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May 18th, 2008
MI5 linked to Max Mosley’s Nazi-style, sadomasochistic sex orgy. Mosley’s father led the British Union of Fascists in the 30s and 40s. His mother was a great admirer of Adolf Hitler [NSFW]
Sex orgy link embarrasses British MI5 spy service
2 hours, 15 minutes ago
By Mark Trevelyan, Security Correspondent
LONDON (Reuters) - A bizarre sex scandal involving a top motor sports official and the prostitute wife of a British spy has raised urgent questions about the screening procedures employed by the MI5 security service.
The Sunday Times and Sunday Telegraph reported that an MI5 officer had been forced to resign after it emerged that his wife was one of five prostitutes who took part in an orgy with Max Mosley, president of Formula One's governing body, the FIA.
A security source contacted by Reuters did not dispute the reports but said any suggestion the orgy had been an MI5 'sting' operation to entrap Mosley was "nonsense."
With Friends Like These…Take Two
By Uri Avnery
LATELY WE are flooded with friends. The Great of the Earth, past and present, come here to flatter us, to fawn on us, to grovel at our feet.
"God, save me from my friends, my enemies I can deal with myself!" says an old prayer.
They disgust me.
***
The Olmert affair confirms anew what we have known for a long time: the fuel Israeli politics runs on is not just money, but money from abroad. To win primaries and campaign in elections, a candidate needs millions, and these almost always come from foreign donors. Foreign billionaires financed Olmert in the party primaries, and they financed him in the general elections, in which he was assured of becoming Prime Minister. After being elected, he started Lebanon War II, with all its death and destruction. It can be said: American Jewish billionaires killed the soldiers and civilians, Israeli and Lebanese, who lost their lives in the war.
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Salvador Allende and Hugo Chavez: Similarities and Differences on the "National Road to Socialism"
May 16th 2008, by Carlos Martínez & Pascual Serrano
Last March 1, the Colombian Army attacked a FARC camp in Ecuadoran territory. The army supposedly captured three laptops, three flash drives and two external hard disks. And it must be said "supposedly" because said evidence was not obtained under established police or judicial procedures, but rather through military aggression in a foreign country, making any evidence obtained thereby illegal and unusable in any judicial procedure.
In order to give validity to this "evidence," the Colombian authorities asked Interpol to produce a report certifying the "authenticity" of the archives contained in the equipment. Yesterday, March 15, the report was made public; a reading of which, calls attention to the following conclusions:
First, a reference is made to "data classified as ULTRA SECRETO" (Page 20 of the report) when part of the data was already published in the El País newspaper.
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By Donald Macintyre in Jerusalem
Sunday, 18 May 2008
President George Bush yesterday tried to reassure sceptical Arab leaders that by the end of the year he wanted a Palestinian state "defined", after being criticised for missing an opportunity to highlight the matter when he lavished praise on Israel last week.
Speaking before Mr Bush met the President of Palestine, Mahmoud Abbas, in Sharm el-Sheikh, a leading Palestinian negotiator and moderate, Saeb Erekat, said: "He should have told the Israelis no one can be free at the expense of others. He missed this opportunity and we are disappointed."
The US President, fresh from a trip to Saudi Arabia in which he failed to persuade King Abdullah to raise oil production by more than a token 300,000 barrels a day to ease US petrol prices, insisted that "we'll work hard" to secure an outline agreement on a future Palestinian state by the end of his presidency.
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May 17 / 18, 2008
CounterPunch Diary
The View from the Crusaders' Castle
By ALEXANDER COCKBURN
Krak des Chevaliers, Syria
Thirty years ago, when the state of Israel had traveled only half its present journey through time since 1948, I interviewed General Matti Peled in New York. As an army general Peled had been a notably tough administrator of the Occupied Territories, but in retirement had become a dove, publicly urging his country to negotiate seriously with the Palestinians, abandon the illegal settlements, return to the ’67 borders and resolve all the other major issues obstructing a proper peace.
