Myanmar

De Volkskrant bericht:

'Kamerfracties roepen op tot boycot Total
ANP

WASHINGTON - De Kamerfracties van SP, PvdA, GroenLinks en de Partij voor de Dieren roepen mensen op om de tankstations van Total te boycotten. Het Franse oliebedrijf werkt in Birma samen met het militaire bewind.
De politieke partijen wezen er in de Tweede Kamer op dat het Franse oliebedrijf zich al jaren niets aantrekt van oproepen zich terug te trekken uit Myanmar of geen nieuwe investeringen meer te doen. Mensen hoeven volgens Tweede Kamerlid Krista van Velzen (SP) niet te wachten op officiële scherpere sancties. ‘Rij de Total-stations gewoon voorbij’, zei ze.
ActiesNaast president Bush heeft ook premier Balkenende donderdag opgeroepen tot acties tegen de junta in Birma. Woensdag riep de Franse president Sarkozy al op om niet meer in het land te investeren. Zo riep hij onder meer oliegigant Total tot de orde...

Banktegoeden

Het Amerikaanse ministerie van Financiën maakte donderdag bekend dat het de banktegoeden van de veertien belangrijkste bestuurders van de junta in Birma heeft bevroren.'

Interessant bericht. Na jarenlang nagenoeg te hebben gezwegen over de terreur in Myanmar worden wereldwijd de politiek verantwoordelijken ineens wakker. Teveel camera's brengen de terreur in beeld en dan is natuurlijk vrijblijvend links en rechts gedwongen van zich te laten horen. Vandaar. Democratisch lijken is goed voor het imago. Dus tegen de terreur van het leger in Myanmar. Tot de camera's weer verdwijnen en men weer over kan gaan tot de orde van de dag. Ondertussen zwijgen de meesten van onze politici in alle talen over de Israelische terreur tegen de Palestijnse burgerbevolking. En daar kan men daadwerkelijk iets tegen ondernemen, want Nederland steunt de Israelische terreur op politiek, militair, diplomatiek en economisch gebied. Waarom eisen onze democraten niet een opschorting van het EU-Associatieverdrag met Israel zolang Israel de illegale muur niet afbreekt, zoals het Internationaal Gerechtshof in Den Haag heeft geadviseerd? Tenminste 120 Palestijnse kinderen zijn volgens Amnesty in 2006 door Israeli's gedood. Ongewapende kinderen dus. Zonder enige repercussie voor de 'joodse staat.' Waarom niet? Waarom zwijgt de Nederlandse politiek? Zou de Nederlandse politiek hebben gezwegen als dit joods Israelische kinderen waren geweest? Vanwaar die stilte? Racisme of iets anders?

Het is volstrekt vrijblijvend wat de politici doen met betrekking tot Myanmar, want dat regime wordt niet door ons politiek, militair, economische en diplomatiek gesteund. Israel wel. Onze sancties zouden daar wel degelijk iets veranderen.

Let u ook op deze zin: 'Banktegoeden. Het Amerikaanse ministerie van Financiën maakte donderdag bekend dat het de banktegoeden van de veertien belangrijkste bestuurders van de junta in Birma heeft bevroren.'

He, wat nu? Heeft dit corrupte militaire regime geld uit hun geplunderd land naar Amerikaanse banken gesluisd? Dat wist kennelijk de Amerikaanse regering en vond dat jarenlang goed. Waarom nu ineens niet meer? Omdat er teveel camera's op de terreur gericht staan! De hypocrisie is weerzinwekkend. In de Nederlandse journalistiek is al een tijdje een gesprek gaande over het belang van onderzoeksjournalistiek. Ik zou zeggen: aan de slag collega's!!! Waarom wordt de terreur van Israel geaccepteerd en krijgt deze natie een voorkeursbehandeling en wordt tegelijkertijd Myanmar nu ineens aangepakt? Onderzoeken!!! Laat jullie lezers, luisteraars, kijkers weten in welke context deze politiek zich voltrekt.

Lees verder:

http://www.volkskrant.nl/buitenland/article465277.ece/

Kamerfracties_roepen_op_tot_boycot _Total
Zie ook: http://www.refintl.org/content/article/detail/854/?output=printer

De Commerciele Massamedia 90

Uit jarenlange ervaring weet ik 1 ding zeker: niets haten journalisten van de commerciele massamedia zo intens als een zelfstandig denkend publiek dat niet meteen elk praatje voor zoete koek slikt. Leest u deze hysterische reacties eens van Britse journalisten bij de commerciele massamedia. En lees vervolgens hoe 1 van hen op zijn nummer wordt gezet door Medialens:

'I, (FASCIST) ROBOT - THE BBC’S GAVIN ESLER LETS RIP
In response to our September 18 alert, ‘The Media Ignore Credible Poll Revealing 1.2 Million Violent Deaths In Iraq,’ BBC Newsnight presenter Gavin Esler sent one Media Lens reader the following response:
“Sorry but this medialens inspired stuff is very sophomoric. The last time I remember a robotic response from people like this was watching film of the nuremberg rallies. I always wondered why people marched to another's beat without any obvious thought from themselves. Perhaps you know the answer, or perhaps you merely intend to keep marching.
“Please don't write to me again in someone else's words. It is so embarrasing for you. Please learn to think for yourself.Gavin”
The polite and thoughtful email that elicited this response was sent by James, a masters student at Durham University. You can read it here: http://www.medialens.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2611
The email contains several points that we did not even make in our media alert.
The irony of Esler’s focus on our alleged fascistic tendencies is that it has become very much the reflexive response of irate journalists over the last six years. In his enthusiasm for the war that has since demolished Iraq, the Observer’s Nick Cohen wrote to us on March 15, 2002:
"Dear ServilesI would have more respect for you if you showed the smallest awareness that a tyrant bore some responsibility for tyranny. I appreciate this is difficult for you, it involves coming to terms with complexity and horribly Eurocentric principles such as justice and universality, and truly I share your pain. But your for [sic] sake far more than mine, I'd like to know roughly how many deaths in Iraq are down to Saddam. If you admit that we're in double figures, or more, what should be done about it?Viva Joe Stalin"
The Independent on Sunday’s deputy editor Michael Williams described Media Lens emailers - who were challenging the paper's hypocrisy in ’saving the planet’ while banking the loot from fossil fuel adverts - as "a curmudgeonly lot of puritans, miseries, killjoys, Stalinists and glooms". (Williams, 'A bottle of bubbly for the best way to fly,' Independent on Sunday, January 22, 2006)
Peter Beaumont of the Observer cringed with disgust as he told readers how Media Lens was “a closed and distorting little world”, part of “a curious willy-waving exercise... Think a train spotters' club run by Uncle Joe Stalin." (Beaumont, 'Microscope on Medialens,' The Observer, June 18, 2006; http://observer.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1800328,00.html)
The Stalinist zombies were also very much on the march in the mind of BBC producer Adam Curtis, who interpreted our analysis of his series The Century Of The Self as us “stamping [our] little feet” and “trying to whip up an attack of the clones”. (Email to Editors, June 18, 2002)
The “clones”, Esler’s “robotic” respondents, are members of the public who care enough about the devastating impact of corporate media bias to take time out of their day to write to journalists. This in a society that endlessly seeks to persuade us to care only about our immediate self-gratification and our immediate families, while the environment collapses around us, while 2 million people lie dead in Iraq from twelve years of sanctions and four years of illegal occupation.
The Observer editor, Roger Alton, composed this response to one (also) extremely polite emailer:
"Have you just been told to write in by those c*nts at medialens? Don't you have a mind of your own?" (Email forwarded, June 1, 2006 - our censorship)
It could just be that Alton was also the “senior journalist” who anonymously described us to a BBC reporter as “poisonous c*nts". (Posted by BBC journalist David Fuller, Media Lens website, May 15, 2006)'

Lees verder: http://www.medialens.org/alerts/index.php

De Israelische Terreur 250

Member of neo-Nazi group in Israel

'"Isn't the attitude of Israeli society to ethnic Jewish origins, that is, Jewish ethnocentricity…an indirect or direct reason for the scary phenomenon we're discussing now" historian Moshe Zimmerman wrote this week.''

Lees verder: http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3448548,00.html

'WSWS : News & Analysis : Middle East
Israel’s neo-Nazi gang: A symptom of a deeper malaise
By Chris Marsden...

