Some 100 Palestinians clash with IDF soldiers in Hebron

By Haaretz Service

Some 100 Palestinian protesters marched to the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron on Monday and clashed with Israel Defense Forces soldiers there, following the government's decision to include it on its list of protected Jewish holy sites.

A crowd of Palestinian youths pelted Israeli soldiers with stones and empty bottles on Monday, drawing tear gas and stun grenades in the most serious violence in this volatile West Bank city in months.

The Israel Defense Forces said one soldier was lightly wounded, while
Palestinians said three protesters suffered from tear gas inhalation.

Netanyahu told ministers during a special cabinet meet on Sunday that the rightist religious party Shas persuaded him add both the Hebron site as well as Rachel's Tomb to the list.

"Our existence depends not only on the IDF or our economic resilience - it is anchored in," he said, "the national sentiment that we will bestow upon the coming generations and in our ability to justify our connection to the land."

The plan has a government budget of over NIS 500,000 to renovate and restore the national heritage sites.

David Miliband: use of fake British passports in Dubai hit is an 'outrage'

David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, has described the use of fake British passports in the assassination of a senior Hamas official as an "outrage" and said he was determined to "get to the bottom of" the affair.

By Gordon Rayner and Martin Evans
Published: 12:58PM GMT 18 Feb 2010

The father of senior Hamas military commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh with a photo of his son Photo: REUTERS

The identities of six Britons living in Israel were stolen by members of an alleged hit squad which killed Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai in January. The Israeli intelligence service Mossad is widely believed to have organised the murder.

Mr Miliband spoke out after the Israeli ambassador to London, Ron Prosor, was called to the Foreign Office to discuss the affair, which is rapidly escalating into a major diplomatic crisis.

"We wanted to give Israel every opportunity to share with us what it knows about this incident," Mr Miliband said.

"We hope and expect that they will co-operate fully with the investigation that has been launched by the Prime Minister and will be undertaken by the Serious Organised Crime Agency."

Mr Miliband denied that the UK Government was merely "going through the motions" of asking questions about the incident.

"There's obviously been a very serious incident involving British passports... we think it is right to have the investigation the Prime Minister has launched," he said.

"That is not going through the motions, that is the rightful business of government."

He added: "We want to get to the bottom of the issues of the fraudulent use passports and their potential use. That is the most important thing to do."

Mr Prosor, who spent less than an hour discussing the matter with Sir Peter Ricketts, the head of the diplomatic service, said: "I was unable to add additional information to Sir Peter Ricketts's request."

Meanwhile the Israeli ambassador to Ireland insisted he knew nothing about how three faked Irish passports also came to be used by the alleged killers.

After an hour-long meeting with Irish diplomats in Dublin, Dr Zion Evrony said he was under no obligation to address the international incident in public.

He said: "I was invited to a meeting with the Secretary General (David) Cooney. I told him I don't know anything about the event - beyond that it is not customary to share the content of diplomatic meetings."

Dr Evrony had been summoned to the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs to explain why three genuine Irish passport numbers were on forged papers used by the 18-strong alleged hit squad.

Dubai's chief of police has said he is now 99 per cent certain of Israel's involvment in the killing.

Lt Gen Dahi Khalfan said the finger of blame for the assassination in Dubai last month was now almost conclusively pointing at Israeli secret service agents.

He said: "Our investigations reveal that Mossad is involved in the murder of (Mahmoud) al-Mabhouh. It is 99 percent, if not 100 percent, that Mossad is standing behind the murder."

Conservative leader David Cameron said Tel Aviv must provide assurances that it would never sanction the use of UK papers in operations by its secret service.

Mr Cameron also called for answers from the Government about when it knew that falsified documents in the names of British citizens were used in the murder of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in his Dubai hotel room on 20 January.

The Dubai authorities have said they contacted the British Government at the end of January to ask for assistance with the case.

"At the very least, we need some assurances about the future to make sure whatever has happened in the past can't happen again, and I would expect the Government to ask some pretty tough questions," Mr Cameron said.

A senior Foreign Office source told The Daily Telegraph: “If the Israelis were responsible for the assassination in Dubai, they are seriously jeopardising the important intelligence-sharing arrangement that currently exists between Britain and Israel.

“Britain has cut ties with Mossad in the past, and will do so again if the Israelis are found to be acting against British interests.”

But Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has said there is no reason to believe that Mossad was involved and shrugged off suggestions that ties between Israel and Britain could be strained over the affair.

"There is no reason to think that it was the Israeli Mossad and not some other intelligence service or country up to some mischief," he said.

"I think Britain recognises that Israel is a responsible country and that our security activity is conducted according to very clear, cautious and responsible rules of the game. Therefore we have no cause for concern."

Dubai has now increased its list of suspects to at least 18, including the 11 people identified earlier this week, two Palestinians in custody and five others.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that two women – one of whom travelled on an Irish passport in the name of Gail Folliard – are among the suspects.

Six British passport holders, three Irish, a German and a man with a French passport made up the alleged hit team.

