Canadian students participate in Israeli Apartheid Week

in Canada

By Lydia Parafianowicz

Students at Carleton University and the University of Ottawa, and in over 40 cities internationally, will be participating in this week’s sixth-annual Israeli Apartheid Week, despite controversy surrounding the events.
Organizers of Israeli Apartheid Week say they are trying to support equality for Palestinians living in Israel. The week has been called discriminatory by groups such as the Institute for Global Jewish Affairs and Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies.

Progressive Conservative MPP Peter Shurman moved a Feb. 24 resolution in the Ontario legislature denouncing the event. It has been reported that Conservative MP Tim Uppal will be presenting a similar motion at the House of Commons this week.

While posters advertising the week have been taken down at Carleton University and the University of Ottawa, students are going ahead with scheduled events.

Student members of Palestinian Human Rights uOttawa and Students Against Israeli Apartheid-Carleton will be participating in at least one event every day during the week, including guest speaker events and a film screening. Many guest speakers are scheduled, including Dr. Jamal Zahalka, a member of the political leadership of Balad, the National Democratic Assembly of the Israeli parliament.

“[Israeli Apartheid Week] 2010 takes place following a year of incredible successes for the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement on the global level,” says the event’s website. “Lectures, films, and actions will highlight some of theses successes along with the many injustices that continue to make BDS so crucial in the battle to end Israeli Apartheid.”

A full schedule can be found at http://apartheidweek.org/ or http://carleton.saia.ca/iaw2010.html.
Source

Progressive Conservative MPP Peter Shurman moved a Feb. 24 resolution in the Ontario legislature denouncing the event. Conservative MP Tim Uppal will be presenting a similar motion at the House of Commons this week. Typical of the Conservative Government. Support those who oppress others.
Needless to say Israel is a major problem.

I guess they also forgot Israel used Canadian passports in an assassination attempt a few years back, among numerous other things as noted in link below. Nothing like a long list to make a person think. Assassinations are something that is common for Israelis. The world must not sit idley by and continue to support such horrendous acts of violence in which many innocent civilians also die as a result. Israel is by no means a victim.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also authorized the assassination of Khalid Mishal in 1997.

Mishal came to power largely as the result of a botched assassination attempt by seven Mossad agents in September 1997. Mossad used Canadian passports, some forged and some stolen from a Canadian embassy.

They are also attempting to take away Canadians freedom of speech. What the conservatives are attempting will do just that. Everyo9ne should protect their freedom of speech. Canada already has laws to cover hate etc, there is absolutely no need for more laws. This is just yet another way to silence people from speaking out or knowing the truth about what Israel does.

Don’t let you voice be silenced.

Even the press in Canada is not doing as well as it use to Back in 2002 Canada was number 5 on the list of Press Freedom it has dropped to down to 19 in 2009. Sad but true. Freedom of the press should be better from a so called free country. Canada is loosing ground. This new legislation if passed, will also affect the freedom of the press as well.

Israel: Attempting to take away Canadians Freedom of Speech

Organizations like, Camera, NGO Monitor, Honest Reporting and Jewish Internet Defense Force, to name a select few are all designed to remove your freedom of speech, as well as that of Charities, Human Rights orgs, the Press and anyone else they can.

Who's controlling the weather? (who's controlling YOU?)

HAARP: High Frequency Active Auroral Reasearch Program. Or perhaps better put; weather and mind control weapon.)

1) HAARP, Weather Control for the New World Order

2007: http://nwothesis.blogspot.com/2010/02/haarp-weather-control-weapon-nwo.html

"Robert Becker, twice nominated for the Nobel Prize [altho we know that doesn't mean much], and a specialist in electro-magnetic effects 'confirms that the symptoms mirror those you would expect to see had microwave weapons been deployed.'" [re experience of Greenham Common women's peace camp]

2) The US Military's secret agenda
just a little physics project?
2007: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkLTzesBxGE - part 1

Technical memorandum 195: several hundred papes of a "doesn't- exist" document
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zi1nLmlicxU - part 2

3) HAARP: Teller's starwars weapon
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPusHeDlBxQ

Bernard J Eastlund's public pattent "was titled 'a method and apparatus for altering a region of the world's atmosphere, ionosphere and magnetosphere.' "
"Patent 4686605 claims the following uses: cause total disruption of all forms of communications over a very large portion of the earth, missle or aircraft destruction, deflection or confusion, weather modification, by alering solar absorption. Also altering composition of the atmosphere. This patent was classified by the Navy under a national security order in 1987. ... "

"a scientist working for the army's defensive ballistic command complained to the House Government's Operation Committee [today within purview of the US House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform] that as much as half of the SDI budget had disappeared into the classified projects...

