HumanRights--Land Day!

Report from Mazin Qumsiyeh

*Injuries to our friends, death and mayhem on Land Day and the Global March
to Jerusalem*

This blog report is also posted at
http://popular-resistance.blogspot.com/2012/03/land-day.html where you can
leave comments

*Two of our  friends were among the over >150 people injured today by the
Israeli occupation forces.  Demonstrations were held in dozens of locations
in Palestine and the border areas of Palestine.*  Other demosntrations were
held for Land Day in cities around the world.  The ambulance took our
friend and home guest Don Bryant (US Citizen) to the hospital as he was hit
in the head by a tear gas canister.  We quickly gathered the rest of the
group and rushed to the hospital.  There we find many injured people (I
counted 8 in the emergency room and two at the X-ray).  One of the injured
there was our friend Yusef Sharqawi hit with a rubber-coated steel bullet
that fractured his shoulder blade. Mohamed Zakout, 20 year old was shot and
kileld by Israeli forces in Gaza as he participated in a demonstration near
the Erez checkpoint.  In Jerusalem, Israeli occupation forces used horses
to trample on people and arrested 36 individuals.  Before all is done
Israel will likely to arrest 300 people.   Below is our video and other
relevant videos.

Some of my students have more logic/sense than the political leadership of
the USA, Israel and the "Palestinian authority" combined.  For example,
last week we had a lively discussion about roles of politiciansin creating
the problems and perpetuuating the disastrous human rights violations here.
I don't teach this course human rights but I coach it so after we exchanged
significant information about these issues all of it showing the bad things
of politics (collaborations, agreements of surrender, etc), I asked to take
time for us to talk just about the positives (no negatives).  I was
surprised at some of the good comments that came out: persistance of the
Palestinain people, demonstrations and many forms of popular resistance
happening, the fact that rights are not lost for people even when their
leadershuip is corrupt and weak, the fact that many were
martyred/injured/imprisoned for their work for Palestine, the fact that
while some collaborated and even sold their conscience and tehir heritabe,
more simply refused ……

So it is that we can always look at the glass half empty or half full.  We
can always curse the darkness or light a candle and hope for the best.  We
can feel depressed and powerless or we can actually do something.  I was
anxious before the demonstrations today.  Our mind racing to worry about
level of participation/attendance and about Israeli authorities' violent
reaction to peaceful demonstrators (there is afterall a long history of
that including shooting at unarmed demonstrators). We have to remind myself
of the positives and forget all the  negatives (or at least just learn from
them lessons and keep them in the back of our mind).  The march was a
success even before it started.  The thousands who tried to arrive to us
here in Palestine got an education THROUGH the process of preparing to come
to nearby boerders and they each  told many othesr where they are going and
why.  This ripple effect that started montsh before today's events is
critical. Here are a few other positives before, during and after this
event today:

-37 Indian activists were stranded in a ship off the port of Beirut for 36
hours.  Activists in India mobilized speaking to parliamentarians and other
officials and the indian embassy was able to get the Lebanese government to
finally issue the visas for them.  This ensured atht more people because
aware of our predicament here: not onlt the Zionist regime but the
col;lusion sometiems of Arab regimes.  It also meant more avtivism in india
will be growing and more boycotts, divestments and sanctions.

- Hundreds of actvists from different countries did not know about each
other or their commen interests until this event. The process of linking
together via physical meetings and internet empowered many of tehm and they
became more active in tehir local communities.  I know of several example
where new projects (e.g. on boycotts divestment, sacnction, different ways
of media work etc) were started in some copuntries or localities because
they learned from the networking with other activists.

-Activists learned via doing how to work in team efforts, how to make
collective decisions etc.  These skills are useful for any kind of
collective work.

-The attempts by the Zionist manipulated media to hide and ignore the
brutality of the apartheid regime is backfiring.  More and more people
stopped seeking news via these corporate outlets and started to get news
directly via blogs, live feed, email etc.

-Israeli  Brigadier General Yoav Mordechai said about the events today
"It's important to remember that this is the first day. The Nakba and Naksa
days are ahead of us, and that is where the challenge will be."  It is
obvious that they start to worry!

I could go on to list a few more.  But we need now to focus on our next
events : the Welcopme to Palestine Campaign for 15-21 April.  We do need
people to work hard on this (volunteers are always welcome).  Action is the
best antidote to despair.