The UK has said the passports they used were fake documents using the identities of British nationals all living in Israel, while Ireland said that it had never issued passports in the names of those implicated in the assassination.

But Dubai police insist the European passports were not fakes, according to a report in the local Al-Bayan newspaper.

"Dubai police has more evidence, apart from the tapes and photos that were revealed earlier," police chief Dahi Khalfan was quoted as saying. "The coming days will carry more surprises which will leave no room for doubt."

He said that Dubai immigration officers were "trained" by European security experts to spot such fake passports.

"This training qualifies immigration officers to spot fake passports. They applied these procedures at Dubai airport when the alleged (killers) entered the country," he said. "No forgery was found in those passports."

The Serious and Organised Crime Agency, which has a unit based at the British Embassy in Dubai, has begun its own investigation into the identity thefts.

Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister, has stressed the importance of protecting the status of the British passport.

“We have got to carry out a full investigation into this,” said Mr Brown. “The British passport is an important document that has got to be held with care. A British passport is an important part of being British.

“The evidence has got to be assembled about what has actually happened and how it happened and why it happened and it is necessary for us to accumulate that evidence before we can make statements.”

UK calls in Israeli ambassador over Dubai Hamas murder

The British government has called in the Israeli ambassador to discuss the use of fake UK passports by the alleged killers of a Hamas commander in Dubai.

Gordon Brown has also ordered an inquiry into the passports, which bear the names of six British-Israelis who are not the men pictured.

Dubai police believe 11 "agents with European passports" killed Palestinian militant Mahmoud al-Mabhouh.

The Israelis deny its secret service, Mossad, carried out the assassination.

Israel's foreign minister said there was no evidence to link Mossad but refused to issue any formal denial in line with a "policy of ambiguity" on security matters.

Avigdor Lieberman told Israeli Army Radio: "There is no reason to think that it was the Israeli Mossad and not some other intelligence service or country up to some mischief."

'Full investigation'

It is expected that the Israeli Ambassador, Ron Prosor, will meet with Sir Peter Ricketts, head of the diplomatic service, on Thursday.

The Serious Organised Crime Agency has been asked to look into the fraudulent use of the passports.

It has confirmed that photographs and signatures on the passports used in Dubai do not match those on passports issued by the UK.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown said: "We have got to carry out a full investigation into this. The British passport is an important document that has got to be held with care."

The Foreign Office said the British embassy in Tel Aviv was ready to support those affected by the Hamas shooting case.

The men whose names appeared on the passports have dual British and Israeli citizenship.

They are Melvyn Adam Mildiner, Paul John Keeley, James Leonard Clarke, Stephen Daniel Hodes, Michael Lawrence Barney and Jonathan Lewis Graham. They all deny involvement in the killing.

Several of them have spoken of their shock at being implicated in the crime.

Salford-born Mr Hodes, 37, said he had not left Israel for two years and was "in shock".

"I don't know who's behind this. I am just scared, these are major forces," he told Israeli television.

Hamas killing

Police in Dubai have issued arrest warrants for 11 suspects they want to question about the killing of a senior Hamas official in Dubai. The suspects include six men travelling on false British passports.

Three other suspects, including one woman, were travelling on false Irish passports. Two further suspects had French and German papers. Dubai police say they appeared to be a professional hit-squad.

Dubai police say the suspects only spent a day in the country. Here two of them are seen arriving at a local shopping centre. Three others were filmed arriving at the same centre. The suspects did not make contact by phone.

Police allege that one of the suspects, pictured on the left pulling a trolley, went to a hotel to put on a disguise. He is seen entering a men's toilet and later left wearing a wig.

Their alleged victim, Hamas official Mahmoud al-Mabhouh is seen at the hotel reception, circled in red above. At the bottom of the image the head of one of the suspects can just be seen. As Mr Mabhouh leaves, the suspect follows.

Mr Mabhouh is followed into the lift by a number of the suspects, including two pictured here in tennis gear. It is thought he had been followed from Syria to Dubai where he wanted to buy weapons for Hamas.

When Mr Mabhouh leaves the lift, the police say he was followed by one of the suspects, who appeared to be trying to establish which room he was staying in. He was later killed in his room.

The details of the suspects and their passport photos were released by officials in Dubai earlier this week.

Three of the other suspects used Irish passports.

Authorities in the Irish Republic have confirmed that while the numbers were legitimate, they did not match records for the names which had been used - Gail Folliard, Evan Dennings and Kevin Daveron.

Its Department of Foreign Affairs said officials were urgently trying to contact the three citizens who hold or have held passports with these numbers.

France and Germany have also reportedly raised doubts over the identities of two suspects who used a French and a German passport.

Mr Mabhouh was murdered in his hotel room in Dubai on 20 January.

Reports have suggested he was there to buy weapons for the Palestinian Islamist movement, Hamas.

Two Palestinian suspects were being questioned about the murder. Police said they had "fled to Jordan" after the killing and have not released their names.

Officials in Dubai, who have issued arrest warrants, said the team appeared to be a professional hit squad, probably sponsored by a foreign power.

