U.S. envoy in Tel Aviv over Palestine

US Middle east envoy George Mitchell, who is on a visit to Israel, will meet Israeli officials in Tel Aviv over Israeli-Palestinian peace process. 

George Mitchell, on his first visit to Israel since Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu took office late last month, arrived in Tel Aviv on Wednesday and met Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak. 

He is due to meet ultranationalist Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, Netanyahu and other top officials on Thursday. 

Israel and the United States "can and need" to "coordinate and reach understandings" on all the issues on the regional agenda, Ehud Barak told George Mitchell during the meeting. 

Mitchell arrived from North Africa, where he said in Morocco that "In the case of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, we believe that the two-state solution, two states living side by side in peace, is the best and the only way to resolve this conflict." 

The US insists on setting up an independent Palestinian state, while the right-leaning government of Netanyahu refuses to commit itself to create the Palestinian state or to halt Jewish settlement activities -- both regarded as priorities for the new US administration. 

Mitchell will hold talks with Acting Palestinian Authority Chief Mahmoud Abbas and other Palestinian leaders in the Israeli-occupied West Bank on Friday. 

On April 1, Lieberman said that Tel Aviv was not bound by the 2007 US-backed Annapolis deal, under which Israel agreed to the creation of a Palestinian state. He said the peace process was at a "dead end.

Lees verder: http://www.aljazeera.com/news/articles/34/US_envoy_in_Tel_Aviv_over_Palestine_.html

De Israelische Terreur 833

Israel stands ready to bomb Iran's nuclear sites
Bushehr nuclear power plant, dome in top center, in Bushehr, Iran
Sheera Frenkel in Jerusalem

The Israeli military is preparing itself to launch a massive aerial assault
on Iran's nuclear facilities within days of being given the go-ahead by its
new government.

Among the steps taken to ready Israeli forces for what would be a risky
raid requiring pinpoint aerial strikes are the acquisition of three
Airborne Warning and Control (AWAC) aircraft and regional missions to
simulate the attack.

Two nationwide civil defence drills will help to prepare the public for the
retaliation that Israel could face.

“Israel wants to know that if its forces were given the green light they
could strike at Iran in a matter of days, even hours. They are making
preparations on every level for this eventuality. The message to Iran is
that the threat is not just words,” one senior defence official told The
Times.

Officials believe that Israel could be required to hit more than a dozen
targets, including moving convoys. The sites include Natanz, where
thousands of centrifuges produce enriched uranium; Esfahan, where 250
tonnes of gas is stored in tunnels; and Arak, where a heavy water reactor
produces plutonium.

The distance from Israel to at least one of the sites is more than 870
miles, a distance that the Israeli force practised covering in a training
exercise last year that involved F15 and F16 jets, helicopters and
refuelling tankers.

The possible Israeli strike on Iran has drawn comparisons to its attack on
the Osirak nuclear facility near Baghdad in 1981. That strike, which
destroyed the facility in under 100 seconds, was completed without Israeli
losses and checked Iraqi ambitions for a nuclear weapons programme.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article6115903.ece

De Israelische Terreur 832

As UN Blocks Palestine-Related Side Events at Durban Review Conference
Palestinian Civil Society Launches “Israel Review Conference” in Geneva on the Eve of Durban Review

Omar Barghouti

18 April 2009

Representing over 170 Palestinian civil society organizations, the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee (BNC) launches its Israel Review Conference under the title: “United Against Apartheid, Colonialism and Racism: Justice and Dignity for the Palestinian People.” The conference takes place in Geneva between the 17th and 18th of April 2009 on the eve of the United Nation’s Durban Review Conference. 

At the conference, internationally renowned legal experts, researchers, academics, and activists from five continents will discuss legal strategies to hold Israel accountable for its illegal policies and practices of racial discrimination. Participants at the conference are also scheduled to discuss strategies for linking global struggles against racism, and concrete steps to challenge Israeli apartheid within the framework of the rapidly growing global movement calling for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel until it complies with international law.