*Our video in Bethlehem: http://youtu.be/7U1qQVqVnsM*

Other videos

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVuxQJw-6TI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukH9VBD2Zeg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkF9awg-HPA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nffbnYZW4ws

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkaIs8s4i4Y

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXJnBZfX1GA


Pictures

http://photoblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/03/30/10940732-violence-on-land-day-as-israeli-f
orces-and-palestinians-clash


Take action Land Day
http://www.stopthejnf.org/unitedstates_takeaction_landday2012.html

Israel Defense Ministry plan earmarks 10 percent of West Bank for
settlement expansion. Newly released maps indicate Civil Administration
secretly setting aside additional land for Jewish settlements, presumably
with the intention of expanding them. By Akiva Eldar

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/israel-defense-ministry-plan-earmarks-10-per
cent-of-west-bank-for-settlement-expansion-1.421589

More links/news on this land day events

http://www.imemc.org/article/63234

http://www.imemc.org/article/63235

Thousands of demonstrators mark Land Day in Jordan

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/2012/Mar-30/168555-thousands-of-demonstrators
-mark-land-day-in-jordan.ashx#axzz1qc3PlPcd

Rabbis of Anti-Zionist Group Join Protest Marking Land Day on
Lebanon-Israel Border

http://tv.ibtimes.com/rabbis-of-anti-zionist-group-join-protest-marking-land-day-on-lebano
n-israel-border/4523.html

Why Land Day still matters: Today, with no resolution in sight to the
historic injustices inflicted upon them, Palestinians in Israel and
elsewhere use this day to remember and redouble their efforts for
emancipation.

By Sam Bahour and Fida Jiryis

http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/why-land-day-still-matters-1.421606


Mazin Qumsiyeh, PhD

http://qumsiyeh.org

UPDATE 2-Israeli forces clash with Palestinians on Land Day

Fri Mar 30, 2012 7:48am EDT

* Israeli forces on alert on Lebanese, Syrian borders

* Palestinians organise "Global March to Jerusalem"

By Jihan Abdalla

JERUSALEM, March 30 (Reuters) - Israeli security forces fired rubber bullets, tear gas and stun grenades to break up groups of Palestinian stone-throwers on Friday as annual Land Day rallies turned violent.

Medics in the Gaza Strip said the Israelis also used live fire to prevent protesters from nearing the frontier wall, seriously wounding one man.

Palestinian activists have called for a "Global March to Jerusalem" to mark the day when Israeli Arabs protest against government policies that they say has stripped them of land.

Israeli forces were put on high alert at frontier crossings with Lebanon and Syria, but there were no reports of anyone nearing the border fences, unlike last year when several demonstrators were killed in separate protests.

However, violence flared at checkpoints in the occupied West Bank to the north and south of Jerusalem. Witnesses also reported disturbances at gates leading into the Old City, with police limiting access to the Muslims' revered al-Aqsa Mosque.

A Reuters reporter saw two men being carried away injured after scuffles at Jerusalem's Lions' Gate, while police said they had made five arrests at the Damascus Gate.

Jerusalem is a focal point of conflict, as Palestinians want the city's eastern sector, captured by Israel in a 1967 war, as capital of a future state. Israel has annexed East Jerusalem as part of its capital and insists the city remain united.

"We are determined to march together toward Jerusalem, and hopefully we will break through and reach it," said a masked youth, calling himself Rimawi, as he faced off against soldiers in the West Bank city Ramallah, a short distance from Jerusalem.

Flag-waving crowds neared the Qalandiya crossing out of Ramallah, some of them hurling stones at the security forces, but were forced back when border police sprayed them with foul smelling liquid from a water cannon.

There were also confrontations in Bethlehem, where Palestinians hurled petrol bombs at an Israeli watchtower.

BORDER FEARS

Land Day commemorates the killing by security forces of six Arabs in 1976 during protests against government plans to confiscate land in northern Israel's Galilee region.

Previous remembrances have mostly passed quietly, but Israel decided to reinforce its defences following deadly clashes along the Lebanese and Syrian borders in May that appeared to catch the military off guard.