They released CCTV footage which they said showed some of the suspects in disguises, including wigs and false beards, in the hotel near Dubai's international airport.

The suspects allegedly trailed Mr Mabhouh when he arrived in Dubai from Syria.

Haiti's homeless get tarps, want tents--could have gotten locally made Down Home tents if only..

The need:

February 14, 2010 02:26 EST

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) -- Haiti and the aid agencies trying to help it recover from a devastating earthquake say they're opting for plastic sheets instead of tents to shelter about 1.2 million displaced residents.

That means many homeless Haitians will likely face spring rains and the summer hurricane season camped out under flapping sheets of plastic.

The government and aid agencies say there is no room for family-sized tents with their wide bases and they're opting for plastic sheets.

By May 1, one plastic tarp will be given to each of about 250,000 displaced families.

Transitional shelters of 194 square feet, with corrugated iron roofs, will then be built. They will have earthquake- and storm-resistant frames of timber or steel and are supposed to last for three years.

But getting desperate people who just weeks ago lost their homes to abandon neighborhoods and friends to relocate won't be simple.

Down Home tents were going to be one of the community self-sufficiency products that a new employee owned and run Palco Community Corporation would be making now if the Palco bankruptcy solution had gone to the Heartlands Project's Palco Reorganization Plan. Down Home tents were to be well-built insulated tents good enough for years of service and especially targeted for disaster relief situations. And much cheaper than the World Shelters domes. Another job creation opportunity lost in Humboldt County by politics instead of economics determining economic enterprise in Humboldt County.

From Mazin Qumsiyeh's Journal: Indoctrination versus tree planting

We have been extremely busy here. The presence of soldiers in Beit Sahour
gave us ample time to talk to them on Thursday and on Friday; we spent the
morning planting trees in threatened private lands. We were proud of young
and old, internationals and Palestinians, working together, some 150 people
in all. Even a bus of elderly from the elderly home in Beit Sahour showed
up to help. My 77 year old mother was among them. It was such a meaningful
thing. The day before was meaningful in a different way. The hours we
spent talking to soldiers on Thursday was important too we believe. Foot
soldiers in an army of occupation know so little other than what their
government tells them. They tell them lies about Arabs "terrorism", Jewish
eternal "victimization", the need to be strong to "defend" a country
created so that they could simply live alone away from the anti-Semites (who
are essentially all the Christians and the Muslims). They tell them that it
is an unexplainable phenomenon this hatred of the Jews and it has nothing to
do with what Jews do or did. It is almost a genetic thing.

A friend wrote to me that

" My visit to Yad Vashem in 2006, during the war with Lebanon, was a painful
lesson. The museum of the Shoah is being used to indoctrinate young
Israelis, esp. the military, that the whole world is and always has been
against the Jews, and that the only solution is for Israelis to be firm and
resolute against the whole world, even if it means being inhuman to the
Palestinians. The "righteous among the nations" are cited as flukes, as
anomalies, with no explanations offered for their sacrifices because for the
Israelis though these people did something good, their motivations MUST
remain in the shadows (e.g. Christian faith; social justice; their own
experiences of oppression, etc.) so that the survival of the State of Israel
can remain the one and only center stage concern. Yad Vashem is an immoral
propaganda museum, and as such is a disgrace to the State of Israel and to
Jewish moral and prophetic tradition. There is great risk in this symbol of
moral obtuseness: if the Jewish people are AGAINST the whole world, then
Israel's role as the priestly people, as the people through whom God has
revealed himself through the Torah is fundamentally undermined. The Jewish
people thus LOSE their spiritual role in the history of the world, fail in
their duty of faithfulness to the Mosaic covenant, and run the risk of a
kind of spiritual suicide. Anyone can see that this spiritual suicide might
become a prelude to a material one, alas. The individuals you mention who
have the courage to oppose the apartheid policies of the State of Israel are
in fact true heirs of the Biblical prophets, whose messages of apocalyptic
warning were meant to show a "way out" when the ancient people of Israel had
lost their way. It is pretty clear that the Israelis of today have truly
lost their way both spiritually and politically, and absolutely need the
help of prophetic voices."

Explaining reality to these young kids (and 18-22 year olds are younger than
my son) who are guarding bulldozers engaged in colonization efforts inside a
Palestinian is not easy but is doable. We explain to them things they did
not know and some indeed begin to shed the self-imposed chains. That is why
officers have instruction to prevent these kinds of dialogs. Zionism
resulted in dozens of massacres and left 2/3rds of the total population of
natives (Christians and Muslims) as refugees or displaced people. Even
Moshe Dayan stated: "Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab
villages. You do not even know the names of these Arab villages, and I do
not blame you because geography books no longer exist. Not only do the books
not exist, the Arab villages are not there either. Nahlal arose in the place
of Mahlul; Kibbutz Gvat in the place of Jibta; Kibbutz Sarid in the place of
Huneifis; and Kefar Yehushua in the place of Tal al-Shuman. There is not a
single place built in this country that did not have a former Arab
population."