This is the fundamental source of both racism and racial violence in Israel. Amidst the generally worthless commentary on the neo-Nazis, Moshe Zimmerman, head of the German History department at Jerusalem’s Hebrew University, notes on Ynetnews.com, “Israeli society is replete with racism and violence regardless of this [neo-Nazi] group” and is directed against “the Arab population, whether in the occupied territories or in Israel proper” as well as towards foreign workers.' En daar kan iedere Nederlandse politicus getuige van zijn als hij zijn ogen opendoet en bereid is te luisteren. Desondanks steunt de Nederlandse politiek dit gewelddadig 'racisme', deze terreur tegen de Palestijnen, wat in wezen een schending is van het internationaal recht, waarvoor de betrokken politici juridisch vervolgd kunnen worden.

Lees verder: http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/sep2007/isra-s15.shtml

Overigens hebben Nederlandse politici onlangs een bezoek gebracht aan de bezette Westbank en waren ze volgens goed ingelichte bronnen geschokt over wat ze hadden gezien en gehoord over de wijze waarop de Palestijnen worden onderdrukt. Desondanks blijft men zwijgen. We zullen de delegatie binnenkort eens aan de tand voelen.

De Israelische Terreur 249

De Wereldomroep bericht:

'Arrestatie neonazi's schokt Israël
Door correspondent Joop Meijers

Hoe is het mogelijk dat in de joodse staat Israël neonazi's opereren? Dat is de vraag waar Israël mee worstelt na de arrestatie van acht jongeren die worden verdacht van neonazistische en racistische acties. De van origine uit Rusland afkomstige jongeren, in de leeftijd van 16 tot 24 jaar, zouden onder meer buitenlandse gastarbeiders, homoseksuelen, drugsverslaafden en orthodoxe joden in elkaar hebben getrapt, hakenkruizen hebben geklad op synagogen en Hitlers verjaardag hebben gevierd…. Professor Zimmerman van de Hebreeuwse Universiteit, een controversiële man in Israël, meent dat de neonazistische praktijken van de jongeren en in het bijzonder het fysiek geweld tegen de 'ander' die zwakker is, een symptoom is van een ziekte waaraan de hele maatschappij lijdt: "Israël is een gewelddadig land, waar de joodse meerderheid de Arabische minderheid onderdrukt. Deze jongeren, die natuurlijk moeten worden gestraft, handelen niet in een vacuüm."'

Lees verder: http://www.wereldomroep.nl/actua/middenoosten/act_neonazis070911

Zo wonderlijk is dit gedrag nu ook weer niet. Al veel eerder waarschuwde de Israelische geleerde, professor Yehasyahu Leibowitz, voor wat hij noemde de 'Judeo-Nazi' mentaliteit, een houding waarvan ik getuige ben geweest toen ik zag dat Israelische militaire sluipschutters Palestijnse kinderen neerschoten. 'An Orthodox Jew, Leibowitz was known primarily for his philosophical writings and scathing critique of Israeli values and national policy. His remarks shortly after the Lebanon War in 1982 accusing Israeli soldiers of "Judeo-Nazi" mentality provoked a public outcry.'

Mijn vriend, de Nederlands/Israelische documentairemaker Benny Brunner maakte in 1991 een schitterend filmportret van Leibowiz onder de titel 'A philosopher For All Seasons.'

The Empire 274

'A Coup Has Occurred'

By Daniel Ellsberg

I think nothing has higher priority than averting an attack on Iran, which I think will be accompanied by a further change in our way of governing here that in effect will convert us into what I would call a police state.
If there’s another 9/11 under this regime … it means that they switch on full extent all the apparatus of a police state that has been patiently constructed, largely secretly at first but eventually leaked out and known and accepted by the Democratic people in Congress, by the Republicans and so forth.
Will there be anything left for NSA to increase its surveillance of us? … They may be to the limit of their technical capability now, or they may not. But if they’re not now they will be after another 9/11.
And I would say after the Iranian retaliation to an American attack on Iran, you will then see an increased attack on Iran – an escalation – which will be also accompanied by a total suppression of dissent in this country, including detention camps.
It’s a little hard for me to distinguish the two contingencies; they could come together. Another 9/11 or an Iranian attack in which Iran’s reaction against Israel, against our shipping, against our troops in Iraq above all, possibly in this country, will justify the full panoply of measures that have been prepared now, legitimized, and to some extent written into law. …
This is an unusual gang, even for Republicans. [But] I think that the successors to this regime are not likely to roll back the assault on the Constitution. They will take advantage of it, they will exploit it.
Will Hillary Clinton as president decide to turn off NSA after the last five years of illegal surveillance? Will she deprive her administration her ability to protect United States citizens from possible terrorism by blinding herself and deafening herself to all that NSA can provide? I don’t think so.
Unless this somehow, by a change in our political climate, of a radical change, unless this gets rolled back in the next year or two before a new administration comes in – and there’s no move to do this at this point – unless that happens I don’t see it happening under the next administration, whether Republican or Democratic.
The Next Coup
Let me simplify this and not just to be rhetorical: A coup has occurred. I woke up the other day realizing, coming out of sleep, that a coup has occurred. It’s not just a question that a coup lies ahead with the next 9/11. That’s the next coup, that completes the first.
The last five years have seen a steady assault on every fundamental of our Constitution, … what the rest of the world looked at for the last 200 years as a model and experiment to the rest of the world – in checks and balances, limited government, Bill of Rights, individual rights protected from majority infringement by the Congress, an independent judiciary, the possibility of impeachment.
There have been violations of these principles by many presidents before. Most of the specific things that Bush has done in the way of illegal surveillance and other matters were done under my boss Lyndon Johnson in the Vietnam War: the use of CIA, FBI, NSA against Americans.
I could go through a list going back before this century to Lincoln’s suspension of habeas corpus in the Civil War, and before that the Alien and Sedition Acts in the 18th century. I think that none of those presidents were in fact what I would call quite precisely the current administration: domestic enemies of the Constitution.
I think that none of these presidents with all their violations, which were impeachable had they been found out at the time and in nearly every case their violations were not found out until they were out of office so we didn’t have the exact challenge that we have today.'

Lees verder: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18456.htm

Iran 167

Students demonstrate on the Columbia University campus where Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was set to speak during his stay in New York. (Photo: Lucas Jackson / Reuters

'Ahmadinejad in New York: "The Iranian President Doesn't Want to Become Isolated."
Simon Piel Interviews Didier Billion
Le Nouvel Observateur

Le Nouvel Observateur: What is the meaning of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's visit to New York in light of his latest statements about the nuclear bomb?
Didier Billion: His latest statements indicate that the Iranian president has a new concern to not allow himself to be isolated on the international scene. There are two tendencies within the Iranian state apparatus. That of the president is radical and firm. The other tendency emanates from parliamentarians and leaders such as [Akbar Hashemi] Rafsanjani or [Mohammad] Khatami. The latter two have publicly criticized the president on several occasions, deeming that his gesticulations will end up isolating the country. Consequently, there's a muffled internal confrontation that sometimes shows through. Ahmadinejad's last statement shows that there's been a shift in the balance of power within his country.
How do you explain the American refusal to see the Iranian president bow his head at Ground Zero as he had wished?
Contrary to the official reasons invoked, this is purely and simply a political decision. At a time when Bush is right in the middle of a test of strength with Iran, it would have been incomprehensible for the symbol of Iranian radicalism to go to Ground Zero. By proposing to go there on 9/11, Ahmadinejad offered one more provocation. But we must however remember that Iran very quickly condemned the September 11 attacks. Moreover, during the American riposte in Afghanistan, Iran authorized US aviation to fly over its territory. Khatami was still president at the time, and, even if he never directly collaborated with the United States, he demonstrated his goodwill. Bush's mistake was not to jump up and seize the Iranian opening.
In a New York Times interview, Nicolas Sarkozy reasserts his desire to strengthen sanctions. What form may they take? Could the UN General Assembly perhaps provide the opportunity to vote international sanctions against Tehran?
Sarkozy cannot do much. He's already pressuring French companies so that they won't invest in Iran, which is very bothersome to big groups, like Total, for example. He could go further and forbid them any collaboration with Iran. But that would be stupid. The Chinese and the Russians would broadly benefit from the vacated space to increase their importance in the country. Moreover, the UN General Assembly will not vote in other sanctions. Resolutions/sanctions were already voted in last March. And they are being applied. Besides, the plan proposed by [Mohamed] ElBaradei, which emphasizes diplomacy, has until November to run. Consequently, there will be nothing new before then. Finally, we may note that there has been a real change in direction in French diplomacy, which is lining up more and more with the Bush administration. Sarkozy's first foreign policy speech at the ambassadors' conference shows that. Iran, international terrorism and NATO were so many subjects on which he echoed Bush's statements.'