Report from Sunday and arrival in the United States

in Mazin Qumsiyeh

I just arrived in the US to give a series of talks on Palestine as part of the 6th International Israeli Apartheid Week www.apartheidweek.org (my schedule is below*). The day I left Palestine was a bizarre/strange day to say the least. The second Sunday in Beit Sahour to hold events to protest the increased military presence was to contain a land reclamation activity. The torrential rains put a damper on that option but lifted our spirits since it proclaimed a great planting and harvest season. In three days, we received over 85% of the total needed rainfall for the season!! Nothing like this happened here in over 15 years. But there was enough of a clearing that over 60 people gathered at Ush Ghrab. It included Dr. Moustafa Barghouthi and his supporters. Because we had originally planned no demonstration for this Sunday, we (the members of the popular committee in Beit Sahour) asked that they do not chant and that they fold their banners. Because there was no military, we decided to honor a request from our visitors and give them a quick tour of the military camp site. But just after we arrived at the top of the hill and were about to spend five minutes explaining the tumultuous history of this site, the Israeli soldiers came barreling up the hill in their military jeeps. Giving us five minutes to go back down and refusing to negotiate, things unfolded rather quickly. The soldiers threw about a dozen concussion grenades. Three young people from those who came from outside Beit Sahour tried to throw stones. I and two others tried to stop them. But before we knew it, tear gas and rubber-coated steel bullets were fired by the military. I went to my car, pulled out the bullhorn (which we did not intend to use since we were not planning a protest) and explained in no uncertain terms that we in Beit Sahour do not appreciate or welcome anyone who throws stones as we in the committee have agreed on only peaceful popular resistance. Within a few minutes, the crowds had dispersed and rain had resumed heavy so it ended. At a particularly tense moment, an Israeli intelligence officer walked up to me and stated simply “You are Mazin Qumsiyeh, you are going to try to leave to the US today, I advise you not to go!” It was a surreal moment to let threaten me and let me know that they are keeping taps. I simply answered that "what I do and don’t do is up to my conscience and the rest up to Allah." We continued with our plans and we think the rather harsh response to our presence foretells of the army's insecurity. Arriving to the US safely, I feel I am again in an occupied unsafe land where Zionists like Joseph Lieberman, Wolf Blitzer, and Alan Dershowitz need to be challenged just like our challenge to these Israeli soldiers. I am sure some of the local Israeli-apologists will be at my talks, and we will have opportunities to continue the dialogue. Before I give you my talk schedule though, I wanted to share to action calls.

Action call 1: From Playgrounds For Palestine

We are sending out this CALL TO ACTION to alert our supporters about a troubling development in the Oush Grab Peace Park, the site designated for a 2010 PfP playground installation.

The Israeli military is trying to implement a decision to confiscate community and privately held property belonging to the community and families in the Palestinian Christian town of Beit Sahour.

Included in this swath of land is the treasured Peace Park, which serves as a community space, park and recreational facility where Palestinian families gather daily and was to be the site of one of PfP's next playgrounds. We ask you to call and write to Israeli officials in order to protest this action, call upon them to stop the construction of the watchtower, prevent settlers from attacking the park, and cease any idea of building a settlement in the site.

Follow the link and enter zip for to contact local congressmen - http://www.congress.org/communicate

Call the Israeli ambassador 202 364 5500 or email info@washington.mfa.gov.il

Email the Consulate General of the US, Jerusalem - uscongenjerusalem@state.gov

Call the Israeli consulate in Philly 215 977 7600

Contact the Assistant Secretary of the Bureau of Near East Affairs - Jeffrey D Feltman 202 647 7209

---------------------

Action call 2: CALL TO ACTION!!

The Sheikh Jarrah Neighborhood Committee and Just Jerusalem call on you to join our struggle against the occupation of East Jerusalem. Please circulate this call and help organize solidarity protests throughout the world: WE WILL NOT BE STOPPED!

On Saturday March 6th please join us in our protest to stop the Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem. At 7:00 PM we will be holding a mass rally in Sheikh Jarrah against:
· The forced eviction of the Palestinian families from their homes in Sheikh Jarrah
· The Jewish settlement of East Jerusalem
· The undemocratic attack on political protest

50 Palestinians have already been evicted from their homes in Sheikh Jarrah. Another 500 are threatened. If the settlers and their government allies succeed, all Palestinians in East Jerusalem are threatened. If we stop them in Sheikh Jarrah, we can stop them elsewhere. We call on all groups who support the struggle for Palestinian rights and for a just and lasting peace for Israelis and Palestinian, to hold solidarity protest vigils on March 6 near Israeli consulates and embassies abroad.

