Breaking News : Most alarming phenomenon...the "Mistarafim" infiltrators

by Iqbal Tamimi

Iqbal Tamimi

The most alarming phenomenon now is spreading in different areas of Palestine, young men look Palestinians, dress like Palestinians, master all local Arab dialects and behave like Palestinian ....except they are not.

They infiltrate demonstrations wearing the Palestinian Kefiyah and in the middle of whatever activity they join they start gathering information about the activists, after they finish they reveal their real savage personalities and start attacking, beating, bashing the Palestinian demonstrators since they are armed unlike the Palestinian demonstrators.

The Israeli occupation forces call them "Mistarafim" and the Palestinians call them Mustarebeen.
They are working in groups within two units, one works with the Israeli police force and the other with the Israeli army and border guards.

The Mistarafim Unit began working undercover in different Arab towns and in the occupied area of East Jerusalem, but their operations expanded to include the Palestinian Arab towns inside the Green Line, hitting their targets without attracting much attention.

It is usually difficult to identify them since they look like any civillian, but the Israeli police and the Israeli soldiers do know them well, and they supervise their activities when they penetrate the lines of demonstrators with the coordination of the army.

They engage in demonstrations, they seem most enthusiastic, masked and carrying Palestinian flags, wearing a kaffiyeh, or necklaces bearing slogans of national revolution.

They are seen most of the time in groups of 3-4, trying to lead the demonstrators as much as possible to where the Israeli police forces are ambushing them, or towards closed or narrow alleyways where they can attack their victims and control them well while one of them will be protecting the back of his gang. They never hesitate to fire their guns.

The units get their training in the most crowded Arab areas especially in the city of Nazareth. A trusted source said that some of these units even live with Arab families in Nazareth to get some training on Arab customs and traditions and how to get dressed and how to speak. One of the people who is training them is claimed to be from the village of Taraan, he teaches them the slang language of the local Arabs and even teaches them how to make the coffee the Palestinian way.

Should the "Mistarafim" have to appear before a Court, there are laws and regulations especially for them, the police takes the responsibility of protecting their identities and their names and other details which are kept in confidential files and disclosed only in the court before the judge, they are also provided with full protection to ensure that no one will know their identities.

Madoff in Jerusalem

Gilad Atzmon

Zionism, at least in its early days was premised on the belief that once back in their ‘homeland’, Jews would mature into ethical beings. For early Zionists it was the Diaspora conditions that corrupted the Jews. Ber Borchov blamed it on the difference between ‘the socio-economic structure of the Jewish people’ and other nations (Ber Borochov- The Economic Development of the Jewish People 1917). Max Nordau repelled the “Jewish lack of notion of honour, morality, patriotism and idealism…." (Max Nordau - Address at the 1st Zionist Congress 1897).

It is transparently evident that Zionism failed to erect a modern ethical collective. Considering the Zionist agenda to celebrate a Jewish national aspiration at the expense of the indigenous people of Palestine, it shouldn’t take us by surprise that Zionism evolved into an unethical morbid entity. As we read in a poll in Haaretz today. The Israelis themselves are coming to terms with their non-ethical setting. More than half of the Israelis are convinced that the leadership of their Jewish State is corrupted.

In a poll that took place in June 2009, 45% of respondents judged Netanyahu's government to be "highly corrupt," 25% thought it was "moderately corrupt" and the remaining third thought it was only slightly corrupt or not tainted.

However, Netanyahu still has a long way to go. Ehud Olmert won by a landslide. He is the most corrupt prime minister in Israeli history with 52% of the vote. Netanyahu placed second, with 17.8%, while Ariel Sharon was judged the third-most corrupt. Olmert currently faces charges that include fraud, breach of trust, forgery (of corporate documents) and failure to report income. Olmert is the first prime minister in Israeli history to face graft charges.

The majority of the Israelis polled feel that things are getting worse when it comes to ethics: 70% said they feel that Israel is more corrupt now than ever before, while only 10% think that matters are improving.

Unlike Borochov and Nordau who mistakenly identified Jewish cultural morbidity with Jewish Diaspora conditions it is pretty evident that the Jewish state has managed to establish a gruesome continuum between swindler Madoff and Jerusalem. The Israel that was there to become a celebration of a revived Jewish civilization, a light onto the nations, is in fact the epitome of moral deficiency in all its facets. It is the lowest form of political existence. Zionism has managed to erect the biggest and ugliest Jewish ghetto in Jewish history. The only positive news is that the Israelis seem to be aware of it all.

Israeli education ministry censors Universal Declaration of Human Rights

By Ben White on March 21, 2010

On March 17, the following note appeared on the Promised Land blog:

And this also happened this week: the office of the minister of education forbade distributing a booklet for kids about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, because it didn’t like two articles in the declaration, as well as some of the illustration in the booklet.

The relevant link was to an article in Hebrew. I asked Noam which two articles had been specified, and he replied that the nrg.co.il article implied Article 14 and Article 18. These two articles are as follows:

“Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution.” (Article 14)

“Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.” (Article 18)

But apart from that Hebrew language piece, there is also a translated version of the story available here. Here is an extract:

The Ariel municipality decided to buy hundreds of copies of the book to distribute them as a gift to kindergarten children. But after the Education Ministry’s intervention, the books were returned, even though they had already been bought with money and a message from the municipality pasted in them. This is because the Education Ministry inspectors from the state religious department did not like two illustrations and two sections of the declaration, and decided to disqualify the book…

Mayor Ron Nahman said, “it is positive and good to hand out a book about children’s rights. But our attention was drawn to two sentences that are not exactly what we teach the children. The Education Ministry said this was wrong and we accepted its decision.”