Zie: http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/092507G.shtml Of:
http://tempsreel.nouvelobs.com/actualites/opinions/3_questions_a/20070924.OBS6305/
le_president_iranien_ne_veut_passe_laisser_isoler.html

De Israelische Terreur 248

Links op de foto ziet u Kholoud Ajarma van het Lajee Center, het cultureel centrum van het Aida vluchtelingenkamp nabij Bethlehem. Rechts van haar zit de Britse fotograaf Rich Wiles die Palestijnse kinderen leert fotograferen. Rich stuurde me gisteren deze email:

'Behind the Wall – 'What kind of Peace?'

Sena and Mahmoud grabbed their three children and rushed to the bathroom. Once inside the young couple closed the door quickly and laid their beloved children in the bath tub. The bath was dry. The children aged four, two, and just one year old screamed hysterically. Sena closed the toilet lid and sat on it. At least sitting there she was not in direct line of the bathroom's fragile wooden door. Mahmoud collected what little food was in the house and also took that into their hiding place. It is the holy month of Ramadan so fresh food shopping is done daily meaning the family had little in the way of stocks. Back in the bathroom he perched on the edge of the bath next to where his wife was sitting and in front of their children, but again making sure as to not be in line with the door. They did not leave the bathroom for the next two days except when the Medical Relief entered their house with some meager but much appreciated supplies of bread and tomatoes. Nablus' Al Ayn Refugee Camp houses around 7,000 refugees. These people live cramped together in small houses either side of the main road which bisects the camp into upper and lower sections. From the early hours of Tuesday morning right through until the early hours of Friday morning the cramped living conditions of every family in Al Ayn were reduced further, much like those of Sena and Mahmoud's family, to just one room. The particular room chosen depended on which room offered the greatest level of protection against the barrage of high calibre bullets and heavy artillery that were reigning into the houses from every conceivable angle and direction. When the IOF invaded the camp on Tuesday morning they met determined, if small in numbers, resistance, which was led by members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). A handful of activists attempted to repel the attacks and defend the camp and its people. In the ensuing clashes the resistance were heavily outnumbered and the IOF had a huge advantage in firepower. The first shaheed was soon claimed. 18 year old Muhammad Khalid Rida was not the only death on Tuesday in Al Ayn, an IOF soldier was also killed as he and his compatriots invaded the camp. After the death of this soldier the IOF called in huge numbers of reinforcements, and the siege of Al Ayn began... By Wednesday every explosion and house demolition was reverberating right across Nablus such was the intensity of the IOF's destruction. From my base in Balata Camp, around three kilometres away, I could not only hear the explosions but also feel everything physically. Nablus was literally shaking. Wednesday also saw the second shaheed as Adib Damuni, who used a wheelchair for mobility, died instantly after being shot in the head by a sniper whilst sat in his own house. The following day I attempted to enter Al Ayn but the closure was skin-tight. There was no way past the blockades and bullets of the IOF. The camp was entirely surrounded from every side and all entrances and exits I knew of were blockaded. The IOF manning these blockades were in no mood to talk and opened fire on anyone approaching. From vantage points around the camp I could see IOF foot patrols carrying out house to house searches. Armour-plated lorries and bulldozers, personnel carriers, and jeeps filled every street, and foot patrols could be seen entering the narrow alleyways behind a barrage of their own gunfire. At one point the jeeps and lorries manning an upper blockade pulled away and moved 30 or 40 metres down into the camp to a large building. I was able to follow them down cautiously with two journalists and watch soldiers drag two men from the house, blindfolded and handcuffed, before unceremoniously kicking them into the waiting lorry. We were soon seen and ran back for cover as the M-16s were turned in our direction. The shell casings which littered the floor, and the two men who had already been killed, evidenced the lethal munitions these guns were firing. Around 10.30 on Thursday morning a hugely intense barrage of gunfire filled Sena and Mahmoud's house. Mahmoud tried to shout to the IOF soldiers who were carrying out this attack on a civilian family: "We are here in the bathroom, we have no guns! Our children are in here!" The bullets entered every room in the house, including the bathroom where they passed through the flimsy wooden door like a knife through hot butter: "Our children are here, please stop shooting! There is no-one else here!" After a few minutes of this uninterrupted barrage the IOF entered the house. Still Mahmoud shouted to them to stop shooting, begging them not to kill his family. "They ordered us out of the bathroom. My children were screaming. They told us to get out of the house and took us into the house next door. As we left the bathroom they filled it with bullets." Looking around the remains of the bathroom it is clear quite how heavy the firepower was which bombarded this tiny room. All walls, the door, the floor and ceiling, plus the bath, toilet and cabinet are all filled with huge holes. Every other room downstairs is exactly the same, their is not a window or wall left intact in the house. "I knew they wouldn't find anything because their was nothing to find! I hoped they would leave when they realised this..." The soldiers did leave. The patrol left the house before returning to the neighbouring house where Mahmoud was trying to reassure his family that they would be ok: "The commander told me to cover my ears... then they blew my house up!" Explosive devices had been placed all over the upper floor of Mahmoud and Sena's family house. The detonation brought screams from everyone. They were given no reason for these actions and were not questioned or arrested as would have been the case if the IOF had any suspicions towards them. This was simply a show of force. A hideous example of an occupying power demonstrating their strength. An occupying force who know they are answerable to no-one and are free to continue unabated with their war-crimes against a civilian population whilst the world is silent - discussing only upcoming 'peace conferences'.

On Friday, after the IOF had pulled out of Al Ayn, officials of UNRWA began visiting houses in the camp. They told Mahmoud and Sena to leave their skeleton of a former house immediately as it was in imminent danger of total collapse. They are now staying with Sena's brother. His house was not bombed, it 'only' suffered the same gunfire damage as his sister's, and as every other house in Al Ayn… I also visited one of Sena's neighbours, Ahmed. His story differed only in the room which was chosen in which to hide his family. Ahmed, his wife, and their ten children had chosen an upstairs room without an outside window. Their house was similarly devastated: "My children were terrified, ten of them hiding for their lives. I felt like I was just waiting for them (the IOF) to come and kill us..." I asked Ahmed if he was also leaving his house. "To where? I have nowhere else to go..." In the room adjacent to their hiding place of over two full days a small wall-mounted corner unit displayed framed photographs of his children smiling. On the bottom shelf stood a brown teddy bear with a red stomach. Its smile seemed hopeful at first, but inches from its fluffy ears dozens of deep holes in the white walls from large calibre munitions painted a different picture; then, the teddy bear looked like a sick ironic joke. Small plastic Palestinian flags had been laid out around the room and hung from the windows. They were signs of resistance, but also marks of respect for another neighbour in a house that used to stand only a few metres away. In the place of this former house now stand just huge mounds of rubble. All four floors were blown-up. Looking closer it was evident that this was not just mounds of rubble. Scattered amongst the concrete were specks of colour hidden behind the layers of thick concrete dust. A yellow child's sandal, a copy of the Koran with a brown cover, a red and yellow children's book, a gold painted coffee pot... just some of the reminders that this rubble was not that of a building site but rather a destruction site. In the middle of the 'rubble' stood a large and proud red flag flapping in the wind. Its colour is symbolic and it marks the spot where the PFLP activist was killed on Tuesday. The PFLP is a Marxist organisation, hence the red colour, but the colour also seems to symbolize the blood that was shed here... A man sifting through the debris turned to talk to me. He offered his hand and welcoming greetings despite the fact that over the last few days he has seen his house blown to pieces and his brother killed. He saw me looking at the flag: "He was my brother... 40 of us used to share this house, five families in total. Now look what we have left..." There was literally nothing left, except memories. From a neighbouring house a washing line that was previously strung across the front of the demolished house now just hung down limply. No doubt washing was done on Monday and hung out over night to dry. Three small school uniforms were hanging from the line, washed, and dried, but never worn. Further down the same street I found a woman sifting through rubble trying to salvage more children's clothes. The walls to the bottom floor of her house had been blown away. Four beds and their mattresses lay amongst the rubble. She was picking up small dresses and clothes one by one, dusting off the debris, and checking what was still in one piece. In the narrow alleyways mounds of rubble covered the paths; people were climbing where they used to walk. I watched three children pushing an elderly man in a wheelchair; the streets were only just wide enough to accommodate the chair. I went over to offer help as they pulled him from his mobility aid and attempted to carry him every time the path was blocked with the remains of house walls. Children stood in the streets comparing empty tear-gas canisters, remains of explosive devices, and assorted bullets that they had collected. In another part of the camp people told me that their neighbourhood had been totally cutoff and not even the Medical Relief were allowed access so they had been without fresh food or medical supplies for the sick or injured. Another man told me how the IOF had severed water pipes and that people who had water in their rooftop tanks were just waiting until that too ran out, or bullets penetrated the tanks, before they would have none at all. The whole camp was a literal wreck. I doubt there is a house that remains undamaged in some way.