“What do you think will happen,” I asked the former general, “If no Israeli government ever emerges strong enough to take such a path?”
“Oh, I think we’ll end up like the Crusaders,” he answered. “It might take some time, but just like them, in the end, we’ll be gone.” It was startling at the time to hear any Israeli, particularly a military man, talk like that. Of course, then as always, the Israel lobby in the United States loved to depict embattled Israel as only one step from annihilation by bloodthirsty Arabs unless the United States offered unconditional diplomatic support and limitless subsidies.
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Added: May 18, 2008
http://TheRealMcCain.com/ There's no question John McCain is getting a free ride from the mainstream press. But with the power of YouTube and the blogosphere, we can provide an accurate portrayal of the so-called Maverick. We can put the brakes on his free ride!
Since we first released The Real McCain a year ago, our REAL McCain series has garnered close to 2 million views, with over 13,000 comments and tens of thousands more in petition signatures! Clearly, John McCain's record is something the public wants to discuss, and yet the corporate media is doing NOTHING to present the truth. We feel obliged to continue countering the mainstream media's love of McCain. And so we thought it was high time for a sequel: The Real McCain
May 14, 2008
Middle East
Akiva Eldar: On the sixtieth anniversary of Israel's founding, one of the country's leading journalists reflects on history, the occupation and the duties of conscience.
Among the thousands of hate-mail messages I receive from people on the Israeli right wing, and the venomous talkbacks that Jewish Americans submit through the Ha'aretz website, the occasional word of encouragement slips through from Arab readers, both from neighboring countries and from the West. At international conferences I get pats on the back from pragmatic Muslim intellectuals as well as from left-liberal Jews and non-Jews. But the Egyptian cabby's warm words were the most precious gift I have received over the three decades--half of Israel's age--during which I have written more than 2,000 articles.
Abe told me that in September 1979 he came to Haifa, the city where I was born, in Anwar Sadat's presidential yacht. I recalled that shortly after that visit, a Palestinian journalist named Ismail Ajwa came to my office. He told me that he had just been released from a six-month administrative detention on suspicion of belonging to the PLO. Ajwa showed me bruises on his legs and claimed that after being beaten and humiliated by his interrogators, he was sent home with no charges pressed. I convinced my editor to pay for a lie detector to verify Ajwa's claims. When the test showed that the journalist was telling the truth, we decided to publish the story prominently, together with the documents issued by the polygraph institute.
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Israel must be held to same nuclear scrutiny as Iran
Nabbed!!! Iranian intelligence catch CIA network of saboteur thugs
Why Elitist Terrorist organization CIA should be dismantled...
Brief overview of CIA interventions 1953-1989 (2:15)
I applaud heroic Iranian effort to crush the insidious foreign network of saboteurs as a matter of national defense against foreign covert terrorism.
The creature caught red-handed is American, though it may be with Israeli assistance in some assigned covers as Mossad is known to cooperate with Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to interfere in Middle Eastern and Central Asian affairs. It's apparent CIA hunger for revenge after U.S. was kicked out of Iran in the aftermath of 1979 Revolution arising from the nationalist outrage at U.S.'s coddling the ill dictator Shah by providing medical treatment upon Shah's arrival in U.S., which provided the opportunity for Ruhollah Khomeini to return from exile to become the first Supreme Leader in a newly formed theocractic government after overthrow of the corrupt and despotic secular government was achieved.
Iran busts CIA terror network
Tehran Times Political Desk
May 18, 2008
While Israel and its apologists around the world will, with pomp and ceremony, loudly proclaim the 60th anniversary of the establishment of the state of Israel this month, we who have lived with and struggled against oppression and colonialism will, instead, remember 6 decades of catastrophe for the Palestinian people. 60 years ago, 750,000 Palestinians were brutally expelled from their homeland, suffering persecution, massacres, and torture. They and their descendants remain refugees. This is no reason to celebrate.