Israel Expands Settlements To Washington D.C.

In a bold move that shocked Wall Street, Main Street and J Street, Israel expanded its settler housing to Washington DC . President Obama and his family were ordered to vacate the White House so that it would be available to Israeli officials when they visit the occupied territories in the Senate and the House.
Speaker Pelosi expressed surprise when told that Netanyahu had asked for her congressional leadership position in another bold move that showed Israel practicing its political chutzpah as never before.

“ I thought he would ask for the presidency and am flattered and of course only too willing to accede to any demands made by our most important friends in the world, the Israelis ” said Pelosi.

The ADL accused her of practicing thinly veiled anti-Semitism by only mentioning the world instead of the universe.


Obama supports Wealth Care for all Americans

In soaring emotional rhetoric not heard since his last soaringly emotional speech, the president expressed soaring emotional support for all wealthy Americans and for the overwhelming 90% majority who are not yet wealthy but will be someday if our free markets and credit purchases can fully flower and bloom and blossom and, uh, whatever.

“This nation will thrive and survive as long as people are free to get wealthy and I intend to fight to the last breath to keep the freedoms we enjoy that allow wonderful hard working billionaires to get even more rich and then help the rest of us with tax deductible donations to charity.”

When asked about health care for all Americans the president said he supported it, but it would only be possible when more rich people were given tax breaks that enabled them to buy more private health insurance companies and then make tax deductible donations to charity.

Bankers Urge Freeing Madoff: Say Fed Needs His Help

A consortium of bankers, financiers, entrepreneurs and gourmet chefs joined in calling for the release of convicted fraudster Bernie Madoff. A spokesperson for the group said that only someone with his skill sets could lead the Fed and help the nation out of its most serious financial crisis.

“Let’s face it, our economy has been a massive Ponzi scheme for years now and the person who can best get investors to buy into this mess has to be the man who did it before with absolutely nothing but his mouth and an enigmatic smile. Now he’ll be able to peddle shares in our new Financial Utilization of Credit Kleptocracy Unions of Penury fund, a derivative collateral fandango perceptivity subtracting coercion swapperama market which, along with that Mona Lisa quality of his, will be impossible for egotistical and exceptionally dumb investors to resist . Nothing will more insure the survival of our leaking ship of state than to have captain Bernie at the helm.”

Reality Celebrities?

Producers of reality shows and celebrity gossip programs have joined forces to create an all new viewing consumer product. It will combine the most appealing candid moments of real life embarrassing drama lived by ordinary people who thereby become celebrities, and scandalously embarrassing moments in the lives of celebrities which may reduce them to lives as ordinary people.

The new show will feature celebrities during unguarded moments as they use their toilets, or have sex or beat their children. Then ordinary people will be shown having the same experiences affording viewers the double pleasure of watching people who are better looking , more talented and have far more money than they make complete asses of themselves while also enjoying their peers who have little money, looks or talent becoming celebrities by virtue of being portrayed using toilets, having sex and beating their children.

A spokesperson for Humping International Values productions , which owns the rights to the proposed show said “ We know our viewers love watching their slightly better looking peers making asses of themselves enough to make them stars and they also love gossip about the flaws of celebrities they love and also hate. This will afford them a double pleasure . We expect it to be bigger than American Idol. The twits twixt twelve and twenty market will love it and bring the older mob of wannabes along with them.”

The working title for the show is: U HV NO LIFE SO WTCH THS

stay tuned to The Garlic for all the really important news
Source

Message to President Obama and Americans with a Conscience

eileen fleming

"There comes a time comes when silence is betrayal...History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people...We are called to speak for the weak, for the voiceless, for victims...We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people...The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy...Cowardice asks the question: is it safe? Expediency asks the question: is it politic? Vanity asks the question: is it popular? But conscience asks the question: is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular- but one must take it simply because it is right."-Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.

Since 1967, the Israeli authorities have demolished more than 24,000 Palestinian homes in the Occupied Territories. Some are considered “collateral damage” in military operations; such as the 4,000 homes that were demolished in Israel's December-January assault on Gaza.

Some are as collective punishment; such as the obliteration of the Jenin refugee camp in 2002.

Many are for lack of a building permit, which Israel denies to Palestinians; and due to the unjust justice system of Israel, the courts have ordered thousands of Palestinian families to demolish their own homes while threatening them with fines and imprisonment.

Currently there are tens of thousands of demolition orders on Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem and the West Bank .

The Fourth Geneva Convention forbids an Occupying Power from extending its law and administration into an occupied territory.

The very process of granting or denying permits to Palestinians is blatantly illegal under international humanitarian law.

"Missing from Israel’s security framing is the very fact of occupation, which Israel both denies exists…and that “security” requires Israel control over the entire country…rendering impossible a just peace based on human rights, international law, reconciliation."- American Israeli, Founder and Coordinator of ICAHD/Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, Jeff Halper, in Obstacles to Peace, A Re-Framing of the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict, page 1.

International Law states occupation is to be temporary, but Israeli courts rule on the basis that there is no occupation and therefore the Fourth Geneva Convention protecting civilians under occupation is irrelevant to their sense of justice.

Jeff also informed this reporter, "Before 1947, the Palestinians owned 94% of the country. Then the UN gave away 56% to the Jews and today they have 78% of the land. Hamas cannot accept the legitimacy of Israel stealing their land, just as no colonial people would ever give up the claim to their homeland."

