De Israelische Terreur 147

Electronic Intifada bericht:

'EI EXCLUSIVE: Leaked Israeli document gives frightening glimpse of apartheid.
Ali Abunimah,

ISRAELI MINISTRY OF DEFENSE DOCUMENT PROVIDES GLIMPSE INTO
THE MINDSET OF APARTHEID'S BUREAUCRACY, OUTLINES MOVEMENT RESTRICTIONS, BUREAUCRATIC ETHNIC CLEANSING, POLITICAL MANIPULATION AND ATTEMPT TO FOSTER COLLABORATORS.
The Electronic Intifada,
25 January 2007

President Jimmy Carter angered Israel and its friends by describing "the abominable oppression and persecution in the occupied Palestinian territories, with a rigid system of required passes and strict segregation between Palestine's citizens and Jewish settlers in the West Bank."Now, The Electronic Intifada has obtained an Israeli Ministry of Defense Powerpoint presentation which provides a frightening glimpse into the mindset of the bureaucracy of apartheid.The first page of the document bears the name "Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories" as well as the acronym "COGAT" at the bottom of each page. These appear to refer to the unit of the Israeli army that enforces the occupation against the Palestinian civilian population.The top of the first slide also bears the names and insignia of the "State of Israel" and the "Ministry of Defense." Dated January 12, the presentation is titled "Key Measures for easing the daily lives of the Palestinian Population."Far from that, the document provides detail of the regime of severe movement restrictions, bureaucratic ethnic cleansing and political manipulation and fostering of collaborators that Israel operates in the the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.The document, in English, appears to be genuine. While its exact purpose or audience is not known, it may have been designed to impress foreign diplomats with Israel's generosity to the Palestinians.


Among the policies the document outlines are:
· Efforts to "empower Abu-Mazen" (Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas) by facilitating entry of "security equipment for the Presidential Guard" donated by foreign countries. (The United States recently announced that it would provide millions of dollars of weapons and equipment to this unit which serves as a personal militia for Abbas and his Fatah faction who seek to overthrow the democratically-elected Hamas government).
· Providing special privileges for "the movement of VIPs and senior Palestinians" and others allies of Abbas, including "facilitating movement without security checks." These special privileges, not available to millions of Palestinians are intended for "Strengthening Abu-Mazen," presumably at the expense of the democratically-elected Hamas-led cabinet and legislative council dozens of whose members, far from enjoying VIP treatment, have been kidnapped and are being held without charge or trial by Israeli occupation forces.
· Special permits for 505 Palestinian "businessmen," allowing them to be exempt from the pass laws that forbid overnight stays by Palestinians in Israel. They will also be subject to fewer security checks. This privileged class may also benefit from the "Possible return of $60 Million from the frozen tax money to the private sector, subject to identification of the businessman, and the formation of a working mechanism." This could possibly indicate that Israel, in collusion with Abbas, seeks to misappropriate Palestinian public assets it has illegally seized, bypassing the Palestinian Authority Finance Ministry and redistributing them to Abbas cronies.
· With frightening precision, allowing "42,899" Palestinian laborers to work "in Israel and the settlements" and exempting 2,000 Palestinian agricultural laborers from the pass laws so that "overnight stay in Israel" is "permitted." Of these workers, a mere 1,600 would be permitted to enter occupied East Jerusalem, the largest Palestinian city in the West Bank.'

Lees verder: http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article6442.shtml

Klimaatverandering 82

'Former Vice President "Thrilled" by Oscar Nominations

By Beth Fouhy

The Associated Press
Tuesday 23 January 2007

New York - Who says politics is show business for ugly people?
An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore's film on the perils of global warming, scored two Oscar nominations today - for best documentary feature and best original song.
While he is not technically a nominee - the film's director, Davis Guggenheim, won the nod, as did singer Melissa Etheridge for the song I Need to Wake Up - Gore said he was "thrilled" that his movie was honored.
"The film ... has brought awareness of the climate crisis to people in the United States and all over the world," Gore said in an e-mail statement. "I am so grateful to the entire team and pleased that the Academy has recognized their work. This film proves that movies really can make a difference."
Aides say the former vice president plans to walk the red carpet with Hollywood's beautiful people at the Academy Awards ceremony next month.
Guggenheim said he wasn't expecting a nomination but welcomed the fresh attention from the Academy's recognition. He said he spoke to Gore and asked him, "'Are you ready to go to the show?' I think he's ready. For years he's been in the wilderness on global warming. Now he's ready for his grand walk. Now he's at the Academy Awards. It's a hero's return."
"An Inconvenient Truth" has been a critical and box office success, bringing in more than $24 million to make it the third highest-grossing documentary in history. A companion book has been on national best-seller lists for months.
Gore narrowly lost the 2000 presidential contest to Republican George W. Bush in a disputed election. The Democrat has said he's not planning to run for president again but also has not ruled it out.
One candidate who is running, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., said the Oscar nomination would increase attention to global warming.
"I think it's wonderful. I think it is not only an outstanding film, but it has created a genuine cultural shift in how people think about what I believe to be one of the most important issues of our times," Obama said in response to questions as he left a meeting of Democrats on Capitol Hill.'