Palestinian organisers called for peaceful rallies against "the policies and practices of the racist Zionist state" and said solidarity protests were planned in some 80 nations. "When crowds from 80 countries move towards Jerusalem, they send a strong message to the Israeli occupation that no one can accept what they are doing in Jerusalem," said Ismail Haniyeh, the Gaza leader of the Islamic group Hamas.

Israel is wary of growing unrest in the Palestinian Territories, with peace talks stalled for months and Palestinian leaders refusing to return to the negotiating table until Israel halts all Jewish settlement building in the West Bank.

Leading Palestinian activist Marwan Barghouti, serving multiple life sentences in an Israeli jail for orchestrating suicide attacks, called on Monday for a new wave of civil resistance in the decades-long quest for statehood.

On high alert along its borders, police were also wary of possible friction within the boundaries of Israel, where the Arab minority was planning protests.

Arabs make up about a fifth of Israel's total population. Many complain of discrimination. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has recently called for improved efforts to integrate Arab citizens into Israel's work force.

Israel Seals off West Bank Before Protests

Time
By AP /
DIAA HADID
Friday, Mar. 30, 2012

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2110595,00.html#ixzz1qbTbBKJE
(JERUSALEM) — Israeli forces went on high alert in anticipation of mass demonstrations Friday, sealing off swaths of territory and tightening restrictions on entering a flashpoint holy site as Palestinians and Arabs prepared for a day of marches throughout the region.

The Land Day rallies are an annual event marked by Israeli Arabs and Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza who protest what they say are discriminatory Israeli land policies. Supporters in neighboring Arab countries are also planning marches near Israel's borders in solidarity events. (MORE: A New Season of Palestinian Protest Challenges Both Israel and Abbas)

Similar demonstrations turned deadly last year, and thousands of Israeli troops and police were deployed Friday in anticipation of possible violence.

Israel's military closed off the West Bank to all but humanitarian emergencies, saying the move was "in accordance with security assessments."

The West Bank is a hilly territory on Israel's eastern border where over 2.5 million Palestinians live, alongside hundreds of thousands of Israeli Jewish settlers. The closure will not apply to the settlers.

Police also restricted access to the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem, Islam's third holiest site and a frequent flashpoint for Palestinian-Israeli violence. Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said only men over 40 years of age may enter the compound, while women may freely do so.

The age restriction applies to Palestinians from Jerusalem who carry residency permits, and for West Bank Palestinians — though few of them are expected to be allowed into the city because of the military's closure of the territory.

Israeli-Arab citizens, regardless of age, will be allowed to enter, Rosenfeld said.

Thousands more policemen were deployed into northern Israel, where Israel's Arab citizens are expected to hold a large demonstration in the village of Deir al-Assad, Rosenfeld said.

Israel's military was also preparing for possible trouble along the borders with Lebanon and Syria in the north, Jordan to the east, and Egypt and the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip to the south.

Mahmoud Aloul, a Palestinian leader in the West Bank involved in the marches, said Friday's demonstrations were to be held in Jerusalem, the Qalandiya checkpoint — a frequent flashpoint of violence on the outskirts of Jerusalem — and in the West Bank town of Bethlehem.

While organizers said Friday's marches would be nonviolent, similar protests last year turned deadly.

At least 15 people were killed in clashes with Israeli soldiers when they tried to cross the Syrian and Lebanese borders with Israel in a May protest marking Palestinian sorrow over Israel's creation in 1948.

A month later, Israeli troops killed 23 demonstrators who crossed into the no-man's land between Israel and Syria in a demonstration against Israel's control of the Golan Heights, captured from Syria in the 1967 Middle East war.

Activists in Gaza planned to hold a demonstration about half a mile from the Israeli border, but said they did not plan to move closer, minimizing the chance of clashes.

Likewise, authorities in Lebanon and Jordan said they would keep demonstrators far from the Israeli border. Several thousand protesters were expected in each place. It was not clear whether protesters would gather in Syria, which is in the midst of an anti-regime uprising that has killed thousands.

Land Day commemorates an event in 1976, when Israeli Arab protests against land confiscation turned deadly. Since then, it has been used a rallying cry for Israeli Arabs and Palestinians to highlight what they say are Israel's discriminatory policies that have seen their lands confiscated in Israel and in the West Bank, mostly to be utilized by Jewish Israelis.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2110595,00.html#ixzz1qbTKFHLi

Jailed Palestinian leader Barghouti urges resistance

From his prison cell, Marwan Barghouti has remained an influential figure

BBC News

27 March 2012 

Last updated at 08:02 ET

A jailed leader of the Palestinian Fatah movement, Marwan Barghouti, has called for a new wave of civil resistance against Israel.