For more on this, see the book by Jewish-Israeli professor Ilan Pappe on
"The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine." Rather than being a victim, Israel is
in violation of dozens of UN resolutions and has violated just about every
article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights per International human
rights organizations (and even Israeli ones like B'Tselem). Israelis who
discover this dark history have two choices: either leave or stay and
struggle with eth natives to transform this country to a just place for its
entire people.

Palestinian Families Appeal to UN Over Israeli Construction of "Museum of
Tolerance"
on Jerusalem's Historic Mamilla Cemetery
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/2/10/palestinian_families_appeal_to_un_over
For what you can do on this, see
http://www.mamillacampaign.org

A respectable Think Tank describes the growing campaign around the world
against Israeli apartheid and calls on the Israeli government to treat it as
a "Strategic threat". Of course it is growing and it is a strategic threat
to an apartheid state structure. The comments on the article in Haaretz are
split between those who still buy the notion that wanting to stop Israel
from its policies of apartheid and ethnic cleansing is somehow
"delelegitimizing" because of anti-Semitism and those (Including Israelis)
who say enough is enough.

Think tank: Israel faces global delegitimization campaign
"The Tel Aviv-based security and socioeconomic think tank called on
ministers to treat the matter as a strategic threat."

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1149274.html

Must see Video is going viral:
Gaza in Plain Language
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFK5TNcmEmg
(youtube flagged this because of Zionist pressure) but here is an
alternative site for the same video

http://dissidentvoice.org/2010/02/video-gaza-in-plain-language/
Another video: Did You Know Gaza

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bznLR3-kCtU

Mazin Qumsiyeh, PhD
Popular Committee to Defend Ush Ghrab (PCDUG)
A Bedouin in Cyberspace, a villager at home
http://www.qumsiyeh.org
http://www.pcr.ps

The Nonviolent Resistance is winning

After five years of popular resistance in Bil'in, through which people of Bil'in have shown an excellent example of challenge and peaceful resistance, and which confused the enemy and made him wonder what to do against this form of peaceful resistance. First violence was used, becoming more and more excessive, with severe beatings, then use of all kinds of weapons, arrests of militants, incursions and curfews at night, and finally murder.

Yet, people of Bil'in resisted, with the support of foreigners, but also Israelis, to continue the struggle for their right, with the deep belief that this wall is the wall of death.

This wall kills peace, freedom and justice. We had to resist and stand against it, not only to restore land to its owners, but because we believe in peace and in its achievement here.

There can be no just and lasting peace with the presence of walls and settlements. Hence we say that we see today Bil'in's victory; bulldozers have begun the removal of the wall, which implementation was released two years ago and a half by the Israeli Supreme Court.

Thank you for you continued support,

Iyad Burnat- Head of Popular Commitee in Bilin
co-founder of Friends of Freedom and Justice - Bilin

Email- bel3in@yahoo.com

www.bilin-ffj.org

Fueling Israeli Apartheid: Corporate Profits and Accountability

Please join IJAN for this exciting conversation about corporations that profit from apartheid, and how this research can support the BDS movement!

The Bay Area Campaign to End Israeli Apartheid presents

Fueling Israeli Apartheid:
Corporate Profits and Accountability
a conversation with Dalit Baum of WhoProfits.org

Tuesday, February 16 • 7pm
El Centro Del Pueblo Auditorium
474 Valencia at 16th St., San Francisco
Donations requested at the door

Israeli and international corporations are directly involved in apartheid and occupation: in the construction of Israeli colonies and infrastructure in the occupied territories, in the settlements’ economy, in building walls and checkpoints, in the supply of specific equipment used in the control and repression of civilian populations. In 2007, the Coalition of Women for Peace initiated Who Profits from the Occupation, a unique on-line resource with research on hundreds of companies directly involved in the occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, a major component of Israel’s apartheid structure, exposing many of the companies for the first time.

Dalit Baum, PhD, teaches Gender and the Global Economy at the Haifa university and Beit Berl College in Israel. She has coordinated the Who Profits project for the past 3 years.

Organized by BACEIA, a coalition of: Break the Siege, the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network (Bay Area), and Global Women’s Strike. Co-sponsored by the American Friends Service Committee – Pacific Mountain Region, and Queers Undermining Israeli Terror.

More information: http://www.baceia.org/2010/02/fueling-israeli-apartheid/

Download and print the complete flyer:

Please forward widely!

Lebanese Prime Minister Hariri warns of Israel 'threat'

Lebanon warns of Israel 'threat'

Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri says he is concerned about "escalating" threats posed to the Middle East by Israel.

Mr Hariri told the BBC that Israeli planes were entering Lebanese airspace every day, and he feared the prospect of another war with Israel.

He accused Israel of making a huge mistake by allegedly threatening both Lebanon and neighbouring Syria.

His comments come days after Syria and Israel exchanged hostile accusations.

The BBC's Natalia Antelava in Beirut says that while such rhetoric is hardly new, there is concern it could lead to more serious confrontation.

We will stand against Israel, we will stand with our own people Saad Hariri Lebanese Prime Minister

In an interview with the BBC, Mr Hariri said: "We hear a lot of Israeli threats day in and day out, and not only threats.