The funerals of the two shaheeds were not held until Friday morning, this was the first day that people had been able to leave their houses to bury their dead… Just outside the camp I saw an empty cardboard box lying alongside the road. On the front its writing was in English. It read 'UN Practice Grenades. Property of the Government of Israel.' Another small white label on the back of the box read 'Combined Systems Incorporated. New York.' What happened for three days in Al Ayn Camp was no practice session. This was planned and organised inhumane destruction of property and of lives. These actions were war-crimes, and they were carried it seems at least in part with UN munitions, and certainly with US funded and made weapons. These war-crimes are making millions of dollars for the US economy. Condolleza Rice had been in Palestine earlier in the week to discuss the November 'Peace Conference' that we keep hearing about. The 'Peace Conference' promoted by George Bush, the same George Bush who recently agreed the 'Memorandum of Understanding' military aid package to Israel. This aid package offers levels of financial support for Israel's military to the tune of $30 billion over the next ten years. Whilst Ms Rice sat smiling and making noises about 'Peace' for the press in Ramallah, around 30 kilometres away in Nablus peoples lives, houses, and families were getting blown apart by weapons funded and at least in some cases made by her own country…
What kind of peace is it she wants???'

Zie: http://www.lajee.org/english/main.cfm

11 september 2001 (32)

De Guardian:

9/11 - the big cover-up?
Even the chair of the 9/11 Commission now admits that the official evidence they were given was 'far from the truth'.
Peter Tatchell

Six years after 9/11, the American public have still not been provided with a full and truthful account of the single greatest terror attack in US history.
What they got was a turkey. The 9/11 Commission was hamstrung by official obstruction. It never managed to ascertain the whole truth of what happened on September 11 2001.
The chair and vice chair of the 9/11 Commission, respectively Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton, assert in their book, Without Precedent, that they were "set up to fail" and were starved of funds to do a proper investigation. They also confirm that they were denied access to the truth and misled by senior officials in the Pentagon and the federal aviation authority;and that this obstruction and deception led them to contemplate slapping officials with criminal charges.
Despite the many public statements by 9/11 commissioners and staff members acknowledging they were repeatedly lied to, not a single person has ever been charged, tried, or even reprimanded, for lying to the 9/11 Commission.
From the outset, the commission seemed to be hobbled. It did not start work until over a year after the attacks. Even then, its terms of reference were suspiciously narrow, its powers of investigation curiously limited and its time-frame for producing a report unhelpfully short - barely a year to sift through millions of pages of evidence and to interview hundreds of key witnesses.
The final report did not examine key evidence, and neglected serious anomalies in the various accounts of what happened. The commissioners admit their report was incomplete and flawed, and that many questions about the terror attacks remain unanswered. Nevertheless, the 9/11 Commission was swiftly closed down on August 21 2004.
I do not believe in conspiracy theories. I prefer rigorous, evidence-based analysis that sifts through the known facts and utilises expert opinion to draw conclusions that stand up to critical scrutiny. In other words, I believe in everything the 9/11 Commission was not.'

Lees verder: http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/peter_tatchell/2007/09/911_the_big_coverup.html

De Israelische Terreur 247

Experience a dynamic and intensive eight day exploration of Israel's struggle for survival and security in the Middle East today.

Briefings by Mossad officials and Shin Bet commanders.
Briefing by officers in the IDF Intelligence and Operations branches.
Inside tour of the IAF unit who carries out targeted killings.
Live exhibition of penetration raids in Arab territory.
Observe a trial of Hamas terrorists in an IDF military court.
First hand tours of the Lebanese front-line military positions and the Gaza border check-points.
Inside tour of the controversial Security Fence and secret intelligence bases.
Meeting Israel's Arab agents who infiltrate the terrorist groups and provide real-time intelligence.
Briefing by Israel's war heros who saved the country.
Meetings with senior Cabinet Ministers and other key policymakers.
Small airplane tour of the Galilee, Jeep rides in the Golan hights, water activities on Lake Kinneret, a cook-out barbecue and a Shabbat enjoying the rich religious and historic wonders of Jerusalem's Old City.
⇒ For full itinerary and costs click here.
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Ik kreeg dit vanmiddag gemaild. Voor mensen die terreur van een bezettende macht van nabij willen zien. Er is kennelijk belangstelling voor. Het is duur, maar ja, voor niets gaat de zon op. Met een beetje mazzel kunt u getuige zijn van het doodschieten van Palestijnse kinderen die al dan niet met stenen gooien. En waar ter wereld kan dat nog ongestoord? Wees eerlijk. Nou dan! Ga het zien nu het nog kan.

De Israelische Terreur 246

The boy and the tank: The picture shows an Israeli tank which marched towards a Palestinian street to crush a demonstration by the Palestinians. It sprayed the demonstrators with bullets resulting in 14 serious injuries. Then Faris Odeh (13) charged against it. Faris started throwing stones at it. Faris later on died in unrelated incident.

Haaretz bericht:

'It could explode at some stage'
By Tom Segev
The Qassam rockets being fired into Sderot and the surrounding area from the Gaza Strip have prompted calls to punish Gaza's population and even to expel a few thousand of them from the area of the Israeli border. There is, of course, another - reverse - possibility, which no one is considering today: in their distress, a few hundred thousand Palestinians march to the border, tear down the fences, breach the walls and invade Israel in a gigantic demonstration of unarmed civilians. Exactly two years before the Six-Day War, prime minister and defense minister Levi Eshkol was apprehensive about just such a development. A discussion was held in the weekly meeting with the senior figures of the defense establishment on June 4, 1965. Eshkol opened by asking how many refugees there were, what they ate and what the state of emigration was. The head of Military Intelligence, Aharon Yariv, replied that they ate what UNRWA, the United Nations relief agency, gave them. The situation was not good, the refugees were embittered and therefore were being drafted into the Egyptian army, Yariv reported. Eshkol noted that Egypt was not allowing the refugees to enter its territory and asked, "Could there not be a thought that we should raise an international gevalt [outcry, in Yiddish] why people are not allowed to go where they want?" He requested that his proposal be referred to the Foreign Ministry. Yariv offered some tactical advice: "We shouldn't be the ones to shout. We should see to it that someone else does the shouting."

Eshkol: "I always think that this is our Achilles' heel regarding the refugees. What will we do if one fine day they send their women and children forward?" The chief of staff, Yitzhak Rabin, reassured him: "If they have not done it yet, they will not do it. After the first 100 are killed, they will go back." Eshkol was not convinced: "They multiply fast," he remarked. Rabin corrected him: "The number of refugees has not grown over the years. In 1949, 1950, 1951, 1952, when the Negev was empty, when there were abandoned villages, this could have been a concern. At that time there was talk of marches by refugees. These days I haven't heard anyone talking about it." Eshkol: "The moment there will be 500,000 to 600,000 people - well, people have to live from something, and they are multiplying all the time and it could explode at some stage. And the fact that UNRWA is providing for them - we do not think that is right, either." The director general of the Defense Ministry, Moshe Kashti, asked whether there was no "constructive thinking" on solving the problem, by which he meant encouraging emigration. Rabin replied, "We acted in this matter in Germany and are acting in South America, but the Egyptians are not letting them out. They say so openly. They have created a frame of mind among the Arabs that to leave is to betray Palestine." Two years later, Israel captured the Gaza Strip. Eshkol received various proposals to alleviate the refugees' plight. One possibility was to resettle several thousand Gaza families in the West Bank permanently. Nothing was done, in part because ministers Menachem Begin, Moshe Dayan and Yigal Allon wanted the West Bank to be reserved for Jewish settlement. Without Begin, Dayan and Allon, Eshkol did not have a coalition. That was the great missed opportunity of 1967.'

Zie: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/903678.html

Eitan Bronstein

Dit is Eitan Bronstein in zijn kantoortje in Tel Aviv waar we hem spraken. Een dapper mens, een joods-Israelische activist van de organisatie Zochrot. Eitan zet zich samen met andere Israeli's in voor de bewustwording onder joods Israelis van het feit dat in 1948 een massale etnische zuivering in zijn land heeft plaatsgevonden en vervolgens honderden Palestijnse dorpen door de zionisten met de grond gelijk zijn gemaakt. Het inzien van de eigen verantwoordelijkheid voor deze misdaad ziet Bronstein als de eerste stap op weg naar verzoening met de Palestijnen. Zonder begrip voor het Palestijnse lijden is geen oplossing mogelijk.