In a message sent from Hadrim prison in Israel, Barghouti said the "launch of large-scale popular resistance at this stage serves the cause of our people".

He also called on the the Palestinian Authority had to halt immediately all co-ordination with Israel.

Barghouti was convicted on five counts of murder by an Israeli court in 2004.

But the trial turned him into household name and he enjoys widespread support among all Palestinian factions.

If Barghouti were ever released, many believe he would be a favourite to succeed to Mahmoud Abbas as Palestinian Authority president.
'Marketing an illusion'

Barghouti, the former leader of Fatah in the West Bank and chief of its armed wing, the Tanzim, issued his call ahead of the 10th anniversary of his detention by Israel.

Thousands of Palestinians are expected to protest against the Israeli government's land policies later in the week in an occasion know as Land Day.

"The launch of large-scale popular resistance at this stage serves the cause of our people," Barghouti said.

"Stop marketing the illusion that there is a possibility of ending the occupation and achieving a state through negotiations after this vision has failed miserably."

"It must be understood that there is no partner for peace in Israel when the settlements have doubled," he said.

It is the Palestinian people's right to oppose the occupation in all means, and the resistance must be focused on the 1967 territories."

Barghouti also said the Palestinian Authority had to halt immediately "all co-ordination with Israel - economic and security - and work toward Palestinian reconciliation", rather than a peace agreement.

He called instead for "a renewal of efforts" to achieve recognition of Palestinian statehood, which was blocked at the UN Security Council by the US last year.

"The PA must turn to the UN General Assembly and the rest of its agencies."

Barghouti was arrested by Israeli troops in Ramallah in April 2002 and first appeared in an Israeli court the following August - charged with the killing of 26 people.

Throughout his trial, he refused to recognise the legitimacy of the Israeli court. His lawyers insisted he was only a political leader.

In 2004, Barghouti was convicted on the murder of four Israelis and a Greek monk, as well as attempted murder, conspiracy to murder, and membership of a terrorist organisation.

The court found there was insufficient evidence connecting him to the 21 other deaths.

From his prison cell, Barghouti has remained an influential figure, helping negotiate a short-lived truce declared by militant groups in 2003, and several other agreements.

U.N. Human Rights Council to probe Israeli settlements-Israel doesn't want this

March 22, 2012 3:13 PM

Israel condemns UN settlement probe

JERUSALEM — Israel's prime minister has rejected a vote by a U.N. body to send a team to investigate Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

Benjamin Netanyahu issued his statement Thursday after the U.N. Human Rights Council voted for the inquiry.

"This is a hypocritical council with an automatic majority against Israel," Netanyahu said. "This council ought to be ashamed of itself. Until today, the council has made 91 decisions, 39 of which dealt with Israel, three with Syria and one with Iran," he said.

On Thursday the council approved four other resolutions critical of Israel.

Some 300,000 Israelis live in settlements in the West Bank, an area Palestinians claim as part of a state. Israel says the issue must be resolved in peace talks.

Israel stacks the legal deck

A Palestinian woman holds a poster with a drawing depicting baker and activist Khader Adnan with a locked mouth. Adnan captured headlines recently for a 66-day hunger strike that led him to the brink of death. (Bernat Armangue / AP Photo)

L.A. Times
Op-Ed
March 07, 2012|By George Bisharat

Its court system provides little justice for Palestinians.

Palestinian baker and activist Khader Adnan captured headlines recently for a 66-day hunger strike that led him to the brink of death. His ordeal began in the dead of night on Dec. 17, 2011, when Israeli soldiers broke down the door of his West Bank home. Adnan was arrested before his terrified wife and daughters, and was reportedly abused verbally and physically upon detention and later in interrogation.

Adnan was never tried but instead faced administrative detention. Israeli prosecutors presented secret evidence to a military judge, who then ordered a four-month detention. Adnan is widely believed to be a leader in Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which Israel considers a terrorist organization. The government, however, lacked evidence that he was directly involved in terrorist attacks. Adnan's protest against Israel's unjust legal practices ended after an agreement between his lawyers and prosecutors to release him April 17 barring substantial new evidence.