The Sheikh Jarrah Neighborhood Committee
Just Jerusalem – the Israeli Coalition for a just solution in Jerusalem
For more information on the struggle see our blog: http://www.en.justjlm.org/
----------------------

*Tentative Schedule of Dr. Mazin Qumsiyeh in the US March 2nd: In Oradell, NJ Evening drive to Waltham, MA

March 3rd:

10:15 a.m.-12 p.m. meeting Anne Marie Codur at Northeastern

12-1:30 p.m. Northestern University Law School, Room Dockser 30, 400 Huntington Ave. Boston, MA

5-6:00 p.m. Brandeis University, Zinner Forum, 415 South Street, Waltham, MA “Palestinian life and struggle under Israeli occupation”

7-8:30 p.m. St. John's Methodist Church, Watertown, MA

March 4:

9:30-11:00 a.m. UMass, Boston, MA, Healey Library 11th floor (H11-0011B). 100 Morrissey Blvd., 617-287-5900 “Israeli Apartheid and Palestinian Non-violent Resistance”

2-3:30 p.m. Brown University, MacMillan Hall 117, 167 Thayer St, at Thayer and George Streets, Providence, RI

7-8:30 p.m. UUSIS (UU Church), 20 Forest Street, Stamford, CT “Peace is Possible: A Perspective on Israel & Palestine”

March 5: Driving, Stamford to Pittsburgh

7-8:30 p.m.First Unitarian Church of Pittsburgh, 605 Morewood Av., Pittsburgh, PA

March 9:

Driving, Pittsburgh to Oradell, NJ.

Evening in NYC attending Edward Said's daughter's play off Broadway, 83 East Fourth St, Manhattan.

March 10th:

11:30 a.m.-2 p.m. the Assembly Room, downstairs in the office of the AAUP/AFT (American Assoc. of University Professors), 11 Stone Street, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, Driving directions available at http://www.rutgersaaup.org/contactus.htm or by phoning Denise at (732) 964-1000, ext. 15

Evening leaving for Palestine

Professor Mazin Qumsiyeh (formerly of Yale and Duke universities) teaches at Bethlehem and Birzeit Universities in occupied Palestine and chairs the Palestinian Center for Rapprochement Between People. He is author of a number of books, including "Sharing the Land of Canaan: Human Rights and the Israeli-Palestinian Struggle" and the forthcoming "Hope and Empowerment: A history of Popular Resistance In Palestine". He will share with us his first-hand experience of living in a troubled land and discuss strategies for a peaceful resolution of the present conflict in the region. There will be ample time for questions and clarifications.

Mazin Qumsiyeh, PhD

A Bedouin in cyberspace, a villager at home

http://qumsiyeh.org

To be voted as US senator one must show first and foremost sufficient support to Israel!

in United States, United States Foreign Policy

In a dispute that commingles foreign policy and a quest for political advantage, U.S.-Israel relations have taken an unexpectedly central role in the California race for Senate.

Rivals in the race for the Republican nomination are questioning whether former Rep. Tom Campbell is sufficiently supportive of Israel. They base their criticisms on his voting record, statements about a Palestinian homeland and capital, and some of his past associates.

Their allegations have raised enough concerns for Campbell that he plans to meet Monday with the influential American Israel Public Affairs Committee. He also is reaching out to other Jewish leaders. His campaign's honorary chairman, former U.S. Secretary of State George P. Shultz, weighed in to call Campbell's support for the nation "unwavering."
"He clearly understands the very real threats facing the Israeli people, all the more urgent now as Iran rushes toward nuclear arms," Shultz said in a statement released to The Times. "Tom Campbell's record of action tells you where he stands, and I stand with him."

The two other major Republican primary contestants, former businesswoman Carly Fiorina and Orange County Assemblyman Chuck DeVore, have launched criticisms of Campbell. The rhetoric has grown so heated that a prominent supporter of Campbell's has accused Fiorina's campaign manager of calling Campbell an "anti-Semite." The campaign manager denies the accusation.

The debate over Campbell's Israel credentials, which has been roiling on Jewish and conservative websites, is a rare one in American politics, and even less frequent in Republican primaries compared with Democratic competitions, said Dan Schnur, director of the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics at USC and a former GOP political operative.

"Support for Israel is a pretty universal concept among Republicans," he said. "Support for Israel is a pretty broad-based concept in American politics."

But more than foreign policy appeared to be at play. Evangelical Christians have a strong affinity for the state of Israel, for political reasons and because they say support for it is emphasized in the Bible. For years surveys have shown evangelical support for Israel far outweighs that of the general population -- and evangelicals are a key bloc among Republican primary voters.