Zie: http://www.zochrot.org/index.php?lang=english En: http://www.palestineremembered.com/Articles/General/Story1649.html

De Israelische Terreur 245

De Israelische terreur kent een lange traditie.

Ik ontving deze email:

'Dear Friends,

Some amongst you may not yet know these shocking facts. For others who know them already, it might be useful to have them in one list, although it is not complete. I am missing for instance the attack on the King David hotel and the murder of the eminent UN representative Count Folke Bernadotte committed by members of the Sterngang under leadership of Yitzhak Shamir. Please let me know if there are more of these facts which can complete this list. I think it is important information which should be spread.

Best wishes,
Aleid


By Sam Kabbani

Below are some rarely-mentioned facts about the relationship between Zionism and modern-day terrorism:

1. The first aircraft hijacking was carried out by Israel in 1954 against a Syrian civilian airliner.

2. Grenades in cafes: first used by Zionists against Palestinians in Jerusalem on 17 March 1937.

3. Delayed-action, electrically timed mines in crowded marketplaces: first used by Zionists against Palestinians in Haifa on 6 July 1938.

4. Blowing up a ship with its civilian passengers still on board: first carried out by Zionists in Haifa on 25 November 1940. The Zionists did not hesitate to blow up their own people in protest at the British policy of restricting Jewish immigration to Palestine. The ship, Patria, was carrying 1,700 Jewish immigrants.

5. Assassination of government officials: first carried out by the Zionists against the British in Cairo, when on 6 November 1944 Lord Moyne was assassinated by the Stern Gang. Yitzhak Shamir, a member of the Irgun and later leader of the Stern Gang and Israeli prime minister, was behind the plan.

6. Use of hostages as a means of putting pressure on a government: first used by the Zionists against the British in Tel Aviv on 18 June 1946.

7. Blowing up of government offices with their civilian employees and visitors: first carried out by the Zionists against the British in Jerusalem on 22 July 1946. The toll was 91 Britons killed and 46 wounded in the King David Hotel. Menachim Begin, who masterminded and carried out the attack and later became Israeli prime minister, admitted that the massacre was coordinated with and carried out under the instruction of the Haganah Zionist gang.

8. Booby-trapped suitcases: first used by the Zionists against the British Embassy in Rome on 13 October 1946.

9. Booby-trapped cars in civilian areas: first used by the Zionists against the British in Sarafand (east of Jaffa) on 5 December 1946.

10. Beating of hostages: first used by the Zionists against the British in Tel Aviv, Netanya and Rishon on 29 December 1946.

11. Letter bombs sent to politicians: first used by the Zionists against Britain when 20 letter bombs were sent from Italy to London between 4 and 6 June 1947.

12. Murder of hostages as a reprisal for government actions: first used by the Zionists against the British in the Netanya area on 29 July 1947.

13. Postal parcel bombs: first used by the Zionists against the British in London on 3 September 1947.

14. The massacre of Qibya, northwest of Jerusalem, was carried out by Unit 101, under the command of Ariel Sharon on Wednesday 14 October 1953. The attack was the bloodiest and most brutal Zionist crimes since the infamous Deir Yassin massacre. Forty-two houses as well as a school and a mosque were dynamited over their inhabitants. Seventy-five women, men and children were killed.'

Zie ook: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_David_Hotel_bombing

Foto hierboven.

Westers Terrorisme 8

Bijna twee jaar geleden, op 9 december 2005, schreef ik dit:

'Deze foto staat op de website van Aegis Specialist Risk Management, een Brits uitzendbureau van huurlingen, volgens eigen zeggen in dienst van de Amerikaanse regering. Werknemers van deze organisatie maakten een video waarop te zien is hoe ze volstrekt willekeurige Irakese burgers beschieten. Onder die beeldopnamen heeft dit tuig muziek van Elvis Presley gezet. 'AEGIS is contracted in Iraq by the US Government to provide a wide variety of services including, critically, the protection of both civilian and military personnel travelling throughout the country, in a very hostile environment under circumstances of often great personal danger. Typically in one week, Aegis carries out over 100 escort assignments covering approximately 18,000 miles. AEGIS' personnel have substantial military and peacekeeping experience and all operate under strict and accountable Rules of Engagement of the Coalition Military (CENTCOM), and the US Department of State, as well as Coalition Provisional Authority Order - Memo 17... AEGIS's main contract in Iraq is for the US Government Department of Defence (DOD). The contract is to provide security support services to the Project and Contracting Office (PCO). The PCO is responsible for managing the reconstruction programme in conjunction with the Multi-National Force Iraq (MNFI).' http://www.aegisworld.com/index.lasso Die huurlingen worden, volgens deskundigen, speciaal ingehuurd door de Amerikaanse overheid omdat deze professionele moordenaars nauwelijks te vervolgen zijn voor oorlogsmisdaden. En ze vallen ook niet onder de verantwoordelijkheid van hun opdrachtgevers. En dus kunnen schendingen van de mensenrechten, oorlogsmisdaden en misdaden tegen de menselijkheid nu zonder al te veel problemen uitbesteed worden. De Nederlandse regering ziet hier geen reden in om de eigen troepen uit het Miden Oosten te trekken. Integendeel zelfs, het kabinet is voor het sturen van nog meer manschappen. Hoe de huurlingenterreur in haar werk gaat kunt hier zien: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=MAD20051201&articleId=1381

Deze Westerse terreur gaat al jaren ongestoord door, geen politicus of journalist van de commerciele massamedia verrichtte een serieus onderzoek er naar.

Maar kennelijk is de tijd aangebroken om er wat meer aandacht aan te besteden, geen serieuze gedegen aandacht die laat zien dat deze terreur gebeurt binnen de context van een koloniale oorlog om olie zoals nu ook door vooraanstaande Amerikaanse autoriteiten wordt toegegeven, maar gewoon de alledaagse aandacht, de waan van de dag, sensatie.

The Nation daarentegen besteedt er wel serieuze aandacht aan:

'Blackwater, Oil and the Colonial Enterprise

By John Nichols "The Nation"

Blackwater USA's mercenary mission in Iraq is very much in the news this week, and rightly so. The private military contractor's war-for-profit program, which has been so brilliantly exposed by Jeremy Scahill, may finally get a measure of the official scrutiny it merits as the corporation scrambles to undo the revocation by the Iraqi government of its license to operate in that country. There will be official inquiries in Baghdad, and in Washington. The U.S. Congress might actually provide some of the oversight that is its responsibility. Perhaps, and this is a big "perhaps," Blackwater's "troops" could come home before the U.S. soldiers who have been forced to fight, and die, in defense of these international rent-a-cops.But it is not the specific story of Blackwater that matters so much as the broader story of imperial excess that it illustrates.If Blackwater, with an assist from the U.S. government, beats back the attempt by the Iraqis to regulate the firm's activities -- as now appears likely, considering Friday's reports that the firm has resumed guarding U.S. State Department convoys in Baghdad -- we will have all the confirmation that is needed of the great truth of the U.S. occupation of Iraq: This is a colonial endeavor no different than that of the British Empire against America's founding generation revolted.But even if Blackwater loses its fight to stay, even if the corporation is forced to shut down its multi-billion dollar, U.S. Treasury-funded operation in Iraq, the brief "accountability moment" may not be sufficient to open up the necessary debate about Iraq's colonial status. The danger, for Iraq and the United States, that honest assessment of the crisis will lose out to face-saving gestures designed to foster the fantasy of Iraqi independence.It is not enough that Blackwater is shamed and perhaps sanctioned. A Blackwater exit from Iraq will mean little if its mercenary contracts are merely taken over by one or more of the 140 other U.S.-sanctioned private security firms operating in that country -- such as Vice President Dick Cheney's Halliburton.Whatever the precise play out of this Blackwater moment may be, the likelihood is that the colonial enterprise will continue. That's because, in the absence of intense pressure from grassroots activists and the media, Congress is unlikely to go beyond a scratch at the surface of what is actually going on in Iraq.'