Adnan's case was unique for the extreme sacrifice he offered and the public attention it earned. Yet Israeli military courts, established after Israel's 1967 seizure of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, have imprisoned hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, including men, women and children, in similarly unfair proceedings, as documented by Lisa Hajjar in her book, "Courting Conflict: the Military Court System in the West Bank and Gaza."

To Palestinians, Israeli military courts are sites of repression, not houses of justice. Palestinian defendants facing trial in 2010 were found guilty in 99.74% cases, according to Israel Defense Forces documentation. Proceedings are conducted in Hebrew, which few Palestinians speak. Judges and prosecutors answer to higher military authority, denying military tribunals full independence. Courts may renew administrative detentions in six-month increments indefinitely. Some Palestinians have been so detained for years, never having enjoyed the right to confront and cross-examine witnesses nor even to know the evidence against them.

Such evidence is frequently provided by Palestinian informers recruited by Israeli authorities, often through exploitation of the vulnerable. For example, Palestinians seeking advanced medical care that is unavailable in their own less-developed hospitals are sometimes pressured to collaborate in exchange for permits to enter Israel for treatment, according to Physicians for Human Rights-Israel. Credible allegations of torture and physical abuse of detainees gathered by such groups as the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel also continue to dog the military court system, despite a 1999 Israeli High Court of Justice decision barring four forms of torture previously used by interrogators. Evidence derived through informers is notoriously unreliable. Physically coerced statements are no more reliable: Those undergoing torture often say anything to alleviate their pain.

The quip often credited to Georges Clemenceau — "Military justice is to justice as military music is to music" — springs to mind. Yet the injustices of Israel's legal treatment of Palestinians in the West Bank cannot be so blithely dismissed. The crude procedures of military courts may be tolerable during brief military occupations. Israel's occupation of the West Bank is anything but brief.

Moreover, Palestinian litigants have fared scarcely better in Israeli civilian courts, including its vaunted High Court. There, suits to defend Palestinian rights routinely fail. Most recently, the High Court denied a petition that would have barred Israeli corporations from exploiting West Bank natural resources such as water, gravel and stone for Israeli use.

In the Jordan Valley, 10,000 Israeli settlers were allocated 18 times the water per capita that native Palestinians were allocated in 2008, according to the Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem. Restricted access to water and other natural resources has doubtless contributed to the dwindling Palestinian population in the Jordan Valley, from as many as 320,000 in 1967 to 56,000 in 2009. In leaving discriminatory allocations of resources undisturbed, the High Court functions as a tool of colonization.

Israel is a colonial power that is still expanding in an era of human rights and mass-media scrutiny. Its methods for clearing land for settlement are necessarily different than those of earlier colonial powers, which sometimes employed genocide and ethnic cleansing. Israel made the most of its opportunities by denying return to hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who fled from their homes or were forcibly expelled by Israeli forces in the wars of 1948 and 1967. Thereafter, its inexorable takeover of Palestinian lands and other resources has assumed primarily bureaucratic form, with its courts providing a veneer of legality. But the end result — the displacement of a native population in favor of settlers — is the same.

Israeli courts may provide justice to Jews living in Israel or the occupied Palestinian territories. But a legal system that is fair to one ethno-religious group while trampling the rights of others deserves to be recognized for what it is: a handmaiden to apartheid.

Our own government, by running diplomatic interference for Israel and providing it billions in military aid, is complicit in the entrenchment of Israel's variant of ethno-religious discrimination. Why we support practices that subvert our interests and defy our values is a question that every American should ponder.

George Bisharat is a professor at UC Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco and writes frequently about law and politics in the Middle East.

Palestinian female detainees tell horrific stories of abuse in Israeli prisons

Women show their solidarity with Hanaa Shalabi, a Palestinian prisoner on hunger strike to protest her detention by Israel, at a rally in Palestine. (File photo)


Al Arabiya
Thursday, 08 March 2012

By Amjad Samhan
Al Arabiya Ramallah

Throughout the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, around 800,000 Palestinians have been arrested by Israeli authorities, more than 10,000 of whom are women. Many of those female detainees were subjected to several forms of abuse, sexual in particular, but very few were willing to talk. On the eve of International Women’s Day, however, some decided to break their silence.