“The Israel Review Conference has received added importance in recent weeks since the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) banned side events examining the Israeli regime at the official Durban Review Conference” explains Rania Madi, one of the Israel Review Conference organizers based in Geneva. “Despite the fact that Israel’s racism against Palestinians has been one of the most highlighted issues in the lead-up to the Durban Review, the BNC’s Israel Review Conference has become the only place where this issue will actually be discussed” 

“The only justification for preventing side-events discussing racism faced by Palestinians is that UN officials want to avoid offending Israeli sensibilities and those of its allies, such as the US and Canada,” states Ingrid Jaradat Gassner, Director of the Badil Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights, a member-organization of the BNC. “This is especially troubling because Palestinians were  identified as victims of racism at the original Durban Conference in 2001, and the effects of Israel’s racist regime against Palestinian have only worsened since then” says Ms. Jaradat Gassner. 

Despite the OHCHR’s complete ban on any mention of Palestine and Palestinians at the Conference and at side-events, those parties who are boycotting the Conference have maintained their boycott. Ms. Jaradat Gassner commented that “it would seem that by trying to appease Israel and its allies, the UN diluted its message against racism without the added benefit of the presence of those parties.” 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Press Contacts:
Rania Madi (+41) 79-605-3905 [French, Arabic, English]
Ingrid Gassner Jaradat (+41) 78-918-8391 [English, German, Arabic]
For more information on the conference visit http://israelreview.bdsmovement.net

Iran 263

National Iranian American Council

		NIAC Condemns Iran’s Jailing of Iranian-American Journalist Contact: Goli Fassihian Tel: (202) 215 0998  For Immediate Release Washington, DC – The National Iranian American Council (NIAC) condemns the government of Iran’s dubious trial and jailing of Roxana Saberi. On Saturday, Saberi was convicted by an Iranian court on charges of espionage and given an eight-year prison sentence. No specific allegations or evidence have been made public. “The changing rationales for her arrest and the one day secret trial seriously call into question the validity of the charges against Ms. Saberi and the fairness of her trial,” said NIAC president Trita Parsi. “This, and the countless other human rights abuses committed by Iran, are very disturbing and are of particular concern to the Iranian-American community. Iranian Americans specifically seem to have become targets of the Iranian government in recent years.” Saberi was originally detained for allegedly buying alcohol. Iran's foreign ministry later said she was operating as a reporter with expired credentials. She was finally charged with spying shortly before the trial took place. Saberi, who has worked for National Public Radio and the BBC, has lived in Iran for six years. President Barack Obama "is deeply disappointed at this news," said White House spokesman Robert Gibbs. Both Senators from North Dakota, Saberi's home state, spoke out strongly against the verdict. "I call on the Iranian government to show compassion," said Senator Dorgan. According to her father, Saberi maintains her innocence and plans to go on a hunger strike. www.niacouncil.org

National Iranian American Council 1411 K Street NW, Suite 600 Washington, DC 20005 www.niacouncil.org

The Empire 438

Empire Foreclosed?

by Mark Engler

Published on Saturday, April 18, 2009 by Foreign Policy In Focus

Not long ago, excitement over American imperialism reached levels not seen

in a century. "People are coming out of the closet on the word 'empire,'"

the right-wing columnist Charles Krauthammer told The New York Times in

early 2002. Neoconservatives were on the rise in Washington, and their

leading propagandists were not shy in making the case for aggressive

expansionism.

Wall Street Journal editor Max Boot, for instance, took issue with Pat

Buchanan's belief that the United States should be a "republic, not an

empire." "This analysis is exactly backward," Boot wrote. "[T]he Sept. 11

attack was a result of insufficient American involvement and ambition; the

solution is to be more expansive in our goals and more assertive in their

implementation." He added, "troubled lands today cry out for the sort of

enlightened foreign administration once provided by self-confident

Englishmen in jodhpurs and pith helmets."

It's hard to believe those sentiments, hallmarks of George W. Bush's first

term, were features of our very recent history. The debate they were a part

of now seems distinctly strange and foreign. Since then, the world has

experienced a catastrophic occupation in Iraq, and voters have ousted the

Republican vanguard of the "War on Terror." Overt defenders of imperialism

have found good reason to creep back into their wardrobes.