The first house ICAHD rebuilt was in 1998-the Beit Arabyia house-the name for the home of the Arabiya family with seven children which has been rebuilt at least four times by the efforts of ICAHD and the JCHR/Jurist Center for Human Rights, a Palestinian NGO focused on legal advocacy for Palestinians in the Jerusalem area.

Jeff said, “Israel has no constitution but has a Declaration of Independence which promised that Israel would abide by conditions and UN resolutions. They have not fulfilled the agreement which was the basis of their independence.”

The Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel was signed on May 14, 1948 the day the British Mandate over Palestine expired: "On the day of the termination of the British mandate and on the strength of the United Nations General Assembly declare The State of Israel will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel: it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion it will guarantee freedom of religion [and] conscience and will be faithful to the Charter of the United Nations." - May 14, 1948. The Declaration of the Establishment of Israel

Jeff continued, "We really are only but actors in a play. When we wake up to that, and become an active participant in the human drama and pursue justice, things must change because injustice is unsustainable…One out of three Israeli children lives below the poverty line. It’s probably about 80% for Palestinians. Jews are like everyone else, those who have been abused grow up to be abusers. Things here have been turned on their head: its victim mentality and denial about the occupation. Once Israelis accept the fact that they are occupiers they will have to admit their State Terrorism.

"Since 1967 the Israeli government has destroyed over 22,000 Palestinian homes. 95% of the cases have nothing to do with security. All these homes are on Palestinian private property. The Israeli government will not grant permits for them to build on their own land, and in reality are quietly transferring the Palestinians administratively from the land. They make conditions so intolerable that the Palestinians give up and leave and this is exactly what they are after. Not only do the Palestinians receive no warning when their homes are to be destroyed they are fined $1,500.00!

"The reasons for the demolitions are: for The Wall, to establish illegal settlements, build roads and because the Israeli government wants to keep Palestinians confined to the islands [areas A and B] in the West Bank and so Palestinian land remain under the control of the Israeli government.

"When you incorporate occupied territories, highways, settlements and use resources it is all illegal according to the Fourth Geneva Convention which states the status quo must be retained so that negotiations can happen. Unilateral actions are illegal. The occupying power is responsible for those under its control.

"Tony Blair said 70% of all the conflicts in the world can be traced back to the Israeli Palestinian conflict. This conflict impacts the global community and especially everyone in the USA. This whole issue is based on Human Rights and it is a global issue requiring global intervention.

"There have been three stages to make this occupation permanent. The first was to establish the facts on the ground; the settlements. There are ½ million Israeli’s and four million Palestinians here. They have been forced into Bantustan; truncated mini states; prison states. It is apartheid and Israel is not a democracy, it is an ethnocracy: full rights to Jews, but not Palestinians.

"In 1977, Sharon came in with a mandate, money and resources to make the Israeli presence in the West Bank irreversible. The second stage began in April 2004 when America approved the Apartheid/Convergence/Realignment Plan and eight settlement blocs. This is just like South Africa!

"The Bush Sharon letter exchange guaranteed that the USA considers the settlements non-negotiable. The Convergence Plan and The Wall create the borders and that is what defines Bantustans. Congress ratified the Bush plan and only Senator Byrd of West Virginia voted no and nine House Representatives.

"Israel denies there is an occupation, so everything is reduced to terrorism. It is our job to insist upon the human rights issue, for occupied people have International Law on their side.

"Israel has set up a matrix of control; a thick web of settlements guaranteed to make the occupation permanent by establishing facts on the ground.

"Israeli policy is to maintain a 72% Jewish and 28% Arab population. Palestinians cannot get building permits to build upon their legally owned land. The Arab land has been re-zoned as green space, and the green space will be re-zoned for the settlements.

"Every single Palestinian home in Jerusalem has a demolition order. The entire West Bank has been zoned as agricultural land by Israel, and that will also be re-zoned again for more settlements."

Under international law all the settlements are considered illegal colonies-but they are spun as "neighborhoods" by politicians and a limp and lazy media.

During an ICAHD bus tour in Nov. 2007, on our way to the Beit Arabiya Peace House, we witnessed acres of tree stumps that had once been miles of olive trees; but they were chopped off by the Israeli army.

Jeff commented, "It has been said that the Israelis do not love this land, they just want to possess it. I don’t just have a political problem with this Judiaization of the Old City; it is ecologically and environmentally offensive."

It also is spiritually impoverished for the raping and pillaging of what is claimed holy ground refutes and denies the biblical meaning of dominion. The ancients understood dominion meant to nurture, love and protect but the destruction of indigenous peoples homes, the stealing and destroying of their legally owned property, has got to be an abomination unto God as well as a crime against humanity.

The Beit Arabiya Peace House, is at the crossroads of Areas A, B and C and the home has become a symbol of nonviolent persistent resistance and a meeting place for Israelis, Palestinian and International peace activists at the intersection of Areas A, B, and C. The smallest of the three is Area A, which is under Palestinian authority. Areas B and C are under Israeli control.

When I saw Jeff last in June 2009, he told me there was another demolition order of the Beit Arabyia home, but during my visit there, I was captivated by a mural painted on the outer wall created by the North American Workers Against the USA occupation of Iraq and the Israeli occupation of Palestine.

The mural depicted Rachel Corrie, the American who was run over by a USA made Caterpillar bulldozer in Gaza when she stood up to defend the home of a pharmacist with five children four days before the USA began bombing Baghdad. Also depicted was a pregnant Palestinian woman of ten who had also been run over by a Caterpillar in Gaza.