When we think of the Sharpeville massacre of 1960, we also remember the Deir Yassin massacre of 1948.
When we think of South Africa's Bantustan policy, we remember the bantustanisation of Palestine by the Israelis.
When we think of our heroes who languished on Robben Island and elsewhere, we remember the 11,000 Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli jails.
When we think of the massive land theft perpetrated against the people of South Africa, we remember that the theft of Palestinian land continues with the building of illegal Israeli settlements and the Apartheid Wall.
When we think of the Group Areas Act and other such apartheid legislation, we remember that 93% of the land in Israel is reserved for Jewish use only.
When we think of Black people being systematically dispossessed in South Africa, we remember that Israel uses ethnic and racial dispossession to strike at the heart of Palestinian life.
When we think of how the SADF troops persecuted our people in the townships, we remember that attacks from tanks, fighter jets and helicopter gunships are the daily experience of Palestinians in the Occupied Territory.
When we think of the SADF attacks against our neighbouring states, we remember that Israel deliberately destabilises the Middle East region and threatens international peace and security, including with its 100s of nuclear warheads.
We who have fought against Apartheid and vowed not to allow it to happen again can not allow Israel to continue perpetrating apartheid, colonialism and occupation against the indigenous people of Palestine.
We dare not allow Israel to continue violating international law with impunity.
We will not stand by while Israel continues to starve and bomb the people of Gaza.
We who fought all our lives for South Africa to be a state for all its people demand that millions of Palestinian refugees must be accorded the right to return to the homes from where they were expelled.
Apartheid was a gross violation of human rights. It was so in South Africa and it is so with regard to Israel's persecution of the Palestinians!
* Ronnie Kasrils, Minister of Intelligence / End Occupation Campaign
* Blade Nzimande, General Secretary, South African Communist Party
* Zwelinzima Vavi, General Secretary, Congress of South African Trade Unions
* Ahmed Kathrada, Nelson Mandela Foundation
* Eddie Makue, General Secretary, South African Council of Churches
* Makoma Lekalakala, Social Movements Indaba
* Dale McKinley, Anti-Privatisation Forum
* Lybon Mabasa, President, Socialist Party of Azania
* Costa Gazi, Pan Africanist Congress of Azania
* Jeremy Cronin, South African Communist Party
* Sydney Mufamadi, Minister of Provincial and Local Government
* Mosioua Terror Lekota, Minister of Safety and Security
* Mosibudi Mangena, President, Azanian Peoples Organisation / Minister of Science and Technology
* Alec Erwin, Minister of Public Enterprises
* Essop Pahad, Minister in the Presidency
* Enver Surty, Deputy Minister of Education
* Roy Padayache, Deputy Minister of Communications
* Derek Hanekom, Deputy Minister of Science and Technology
* Rob Davies, Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry
* Lorretta Jacobus, Deputy Minister of Correctional Services
* Sam Ramsamy, International Olympic Committee
* Yasmin Sooka, Executive Director, Foundation for Human Rights
* Pregs Govender, Feminist Activist and Author: Love and Courage, A Story of Insubordination
* Adam Habib, Deputy Vice-Chancellor, University of Johannesburg
* Frene Ginwala, African National Congress
* Salim Vally, Palestine Solidarity Committee
* Na'eem Jeenah, Palestine Solidarity Committee
* Brian Ashley, Amandla Publications
* Mercia Andrews, Palestine Solidarity Group
* Andile Mngxitama, land rights activist
* Farid Esack, Professor of Contemporary Islam, Harvard University
* Elinor Sisulu, Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition Andre Zaaiman
* Virginia Setshedi, Coalition Against Water Privatisation
* Max Ozinsky, Not in my Name
* Revd Basil Manning, Minister, United Congregational Church of Southern Africa
* Firoz Osman, Media Review Network