"We see what's happening on the ground and in our airspace and what's happening all the time during the past two months - every day we have Israeli planes entering Lebanese airspace.

"This is something that is escalating, and this is something that is really dangerous."

Mr Hariri also said that Lebanon was united, and that the government would stand by Hezbollah - the Lebanese militant group which fought Israel in 2006.

"I think they're betting that there might be some division in Lebanon, if there is a war against us.

"Well, there won't be a division in Lebanon. We will stand against Israel. We will stand with our own people."

His comments come just days after the foreign ministers of Syria and Israel exchanged aggressive accusations, which fuelled both media speculation and public fear about what many in the region describe as the "imminent next war".

Such hostile rhetoric is hardly new to the Middle East, and yet, because calm in this is region is so fragile, many are concerned that it could lead to a more serious confrontation.

Israel, the rogue state in action, breaking international laws right and left yet demanding their sponsor, our U.S. government to look the other way which we do.

Australian activist released on bail in Israel

By ABC Middle East correspondent Anne Barker

Posted 2 hours 38 minutes ago
Updated 33 minutes ago

Released on bail: Bridgette Chappell from Canberra (APTN)

Israel's Supreme Court has ordered the release of an Australian woman who was arrested during a pre-dawn military raid in the West Bank.

Bridgette Chappell, 22, from Canberra, was arrested with a Spanish woman after Israeli soldiers burst into the apartment they shared in Ramallah.

The Israeli government says Ms Chappell, who was studying Arabic and politics at Birzeit University in the West Bank, was arrested for overstaying her visa.

But she was also active in the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) - a pro-Palestinian organisation committed to resisting Israel's occupation of the West Bank.

Israel alleged Ms Chappell had taken part in illegal protests against Israel's occupation of the West Bank.

But Ms Chappell's lawyer argued in court that Israel had no jurisdiction in Ramallah on matters unrelated to security.

Ms Chappell lashed out at Israel from the dock before being led away.

"It's completely illegal what they're doing. They're trying to crush the popular resistance in Palestine," she said.

The court has ordered the women's release on bail until it can consider their appeals against deportation.

They have been ordered not to return to the West Bank.

Ms Chapell says she is currently in Tel Aviv and has been in touch with the Australian consulate.

"It's still pretty up in the air. I was released but I also have to appear in court again," she said.

"I can stay as long as the trial continues but we'll see what happens.

"I'm really going to try and fight to stay as long as I can."

[HumanRights] The slippery slope--from Mazim Qumsiyeh's journal

As the descent into the slippery slope of racism continues unabated in this
land of apartheid, the angle and degree of the slide seem to surprise many.
The Israeli parliament (Knesset) has a "Constitution, Law and Justice
Committee" terms that only sound similar to what exists in a Western
democracy. But the "Jewish state" is "special" where a committee
with this name drafts laws to discourage inter-religious marriages, to deny
Jerusalemites residency rights, to declare it legal to take land for Jewish
development from those natives who happen to be non-Jews, and to flaunt many
other basic rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
In the last election, the Israeli public split their votes between right and
radical right and fascist right parties. The Israeli government shifted from
right to ultra-fascist and with it this Knesset Committee. For example,
since coming to power the Netanyahu apartheid government froze Palestinian
family reunifications that involve Palestinians were frozen (including my
wife's) and withdrew residency rights from thousands of Palestinians in
Jerusalem.

It has been so bizarre to watch the level of vitriol emanating from this
Knesset committee. They felt emboldened by public support, a public lulled
by racist education and by inculcated fear in a similar way that Germans
were lulled into accepting the Nazi programs. The party most influential in
the committee wants Muslims and Christians, the minority who remained after
all the ethnic cleansing, to publicly pledge allegiance to the Jewish
(nature of the) state, thus legitimizing their 10th class "citizenship".
The committee has now set-up a subcommittee to target even Zionist groups
that are deemed not going far enough in their support of a homogeneous
Jewish state in all of historic Palestine. They want to examine what can be
done about European and North American support for Israeli groups that
support a two-state solution or even begin to suggest that Israeli system
needs a reform. We are not talking here about funding for Israeli-Jewish
groups that are anti-Zionist or that support a democratic state in all of
historic Palestinian. They want a cut-off of funding for Israeli groups
that simply want an Israel on 78% of historic Palestine and let the
Palestinians live somewhat left alone on the 22% that is the West Bank and
Gaza (occupied in 1967).