The angelic images of the two women floated above a depiction of a USA made Caterpillar bulldozer that had tipped to one side and was flanked by tanks and images of weapons of destruction along with images of people and a railroad track; a reminder that prior to 1948, Jews and Palestinians had worked together in peaceful solidarity to build a railroad.

The Arabyia home/Peace Center is at the cornerstone of the village of the Anata and the Shufat refugee camps, in the very area where the prophet Jeremiah in the 6th century B.C. critiqued the violent conflicts in the Mid East, which were already old news: "I hear violence and destruction in the city, sickness and wounds are all I see." [Jeremiah 6:7]

Mohammad Alatar, film producer of "The Iron Wall" addressed my group after we broke bread and ate a typical Palestinian feast prepared by the Arabiya family:

"I am a Muslim Palestinian American and when my son asked me who my hero was I took three days to think about it. I told him my hero is Jesus, because he took a stand and he died for it.

"What really needs to be done is for the churches to be like Jesus; to challenge the Israeli occupation and address the apartheid practices as moral issues.

"Even if every church divested and boycotted Israel it would not harm Israel. After the USA and Russia, Israel is the third largest arms exporter in the world. It is a moral issue that the churches must address."

The Obama Administration has demanded Israel freeze all construction of its illegal settlements; but the building continues. Money talks louder than words and people of conscience are exerting pressure to get Israel to change its behavior. The quickest and most effective way to do this is by ending U.S. military aid, which is being misused by Israel in violation of U.S. law to kill and injure Palestinian civilians and sustain Israel’s illegal occupation of the Palestinian West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza Strip.

Vanunu's Message to Hillary Clinton re: The Apartheid Wall

Learn More:

http://endtheoccupation.org/

"By far the most dangerous foe we have to fight is apathy – indifference from whatever cause, not from a lack of knowledge, but from carelessness, from absorption in other pursuits, from a contempt bred of self satisfaction." Dr. William Osler, (1849-1919)

"He who allows oppression, shares the crime."- Erasmus Darwin

-###-

Only in Solidarity do "we have it in our power to begin the world again."-Tom Paine

Eileen Fleming,
Founder of WeAreWideAwake.org
A Feature Correspondent for Arabisto.com
Author of "Keep Hope Alive" and "Memoirs of a Nice Irish American 'Girl's' Life in Occupied Territory"
Producer "30 Minutes with Vanunu" and "13 Minutes with Vanunu"
http://www.youtube.com/user/eileenfleming

Happy Passover: Settlers, Immigrants, and the Perversion of Jewish Values

“You shall not oppress the stranger [immigrant] because you know the soul of the stranger for you yourselves were immigrants in the land of Egypt” (Exodus 23:9) [translation, R.S.]

This verse recalls the migration of Jacob’s sons to Egypt during an ancient Israelite famine. It invokes the history of oppression that Jews suffered there as economic migrants who ultimately escaped slavery at the hands of Pharaoh during the miraculous exodus orchestrated by Moses during the holiday we are about the celebrate, Passover.

Ruth and Naomi (Leonard Baskin)

The Bible calls on Jews to treat immigrants (the term ger in Hebrew, which is often translated as “stranger”) with respect no less than eight different times in at least four different books. In addition, there is the deeply moving story of the Book of Ruth, whose entire plot revolves around an Israelite economic migrant, Naomi, who travels with her family to Moab to escape famine at home (not unlike current Israeli immigrants from Sudan, Ethiopia and Asia). While in Moab, Naomi’s sons marry Moabite women, but when the sons and her husband die, she decides to return to Israel and urges Ruth, her daughter-in-law, to return to her Moabite family. Ruth refuses with one of the most gracious, moving speeches to grace the entire Tanach:

“Entreat me not to leave you, or to turn back from following you; For wherever you go, I will go; And wherever you lodge, I will lodge; Your people shall be my people, and your God, my God. Where you die, I will die, and there will I be buried. The LORD do so to me, and more also, if anything but death parts you and me.” (Ruth 1:16-17)

In more recent history, we have the accounts of righteous Gentiles who gave Jews refuge during the Holocaust at great risk to themselves and their families. Conversely, we have a darker history of those like the Roosevelt administration which turned Jews away from ports of refuge, as the St. Louis was shunned when it unsuccessfully attempted to deposit 900 Jewish refugees in the New World

This is not a general subject that is peripheral, but rather is at the heart of Judaism. Without the tender mercy of strangers, we might have long ago ceased to exist as a people. Therefore, we see ourselves as a generous people, one attuned to suffering and therefore bound to treat the stranger in our midst with kindness and respect.

So how else should a Jew react when they read disgusting incitement (for the full effect in the original Hebrew, read here) from none other than a member of the Israeli Knesset, Yaakov “Ketzeleh” Katz, who is also a prominent extremist settler leader. Here Katz (whose nickname oddly invokes the Yiddish diminutive for “kitty-cat”) inveighs against the thousands of economic migrants pouring into Israel’s economy from dire African places like Sudan, Ethiopia and Somalia. One linguistic note: the term “infiltrator” used here has a charged connotation in modern Hebrew, as it historically referred to Palestinian fighters who “infiltrated” Israel to engage in terror attacks:

The State of Israel is facing a hard problem: Between 1,000 and 2,000 persons infiltrate each month through the porous southern border…In an increasing arithmetic progression we will reach, in six or seven years, 75,000 or 100,000 African infiltrators, most of whom will live in Tel Aviv…

With a century of hard labor, Am Yisrael has built here a Jewish state. In ten years, these infiltrators could make it all go to waste. We are losing the state to insanity.