* Zapiro, cartoonist
* Mphutlane wa Bofelo, General Secretary, Muslim Youth Movement
* Steven Friedman, academic
* Ighsaan Hendricks, President, Muslim Judicial Council
* Iqbal Jassat, Media Review Network
* Stiaan van der Merwe, Palestine Solidarity Committee
* Naaziem Adam, Palestine Solidarity Alliance
* Asha Moodley, Board member of Agenda feminist journal
* Suraya Bibi Khan, Palestine Solidarity Alliance
* Nazir Osman, Palestine Solidarity Alliance
* Allan Horwitz, Jewish Voices
* Jackie Dugard, legal and human rights activist
* Professor Alan and Beata Lipman
* Caroline O'Reilly, researcher
* Jane Lipman
* Shereen Mills, Human rights lawyer, Centre for Applied Legal Studies
* Noor Nieftagodien, University of the Witwatersrand
* Bobby Peek, Groundworks
* Arnold Tsunga, Chair, Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition
* Mcebisi Skwatsha, Provincial Secretary, ANC Western Cape
* Owen Manda, Centre for Sociological Research, University of Johannesburg
* Claire Cerruti, Keep Left
NB: Organisational affiliations above are for identification purposes only and do not necessarily reflect organisational endorsement
* Story Highlights
* President Bush speaks at the World Economic Forum in Egypt
* Bush tells Mideast leaders, "peace, freedom are within your grasp"
* Bush counsels Arab states to "move past their old resentments against Israel"
SHARM EL-SHEIK, Egypt (AP) -- At the start of his Mideast trip, President Bush gave Israel glowing praise. As it ended on Sunday, the president gave the Arab world a stern lecture: Isolate state sponsors of terror and give citizens more freedoms.
"Too often in the Middle East, politics has consisted of one leader in power and the opposition in jail," Bush said at the World Economic Forum on the Middle East. "The time has come for nations across the Middle East to abandon these practices, and treat their people with the dignity and respect they deserve."
Bush's address to hundreds of global policymakers and business leaders gathered in this Red Sea beach town was his finishing touch on a five-day Mideast trip to Egypt, Israel and Saudi Arabia.
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The newspapers, whose management are all appointed by the government, criticized Mr. Bush's speech Thursday in front of the Israeli Knesset for being overly supportive of the Israelis and not mentioning the Palestinians' plight.
"The Torah-inspired speech of Bush raised question marks over the credibility of the U.S. role in the Middle East," wrote Mursi Atallah, the publisher of Al-Ahram, the flagship daily of the state-owned press. "Bush aims to do nothing but appeasing Israel."
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Saturday, May 17, 2008
It is standard military doctrine to try to separate a warlord from his allies. This is especially true if the warlord is too strong to take on directly. If you can peel away his allies, then that leaves him vulnerable.Cutting of his supply lines is also vital. If he can't get troops and equipment, he becomes weak quickly.
The Unholy Alliance
As everyone now knows, Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and the other top boys and girls in the Executive Branch have committed war crimes.
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U.S. apologizes for Quran target practice
May 18, 2008
Holy warriors in the US armed forces
link
Iraq nowdays May 16th, 2008
Yes. Ahmed (BlogIraq) is dead. He was killed in Baghdad on April 11th, 2008. He went back to Baghdad to take his family out, but he did not have enough time to do so.
He had an appointment that day with a guy he knew. This guy was supposed to get him some documents that prove corruption in some USAID office back in Baghdad. I don't have complete details about it. Anyway, he and the guy bringing the documents were killed at their meeting place in Mansour district in Baghdad.
This is the email he sent me a couple of hours before he was killed:
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Fresh scrutiny on a rogue Pentagon operation.
Or, in other words "how long has this been goin'on?
Also see, this.