Les verder: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18436.htm

De Israelische Terreur 244

A dark future ahead: Palestinian children hold traditional Ramadan lamps during a march organized by Hamas in Gaza City, September 2007. (Wissam Nassar/MaanImages)

'Dehumanizing the Palestinians Ali Abunimah,
The Electronic Intifada, Sep 21, 2007

The Israeli cabinet has voted to declare the occupied Gaza Strip a "hostile entity," thus in its own eyes permitting itself to cut off the already meagre supplies of electricity (needed among other things to pump water), fuel and other basic necessities that it allows the Strip's inmates to receive. The decision was quickly given backing by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.Israel is the occupying power in the Gaza Strip, despite having removed its settlers in 2005 and transforming the area, home to 1.5 million mostly refugee Palestinians, into the world's largest open-air prison which it besieges and fires into from the perimeter. Under international law Israel is responsible for the well-being of the people whose lives and land it rules.There have been barely audible bleats of protest from the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon ("Such a step would be contrary to Israel's obligations towards the civilian population under international humanitarian and human rights law") and the European Union ("The [European] Commission hopes that Israel will not find it necessary to implement the measures for which the [cabinet] decisions set the framework yesterday."What? It hopes that Israel will not find it necessary to cut off basic necessities to 1.5 million people of whom half are children?These statements serve only to underline that Israel operates in a context where the "international community" has become inured to a discourse of extermination of the Palestinian people -- political and physical.Yossi Alpher, for example, a former director of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University and once a special adviser to former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak, argued coolly this week that Israel should murder the democratically-elected leaders who won the Palestinian legislative election in January 2006 -- calling for "decapitating the Hamas leadership, both military and 'civilian.'" True, he admitted, there would be a possible downside: "Israel would again undoubtedly pay a price in terms of international condemnation, particularly if innocent civilians were killed," and because "Israel would presumably be targeting legally elected Hamas officials who won a fair election." Nevertheless, such condemnation would be quickly forgotten and, he argued, "this is a mode of retaliation and deterrence whose effectiveness has been proven," and thus, this is "an option worth reconsidering."'

Lees verder: http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article9002.shtml

De Israelische politiek werkt in de praktijk als een sluipende etnische zuivering van de bezette Palestijnse gebieden, vertelde een VN-medewerker op de Westbank me vorige week.

De Israelische Terreur 243

Heeft u dit bericht uitgebreid geanalyseerd en toegelicht gezien in de Nederlandse commerciele massamedia?

'Israel still refuses to put its nuclear program under international purview.

Israel was criticized at 144-nation atomic energy conference for not putting its nuclear program under international purview.

Besides Washington, only Israel voted against the resolution while 53 nations backed it and 47 abstained.
The remaining nations were absent for the highly unusual vote - only the second in the 16 years the issue has been on the agenda of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Up to last year, the resolution on "Application of IAEA Safeguards in the Middle East" had been adopted by consensus, but in 2006, and again this year, Israeli objections forced a vote.
This year, Israel opposed two paragraphs - one calling all nations in the Middle East "not to develop, test or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons," the other urging nuclear weapons states to "refrain from any action" hindering the establishment of a Mideast zone free of nuclear weapons.
Both passages were clearly aimed at Israel, which is considered to have nuclear weapons despite its "no tell" policy on the issue and which counts on the United States as its chief ally for support - both in the outside world and in forums such as the conference.
Israeli opposition last year was sparked by a separate Arab-sponsored resolution deeming Israel a "nuclear threat" and refusal by its sponsors to withdraw it.
While that resolution was put up for adoption it was not voted on. A similar resolution was being prepared for consideration at the gathering Friday.
A Western diplomat whose country normally is supportive of Israel sought to diminish the negative impact of the vote, pointing out that last year, 98 approved the resolution, with three abstaining and the United States and Israel opposed.'

Lees verder: http://english.pravda.ru/world/97461-nuclear_program-0

Iran 166

'Kissinger Admits Iran Attack Is About Oil

"So what?, we need the oil," sneer deluded Neo-Cons as oil prices explode due to orchestrated artificial scarcity
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet

In a new op-ed, Bilderberg luminary Henry Kissinger admits that U.S. hostility against Iran is not about the threat of nuclear proliferation, but as part of a larger agenda to seize Iranian oil supplies. But the true meaning behind this is lost on Neo-Cons, who are still deluded into thinking that Americans benefit from the imperial looting of natural resources in the middle east.'

In a Washington Post op-ed, Former US Secretary of State Kissinger comes clean on the true motives behind the planned military assault on Iran.
"An Iran that practices subversion and seeks regional hegemony - which appears to be the current trend - must be faced with lines it will not be permitted to cross. The industrial nations cannot accept radical forces dominating a region on which their economies depend," writes Kissinger.
As blogger Robert Weissman points out, the "legitimate aspirations" that Kissinger affords Iran later in the piece "do not include control over the oil that the United States and other industrial countries need."'

Lees verder: http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/september2007/210907_about_oil.htm

De Israelische Terreur 242

Ik maakte deze foto van Israelische munitie in het Lajee Center, het cultureel centrum van het Palestijnse vluchtelingenkamp Aida nabij Bethlehem. De grote hulzen zijn fragmentatiebommen gevuld met ijzeren kogels voorzien van een rubber laagje. Kinderen van het kamp zijn door de Israelische munitie gedood. Jaren geleden zag ik in het grootste Palestijnse ziekenhuis in Oost Jeruzalem Palestijnse kinderen sterven als gevolg van deze munitie. De Nederlandse regering en overgrote meerderheid van onze parlementsleden steunen deze Israelische terreur middels economische, militaire, diplomatieke en politieke steun aan 'de joodse natie'.


Haaretz bericht:

'Jews are capable of acting like neo-Nazis
By Meron Rappaport

Last week, as all the Israeli television networks were broadcasting pictures of the "neo-Nazi" teenagers attacking random victims, public attention inevitably turned to the attackers. It is difficult to imagine a neo-Nazi group operating here, in the Jewish State. This combination of Jewish neo-Nazis would also seem inconceivable in other countries. That is why the story made the front pages in many newspapers the world over. In Israel, the discussion immediately turned to the Law of Return, as if the phenomenon would disappear if only those Jews who are recognized as such by Jewish law [halakha] were allowed to enter Israel. This baseless argument is refuted by the fact that some of the neo-Nazi group's members are considered Jews according to halakha. And, sadly, the fact is that kosher Jews are also capable of acting like neo-Nazis. This is undoubtedly a shocking phenomenon and the attackers, alongside the environment that bred this pattern of behavior, must be dealt with. But the victims also deserve attention. According to comments made by the attackers, most of their targets were foreign workers. Haaretz's Roni Singer-Heruti reported that the police mounted a concerted effort to locate the victims in order to strengthen the case against the attackers, but this effort was unsuccessful. None of the victims filed a complaint with the police. It seems that a foreign worker in Israel is more afraid of the police than of a gang of hooligans that beats him mercilessly. The hard work of the Immigration Police has apparently borne fruit.
Advertisement

This is no surprise to anyone involved in the field. Noa Kaufman, the director of a clinic run by Physicians for Human Rights, says that foreign workers occasionally come to the clinic after taking a beating. Although the staff encourages them to file a complaint with the police, the workers are usually scared of doing so. The fact that no one complained about these brutal attacks on foreign workers should trouble us even more because they occurred in public places. Even if the gang members made sure there were no eyewitnesses to the attacks, they probably left the victims bleeding at the scene. It is possible that passersby stumbled upon them, saw the beaten people and continued on their way.

Lees verder: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=903972&contrassID=2&subContrassID=4

De Dollar Hegemonie 34

'Fears of dollar collapse as Saudis take fright
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, International Business Editor Telegraph


Saudi Arabia has refused to cut interest rates in lockstep with the US Federal Reserve for the first time, signalling that the oil-rich Gulf kingdom is preparing to break the dollar currency peg in a move that risks setting off a stampede out of the dollar across the Middle East.

China threatens 'nuclear option' of dollar sales

Ben Bernanke has placed the dollar in a dangerous situation, say analysts

"This is a very dangerous situation for the dollar," said Hans Redeker, currency chief at BNP Paribas.

"Saudi Arabia has $800bn (£400bn) in their future generation fund, and the entire region has $3,500bn under management. They face an inflationary threat and do not want to import an interest rate policy set for the recessionary conditions in the United States," he said.

The Saudi central bank said today that it would take "appropriate measures" to halt huge capital inflows into the country, but analysts say this policy is unsustainable and will inevitably lead to the collapse of the dollar peg.

As a close ally of the US, Riyadh has so far tried to stick to the peg, but the link is now destabilising its own economy.

The Fed's dramatic half point cut to
4.75pc yesterday has already caused a plunge in the world dollar index to a fifteen year low, touching with weakest level ever against the mighty euro at just under $1.40.