…Our committee has visited schools and kindergartens in Arad and we couldn’t believe our eyes: The city is slowly being taken over. The schools in Arad and Eilat are filling up with Eritrean and Sudanese children. Already, close to a tenth of the city’s inhabitants are Sudanese or Eritrean, Muslims and Christians.

We got used to thinking that we are defeating our enemies in battles and here they have surprised us from the rear. The rulers of Sudan and Eritrea, in collusion with the Egyptians are conquering Israel.

Note in this passage, echoes of the Nativist rants of yesteryear against the oncoming hordes and unwashed masses bearing hard down on our shores. Note the language akin to that used to describe a plague of locusts or other form of vermin. The racism is mind-boggling. Also note that Katz, comfortably ensconced in his West Bank settlement home, is attempting to gin up hysterical fear among the wealthy denizens of Tel Aviv’s northern suburbs, which are akin to places like Evanston, Scarsdale, Beverly Hills and Napa Valley in the U.S.

…The infiltrators are penetrating Hatikva neighborhood, are flooding south Tel Aviv and every day they advance a few tens of meters towards Dizengoff on their way to Akirov and Ramat Aviv…As I see it, there is no choice but for the prime minister to declare martial law for everything regarding infiltrators.

In the following passage, Katz suggests establishing an entire city for migrants that would be a cross between a concentration camp and Hooverville:

…I have suggested…to start [constructing] a city that will be a decent distance from the border, where only there the infiltrators will be allowed to live. They will be employed in government projects for building the city itself [and] building the border fence [to prevent further immigration].

It may be that this kind of labor would take it’s toll on the infiltrators in a way that they will advise their relatives not to follow in their footsteps to Israel. They may even wish to pay again $2,500 per head to the corrupt guides who brought them here, this time in order to return them to their home.

For some time no one is surprised how many of Tel Aviv’s residents are willing to sell Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem. But it is unbelievable for me to behold how it does not bother them that their own city is becoming Eritrean and Sudanese. A thought sneaks to my mind that this secular, liberal and elitist community has simply lost all will to live…Is this what they hoped for when they built their homes in Tel Aviv? That it will become an African city? What kind of person wants to sell himself and his home? [translation: Eitan Issacson]

The Jewish people both within and outside Israel should know that when they continue supporting the Occupation, they are supporting racism like this. Do we want to be judged and measured as a people by the hate of such hooligans? Further, I challenge the settlers who define Judaism and Jewish values for us as they do here in the comment threads. Theirs is not Judaism. It is a perversion of Judaism. Let’s call it Judea-ism, an idolatry based on worship of land over the spiritual values which our Biblical Prophets represented. We do not need a Third Temple in order to be good Jews. We do not need armed outposts in Hebron to maintain our covenant with God. Let us take back our religion from such people. They do not represent us, nor should they represent Israel.

Tikum Olam

Avi Shlaim: Cut off the cash and Israel might behave

President Netanyahu is undermining US interests. The sooner President Obama makes his support conditional, the betterIsraelis are not renowned for their good manners, but their treatment of Vice-President Joe Biden during his recent visit to their country went beyond chutzpah. Biden is one of Israel's staunchest supporters in Washington, and the purpose of his visit was to prepare the ground for the resumption of peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. An official announcement that Israel planned to build 1,600 new Jewish settler homes in East Jerusalem scuppered the talks, alienated the Palestinians, and infuriated Biden. It was a colossal blunder that is likely to have far-reaching consequences for the special relationship between the two countries.

America subsidises Israel to the tune of $3bn (around £2bn) a year. America is Israel's principal arms supplier, enabling it to retain the technological edge over all its enemies, near and far. In the diplomatic arena too, America extends to Israel virtually unqualified support, including the use of the veto in the UN Security Council to defeat resolutions critical of Israel. America condemns Iran for its nuclear ambitions, while turning a blind eye to Israel's possession of a large arsenal of nuclear weapons.

This unparalleled generosity towards a junior partner is largely the result of sentimental attachment and shared values. Israel used to present itself as an island of democracy in a sea of authoritarianism. But its own actions have shredded this image to pieces. It is now well on the way to becoming a pariah state. During the Cold War, Israel also used to promote itself as a "strategic asset" in helping to check Soviet advances in the Middle East. But since the end of the Cold War, Israel has become more of a liability than an asset.

America's most vital interests lie in the Persian Gulf; to ensure access to oil, the US needs Arab goodwill. Here Israel is a major liability, as a result of its occupation of Palestinian land and its brutal oppression of the Palestinian people.

There is a broad international consensus in favour of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and America is part of this consensus. A previous Democratic administration provided the most realistic blueprint for such a solution. On 23 December 2000, four weeks before leaving the White House, Bill Clinton unveiled his proposals. He called for the establishment of an independent Palestinian state over the whole of the Gaza Strip and 94 to 96 per cent of the West Bank, with a capital city in East Jerusalem. Both sides rejected this peace plan.

In May 2003, after the invasion of Iraq, the Quartet – America, Russia, the UN, and European Union – issued the "Road Map", which envisaged the emergence of an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel by the end of 2005. This time, the Palestinians accepted the plan with alacrity, whereas Israel tabled 14 reservations that amounted to a rejection. In August 2005, Israel carried out a unilateral withdrawal from Gaza but, far from being a contribution to the Road Map, this was the prelude to further colonisation of the West Bank.