Most of the groups targeted for being not right enough are also happy to
leave most of the 450,000 illegal colonial settlers inside the West Bank.
In exchange, they are willing to allow us a little desert land from the 78%
that they took in 1948 (in the process ethnically cleansing 530 towns and
villages; see Ilan Pappe, "The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine"). Some
targeted groups believe in philosophies of Ben Gurion but not Zeev
Jabotinsky (founder of revisionist Zionism and Zionist terror groups in the
1930s and 1940s). Ben Gurion with a wave of his hand ordered the expulsion
of residents of Lydda and Ramla and had a saying that "Im tirtzu, ain zo
agada" (If you will it it is no dream)[IT here is now clear with the
outcome, a Jewish state in historic Palestine to replace the native
population and living by the sword behind walls in a large Jewish ghetto].
Ben Gurion does look moderate compared to Avigdor Lieberman, Menachem Begin
and Zeev Jabotinsky. The latter's philosophy does not believe in even using
accommodating (diplomatic) rhetoric let alone trying to work with the
International powers to achieve the Zionist objectives. By contrast, the
late Ben Gurion and Yitzhaq Rabin believed in a mix of violence and
political/diplomatic activism (and of course media work).

But Zionism has always been an International movement with only a part of it
here in Palestine (a part that has been growing but increasingly facing
stiffer resistance). Sometime we find more moderate Zionists here that say
in the USA. American Jews who support Zionism are a bit more radical on
average than the average Israeli. That is why the most extreme colonial
settlers that are right in the middle of Palestinian towns like Hebron are
American Jews. These ultra extremists vandalize mosques and cemeteries,
attack Palestinians and their property regularly, uproot trees, steel crops,
set fire to homes, and much more. The Israeli government does not intend to
investigate the foreign source of funding for these groups but of the groups
that are hoping for a two state solution. In the US there is a new campaign
to look into the tax-exempt status of groups that support these settlers

(see http://www.adc.org/index.php?id=3437
list%5b%5d=exempt&sword_list%5b%5d=status>
&no_cache=1&sword_list[]=tax&sword_list[]=exempt&sword_list[]=status

and support this action).

Those Americans get a cozy life on tax-deductible donations from other
Americans and are paid by the Israeli government to live on stolen
Palestinian lands. The settlers also inadvertently expose the inconsistency
in the positions that say we think Palestinians should not be removed from
their lands in Ramallah area but it is OK to remove them from their land in
the Galilee and the Negev (see
http://rcuv.wordpress.com/).

Yet, there are many Jews and those who come from Jewish backgrounds who join
our struggle here and abroad for restoring the rights to the natives.
Palestinians on their part have always welcomed immigrants who come not to
control (before Zionism came we welcomed: Jewish European, Circasians,
Armenians, Roma, and other groups). Working together for one democratic
state in historic Palestine has become to many of us the only way forward
that guarantees the natural rights of natives and the wishes of those
immigrants who want to live here in peace without denying us basic rights
(see my book "Sharing the Land of Canaan" for details).

Finally, thanks to all of you who expressed interest in our struggle to
maintain Ush Ghrab from the settlers. There have been stories about the
struggle in Haaretz (e.g. http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1147472.html)
and in Al-Quds newspaper (see front page on the PDF file of 5 February at
http://www.alquds.com/pdf?date=20100205 but note it is not true that the
army has already reoccupied the area, the army is still not there and we
will make sure it will not happen). You can help by continuing to educate
people around you, by pressuring and educating those in power (media and
politicians), by visiting us, and much more.

For background on Ush Ghrab
http://www.poica.org/editor/case_studies/view.php?recordID=1392
http://www.decolonizing.ps/site/?page_id=40

Let us know if you can help in any other ways and do keep us informed of
your activities.


Mazin Qumsiyeh, PhD
Popular Committee to Defend Ush Ghrab (PCDUG)
A Bedouin in Cyberspace, a villager at home
http://www.qumsiyeh.org
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Iran government survival hinges on nuclear issue: Israel

Allyn Fisher-Ilan
HERZILYA, Israel
Wed Feb 3, 2010 1:43pm EST

HERZILYA, Israel (Reuters) - World powers trying to persuade Iran to curb its nuclear program must make clear to the leadership in Tehran that its survival is at stake, a senior Israeli official said Wednesday.

Israel, alarmed at the prospect of Iran having atomic weapons, has endorsed diplomatic pressure on Tehran but fears new sanctions may be too weak to dissuade it from producing enriched uranium.

Israeli Vice Prime Minister Moshe Yaalon said unrest inside Iran since a disputed presidential election in June had made the government vulnerable.

"In essence, the Iranian regime must be given the choice: either a bomb or survival," Yaalon, a retired chief of Israel's armed forces, told a national security conference in Herzliya.

He said the Tehran government should be persuaded "that giving up the idea of crossing the (nuclear) threshold is the preferable path, or else it risks its basic interest, to survive in power."

Yaalon did not offer specific suggestions, although he noted Iran slowed down its nuclear program in 2003, the year a U.S.-led coalition invaded Iraq in response to allegations its leader Saddam Hussein was developing weapons of mass destruction.

Israeli officials have privately voiced hope that the United States and European powers will overcome resistance by Russia and China to new U.N. Security Council sanctions capable of hitting Iran's energy sector.

Some in Israel want the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama to do more to bolster Iranian dissidents who oppose President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Israel, assumed to have the Middle East's only atomic arsenal, has hinted at the possibility of pre-emptive strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities if it believes diplomacy has failed.

Many political analysts believe Israel would be loath to act against the wishes of the United States, which has spoken out against the idea of igniting a new regional conflict.