Not that Iran's influence in Iraq has ever been seriously questioned in the media - it has, but for all the wrong reasons, which is the basis of some growing suspicions I've had recently on a developing collusion between Iran, the U.S., and its quisling Maliki/Badr government. But because relations between the U.S. and Iran overshadow whats happening in Iraq the standard narrative gets split into two mutually exclusive stories that are/have been allowed to co-exist as if they are not connected. The prime example of such is that the Iranians have been extending its influence by funding "special groups" and supplying various militias with contemporary weaponry and training, especially Sadr's JAM militia. This fuels the general U.S. strategic narrative that Iran is on the move throughout the M.E. funding various threats to U.S./Israeli hegemony. On the flip side is the government of Iraq, which is underwritten by the Badr Organization- an organization co-founded in Iran by the the Iranian IRGC and a rare coordination of Baqir al-Hakim and Baqir al Sadr. After the initial U.S. invasion the Badr was permitted (by the U.S.) to return to Iraq and eventually formed the pan Shiite coalition UIA party alliance currently in power, and took control of the police intelligence/death squad Interior Ministry (talk about "special groups") and have filled the regular ISF. This side of the narrative of course, has received about zero media attention - a blanket of silence on the "influence" that Iran might have sequestered right smack in the seat of power in the green zone. Why is this?
My guess, as to why is this, is that all along there has been a tacit "arrangement" between Iran and the U.S. - that according to and following from between the lines in the above article, it becomes much clearer by the day where this train is coming from and where it is bound. Forget for a minute that the U.S. could be clueless about the intimate connections between its quisling government and the Iranian IRGC/Qods force/intelligence services because whats been revealed recently, in the Iranian/U.S. war on Sadr, is that the U.S. and Iran are indeed have parallel interests and that these parallel interests are admitted so much by Iranian Qods force negotiator Brig.Gen. Qassem Soleimani, whom was recently met with by Iraqi presiden Talabini:
Talabani, other senior Iraqi officials, and the commander of Iran's Qods Force, Brig. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, in April, after clashes with Sadr's Mahdi Army in Basra. In that meeting, General Soleimani "was deeply concerned" and "promised to stop arming groups in Iraq and to ensure that groups halt activities against US forces," according to a description given by a US official to the Monitor.
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[But there are uses for corrupt politicians. They can give the appearance of "negotiating" with the Palestinians, but then they can be put under pressure, and when finally they appear to do something useful the politician can resign or a new election can be called. And what credibility would an agreement between Israel and the Palestinians have if negotiated under the aegis of a corrupt and discredited politician. The answer is evident.]
Olmert
Israelis may have noted Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's unusually dejected demeanour when he gave a televised address to the nation last week on the eve of Israel's 60th Independence Day celebrations. Most, howevef knowing why Olmert was so downcast. An Israeli judge had slapped a sweeping order to prevent the Israeli media from repeating reports published in American newspapers that Olmert was becoming rapidly ensnared in a corruption scandal.
According to investigators, Olmert is suspected of taking cash bribes worth hundreds of thousands of dollars from an American Jewish businessman, Moshe Talansky, over at least a decade, both as mayor of Jerusalem and as trade and industry minister in Ariel Sharon's government. He was questioned by the police a fortnight ago, and is likely to face further interrogations after President George W Bush leaves this week.
The allegations are said to be so serious, and the evidence so incriminating, that the Israeli media is already writing Olmert's political obituary, speculating on when his foreign minister and archrival, Tzipi Livni, will replace him. Polls this week showed 59 per cent of Israelis wanted Olmert to step down immediately.
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Added: May 18, 2008
Balfour to Blair is a special 30 minute film that investigates the role of British policy in the Middle East from the beginning of the 20th century to today.
Part 2
By Jerome Starkey in Kabul
Friday, 16 May 2008
Secret Afghan death squads are acting on the orders of foreign spies and killing civilians inside Afghanistan with impunity, a senior UN envoy has claimed. Professor Philip Alston, the UN special rapporteur on illegal killings, said "foreign intelligence agencies" had used illegal groups of heavily armed Afghans in raids against suspected insurgents.