Ever since 1967, Israel has rarely missed a chance to miss an opportunity to make peace with the Palestinians. Its determination to hold on to the West Bank and East Jerusalem translates into rigid diplomatic intransigence. Settlement expansion has been a constant feature of Israeli policy under all governments since 1967, regardless of their political colour. Settlement expansion, however, can only proceed by confiscating more and more Palestinian land. The basic problem is that land-grabbing and peacemaking cannot proceed together: it is one or the other.

The official American position since 1967, except under George W Bush, held that Jewish settlements on occupied Arab land are illegal and a major obstacle to peace. The Obama administration upholds this position. One can make the argument that maintaining the occupation of the West Bank is in Israel's interest, though I utterly reject this argument. But it cannot be argued that the Israeli occupation of the West Bank serves the American national interest. Should America subordinate its own interests to those of its land-hungry ally? A growing number of Americans think not – and some are prepared to say so publicly.

General David Petraeus, the head of Central Command, told the Senate armed services committee last week that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was a root cause of instability in the Middle East and Asia, and that it "foments anti-American sentiment due to a perception of US favouritism for Israel". In private, Joe Biden told the Israelis that their intransigence was undermining America's credibility with Arab and Muslim nations and endangering American lives in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Small wonder that the announcement of 1,600 new homes in East Jerusalem provoked such intense anger at all levels of the Obama administration. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu's apology related only to the timing and not to the substance of the announcement. Hillary Clinton, the Secretary of State, demanded the cancellation of the housing project, a substantial confidence-building measure towards the Palestinians, and a pledge to negotiate on all the core issues of the dispute, including the borders of a Palestinian state. Senator George Mitchell's visit to Israel was postponed.

President Obama correctly identified a total settlement freeze as an essential precondition for restarting the stalled peace talks between Palestinians and Israel, but he allowed Netanyahu to fob him off with a vague promise to exercise restraint for 10 months in building on the West Bank. The promise, however, did not apply to the 3,000 housing units that had already been approved or to East Jerusalem, which Israel had annexed following the June 1967 Six-Day War.

Netanyahu knows that the Palestinians will refuse to resume peace talks unless there is a complete freeze on Jewish house construction there. But he is an aggressive right-wing Jewish nationalist and proponent of the doctrine of permanent conflict. It is because of him and his ultra-nationalist coalition partners that there is no light at the end of the tunnel.

Obama has backed down once, but he is determined to face Netanyahu down this time. His best bet is to use economic leverage to force Netanyahu into meaningful negotiations with the Palestinians on a two-state solution. Even if the current crisis is resolved and the peace talks are resumed, they will go nowhere slowly unless President Obama makes American money and arms to Israel conditional on its heeding American advice.

Avi Shlaim, professor of international relations at the University of Oxford, is author of 'Israel and Palestine: Reappraisals, Revisions, Refutations'

U.S. TELLS ISRAEL: “YOU ARE UNDERMINING AMERICA, ENDANGERING TROOPS”

Gordon Duff

THE “SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP” IS DEAD

LEARN SOME OF THE “WHY” BEING KEPT FROM YOU

By Gordon Duff STAFF WRITER/Senior Editor

Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Clinton and Joint Chief’s Chairman Mike Mullen have all recently visited Israel on two issues, reliable information that Israel was planning an attack on Iran, a plan designed to push America into a war our leaders believe is both wrong and likely to risk a global nuclear confrontation with Russia and the building of a massive housing project on the Arab side of Jerusalem in violation of numerous agreements, a project that is likely to cause a spike in world terrorism and send thousands of new fighters to Afghanistan to face American forces there.

This is the worst point in the history of the relationship between the U.S. and Israel since the founding of that nation in 1948 but these are not the only reasons, not these and the arrogant and intractable attitude of Israel’s leaders nor being caught in lie after lie, lies told to their financial backer and closest ally, the United States. Here is some background on CENTOM Commander, General Petraeus’ shocking briefing:

On Jan. 16, two days after a killer earthquake hit Haiti, a team of senior military officers from the U.S. Central Command (responsible for overseeing American security interests in the Middle East), arrived at the Pentagon to brief Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Michael Mullen on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The team had been dispatched by CENTCOM commander Gen. David Petraeus to underline his growing worries at the lack of progress in resolving the issue. The 33-slide, 45-minute PowerPoint briefing stunned Mullen. The briefers reported that there was a growing perception among Arab leaders that the U.S. was incapable of standing up to Israel, that CENTCOM’s mostly Arab constituency was losing faith in American promises, that Israeli intransigence on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was jeopardizing U.S. standing in the region…

“Everywhere they went, the message was pretty humbling,” a Pentagon officer familiar with the briefing says. “America was not only viewed as weak, but its military posture in the region was eroding.” But Petraeus wasn’t finished: two days after the Mullen briefing, Petraeus sent a paper to the White House requesting that the West Bank and Gaza (which, with Israel, is a part of the European Command — or EUCOM), be made a part of his area of operations. The Mullen briefing and Petraeus’s request hit the White House like a bombshell… pressing Israel once again on the settlements issue, sending Mitchell on a visit to a number of Arab capitals and dispatching Mullen for a carefully arranged meeting with the chief of the Israeli General Staff, Lt. General Gabi Ashkenazi. … Certainly, it was thought, Israel would get the message.