S.H., who refused to disclose her full name, was arrested for a few days to put pressure on her husband, also detained at the time, and extract confessions from him.

“They striped me and the officer who was interrogating me sat beside me and tried to molest me but I resisted,” she told Al Arabiya.

Hanaa Shalabi, the 30-year-old prisoner who has been on a hunger strike for 21 days in protest of the humiliation to which she was subjected in detention, said that an officer in civil clothes claimed he was a nurse at the prison and asked her to take off her clothes so he could search her.

“When I refused, he called other officers who tied me up and started beating me,” she said in a statement to the Palestinian Prisoner Society.

Shalabi’s lawyer Mahmoud Hassan said that one of the female officers wanted her to take off all her clothes in front of the other interrogators for the search.

“She kept refusing until the officer had to search her in the bathroom but threatened to retaliate against her,” he said in statement, of which Al Arabiya obtained a copy.

Hassan added that his client’s hands and legs were illegally tied during the trial.
Shalabi, who has so far lost 10 kilos, vowed to go on the hunger strike until she is released. She was sentenced to six months in jail and the sentence was reduced to four months, but no clear charges were leveled against her.

According to former detainee Iman Nafea, Israeli authorities abuse female prisoners all the time if not physically then at least verbally.

“In many cases, they search female prisoners after forcing them to take off their clothes. This is very humiliating even if it is done by a female officer because it shows there are bad intentions.”

Nafea argued that Israeli officers do not need to get prisoners naked to search them properly because they have advanced equipment that can reveal what is under the skin.

Nafea added that Israeli officers do not necessarily harass Palestinian detainees through direct physical contact with them, but they use other forms of sexual abuse.

“I know of a Palestinian woman who was assaulted with a club and several others who were constantly threatened with rape.”

On the occasion of International Women’s Day, which is an official holiday in Palestine, Palestinian Minister of Social Affairs Magda al-Masry stated that women have always been an integral part of the Palestinian struggle for freedom.

“This struggle is manifested in the plight of female detainees like Hanaa Shalabi,” she told Al Arabiya.

Masry added that the Palestinian government should take a firm stance on the naked search of Palestinian female detainees.

“This violates all human rights laws and the world has to break its silence.”
All Palestinian women, stressed Masry, will mark International Women’s Day by declaring solidarity with Shalabi.

“We will all support her until Israeli occupation forces release her.”

Several Israeli human rights organizations filed 17 complaints on behalf of Palestinian female detainees who accused Israeli officers of sexual harassment.

According to the organizations, the Israeli military prosecution is currently looking into the complaints.

(Translated from Arabic by Sonia Farid)

US, Israel play-acting with a purpose

The core of all this anti-Iran brouhaha is regime change. It's the same strategy used by America and its allies to invade Iraq
 
By Linda S. Heard,
Special to Gulf News

Published: 00:00 March 6, 2012

Interesting scenario being concocted between Tel Aviv and Washington! Apparently, we are meant to believe that the Obama administration is going all out to restrain Israel's hawkish Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from pre-emptively striking Iran's nuclear sites.

If we're gullible enough to swallow the message put out by the US and Israeli media, we might imagine that Netanyahu is furious over President Barack Obama's reticence to trigger conflict and is preparing for his country to go it alone — without alerting the White House in advance. What a joke that is!

In reality, there isn't a hair's breadth of difference between US and Israeli foreign policy on this issue. Neither government can afford to fall out with the other; their relationship is incestuous.

The US is Israel's only friend in the region and one of the few it has worldwide. And Obama needs to keep the America Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac) and the other pro-Israel US lobbying organisations happy if he wants to get re-elected. Moreover, the aims of both are the same. The official version is that neither Israel nor America can allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons capability. But that isn't what they fear the most.

In the first place, there's no proof that Tehran seeks a nuclear bomb. Secondly, US National Intelligence estimates tell us that Iran binned its nuclear weapons ambitions in 2003. Thirdly even if Iran had a bomb, it would be used only as a deterrent. The ayatollahs would have to be deranged to nuke Tel Aviv in the knowledge that repercussions would be swift and merciless.

Furthermore, a nuclear strike on Israel would also kill Arab Israelis and Palestinians, while the fall-out would likely affect Iran's friends in Lebanon, Syria and Egypt. The heart of all this anti-Iran brouhaha is regime change. But that is not a casus belli under international law and violates the United Nations Charter. What's happening now is deja vu. It's exactly the same strategy used by the US and its allies to invade Iraq.