"It is important to continue to make clear to the extremist Iranian regime that all options are still on the table and that ignoring the international demands can end in the worst way," Yaalon said.

"Despite the time that has been wasted on diplomatic efforts and the like ... Iran may still be stopped," he said. "The coming period will be decisive for the chances to achieve it."

Iran says its plans to enrich uranium, a process that can be used to make bomb fuel, are for peaceful purposes only.

(Editing by Dan Williams and Andrew Dobbie)

Israel, the rogue state that refuses to let IAEA inspect their secret WMD nuclear weapons facilities dares to demand Iran do what Israel itself refuses to do. The scary thing is Israel will probably get its way--because of the fear of control of Middle East oil resources going to the Muslim nations that own it.

Why do people vote against their own interests?

Americans voicing their anger at the healthcare proposals at a "town hall meeting"

The Republicans' shock victory in the election for the US Senate seat in Massachusetts meant the Democrats lost their supermajority in the Senate. This makes it even harder for the Obama administration to get healthcare reform passed in the US.

Political scientist Dr David Runciman looks at why there is often such deep opposition to reforms that appear to be of obvious benefit to voters.

Last year, in a series of "town-hall meetings" across the country, Americans got the chance to debate President Obama's proposed healthcare reforms.

What happened was an explosion of rage and barely suppressed violence.

Polling evidence suggests that the numbers who think the reforms go too far are nearly matched by those who think they do not go far enough.

But it is striking that the people who most dislike the whole idea of healthcare reform - the ones who think it is socialist, godless, a step on the road to a police state - are often the ones it seems designed to help.

In Texas, where barely two-thirds of the population have full health insurance and over a fifth of all children have no cover at all, opposition to the legislation is currently running at 87%.

Anger

Instead, to many of those who lose out under the existing system, reform still seems like the ultimate betrayal.

Why are so many American voters enraged by attempts to change a horribly inefficient system that leaves them with premiums they often cannot afford?

Why are they manning the barricades to defend insurance companies that routinely deny claims and cancel policies?

It might be tempting to put the whole thing down to what the historian Richard Hofstadter back in the 1960s called "the paranoid style" of American politics, in which God, guns and race get mixed into a toxic stew of resentment at anything coming out of Washington.

But that would be a mistake.

Drew Westen argues that stories rather than facts convince voters

If people vote against their own interests, it is not because they do not understand what is in their interest or have not yet had it properly explained to them.

They do it because they resent having their interests decided for them by politicians who think they know best.

There is nothing voters hate more than having things explained to them as though they were idiots.

As the saying goes, in politics, when you are explaining, you are losing. And that makes anything as complex or as messy as healthcare reform a very hard sell.

Stories not facts

In his book The Political Brain, psychologist Drew Westen, an exasperated Democrat, tried to show why the Right often wins the argument even when the Left is confident that it has the facts on its side.

He uses the following exchange from the first presidential debate between Al Gore and George Bush in 2000 to illustrate the perils of trying to explain to voters what will make them better off:

Gore: "Under the governor's plan, if you kept the same fee for service that you have now under Medicare, your premiums would go up by between 18% and 47%, and that is the study of the Congressional plan that he's modelled his proposal on by the Medicare actuaries."

Bush: "Look, this is a man who has great numbers. He talks about numbers.

"I'm beginning to think not only did he invent the internet, but he invented the calculator. It's fuzzy math. It's trying to scare people in the voting booth."

Mr Gore was talking sense and Mr Bush nonsense - but Mr Bush won the debate. With statistics, the voters just hear a patronising policy wonk, and switch off.

For Mr Westen, stories always trump statistics, which means the politician with the best stories is going to win: "One of the fallacies that politicians often have on the Left is that things are obvious, when they are not obvious.

"Obama's administration made a tremendous mistake by not immediately branding the economic collapse that we had just had as the Republicans' Depression, caused by the Bush administration's ideology of unregulated greed. The result is that now people blame him."

Reverse revolution

Thomas Frank, the author of the best-selling book What's The Matter with Kansas, is an even more exasperated Democrat and he goes further than Mr Westen.

He believes that the voters' preference for emotional engagement over reasonable argument has allowed the Republican Party to blind them to their own real interests.

The Republicans have learnt how to stoke up resentment against the patronising liberal elite, all those do-gooders who assume they know what poor people ought to be thinking.

Right-wing politics has become a vehicle for channelling this popular anger against intellectual snobs. The result is that many of America's poorest citizens have a deep emotional attachment to a party that serves the interests of its richest.

Thomas Frank thinks that voters have become blinded to their real interests

Thomas Frank says that whatever disadvantaged Americans think they are voting for, they get something quite different:

"You vote to strike a blow against elitism and you receive a social order in which wealth is more concentrated than ever before in our life times, workers have been stripped of power, and CEOs are rewarded in a manner that is beyond imagining.

"It's like a French Revolution in reverse in which the workers come pouring down the street screaming more power to the aristocracy."