Israel didn’t. When Vice President Joe Biden was embarrassed by an Israeli announcement that the Netanyahu government was building 1,600 new homes in East Jerusalem, the administration reacted. But no one was more outraged than Biden who, according to the Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth, engaged in a private, and angry, exchange with the Israeli Prime Minister:

“This is starting to get dangerous for us,” Biden reportedly told Netanyahu. “What you’re doing here undermines the security of our troops who are fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. That endangers us and it endangers regional peace.” Yedioth Ahronoth went on to report: “The vice president told his Israeli hosts that since many people in the Muslim world perceived a connection between Israel’s actions and US policy, any decision about construction that undermines Palestinian rights in East Jerusalem could have an impact on the personal safety of American troops fighting against Islamic terrorism.” The message couldn’t be plainer: Israel’s intransigence could cost American lives.

The deterioration started long before this and can be tracked by changing perceptions in the Obama administration whose leaders are heavily “pro-Israel” but lack the extremist convictions of the Zionist/extremist group that surrounded President Bush. When Obama took office, even Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, one of the most prominent Israeli proponents in the country, had become aware of the extent of Israeli involvement in areas that had taken the “special relationship” into an area of disaster for the United States. This is what was discovered:

• The military and intelligence organizations in the United States had been penetrated by Israel, not only through our normal broad partnership but the planting of “moles,” many from the Christian Zionist community who were taking direction from Israel and not the United States. The result wasn’t just limited to falsification of intelligence, both leading to endless phony terror alerts and non-existent enemies but to skewing operations in a manner to guarantee their failure with significant American cost in both lives and money.
• The massive spy network uncovered by Sibel Edmonds had been tracked, almost entirely to Israel. Edmonds had been silenced by National Security Letters issued by John Ashcroft, leading Christian Zionist in the Bush Administration and constant “private” visitor to Israel. After 6 years of spying at the highest levels of the White House, Department of State, Congress and the Pentagon, the network grew even more, accessing nearly all top US intelligence and selling it on the open market.
• Most disastrous of the stolen intelligence was the data on the new JSF, the F35 Joint Strike Fighter. All data on this new $300 billion dollar project fell into Israeli hands in 2008, information that may have turned the air superiority fighter meant to rule the skies for the next 30 years into a “target sled.” This is the biggest intelligence attack on the US since the Pollard/Israeli scandal. Pollard, an American Jew reputedly associated with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, stole America’s battle plans for the defense of NATO, our entire spy/surveillance network plans and full ultra-top secret detailed plans that could have negated America’s nuclear deterrent during the most dangerous times of the Cold War. Pollard’s information was sold to the Soviets by Israel, information that could have let Russia win World War III.
• The Israeli attack on Gaza was timed to an American change of administration and done without consultation. Broad intelligence sources indicate that the attacks were not in relatiation to any terrorist activity but are spoken of “behind closed doors” by top US officials as ethnic cleansing not unlike the issues that brought NATO into conflict with Serbia. The systematic nature of the attack, destroying water-treatment, schools, hospitals, food storage, power generation and the massive loss of life, especially among children, has soured many in the Obama camp on Israel
• Israel’s use of the Jewish lobby in the US to hold up President Obama’s domestic agenda and their use of Jewish controlled media to embarrass the President has caused more bitterness. With Jewish controlled/owned Fox, CNN (Wolf Blitzer, formerly of the Jerusalem Post), ABC, CBS, NBC networks and other major news sources all working in concert against, particularly President Obama’s health care initiative, Israel is seen as “flexing its muscle” even more. The believed rationale is the removal of all non-Jews from Israel, dead or alive, with a powerless US government paying the bills and fighting the massive terrorist backlash for generations.
• The Israeli agenda of working with India to destabilize Pakistan, organize terror attacks there and, less publicly known, in Afghanistan and Iraq, some against American targets, can no longer be ignored by the current administration, Secretary Gates, General’s Mullen and Petraeus. Israeli’s “dynamic duo,” Senators McCain and Lieberman, though still holding important committee assignments on the hill, are being held increasingly in disrepute in the United States. When Israel sends these two on errands, it no longer carries the weight and power of the United States as it had during the Bush administation.
• Re-examination of a number of terrorist attacks during the Bush administation, particularly in Europe, show a clear “Mossad footprint,” something adding credence to the hypothesis that the “war on terror” and intelligence failures in Iraq had been heavily influenced by Israeli sources, many of the same individuals tied to the Edmonds spy affair, many close to, not only Israel but President Bush and Vice President Cheney. Recently a secret El Al/Israel flight from JFK in New York has been discovered, a flight authorized by top Bush officials, one previously kept secret and now being tied covering up 9/11 intelligence failures. The El Al Boeing 747 left only hours after the 9/11 attack, at a time all air traffic in the United States was grounded.

With nearly all Arab/Muslim governments aligned behind the US, including a softening of tensions with Iran, Israel feels it must act quickly. However, the US no longer has any strategic requirement for a relationship with Israel. What had been seen as a potential ally, perhaps now wrongly so, in the region is now generally perceived as a “runaway train” that the United States can no longer go to the United Nations time after time to protect from sanctions, 32 times thus far. Israel clearly feels it has the United States “over a barrel” with control of media, a massive AIPAC lobby working against American policy and huge new financial influence over the upcoming Congressional elections handed over to them by the highly controversial 5/4 Supreme Court “free speech” election funding decision clearly meant to aid Israel further in her ability to intimidate Congress.

Unofficially, Israel has moved to the top of America’s “terrorist watch list” and is now drifting toward “evildoer” status, not only by the White House but, more broadly, through top defense officials who now perceive Israel as a threat to the United States.