Lees verder:
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/012407H.shtml Of: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/politics/4492272.html

Iran 91

'Iranians Oppose US "Pro-Democracy" Efforts

By Arlen Parsa

t r u t h o u t Guest Contributor
Wednesday 24 January 2007

Dissidents claim America's policy is doing more harm than good, and Iranian people will pay the price.
On July 15, 2006, a short, gray-bearded man with dark, piercing eyes stepped out of the SUV he was being chauffeured in, leaving a New York Times reporter on the seat behind him. The ride from the airport was over, and so was the interview. A crowd that had been milling around and waiting, across the street from the United Nations Headquarters in New York City, quickly gathered around him, chanting slogans to show their support. He wore a simple strip of white fabric across his chest which read in black marker "On Hunger Strike."
Later that day, a Fox News correspondent would ask the man if he was foolish enough to think that a hunger strike could actually "do anything."
His name was Akbar Ganji, and he was no stranger to hunger strikes. Ganji, a high-profile Iranian dissident, had gone on a ten-month hunger strike while in prison after he wrote a book accusing his government of killing scores of dissidents. As an award-winning journalist, Ganji is regarded by many as a hero for his unwavering belief in nonviolence, despite having been tortured and imprisoned for nearly six years by the Iranian regime for his writings.
The White House demanded that the Iranian government release Ganji in 2005, saying "The president ... calls on the government of Iran to release Mr. Ganji immediately and unconditionally, and to allow him access to medical assistance. Mr. Ganji, please know that as you stand for your own liberty, America stands with you." When Ganji was released in spring of 2006, he declined a White House invitation, preferring to meet with American intellectuals such as MIT professor Noam Chomsky.
Ganji is not alone among Iranian dissidents in his refusal to speak with the US government, despite their repeated requests. In exclusive interviews, noted dissidents explained their concerns about US policy towards Iran and why they fear not only military action against their home country, but also the more moderate Bush administration policy of funding pro-democracy movements within Iran.
In attendance at the Ganji rally (which called for the release of political prisoners in Iran) was Fatemeh Haghighatjou, another respected dissident who declined to speak with US government officials about Iran. "Two senators last year invited me to go to Congress, but I refused to go," she said in an interview. Haghighatjou was invited by Senator Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.) and then- Senator Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) to participate in a Capitol Hill forum on the state of human rights in Iran. Although she said she strongly believes in the importance of diplomacy and talks between the US and Iran, the American government should not be trying merely to talk with Iranian dissidents and refusing to talk with the Iranian government itself.
"I think talking between two governments is useful ... diplomacy - we should reduce tension between US and Iran; this is important for both sides, and normalization is very important," she said. "But you know, this negotiations should be [done] formally, not informally."
Haghighatjou was one of only 12 female members of the Iranian parliament when she was first elected in 2000 (the Iranian parliament, called the Majlis, is a 290-person body). After she was elected, Haghighatjou proved to be one of the parliament's most outspoken voices in favor of human rights and critical of the regime for its activities suppressing dissidents and torturing political prisoners.
"All of my speeches were problematic for the government's side," she explained. This was because Haghighatjou's speeches were broadcast live on Iranian State Radio and picked up in foreign media outlets. After a string of speeches blasting the regime for its human rights record and for wrongly imprisoning journalists (like Ganji, who was first imprisoned around the same time) Iranian security forces arrived at her house one day and arrested her. She was sentenced to nearly a year in prison, although after keeping a low profile in Iran, she was able to slip out of the country with her husband and young daughter.'