As Mr Frank sees it, authenticity has replaced economics as the driving force of modern politics. The authentic politicians are the ones who sound like they are speaking from the gut, not the cerebral cortex. Of course, they might be faking it, but it is no joke to say that in contemporary politics, if you can fake sincerity, you have got it made.

And the ultimate sin in modern politics is appearing to take the voters for granted.

This is a culture war but it is not simply being driven by differences over abortion, or religion, or patriotism. And it is not simply Red states vs. Blue states any more. It is a war on the entire political culture, on the arrogance of politicians, on their slipperiness and lack of principle, on their endless deal making and compromises.

And when the politicians say to the people protesting: 'But we're doing this for you', that just makes it worse. In fact, that seems to be what makes them angriest of all.

Urgent: Donations needed for Surgery for Eymad Bornat of Bil'in -

[friends-of-freedom-and-justice-bilin]

1-Donations for Surgery for Eymad Bornat of Bil'in - Urgent

http://www.bilin-ffj.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=246&Itemid=1

Emad Bornat, a resident of the West Bank Village of Bil'in, photographer, father, and active member of the non-violent movement against the occupation, specifically the wall and settlements that take 56% of his village's land for Israeli use, was badly injured a little over a year ago in an accident in which he was hit by a tractor while filming construction in the Modi'in Illit settlement, which stands to this day on Bil'in's land. At the time of the injury he was in critical condition, but after 50 days in the hospital and intensive medical treatment he recovered.

Now, a year later, he needs to undergo an additional operation in order to close his abdominal area, which was only temporarily closed previously for medical reasons. The operation will cost 22,000 shekels (the equivalent of USD $5,895), and he needs to pay this amount by this coming Tuesday!!

the Palestinian Authority they are unwilling to cover this last piece of his series of treatments for the injury, and he is forced to come up with the sum out of his own funds (of which he has none).

I am coordinating the collection of these urgent donations for Emad, and I can accept payment through cash, PayPal (emilyschaeffer@yahoo.com), check or bank transfer. For my details, please email or call me ASAP.Or to http://www.bilin-ffj.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=section&id=9&Itemid=129


Lastly, I would very much appreciate if you could pass this on to anyone you think would be able to help my dear friend to finish his last step in his treatment and return to providing for his family and to participating in the just non-violent movement against the separation wall and the settlements.

Thank you very much in advance,

Emily Schaeffer
+972-52-6763384
Iyad Burnat
+972-547847942
+972-598403676
or conact emad by his email emadbornat@yahoo.com

"The trouble is that once you see it, you can't unsee it. And once you've seen it, keeping quiet, saying nothing, becomes as political an act as speaking out. There is no innocence. Either way, you're accountable." -- Arundhati Roy

The 'explosive admission' in Israel's Gaza report

The conflict in Gaza lasted 22 days from the end of 2008 to early 2009

By Paul Wood BBC News, Jerusalem

Buried in paragraph 108 of the Israeli foreign ministry's report to the UN on Gaza is the key fact of the document.

Two senior officers - one the commander of the Gaza ground operation, no less - were reprimanded for failing to follow their own rules of engagement.

The document was slipped out late on Friday night in an attempt, presumably, to minimise its impact.

But it is no surprise that this morning one Israeli newspaper, Ha'aretz, is leading on the story and others give it prominence.

This is an explosive admission, especially after Israel had said earlier - after an investigation by a senior general - that white phosphorus was not misused during the Gaza conflict.

As Ha'aretz says, this is the first time that Israel has acknowledged, at least in part, allegations by the UN and other international organisations that civilians were jeopardised by the misuse of artillery near the UN warehouse in Gaza City.

This is the IDF [Israel Defence Forces] investigating the IDF Anonymous UN official

And this is in relation to one of the most notorious incidents of the conflict, the burning of the main UN warehouse in Gaza City with white phosphorus shells.

UN officials are, though, privately sceptical of the process by which this admission of wrongdoing emerged.

"This is the IDF [Israel Defence Forces] investigating the IDF," said one UN official who was in Gaza at the time.

The two officers have just been disciplined - they apparently keep their rank and pay - and will not face criminal prosecution.

That is something the Israeli political-military establishment is desperate to avoid.

They fear it would be disastrous for morale and would damage the ability of Israel's army to fight the next war.

Bad for morale

However, Israel's problem is that if its own investigations appear to the outside world to be a whitewash designed to avoid action in the courts, the UN is all the more likely to order a special tribunal at The Hague.

The IDF used white phosphorus in its attack on the Gaza Strip

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon will present his report on the Gaza war to the UN General Assembly this week.

This follows a detailed inquiry by the UN war crimes judge Richard Goldstone, who called on both Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas to start their own credible, fully independent investigations or risk action by an international tribunal.

Israel is engaged in a diplomatic offensive to try to head off an international war crimes prosecution.

One response might be for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to order a proper judicial investigation headed by a Supreme Court judge.

He is said to be weighing this and other options and will decide by the end of the week.

Hamas, too, has been called upon to carry out independent investigations into the conduct of its forces.

UN officials believe that it, too, will have to do more to satisfy the UN and avoid prosecution at The Hague.