And that, of course, is to say nothing of the bursting of the housing

bubble, the fall of Lehman, and the end of the hedge fund era. With

unemployment rising and Wall Street shamed, we have entered a period of

economic downturn acute enough to raise serious questions about the

viability of U.S. power. The pressing issue today is: How will the economic

crisis affect our country's role in the world? Or, more bluntly: Is

America's empire facing foreclosure?

Lees verder: http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/6049

De Israelische Terreur 831

The following scenario (see article below) should make people seriously
think about why we insist on normalising Israel’s behaviour without even
thinking about why those rockets are being fired at all.  And why indeed are
our governments all too ready to back away from the Durban Review Conference
on anti-racism in Geneva this coming week, if Israel is NOT the racist state
everyone knows it is?  

Only last Friday, yet another Palestinian was shot down in cold-blood while
taking part in a non-violent protest that is held weekly in the village of
Bil’in (north of Ramallah) against the tearing apart of Bil’in’s rural
community and lands to make way for Israel’s Apartheid Wall. He was shot in
the chest by a new type of high velocity tear gas canister while shouting
“this is a peaceful demonstration, there are lots of internationals with
us”. Now he is dead like so many other Palestinians, not because he was
shooting rockets at Israel, but because he was exercising his human right to
protest  terrible state-perpetrated injustices against himself and his
people.  An international community that is always so quick to condemn the
rocket attacks on Israel remains disgracefully silent whenever Israel’s army
kills with impunity the very people it is imprisoning and oppressing.

Shame on our Australian Government for refusing to take part in the Durban
Review conference.  Shame on our Foreign Minister Stephen Smith for his
reasoning “Regrettably, we cannot be confident that the review conference
will not again be used as a platform to air offensive views, including
anti-Semitic views. Of additional concern are the suggestions of some
delegations in the Durban process to limit the universal right to free
speech."

Since when is criticising Israel’s racist agenda, anti-Semitic? Those who
are interfering with the right to free speech are the very countries
refusing to participate – Australia, the US, Canada, Israel and Italy.  
Please write to our Foreign Minister Stephen.Smith.MP@aph.gov.au  and
register your protest.

- SK




When Israel expelled Palestinians:
What if it was San Diego and Tijuana instead?

by Randall Kuhn

Washington Post
14 April 2009


UN school in Shati refugee camp, Gaza where Israeli air strike killed three
people on 6 January 2009.


In the wake of Israel's invasion of Gaza, Israel's Defense Minister Ehud
Barak made this analogy: "Think about what would happen if for seven years
rockets had been fired at San Diego, California from Tijuana, Mexico."

Within hours scores of American pundits and politicians had mimicked Barak's
comparisons almost verbatim. In fact, in this very paper on January 9 House
Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and House Minority Whip Eric Cantor ended an
opinion piece by saying "America would never sit still if terrorists were
lobbing missiles across our border into Texas or Montana." But let's see if
our political and pundit class can parrot this analogy.

Think about what would happen if San Diego expelled most of its Hispanic,
African American, Asian American, and Native American population, about 48
percent of the total, and forcibly relocated them to Tijuana? Not just
immigrants, but even those who have lived in this country for many
generations. Not just the unemployed or the criminals or the America haters,
but the school teachers, the small business owners, the soldiers, even the
baseball players.

What if we established government and faith-based agencies to help move
white people into their former homes? And what if we razed hundreds of their
homes in rural areas and, with the aid of charitable donations from people
in the United States and abroad, planted forests on their former towns,
creating nature preserves for whites to enjoy? Sounds pretty awful, huh? I
may be called anti-Semitic for speaking this truth. Well, I'm Jewish and the
scenario above is what many prominent Israeli scholars say happened when
Israel expelled Palestinians from southern Israel and forced them into Gaza.
But this analogy is just getting started.

What if the United Nations kept San Diego's discarded minorities in crowded,
festering camps in Tijuana for 19 years? Then, the United States invaded
Mexico, occupied Tijuana and began to build large housing developments in
Tijuana where only whites could live.

