguous Palestinian state, then Palestinian leaders must not flinch from embarking on dissolving the PA. After all the establishment of an independent Palestinian state is the raison d'etre of the PA itself, as PA official Sa'eb Erikat said on several occasions.

In any case, the Palestinian leadership should stop playing games with the fate and destiny of the Palestinian people and cause.

We have indulged in futile political games too much and for too long, and must therefore come to the hour of truth.

And reaching the hour of truth should also mean a realization that the creation of a viable Palestinian state on the West Bank, one with Jerusalem as its capital, is no longer a realistic option given the phenomenal spread of Jewish colonies.

Hence, the Palestinian leadership, including Fatah and Hamas, must get its act together in 2012 and make sure it is not going to be another year of futile waiting.

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"Palestine is the heart of Arab countries" - The PalestineFreeVoice ______________________________________________________

Opinions expressed are those of their respective authors and do not necessarily reflect those of The PalestineFreeVoice, all publishing is for information services only.

Occupied Palestine: Forests Plantations in Service of Colonization

2011-12-30T04:12:00.000+02:00

Acre,( Akka) the key to the Levant during the period 1898-1939 AD

Rare photographs from the Library of Congress for the colonies of America / American colony in Jerusalem, the city of Acre during the period 1898-1939 AD, show the landscapes, archeological sites and holy places.

By Hiyam Noir and Fadwa Nassar

December 28 -29, 2011

Since 1948, the Zionist occupation of Palestine has been a dramatic expansion of forests and gardens, the so called Biblical Gardens,to make believe that the colonialists are ecologically and environmentally aware, and long have dreamed of living in a pure and healthy natural environment, or else participating in contests of global protection of the nature, in particular as they are prompted by several countries in the world to participate in this environmentally important task.

There are departments of colonial interest of the environment and deforestation, thus the organization which is serious regarding the remaining virgin landscapes of Palestine, is the JNF (Jewish National Fund, or (KKL) as the acronym of the Hebrew name).

According to the JNF website, its interest covers the whole territory of the occupied Palestine, it crashes down and then claims, allover, including in the Jewish communities around the world, to be the contributor of "beautifying"the country.

Forests is planted to hide Zionist crimes

In fact, much of the forests planted by the Zionists, including that of the Jewish National Fund, determined in an effort to hide Palestinian villages destroyed in the Nakba of 1948, and the illegal acquisition of land by force in Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem and Golan Heights in the 1967 war. It is no longer a secret that the hard work of the "green - thumb" Zionist, is the will of the colonial rulers to hide and bury under the trees, what remains of Palestinian towns and villages. Whether on Mount Carmel, where several Palestinian villages were destroyed and the population was killed or expelled, in the northern village of al-Jalil,or the town of al-Quds, or al-Naqab.

It was the method meted out and scrupulously performed against the indigenous Palestinian population beforehand, to accomplish the objectives of the Zionist entity, and still is; erasing the true history of the country, crushing with bulldozers the villages, removing their names on roads and from all the maps, thinking that it will prevent the return of the hundreds of thousands of refugees whose ancestors were born in these towns and villages.

JNF (KKL) forests plantations are hiding the destruction of Palestinian villages at the Mount Carmel.Some villages, 86 in total among the 531 destroyed are: al-Tirah, Khraybe, Balad el-Sheikh, Ijzim, Ayn Ghazal, Khirbet al-Damoun, Umm Zinat and Jalame. By the World Zionist Organization, a buried cultural heritage under trees, funded and planted all over Palestine. In the region of Al-Quds, the “Ishaq Rabin garden” was planted on the top of the Palestinian villages of Saris, Souba and Ayn Karem, which were destroyed in 1948.

After the occupation of the West Bank and the eastern part of Al-Quds, the JNF continues its dirty job in "green planting”, on behalf of the Zionist (JDL) the Canadian Nation wreckers.....the "Canada Park" is to be installed, which vegetation will hide the crimes conducted: the destruction of the villages Amwas, Yalo, Beit Nuba and Deir Ayyub, whose population was either killed or expelled.

Encircling Palestinian villages and towns

The "green thumbs" of the JNF and other organizations of the Zionist entity, did not stop in the destruction of the past. However it will not succeed in destroying the history of Palestine.Today more than ever, Palestinian villages and towns dare to resist so far, mean while the JNF with all means is trying to dismantle them.