Lees verder: http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/012407F.shtml

The Empire 154

'The Tiniest President

By William Rivers Pitt

t r u t h o u t Columnist
Wednesday 24 January 2007

George W. Bush delivered his State of the Union address on Tuesday night, and nobody gave a damn.
There was, to be sure, keen public interest directed at Bush's audience for the speech, mostly focused on the woman sitting behind and above him. For the first time in history, the Sergeant-at-Arms announced the arrival of a president before Congress by addressing "Madame Speaker." The mere presence of Nancy Pelosi in that high place, along with the majority crowd of Democrats arrayed across the floor below, at least partially explained the lemon-pucker grimace worn by Vice President Cheney throughout the evening.
The rest of the explanation rolled across the news networks hours before the speech even began: "Attorney Theodore Wells, in the opening statements of I. Lewis Libby's perjury trial," reported the UK Guardian on Tuesday afternoon, "said Libby went to Vice President Dick Cheney in 2003 and complained that the White House was subtly blaming him for leaking Valerie Plame's identity to columnist Robert Novak. 'They're trying to set me up. They want me to be the sacrificial lamb,' Wells said, recalling the conversation between Libby and Cheney. 'I will not be sacrificed so Karl Rove can be protected.'"
Thus blows a hard wind toward this house of cards constructed by the Bush administration. Patrick Fitzgerald is prosecuting Libby in the perjury trial resulting from the Plame CIA leak case, which involves a plot to discredit Plame's husband, Ambassador Joseph Wilson. Libby's lawyers, in rebuttal, have painted their client as a patsy, the one expected to take a fall for Cheney and Karl Rove. Neither avenue of this courtroom discourse bodes well for these two men.
Interestingly enough, it was an earlier State of the Union address delivered by Bush that set all the Libby-Cheney-Rove mayhem in motion, an address that also explains why almost nobody on the planet could summon the will to care a whit about what Bush had to say last night.
In January of 2003, Bush stood before the assembled Congress and the American people to deliver another State of the Union address. In that speech, he claimed that Iraq was in possession of 26,000 liters of anthrax, 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin, 500 tons (which equals one million pounds) of sarin, mustard and VX gas, almost 30,000 munitions to deliver the stuff, mobile biological weapons labs, connections to terrorism and the 9/11 attacks, and uranium from Niger for use in a "robust" nuclear weapons program.
This was Bush's final case for the invasion of Iraq, which was subsequently undertaken two months later. That invasion, the continuing occupation, the resulting civil war, the ever-growing list of dead United States soldiers - 3,060 killed to date, with 29 of those having come since the weekend - and the utter absence of the weapons Bush claimed were in Iraq, are the main reasons why Tuesday's address was, for much of the country, little more than an exercise in enunciated hot air.
It was one of those claims - the uranium from Niger for use in Iraq's robust nuclear weapons program, delivered by those now-infamous sixteen words - that landed Libby in hot water, and which is why Mr. Cheney is suddenly looking very much like a wing-clipped quail himself. Ambassador Wilson, having traveled to Niger to investigate the Iraq-uranium story and found no basis for it, was astonished to hear that line in 2003. His July 2004 editorial in the New York Times, which eviscerated the uranium accusation, motivated the White House to try to torpedo his credibility.
They decided to do this by exposing his wife, Valerie Plame, as a deep-cover CIA agent, hoping somehow to paint Wilson as nothing more than an inept bureaucrat who got the Niger gig through wifely nepotism, and therefore not to be believed. When Wilson's accusations proved true, when neither uranium nor anything "robust" was found in Iraq, and when it was revealed that Plame was an NOC (Non-Official Cover) whose job it was to track down illicit WMD, the excrement began flying into the fan. It has been spraying ever since.
This was the remarkable background for Tuesday's address, a speech that was, in the end, an empty exercise. If a measure were needed to gauge Bush's crumbling standing, it could be found in the overwhelming obsequiousness with which he greeted the new Democratic majority, and in his craven pleas for bipartisanship. We got, as well, the usual litany of reasons for continuing and expanding the massacre unleashed by his generational catastrophe in Iraq. The bloody shirt of 9/11 was waved once again. Sabres were rattled against Iran and Syria, again. The word "nukular" made its annual appearance. The word "Katrina" was nowhere to be found.'

Lees verder: http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/012407A.shtml

The Empire 153

'Demanding Truth From Power
David Swanson
January 24, 2007

David Swanson is co-founder of AfterDowningStreet.org, Washington director of Democrats.com and a board member of Progressive Democrats of America.