There is now a growing danger that global investors will start to shun the US bond markets. The latest US government data on foreign holdings released this week show a collapse in purchases of US bonds from $97bn to just $19bn in July, with outright net sales of US Treasuries.

The danger is that this could now accelerate as the yield gap between the United States and the rest of the world narrows rapidly, leaving America starved of foreign capital flows needed to cover its current account deficit - expected to reach $850bn this year, or 6.5pc of GDP.

Mr Redeker said foreign investors have been gradually pulling out of the long-term US debt markets, leaving the dollar dependent on short-term funding. Foreigners have funded 25pc to 30pc of America's credit and short-term paper markets over the last two years.

"They were willing to provide the money when rates were paying nicely, but why bear the risk in these dramatically changed circumstances? We think that a fall in dollar to $1.50 against the euro is not out of the question at all by the first quarter of 2008," he said.

"This is nothing like the situation in 1998 when the crisis was in Asia, but the US was booming. This time the US itself is the problem," he said.

Mr Redeker said the biggest danger for the dollar is that falling US rates will at some point trigger a reversal yen "carry trade", causing massive flows from the US back to Japan.

Jim Rogers, the commodity king and former partner of George Soros, said the Federal Reserve was playing with fire by cutting rates so aggressively at a time when the dollar was already under pressure.

The risk is that flight from US bonds could push up the long-term yields that form the base price of credit for most mortgages, the driving the property market into even deeper crisis.

"If Ben Bernanke starts running those printing presses even faster than he's already doing, we are going to have a serious recession. The dollar's going to collapse, the bond market's going to collapse. There's going to be a lot of problems," he said.

The Federal Reserve, however, clearly calculates the risk of a sudden downturn is now so great that the it outweighs dangers of a dollar slide.

Former Fed chief Alan Greenspan said this week that house prices may fall by "double digits" as the subprime crisis bites harder, prompting households to cut back sharply on spending.

For Saudi Arabia, the dollar peg has clearly become a liability. Inflation has risen to 4pc and the M3 broad money supply is surging at 22pc.

The pressures are even worse in other parts of the Gulf. The United Arab Emirates now faces inflation of
9.3pc, a 20-year high. In Qatar it has reached 13pc.

Kuwait became the first of the oil sheikhdoms to break its dollar peg in May, a move that has begun to rein in rampant money supply growth.'

The Empire 272

'Oil and Betrayal in Iraq
by George Lakoff

Alan Greenspan should know. It was oil all along. The former head of the Federal Reserve writes in his memoir, The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World, “I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil.” Greenspan even advised Bush that “taking Saddam Hussein out was essential” to protect oil supplies.
Yes, we suspected it. In a deep sense, many of us knew it, just as those in Washington did. But now it’s in our face. Greenspan put the mother of all facts in front of our noses, and we can no longer be in denial. The US invaded Iraq for the oil.
Think about what it means for our troops and for the people of Iraq. Our troops were told, and believed because they trusted their president, that they were in Iraq to protect America, to protect their families, their homes, their friends and neighbors, our democracy. But they were betrayed . Those troops fought and died and were maimed and had their marriages break up for oil company profits. An utter betrayal of our men and women in uniform and their families, a betrayal of their sacrifices, day after day, month after month, year and year - and for some, forever! Children growing up fatherless or motherless. Men and women without legs or arms or faces - for oil company profits.
And hundreds of thousands of Iraqis killed, more maimed, and millions made refugees. For oil profits.
And what profits they are! Take a look at the study of Iraqi oil contracts by Global Policy Forum, a consultant to the United Nations Security Council. Or read this editorial from The Daily Times in Pakistan.
The contracts that the Bush administration has been pushing the Iraqi government to accept are not just about the distribution of oil among the Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds. The contracts call for 30-year exclusive rights for British and American oil companies, rights that cannot be revoked by future Iraqi governments. They are called “production sharing agreements” (or “PSA’s”) - a legalistic code word. The Iraqi government would technically own the oil, but could not control it; only the companies could do that. ExxonMobil and others would invest in developing the infrastructure for the oil (drilling, oil rigs, refining) and would get 75% of the “cost oil” profits, until they got their investment back. After that, they would own the infrastructure (paid for by oil profits), and then get 20% of oil profits after that (twice the usual rate). The profits are estimated to be in the hundreds of billions of dollars. And the Iraqi people would have no democratic control over their own major resource. No other Middle East country has such an arrangement.
Incidentally, polls show the Iraqi people overwhelmingly against “privatization”, but “production sharing agreements” were devised so they are technically not “privatization,” since the government would still own the oil but not control it. The ruse is there so that the government can claim it is not privatizing.
But none of this will work without military protection for the oil companies. That is what would keep us there indefinitely. The name for this is our “vital interests.”
Greenspan’s revelation and the contracts need to be discussed openly. The question must be asked, “Is our military there for the sake of oil?”'

Lees verder: http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/09/20/3969/

Iran 165

Een interessante analyse:

'Why Bush won't attack Iran

Despite saber-rattling, and the Washington buzz that a strike is coming, the president doesn't intend to bomb Iran. Cheney may have other ideas.
By Steven Clemons

WASHINGTON -- During a recent high-powered Washington dinner party attended by 18 people, Zbigniew Brzezinski and Brent Scowcroft squared off across the table over whether President Bush will bomb Iran.
Brzezinski, former national security advisor to President Carter, said he believed Bush's team had laid a track leading to a single course of action: a military strike against Iran's nuclear facilities. Scowcroft, who was NSA to Presidents Ford and the first Bush, held out hope that the current President Bush would hold fire and not make an already disastrous situation for the U.S. in the Middle East even worse.
The 18 people at the party, including former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, then voted with a show of hands for either Brzezinski's or Scowcroft's position. Scowcroft got only two votes, including his own. Everyone else at the table shared Brzezinski's fear that a U.S. strike against Iran is around the corner.
In the national debate about America's next moves in the Middle East, an irrepressible and perhaps irresponsible certainty that America will attack Iran now dominates commentary across the political spectrum. Nerves are further frayed by stories like this one, about the Pentagon making a list of 2,000 military targets inside Iran.
The left -- and much of the old-school, realist right -- fears that Bush means to bomb Iran sometime between now and next spring. Both would like to rally public opinion against the strike before it happens. The neoconservative right, meanwhile, is asserting that we will bomb Iran but that we need to get to it posthaste.

But both sides are advancing scenarios that are politically useful to them, and both sides are wrong. Despite holding out a military option, ratcheting up tensions with Iran about meddling in Iraq and Afghanistan, and deploying carrier strike-force groups in the Persian Gulf, the president is not planning to bomb Iran. But there are several not-unrelated scenarios under which it might happen, if the neocon wing of the party, led by Vice President Cheney, succeeds in reasserting itself, or if there is some kind of "accidental," perhaps contrived, confrontation.
One of the reasons so many believe action is near is the well-known neoconservative preference that it be so. There is still a strong neoconservative faction within the Bush team, and their movement allies outside the administration, such as Michael Ledeen, John Bolton and Norman Podhoretz, have openly advocated striking Iran before it can develop nuclear weapons. The neoconservatives believe that in the end, Bush's team will indeed launch a military strike against Iran, or will nudge Israel to do so.'

Lees verder: http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2007/09/19/iran/index.html

De Israelische Terreur 241

Op weg naar Nabloes. De terreur van het Israelische leger, kapot geschoten Palestijnse woningen. De Palestijnse bevolking op de Westbank kan niet vrij reizen van de ene plaats naar de andere. De Palestijnse bevolking in Gaza kan Gaza niet uit, de bezetting gaat in een andere vorm verder, omsingeling.