And what if the United States built a network of highways connecting
American citizens of Tijuana to the United States? And checkpoints, not just
between Mexico and the United States but also around every neighborhood of
Tijuana? What if we required every Tijuana resident, refugee or native, to
show an ID card to the U.S. military on demand? What if thousands of Tijuana
residents lost their homes, their jobs, their businesses, their children,
their sense of self worth to this occupation? Would you be surprised to hear
of a protest movement in Tijuana that sometimes became violent and hateful?
Okay, now for the unbelievable part.

Think about what would happen if, after expelling all of the minorities from
San Diego to Tijuana and subjecting them to 40 years of brutal military
occupation, we just left Tijuana, removing all the white settlers and the
soldiers? Only instead of giving them their freedom, we built a 20-foot tall
electrified wall around Tijuana? Not just on the sides bordering San Diego,
but on all the Mexico crossings as well. What if we set up 50-foot high
watchtowers with machine gun batteries, and told them that if they stood
within 100 yards of this wall we would shoot them dead on sight? And four
out of every five days we kept every single one of those border crossings
closed, not even allowing food, clothing, or medicine to arrive. And we
patrolled their air space with our state-of-the-art fighter jets but didn't
allow them so much as a crop duster. And we patrolled their waters with
destroyers and submarines, but didn't even allow them to fish.

Would you be at all surprised to hear that these resistance groups in
Tijuana, even after having been "freed" from their occupation but starved
half to death, kept on firing rockets at the United States? Probably not.
But you may be surprised to learn that the majority of people in Tijuana
never picked up a rocket, or a gun, or a weapon of any kind.

The majority, instead, supported against all hope negotiations toward a
peaceful solution that would provide security, freedom and equal rights to
both people in two independent states living side by side as neighbors. This
is the sound analogy to Israel's military onslaught in Gaza today. Maybe
some day soon, common sense will prevail and no corpus of misleading
analogies abut Tijuana or the crazy guy across the hall who wants to murder
your daughter will be able to obscure the truth. And at that moment, in a
country whose people shouted We Shall Overcome, Ich bin ein Berliner, End
Apartheid, Free Tibet and Save Darfur, we will all join together and shout
"Free Gaza. Free Palestine." And because we are Americans, the world will
take notice and they will be free, and perhaps peace will prevail for all
the residents of the Holy Land.

_____________________________________________________________

Randall Kuhn is an assistant professor and Director of the Global Health
Affairs Program at the University of Denver Josef Korbel School of
International Studies. He just returned from a trip to Israel and the West
Bank.

Web link
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/jan/14/when-israel-expelled-palestinians/

De Nuance van de NRC 101

De NRC eindigt dit bericht over een macabare moord met een gezellige quizvraag. Welke nuance zit hierachter? Jan Marijnissen en Henk Hofland pleiten voor het susidieren van de 'kwaliteitspers'. Juist ja.

'Phil Spector veroordeeld voor doodslag
Gepubliceerd: 14 april 2009 00:54 | Gewijzigd: 15 april 2009 15:24
ANP
Los Angeles, 14 april. De legendarische Amerikaanse muziekproducer Phil Spector is gisteren schuldig bevonden aan de dood van de 40-jarige actrice Lana Clarkson in 2003.
Een jury achtte hem schuldig aan het vergrijp na een rechtszaak die vijf maanden duurde.

De 69-jarige Spector hoort eind mei zijn straf. Hij kan voor de moord de rest van zijn leven achter tralies verdwijnen.

Clarkson overleed in februari 2003 door een schot door haar mond. De kogel kwam uit het pistool van Spector en haar lichaam werd in zijn huis gevonden. Het tweetal had elkaar eerder op de avond ontmoet in een nachtclub.

De jury kwam vorig jaar september niet tot een unanieme conclusie toen Spector werd aangeklaagd voor moord. Ditmaal stond hij echter terecht voor doodslag, een feit waar alle twaalf de juryleden hem wel schuldig aan achtten.

Welke plaat produceerde Spector voor The Beatles? Beantwoord de vraag van de dag onderaan de homepage van nrc.nl.'
Zie: http://www.nrc.nl/kunst/article2211780.ece/Phil_Spector_veroordeeld_voor_doodslag