It was disturbing to see so many members of Congress in both parties clamoring to get Bush's autograph on their copies of his State of the Union—not because it was such a dishonest speech that did such a disservice to this country, and not because they should have been handing him subpoenas instead. Rather, my concern arises from the habit Bush has developed following the signing of any document. Typically he goes home, talks to his lawyers, and issues a "signing statement" the next day radically altering what he has just signed. Bad as that speech was, it could get a lot worse.
Of course the state of our union is what it is regardless, and Bush had almost nothing to say about it. He claimed our economy was thriving, a claim fairly well debunked by Virginia Sen. Jim Webb's Democratic response. But, for the most part, when the president got at all specific in his speech, he proposed new initiatives and said little or nothing about the past six miserable years. In the seventh year of his presidency, he proposed balancing the budget in five years and reducing gasoline usage in 10 years. The president mentioned "courage" a lot, but wouldn't it have been more courageous to have admitted that similar rhetoric over the past six years has been followed by actions that have taken us in the opposite direction, and wouldn't it have been more courageous to have set goals for the next two years?
During most of the speech, the president avoided specifics. His rhetoric was so vague and his changes of topic so swift that he was closer to listing issues than discussing them. Some more detail on his various proposals was posted on the White House website, but it didn't always add much. For example, immigration reform "without animosity and without amnesty" turned out to mean that immigrants would have to pay a "meaningful penalty" before they could become citizens.
Bush began by congratulating Nancy Pelosi repeatedly on becoming Speaker of the House. He had nothing special to say to the large man seated to Pelosi's right. Vice President Dick Cheney had been in the news earlier that day when the prosecutors in the trial of his former chief of staff claimed that Cheney had played a central role in exacting retribution against a whistleblower who exposed one of the main lies that took us into the war, a lie made during Bush's State of the Union speech four years ago. Somehow the announcers on NBC failed to mention that or to make note of Bush's record low popularity, and while their affiliate had filmed it, they did not reveal any awareness of the fact that eight state senators that day had introduced a resolution to impeach Bush and Cheney into the state legislature in New Mexico. (A state can begin impeachment by sending a petition to Congress.)'

Lees verder: http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2007/01/24/demanding_truth_from_power.php

Montaigne

Telkens weer wanneer ik uitspraken van islamofoben hoor, moet ik denken aan wat Montaigne al vier eeuwen geleden constateerde. In zijn essay 'Over de kannibalen' schreef hij met betrekking tot Braziliaanse Indianen: 'ik vind, te oordelen naar wat men mij over hen heeft verteld, dat er niets barbaars of wilds aan dat volk is, daargelaten dat iedereen barbaars noemt wat niet strookt met wat hij gewend is; want het schijnt inderdaad dat we geen ander criterium voor het ware en redelijke hebben dan het voorbeeld en onze voorstelling van de opvattingen en gebruiken in eigen land. Daar heerst altijd de ideale religie en de volmaakte staatsvorm; daar is de manier waarop men alles doet het meest volmaakt en ontwikkeld.'

Iran 90

Daan de Wit emailde me dit:

'DeepJournal, Iran
De komende oorlog tegen Iran - Deel 14
Delen 1 t/m 14
Door Daan de Wit