Fragile ties

That's not to say that Iran isn't dangerous from Israel's perspective when it gives financial and military support to Israel's enemies — Hezbollah, Hamas and the Bashar Al Assad regime in Syria. Iran is also encouraging Shiite communities in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states to rise up and is dangling its wealth to lure Egypt into its sphere of influence when Egyptian-American relations are fragile.

Should Cairo fall to Iran, Israel's situation would, indeed, be precarious. The Camp David Peace Treaty would be annulled, Egypt would be free to expand its army, Israel's blockade on Gaza would no longer be effective and the Palestinians would be greatly emboldened to launch a Third Intifada, which according to the Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad is currently being considered.

Returning to the duplicitous propaganda of Washington and Tel Aviv, this is nothing but a good cop, bad cop play with a dual purpose. You can just imagine the American public's uproar if Obama initiated a new major war that would endanger US bases throughout the region, send petrol prices through the roof and further dent the economy when a rising number of Americans are surviving on food stamps.

Yesterday, Netanyahu was scheduled to meet with Obama in Washington. It is thought the Israeli leader will ask his US counterpart for the green light to attack Iran. In any event, even if Obama gives him the wink, I doubt that conversation will be made public.

In reality, the conflict is already raging beginning with the Stuxnet and Duqu viruses that have infected Iranian computers, the assassination of four Iranian nuclear scientists, the explosion at an Iranian Revolutionary Guards military base — and US and EU anti-Iranian sanctions targeting Iran's oil industry and banking.

For its part, Iran has terminated oil exports to the UK and France, has carried out a series of military and naval exercises in the Gulf region, has threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz to shipping and may be behind the recent attempted assassinations of Israeli diplomats in India, Georgia and Thailand.

One thing is sure: if Israel does strike Iran, the US will act in tandem; at the very least it will supply Israel with every logistical requirement. More likely, the two allies will go for gold, together taking out as many Iranian nuclear facilities as they can.

Obama can then tell his compatriots and the world that he did his best to stop Netanyahu in his tracks but when push came to shove he had to ensure the survival of the Jewish State.

Linda S. Heard is a specialist writer on Middle East affairs. She can be contacted at lheard@gulfnews.com Some of the comments may be considered for publication.

Killer Tornadoes

most recent tornado video from BBC

3 NC kids survive tornado pulling them from home

Published March 05, 2012

Associated Press

• inShare

CHARLOTTE, N.C. –  A North Carolina family says three children were ripped from their beds by a tornado, throwing one about 100 feet away along a fence lining a highway. All have been released from hospitals and are back with relatives.

Latonya Stevens says her 7-year-old son Jamal was sucked from his room as a tornado tore apart the family home's second floor where he slept. It was one of nearly 200 homes damaged by the storm in the Charlotte area.

A neighbor found Jamal about 100 feet away, tossed to the far side of a fence along Interstate 485.

His 3-year-old sister Amber and 4-year-old Ayanna were released from a hospital on Sunday. Amber was found in her home's yard under some debris. Ayanna landed in a neighbor's yard.

I took this picture of the tornado cloud that Sparky and I chased previously like idiots storm chaser wannabes across dirt farm roads outside Ogallalah, Nebraska, last year. The cloud formation was about 2 miles away and I asked Sparky to play his drum and call in the Thunder Beings which he did and lo and behold! I kid you not, seven funnels came down from that cloud but none reached the ground and they evaporated fairly quickly. The sky overhead was just amazing, circular cloud formation with rolling thunder and lightening in them and with winds coming into the center from all four directions at once. Then the cloud formation headed slowly toward Ogallalah, Neb, and the motel where we were staying with storm warnings going off on our TVs every 2 minutes warning residents to seek shelters and interior rooms which we did. It made me think on the way back home to California why don't these people all have concrete storm shelters? I thought of the concrete water tanks that only needed lids and doorway to make into a tornado proof shelter. Somebody could clean up in such businesses manufacturing ready-made storm shelters. I checked later and saw there are quite a few concrete storm shelter mfg. but there wasn't that many places with them I found out from our friend Bridgit's brother who lives outside of Kearney. Tornado ran right by their place the year before. I hope the shelters catch on more and save more lives.