Obama invites defiant Israeli PM for talks

US President Barack Obama on Sunday invited Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to meet him at the White House, even as the Israeli leader rebuffed a key US demand to halt settlement construction in east Jerusalem.

The invitation for the Tuesday meeting to discuss Middle East peace efforts was handed to Netanyahu by Obama's Middle East envoy George Mitchell at the start of a meeting Sunday, Netanyahu's office said.

Netanyahu, who has angered the US administration over Israeli settlement building in east Jerusalem, was due to leave for Washington later Sunday to meet US officials and Jewish leaders.

Earlier, Netanyahu vowed there would be no halt to settlement building in east Jerusalem but, in an apparent concession to the US, said Israel was willing to widen the scope of planned indirect talks with the Palestinians.

His comments on settlements were quickly denounced by Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas as unhelpful to attempts to restart talks. Abbas also condemned the recent killing of four Palestinians in the West Bank by Israeli forces.

"Our policy on Jerusalem is the same as all previous governments of Israel for the last 42 years, it has not changed," said Netanyahu, speaking ahead of Sunday's weekly cabinet meeting.

"As far as we are concerned building in Jerusalem is the same as building in Tel Aviv and this is something we have made very clear to the US administration," he said.

The hardline prime minister said he had spelled out his position in a letter to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who had demanded a series of Israeli steps to end a crisis over settlement-building in the Holy City.

Israel and the US have been at loggerheads for the past two weeks after the Jewish state announced plans to build 1,600 new homes for Jewish settlers in east Jerusalem during a visit by US Vice President Joe Biden.

Netanyahu's office said he had suggested "mutual confidence-building measures" that could be carried out by Israel and the Palestinians.

Netanyahu also said on Sunday that Israel had agreed that all issues could be discussed at planned indirect, or "proximity", talks that were delayed by the settlement row, reportedly another US demand.

"We have also made clear that in the proximity talks both sides can raise any issues that are in dispute," he said.

"But a real solution to the basic problems between us and the Palestinians can only be solved during direct talks and peace negotiations.

Netanyahu was to also meet later Sunday with UN chief Ban Ki-moon, who earlier toured the Gaza Strip where he slammed Israel for its blockade of the Hamas-ruled territory, saying it was causing "unacceptable suffering."

It was Ban's second visit to Gaza since the war that ended in January 2009 in which some 1,400 Palestinians were killed and thousands of houses were severely damaged or destroyed. Thirteen Israelis were killed in the conflict.

Mitchell, who arrived in the region on a visit originally set for last week, but postponed by the controversy, was also set to hold talks on Monday with Abbas, who had threatened to call off the resumption of indirect talks with Israel in protest at the settlement announcement.

Abbas's spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina said on Sunday "Netanyahu's declarations don't help the return to negotiations."

"The Israeli escalation and the killing of Palestinians on a daily basis is the actual response of the Israeli government to the Palestinians, the Arabs and to American (peace) efforts, and an answer to the Quartet's statement," Abu Rudeina said, quoting Abbas.

Meeting in Moscow on Friday, members of the Middle East peace Quartet -- the European Union, Russia, the United Nations and the United States -- came out with an ambitious prescription for getting moribund peace talks back on track.

They called on Israel to freeze all settlement activity, dismantle settlement outposts erected since March 2001 and stop house demolitions in annexed east Jerusalem.

The latest political manoeuvring came amid an uptick in violence in the occupied West Bank, where four Palestinians were killed in weekend clashes with Israeli soldiers, including two on Sunday who the military said were shot dead after they tried to stab a soldier.

Peace talks have been frozen since Israel's invasion of the Hamas-run Gaza Strip in December 2008.

Netanyahu to Ask Obama for Bunker Buster Bombs against Iran

politicaltheatrics

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will press the American administration during his upcoming visit to Washington to release sophisticated bunker-busting bombs needed for a possible strike on Iran’s nuclear sites, the Sunday Times reported in its website.

Netanyahu will leave for the United States on Sunday evening in order to attend a meeting of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). He is also expected to meet with senior administration officials.

In Washington, Netanyahu is scheduled to meet with Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. A meeting with President Barack Obama is in the works.

The Scotland Herald reported last week that hundreds of powerful US “bunker-buster” bombs were shipped from California to the British island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean in preparation for a possible attack on Iran.

The newspaper quoted a manifest from the US navy as saying that the shipment included 387 “Blu” bombs used for blasting hardened or underground structures.

Experts told the paper that the ammunition was being put in place for an assault on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Although Diego Garcia is part of the British Indian Ocean Territory, the Herald said, it is used by the US as a military base under an agreement made in 1971.

According to the newspaper, the preparations were being made by the US military, but it would be up to President Obama to make the final decision.

The London Weekly said that for the first time since Operation Cast Lead against Gaza, Israel has agreed to ease the blockade on the Strip, discuss all core issues during the proximity talks, with the condition of reaching final conclusions only in direct talks with the PA.

It added that Netanyahu will seek returns for the concessions, asking Washington to provide the IAF with the ‘bunker-buster’ bombs.

Without proof, Israel and the West accuse Iran of using its enrichment program to build a nuclear bomb, a charge Tehran firmly denies.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad issued on Saturday a Persian New Year’s address to Iranians, in which he said that Iran would resist Western pressure even more determinedly in the coming year.”

Notes/Sources:

The above article was written by Al Manar Staff;entitled: “Netanyahu to Ask Obama for Bunker Buster Bombs against Iran”.The article can be found on Al Manar.