Bush en Cheney hebben in hun huidige functie nog geen twee jaar te gaan en zullen de geschiedenisboeken in willen als de helden van het Pax Americana, als de mannen die het Midden-Oosten en daarmee de olie wisten te veroveren, mannen die de full-spectrum dominance serieus namen, terwijl in eigen land successen werden geboekt door exorbitante winsten voor het militaire bedrijfsleven en de realisering van extreme wetgeving. De aanloop was lang en de weg vol hindernissen, maar het doel van een derde grote oorlog, een oorlog met Iran, komt steeds meer in zicht. Dan Plesch vat het in The Guardian in één zin samen: 'All the signs are that Bush is planning for a neocon-inspired military assault on Iran'. 'Americans don't have much time to realize this and to act before it is too late. Bush's "surge" speech last Wednesday night makes it completely clear that his real purpose is to start wars with Iran and Syria before failure in Iraq brings an end to the neoconservative/Israeli plan to establish hegemony over the Middle East', schrijft Paul Craig Roberts, staatssecretaris voor Financiën onder Ronald Reagan. 'Commenting about the briefing on MSNBC after Bush's nationwide address, NBC's Washington bureau chief Tim Russert said “there's a strong sense in the upper echelons of the White House that Iran is going to surface relatively quickly as a major issue – in the country and the world – in a very acute way”', schrijft Robert Parry. Uit de aanwezigheid van vier Amerikaanse onderzeeboten voor de kust van Iran leidt voormalig commandant van de Russische vloot Eduard Baltin af dat de V.S. van plan zijn Iran aan te vallen. Democratisch Congresman Dennis Kucinich, tevens presidentskandidaat voor 2008, zegt: '"The President is clearly trying to provoke Iran," he said, adding that the Bush administration is "treading on the thinnest ice it has ever been on".' ING Wholesale Banking waarschuwt in het rapport [PDF] Attacking Iran dat de financiële markten 'een zware schok' te verwerken zouden kunnen krijgen in het geval van een preëmptieve aanval op Iran. Het rapport is ook praktisch; onder de kop 'Top trades in the event of an attack on Iran' staan adviezen voor aan- en verkoop, zoals: 'Buy Oil and Gold, Sell industrial commodities'. Intussen laat de Iraanse president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad weten over dezelfde devote vastberadenheid te beschikken als zijn tegenstrever Bush: '"Today, with the grace of God, we have gone through the arduous passes and we are ready for anything in this path," state-run television quoted Ahmadinejad as saying Thursday'.Speculaties over het begin van de aanval op Iran Naar aanleiding van de Amerikaanse aanslag op een Iraans kantoor in Irbil, Noord-Irak, waarbij ook een vijftal Iraniërs wordt opgepakt, wijst John Pike van Global Security op feit van de aanwezigheid van twee oorlogsschepen in de Golf (andere oorlogsbodems zijn nog aan het opstomen) en op de surge-toespraak van George W. Bush, waarin deze aankondigt Patriotraketten te gaan uitzetten bij leden van de Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), zoals Kuweit en Saoedi-Arabië. 'Iran has denounced the Patriot deployment as part of U.S. plan to turn Arab countries into a front line of protection for Israel', schrijft Associated Press. Bush: 'We will interrupt the flow of support from Iran and Syria. And we will seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq.' Pike tegen CNN: '[...] It's looks to me like the United States is, at least, raising its capabilities in preparation for possible military confrontation with Iran."' Pike houdt er sterk rekening mee dat deze confrontatie dit jaar gaat plaatsvinden en heeft zelfs een 'Countdown time line' gepubliceerd met mogelijke data waarop een aanval waarschijnlijk is. Februari 2007 is volgens Pike een reële mogelijkheid voor een aanval op Iran. Februari is ook de maand dat Ahmadinejad nieuwe nucleaire successen gaat melden terwijl dan ook de zestig dagen zijn afgelopen die werden gegeven aan Iran in VN-resolutie 1713 [PDF] om het nucleaire programma te stoppen. Op 21 februari zal atoomagentschap IAEA een rapport gaan publiceren over Iran, wat door Israël en de V.S. weer kan worden aangegrepen om te wijzen op de nalatigheid van Iran. De hoofdredacteur van de Arab Times verwacht een aanval nog vóór april: 'U.S. might launch a military strike on Iran before April 2007, Kuwait-based daily Arab Times released on Sunday said in a report. The report, written by Arab Times' Editor-in-chief Ahmed al-Jarallah citing a reliable source, said that the attack would be launched from the sea, while Patriot missiles would guard all Arab countries in the Gulf.' De Arab Times baseert zich op slechts een anonieme bron. ING Wholesale Banking schrijft [PDF] in de inleiding van een rapport over Iran: 'We outline a scenario in which Israel attacks 5 or 6 of Iran’s nuclear facilities in late February or March 2007, with strikes that may be completed within hours, days or at most weeks.'Wat een aanval op Iran ook kan bespoedigen zijn twee uiteenlopende feiten, namelijk dat de aangekondigde Tor-M1 luchtverdedigingsystemen nu aan Iran worden geleverd en dat Bush' strijdmakker Tony Blair dit jaar zal terugtreden. In een recente toespraak bereidde Blair zijn landgenoten voor op een langdurige strijd tegen het wereldwijde terrorisme: '"The battle will be long. It has taken a generation for this global movement, for the enemy, to grow. It will in all probability take a generation to defeat," he said.' Ook heeft Blair aangekondigd meer geld te willen vrijmaken voor het Britse leger.'

Lees verder: http://www.deepjournal.com/p/7/a/nl/407.html