Palestinian classical scholars and researchers and the Arab Center for Alternative Planning, are emphasizing the significant role of state planning, particularly in the Judaized landscapes of the occupied Palestine, which the JNF and its forestation plans are an integral part of. Indeed,the various national or regional plans to "nationalize" or "rationalize", initiated by official circles, aiming at cutting back the areas still in Palestinian possession, are villages and towns surrounded by new forests.These forests though, prevent the use of Palestinian land, for example building of housing projects, as they are depending on Palestinian ruled municipalities and its local boards to hinder expansion of particular villages and towns.

"We do not touch the forest! " is the imperative mood of the Zionist entity. However,it is important to know; that 70% of the land in the region that still have remaining sound Palestinian villages and towns, for example the old Palestinian seaport of Akka, are reserved, according to the Zionist forests planting plan. 41% of the land owned by the villages and towns inhabited by mostly Palestinian Druze in Mount Carmel and al-Jalil, are reserved for planting of forests and so called "nature reserves".

The figures above are only meaningful if we take into account that the Palestinians do not have more left of their land of origin than the futile 3.4%, and that the Zionist entity and various colonial organisms have during decades clean swept Palestine, since the massive expulsion of Nakba, in 1948.

The situation for the Palestinians becomes even more terrible, since the Zionist association for “the protection of nature", got involved in the debate of the planning of “nature reserves“. They ( the Zionists) deny that new settlements are established in some areas,for example in parts of al-Jalil. At the same time as they build settlements,the colonial entity plant forests and "nature reserves" around Palestinian villages and towns.Thus, the goal is reached: Palestinian villages and towns are now surrounded by the forests, meanwhile simultaneously Jewish settlements multiply on stolen Palestinian land.

The myth of the "Biblical Gardens"

Carried away by the myth of the "land of Israel" - i.e. the occupied Palestine, the Zionists still find other fraudulent means to both swallow Palestinian land and falsify the history and the geography of Palestine. Around the city of Al-Quds and elsewhere, you will soon find these fraudulent so called Biblical Gardens installed everywhere, on land stolen from Palestinian landowners to falsify the history of Palestine.This is where a variety of old herbs, plants and trees use to grow, tools and machinery along with the olive press, used by Palestinian farmers throughout their life and work in Palestine.

Now the Jews are all of a sudden becoming the awe.They are... ..to ignorant tourists and Zionist admirers the "men and the women who planted the barren and sandy desert, the forsaken place” !

- Voila !

Silwan situated south of the al-Aqsa mosque in al-Quds, is threatened by the installation of a fake Biblical Garden”. Under the pretext of re-creating " the Jewish History of Palestine" continues. In the construction of fake gardens and forests, the Zionists have destroyed the homes and the neighborhoods in the City of al-Quds. Maqdisis (the people of al-Quds )are expelled,their history is falsified and hatred of reasoning is sowed - in sin and death.

As if we are blind and unaware of what the Zionist settlers also do to our own croplands and to our Palestinian fields, as if we don’t have a clue of that the Jewish settlers in fact uproot our trees, including our olive trees, and that they slip – drop their filthy pigs into our cropland to destroy, and that they in an unsatisfied, unpredicted statement - in a mood-swing, burn down our fields.

So now our readers, when you learned about our predicament, do you still believe in the honesty of Zionists desire: the preserving of the Palestinian nature landscape... and that they are environmentally well organized and concerned about the relationships between the living things and their environments ( the human ecology)?

If we the writers, would not know of what is hidden in the planted forests of the Palestine territories, that is (often), the place where old Palestinian villages are/were situated, we would have believed in the ecological orientation of the Zionist entity.

Conclusion

Now our readers around the world also may be able to grasp the dark reality, and the appalling consequences of the Zionists rampage in the historical landscape of Palestine. That the fake Forests, the fake Nature Reserves and the fake Biblical Gardens have a very special foul smell, that of a colonial odor.... and understand that, the dirty and bloody hands and minds of the criminal usurpers, can never build a state of equality and well-fare, or creating and maintaining a country of pure beauty.

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"Palestine is the heart of Arab countries" - The PalestineFreeVoice ______________________________________________________

Opinions expressed are those of their respective authors and do not necessarily reflect those of The PalestineFreeVoice,all publishing is for information services only.