Een VN-medewerker die de bezetting en de daaraan gekoppelde terreur documenteert, verklaarde aan het eind van het gesprek dat wij met hem hadden dat de wereld straks niet kan zeggen dat men van niets geweten heeft. Hij zond ons gisteren het volgende bericht:

'Le Monde diplomatique
Palestine: a policy of deliberate blindness
How The World Backed Itself Into A Corner


Le Monde diplomatique
Last year President Jacques Chirac asked Régis Debray to study the situation in the Middle East . On 15 January 2007 Debray sent the French authorities the following document on Palestine . It is an important key to understanding a long policy drift whose results are now obvious.
Dennis Ross, formerly the United States envoy to the Middle East, admitted back in 2000 that mistakes had been made in the 1978 Camp David accords: the diplomatic process had not taken enough account of developments on the ground, especially the settlements. The number of Jewish settlers in the Palestinian territories doubled from 1994 to 2000. As many Israelis have settled in the West Bank since the Oslo accords of 1993 as in the previous 25 years. With an international conference again being discussed, it would be a mistake to continue to ignore the real state of affairs. There is no need for a committee of inquiry. The report has already been drawn up, many times over. No conflict in the world is as well documented, mapped and recorded.
The OCHA (Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs), a United Nations agency, keeps up-to-date, detailed maps of the disputed territories, with photographs, population counts and graphs. It takes an hour to look at them, but doing so might forestall some of the never-ending statements of good intentions.
The maps show that the physical, economic and human basis for a viable Palestinian state is disappearing. The two-state solution and Israeli writer Amos Oz's "fair divorce" (a territory shared between two national homes, one smaller than the other and demilitarised but sovereign, viable and continuous) are now empty phrases belonging to the realm of might-have-been. Some might argue that we have not yet reached the point of no return and that the Israelis may have won the territorial battle (with only 22% of British mandate Palestine now outside their control) but the Palestinians are sure to win the demographic battle. They invoke the resilience of the local population in the face of the steam roller that is slowly but surely implementing the 1968 Allon Plan and the 1984 "Road Plan 50".
It is clear from developments on the ground that:
o the purpose of the security wall is not, as is believed, to trace a border that, however illegal (since it encloses over 10% of the West Bank ), will at least serve as the dotted line for a future international frontier;
o it is true (as Ehud Omert said on Israeli army radio on 20 March 2006) that Israel 's strategic border lies on the Jordan : the whole valley has been declared a forbidden area and the intervening area has been nibbled away (cross-river transit is only possible at certain points);
o the new east-west bypass roads built at the expense of the old north-south axis clearly chart a territory in the process of annexation, with space for three or four Arab bantustans (Jenin, Ramallah and Jericho ). The exhaustion of natural resources in these overcrowded enclaves will eventually lead to massive emigration (much of the elite, especially Christian, has already left); and
o with the construction of the separation wall, the ongoing judaisation of East Jerusalem and reconfiguration of the Jerusalem municipality, the UN's repeated but purely formal condemnations have no effect on Israel 's grip on the whole city (1).
There is a huge gap between what is said because we want to hear it (local withdrawals, easing of travel restrictions, removal of one checkpoint out of 20, a change of tone) and what is being done on the ground, which we don't want to see (interlinking of settlements, construction of bridges and tunnels, encirclement of Palestinian towns, expropriation of land, destruction of houses). Some would describe that gap as duplicity, others as ambiguity. The gradual encroachment happens out of sight of the cameras, without causing a stir and without an explicit colonial diktat. Nobody makes a formal complaint, even supposing they can find out what's going on - difficult if you haven't grown up locally. Israeli maps and school textbooks refer to the West Bank as Judea and Samaria and, following the Knesset's recent rejection of a proposal from a Labour education minister, obliteration of the 1967 green line is now a legal fait accompli.
This is not just a gap between the de facto and de jure situations. It reflects a method and tradition going back to the earliest days of the Yishuv (2): the strategy of fait accompli. That strategy has always paid off: the Jewish state was there before it was declared and recognised in 1948, as was the army. What we have is a theatre with two stages: on the international stage we hear repeated vague and encouraging speeches concerning withdrawal, coexistence and a Palestinian state, but the things that count (settlements, roads, tunnels, water tables) happen on the operational stage next door, where the outcome is decided out of public view.
Understanding how public opinion works in a democracy, successive Israeli governments of the left and right take care to administer regular painkillers, plans for unilateral withdrawal or the partial dismantlement of settlements and encouraging announcements that are always conditional and come to nothing. The media live from day to day, with no attempt to remember. Who now recalls that the road map (3) was supposed to be "a final and comprehensive settlement of the Israel-Palestinian conflict by 2005"?
The Oslo process did not just remain a dead letter: with the military reoccupation of Zones A and B (4) in April 2002, it went into reverse.
Territorial fragmentation cuts off local authorities from any possible central Palestinian administration and from each other, while the systematic physical destruction of national institutions, Palestinian infrastructure and political leaders by the Israeli army ensures internal anarchy and the spread of clans and gang violence: bottomless chaos. Clearly the path that has been taken is not that of nation building but the deconstruction of all possible governance beyond the separation wall. It is the logical counterpart of a 30-year annexation process that will be endorsed, when the time comes, "in view of the new reality on the ground".
In these circumstances, constant invocation of the road map by all parties has more to do with autosuggestion than a sober look at the consistent transformation of reality. That reality may not be visible from Geneva , Paris or New York , but it is immediately apparent to anyone travelling throughout the country after a few years' absence. It is a land carved up by military force, where the Israeli settlements are no longer shapes on a Palestinian background - instead the Palestinian areas appear as shapes on a solidly-infrastructured Israeli background: a land where water reserves are confiscated and a temporary travel restriction is very close to a permanent ban.
Some may take comfort in these ideas:
o since it was possible to withdraw settlements from Gaza , it should be possible in the near future in the West Bank . That is to ignore the fact that the withdrawal of 8,000 settlers from one place in Gaza was soon followed by the unpublicised installation of 20,000 settlers in another (the West Bank/Jerusalem). Gaza is not part of the promised land, whereas Judea and Samaria are its backbone. Sharon did not make any secret of the fact that withdrawal on the margins would be compensated by strengthening the Israeli presence elsewhere (438,000 settlers to date, including 192,910 in East Jerusalem );
o the dismantling of four small settlements in the north (1,000 settlers) and the proposed concentration of 60,000 settlers in the most populous blocs, Maale Adumim, Ariel and Gush Etzion, will create a free space. But with the settlements linked in a continuous string under cover of the security wall, the West Bank has been effectively cut in two. The wall separates Palestinians from each other even more than it separates them from the Israelis.
What is taking shape is not the Palestinian state announced and desired by all: it is an as yet unperceived Israeli territory enclosing three self-governing Palestinian enclaves.
All parties have a vested interest in preserving the international pretence (5). For the Israelis, history is being created under the cover of the pretence. The Palestinians cannot be told the truth - they are under occupation yet hoping for a better life and not self-destruction; wishful thinking provides notables, elected representatives and officials with a living, status, dignity and a raison d'être. The Europeans chose to salve their consciences by providing financial and humanitarian aid to apologise for their political passivity and voluntary blindness. The thinking of the Americans owes more to the Old Testament than the New; their link with Israel is a parent-child relationship beyond criticism. This shared illusion of self-protection results from the coincidence of opposing interests.
Is this situation tenable to the end of the century? It seems doubtful, given Israel 's obsession with security, which makes it less secure, and its disregard for the demographic and religious trends in the region (6). Could not at least one European government convey to our Israeli friends that we are not all taken in by the deception, and that those who deceive may not be be its first victims - but will certainly be its last? ________________________________________________________

Régis Debray is a writer and philosopher, and honorary chairman of the IESR (European Institute of Religious Studies ), Paris

(1) See Dominique Vidal and Philippe Rekacewicz, " Jerusalem : whose very own and golden city?", Le Monde diplomatique, English edition, February 2007.
(2) A Hebrew term used by the Zionist movement before the creation of the State of Israel to designate Palestine 's Jewish inhabitants and new immigrants.
(3) The road map, a proposal for ending the Israel-Palestine conflict, was adopted by the Quartet ( UN , US , EU and Russia ) on 30 April 2003.
(4) The Palestinian territories comprise the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip ( 45 km long and 10 km wide). The Oslo accords divided them into three zones:
- Zone A comprising, since 1994, Gaza and the towns of Jericho, Jenin, Qalqilya, Ramallah, Tulkarem, Nablus, Bethlehem (Hebron was the subject of a separate agreement in January 1997), in which the Palestinian Authority has civil jurisdiction and police powers; - Zone B comprising the remaining areas of the West Bank, in which the Palestinian Authority has civil jurisdiction but shares responsibility for internal security with the Israeli army;
- Zone C comprising the Israeli settlements establishing in the West Bank, Gaza (since dismantled) and East Jerusalem , which remain under the control of the Jewish state.
(5) See Alain Gresh, " Palestine wrecked", Le Monde diplomatique, English edition, July 2007.
(6) See the report (PDF) submitted to the UN secretary general on 5 May by Alvaro de Soto , UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process.
Translated by Wendy Kristianasen'

En let u nu eens op hoe de commerciele massamedia in Nederland doorgaans een pro-Israel standpunt innemen.

Klikt u ook eens op deze foto, die ik vanuit een rijdend busje maakte en zie hoe totaal de vernietiging is van het Palestijns bezit.