He said the attacks were beyond the legitimate military chains of command, and they were "completely unacceptable" and "outside the law".
At the end of a 12-day fact-finding mission to Afghanistan, Professor Alston said: "There have been a large number of raids for which no state or military appears to take responsibility. I have spoken with a large number of people in relation to the operation of foreign intelligence units. I don't want to name them but they are at the most senior level of the relevant places. These forces operate with what appears to be impunity."
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End of term report
Refugees are the Key
What Next in Lebanon?
Exclusive: Command vessel USS Mount Whitney posted opposite Lebanon
Danger: Tough Talk & Wishful Thinking
So just where does the madness end?
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report
May 18, 2008
Sunday night, May 11, the Israeli army was poised to strike Hizballah. The Shiite militia was winding up its takeover of West Beirut and battling pro-government forces in the North. When he opened the regular cabinet meeting Sunday, May 11, prime minister Ehud Olmert had already received the go-ahead from Washington for a military strike to halt the Hizballah advance. The message said that President George W. Bush would not call off his visit to Israel to attend its 60th anniversary celebrations and would arrive as planned Wednesday, May 14 - even if the Israeli army was still fighting in Lebanon and Hizballah struck back against Tel Aviv and Ben-Gurion airport.
American intelligence estimated that Hizballah was capable of retaliating against northern Israel at the rate of 600 missiles a day.
Olmert, defense minister Ehud Barak and foreign minister Tzipi Lvini, the only ministers in the picture, decided not to intervene in Lebanon’s civil conflict. Iran’s surrogate army consequently waltzed unchecked to its second victory in two years over the United States and Israel.
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Last update - 09:48 18/05/2008
By Amos Harel, Haaretz Correspondent
Participants at a recent inner cabinet meeting were listening to details of the Egyptian mediation initiative between Israel and Hamas on a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip recently, when a senior minister reportedly reminded those present that Israel does not negotiate, directly or indirectly, with Hamas. Shin Bet security service head Yuval Diskin interrupted, saying there was no other way to describe the talks.
A letter to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, the details of which were revealed Friday, called for the indirect and secret talks with Hamas to be recognized. As for Israel's greatest concerns - that Hamas will use a lull in hostilities to rearm and that Egypt's promises to fight weapons smuggling bear no weight - the writers of the letter offered no solution.
Among the signatories' names, that of MK Yossi Beilin (Meretz) is to be expected. More surprising are the names of the former Shin Bet chief Ephraim Halevi, who has actually been calling for talks with Hamas in recent months, along with former chief of staff Amnon Lipkin-Shahak and Brigadier General (res.) Shmuel Zakai, a former Gaza Division commander. This is an attempt to provide a military stamp of approval to a step Israel has officially sworn it would not take. What was taboo two years ago is no longer.
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Abu Zaid: Gaza is experiencing its own unique Nakba |
| [ 17/05/2008 - 04:55 PM ] |
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GAZA, (PIC)-- Karen Abu Zaid, the commissioner-general of UNRWA, stated on Saturday that Gaza is experiencing its own unique Nakba, a catastrophe which was wrought on it by the cruelties of continuing occupation and the tightening siege. These statements came during a photo exhibition held in Gaza by UNRWA, "I am from there and I remember," which commemorates and celebrates the Palestinian life before the Nakba. "As you view each photograph, I urge you to spare a thought for the lives and the humanity that lie behind them, the sheer human resourcefulness, and the sense of lost potential. These are real people, people whose history cannot be airbrushed away. Indeed they are a people with a past, a history that will cannot be denied," Abu Zaid said at the opening of the exhibition. |
Czech journalist: if Israel was not there, the world would be better and safer |
| [ 17/05/2008 - 10:09 AM ] |
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LONDON, (PIC)-- A prominent Czech journalist stated that if Israel had not been established 60 years ago, the world would have been much better and more stable because the Middle East's history would have been written differently, castigating Czechoslovakia for selling weapons to Israel in the beginning of its foundation. In an article published in the Czech Lidové noviny newspaper, journalist Peter Zadek said that the Czech arms deals had led to the emergence of a military entity that failed in coexisting peacefully with its Arab neighbors and in respecting international law, adding that those deals also made an entity practicing discrimination against non-Jewish citizens. Zadek said that if Israel had not come to existence, the Jews would have lived in peace in the countries where the Muslims constitutes a majority as was the case in these states hundreds of years ago and many wars that happened in the past would not have taken place. |
We fought apartheid; we see no reason to celebrate it in Israel now!
"Throughout the West Bank, Israel is steadily, relentlessly and apparently unstoppably imposing what old South African regimes used to know as "separate development"."
Hebron is a ghost town where joggers carry automatic rifles
For the settlers, subsidies and tax breaks have become as important a motive as Deuteronomy
Ian Jack
The Guardian,
Saturday May 17 2008
At Birzeit University in Ramallah last week a young woman student in a headscarf asked how it was that Nadine Gordimer, the South African novelist and Nobel laureate, could agree to visit and speak in Israel. Hadn't Gordimer fought apartheid for years - famously fought it in her writing and her actions? And now she was about to appear at the International Writers Festival in Jerusalem, a guest in one way or another of the Israeli government. What did we think of this? Weren't these double standards? Wouldn't we condemn her?
The question was asked of Roddy Doyle and myself, both of us participants in another literary jamboree, the first Palestine Festival of Literature, whose six-day tour of the West Bank and East Jerusalem ended last Monday.
There is a moment in all literary festivals when the participants feel like Joseph Cotten's character in The Third Man: Holly Martins, the innocent writer of pulp westerns who is suddenly and dismayingly confronted by an audience of Viennese intellectuals who want to know his opinion of James Joyce. For me, this moment came in Birzeit.
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--Ira Chernus, Israel at 60: Zionism's Fatal Flaw
The Israel lobbies need 'anti-semitism' to stay in business, even if they have to create it. Follow the money to "neo-nazi" groups...
Related
Carly Fiorina, the exec that drove HP into the ground, is the "Victory Chair" of the Republican National Committee and McCain's primary advocateJohn McCain
McCain's Finance Co-Chair Resigns in Ongoing Lobbyist Purge
Tom Loeffler resigned from the McCain campaign today. (Associated Press)
By Michael D. Shear
Tom Loeffler, the national finance co-chair for Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign, resigned from the campaign today because of his lobbying ties, a campaign adviser said.
His is the fifth person to sever ties with the campaign amid a growing concern about whether lobbyists have too great an influence over McCain and the campaign. Last week, campaign manager Rick Davis issued a new policy that requires all campaign personnel.
***
Newsweek reported over the weekend that Loeffler's "lobbying firm has collected nearly $15 million from Saudi Arabia since 2002 and millions more from other foreign and corporate interests, including a French aerospace firm seeking Pentagon contracts."
Lobbying disclosure records also showed that on May 17, 2006, Loeffler listed meeting McCain along with the Saudi ambassador to "discuss US-Kingdom of Saudi Arabia relations," even though Loeffler told a reporter last month that he had not discussed his clients with McCain, Newsweek said.
The secrecy surrounding the Bush administration's updated National Cyber Security Initiative -- designed to improve the government's digital defenses and put forth an offensive information warfare doctrine -- is endangering the deterrent value of the project and appears to be aimed chiefly at supporting spying operations abroad, a key U.S. Senate committee concludes in a new report.
The Senate Armed Services Committee said a major thrust of the initiative was to inform our adversaries as to the range of potential consequences of a cyber attack on U.S. strategic or national assets. But so far only three of the 18 goals spelled out in the cyber initiative have been discussed publicly; the rest remain classified.
"It is difficult to conceive how the United States could promulgate a meaningful deterrence doctrine if every aspect of our capabilities and operational concepts is classified," the committee's report said. "In the era of superpower nuclear competition, while neither side disclosed weapons designs, everyone understood the effects of nuclear weapons, how they would be delivered, and the circumstances under which they would be used. Indeed, deterrence was not possible without letting friends and adversaries alike know what capabilities we possessed and the price that adversaries would pay in a real conflict. Some analogous level of disclosure is necessary in the cyber domain."
Dr. Alexander Kee Dewdney and Dr. Graeme MacQueen presented a detailed analysis that questions the official theory of September 11, 2001, on...all » Dr. Alexander Kee Dewdney and Dr. Graeme MacQueen presented a detailed analysis that questions the official theory of September 11, 2001, on March 19, 2008, at the University of Waterloo. The conference was moderated by Dr. Richard B. Lee. Please visit http://www.waterloo911.clubs.feds.ca/ for further updates on upcoming conferences. This 9/11 conference was a great success. Over 400 attended. Special thanks to the UW Debating Society and the UW 9/11 Research Group for hosting the event.
Latest Front In Mideast Wars: Wikipedia
'Ordinary' Arabs to retake Internet: Wikipedia founder
May have set a dangerous precedent that could remove all of its CDA section 230 immunity
Wikimedia Censors Wikinews
Posted by CmdrTaco on Saturday May 17, @01:18PM
from the because-they-can dept.
Censorship
An anonymous reader writes "Wikileaks has revealed that the Wikimedia Foundation Board (which controls Wikipedia and Wikinews) has killed off a Wikinews report into the Barbara Bauer vs. Wikimedia Foundation lawsuit. Wikinews is a collaborative news site and is meant to be editorially independent from the WMF. The WMF office also suppressed a Wikinews investigation into child and other pornography on Wikipedia, which was independently covered by ValleyWag and other outlets this week. The US Communications Deceny Act section 230 grants providers of internet services (such as the Wikipedia and Wikinews) immunity from legal action related to their user-generated content provided they do not exercise pre-publication control.
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Bait & Switch
Freely trading lies for votes
By Allan Uthman
Here’s New York Times columnist and pillar of mediocrity, David Brooks, at his gag-inducing best on the issue of free trade:
“Economists differ over how much outsourcing will change the American job market in the future, but there is little evidence that trade has been a major cause of job loss or even wage stagnation so far.”
How’s this for evidence, Brooks: There were factories; now they’re gone. The people who worked in them lost their jobs; many were screwed out of their pensions. Now some of them have found inferior work in the service sector, for less money and paltry benefits, if any. None of this is refutable. Surely you have a fact sheet from the Cato Institute to support your claims, but that doesn’t change the fact that you are lying.
Brooks yawned out this claptrap while complaining about a speech Barack Obama gave in Pennsylvania on the economy and the working class. Obama’s focus on free trade deals rankled the centrist manchild, who, like virtually everyone else at The New York Times and, for that matter, every other major news outlet in the country, has a boner for economic globalization.
New Israeli scholars face up to country's origins
Full transcript of Ilan Pappe interview
Alan Philps
* Last Updated: May 18. 2008 9:08PM UAE / May 18. 2008 5:08PM GMT
Ilan Pappe, interviewed by Alan Philps, associate editor of The National, in Bristol, United Kingdom, on April 27 2008.
***
Q: Finally, how much do Israelis think of 1948?
Not very often. For the younger generation, it’s the distant past, and the older generation who lived through it is very old now. I think 48 plays a very important role in the educational system. It is part of the initiation of Israelis into Zionism. They know – they have a metaphoric image of 1948. Every school ceremony is connected to 1948, every army initiation ceremony is connected to 1948. Every national festival which is not a religious one is connected to 1948. The year that everything that happened was moral, right and just. So people used a lot of 1948 in talking. If you tell them that in 2006 the Israeli army was not very