"The bigger concern for Campbell is less with Jewish voters than with religious conservatives," Schnur said.

The issue has sparked at least one dispute among prominent Republicans. Former California Secretary of State Bruce McPherson said in an interview that when he called Fiorina manager Marty Wilson to tell Wilson he planned to endorse Campbell, Wilson replied, "Bruce, how can you do that? He's an anti-Semite."

McPherson, who said he would have endorsed Fiorina if Campbell wasn't in the race, said he was stunned. He and Campbell have known each other for more than two decades, he said, and Campbell has never given any such indication.

"As a matter of fact, I know he's a strong supporter of the state of Israel," McPherson said.

Wilson denied making the comment. "That's not true, absolutely not," he said, adding that he does not believe Campbell is anti-Semitic. "That's crazy."

Wilson said he discussed the endorsement with McPherson but did not recall discussing Israel.

"It's uncharacteristic of Bruce to sit there and make that kind of a claim," Wilson said, adding that he had known McPherson for years.

Criticism of Campbell's voting record centers on efforts to reduce foreign aid for Israel. While in Congress, Campbell said, he supported military aid for Israel but twice sought to reduce economic aid. In the late 1990s, when foreign aid to other nations was being cut to help balance the budget, Israel's allocation was not affected. Campbell said he favored allowing the military aid to remain unchanged but supported slightly reducing economic aid.

A second instance occurred when he voted against giving Israel an additional $30 million in economic aid, which was to have been taken from funds set aside for the neediest nations, such as those in Africa. That money, he said, was on top of a $700-million aid request that he supported and an earlier $3-billion appropriation.

Campbell noted that he has traveled to various African nations to teach and has seen first-hand how much difference even a small amount of money could accomplish.

"I remember the mayor of a village in northern Malawi came out to thank us for a little water pump. It was probably under $50, and it allowed the water from the river to be brought to this area," Campbell said. "You don't forget things like that."

Campbell also drew criticism in the past for saying that Jerusalem should be the shared capital of both Israel and a Palestinian state. He said in the interview that he stands by that view.

His opponents also questioned Campbell's past associates, notably Sami Al-Arian, a former University of South Florida professor who pleaded guilty in 2006 to conspiring to help a terrorist organization. Al-Arian had donated $1,300 to Campbell's 2000 campaign for Senate. Campbell, who was the business school dean at UC Berkeley and now teaches at Chapman University, wrote a letter to the University of South Florida protesting its decision to fire Al-Arian over comments he made. He also visited Al-Arian's brother in jail.

Campbell said he did not know about Al-Arian's illegal activities at the time and said that if he had he would not have written the letter.

"None of that had come out," he said. Al-Arian was also photographed with George W. Bush during his first presidential campaign, Campbell noted.

Jewish leaders expressed confidence that Campbell is not anti-Semitic, but said he was not regarded as a "friend of Israel."

"He's a brilliant gentleman and an engaging personality, and I don't think he's particularly pro-Israel," said Rabbi Abraham Cooper, the associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, who has known Campbell since the 1980s. "I think there's enough there on the record that would send real alarms that this is someone who maybe doesn't fully understand, doesn't fully value or fully support a strong ongoing relationship with the state of Israel, an alliance with the state of Israel."

Campbell called his opponents' efforts to undermine his Israel record "unacceptable," and singled out Wilson's alleged comment to McPherson as "reckless and irresponsible."

"It's also personally hurtful," he added.

Comment: "My ardent desire is to keep the United States free from political connections with every other country, to see them independent of all and under the influence of none."
George Washington (Letter to Patrick Henry, October 9, 1795)

------

"America well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extraction, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force. She would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit."
John Quincy Adams (1767-1848) Address, July 4, 1821

Why Would Anyone Think It's Apartheid?

"During his visit two weeks ago to Israel, former Italian prime minister Massimo D'Alema hosted a small group of Israelis - public figures and former diplomats - to a dinner at a Jerusalem hotel.

The conversation quickly turned to the conciliatory interviews Prime Minister Ariel Sharon gave to the press for their Independence Day editions. One of the Israelis, of the type for whom it's second nature, no matter who is in government, to explain and defend Israeli policy, expressed full confidence in Sharon's peace rhetoric. He said the prime minister understands the solution to the conflict is the establishment of a Palestinian state beside Israel.

The former premier from the Italian left said that three or four years ago he had a long conversation with Sharon, who was in Rome for a brief visit. According to D'Alema, Sharon explained at length that the Bantustan model was the most appropriate solution to the conflict.

The defender of Israel quickly protested. "Surely that was your personal interpretation of what Sharon said."

D'Alema didn't give in. "No, sir, that is not interpretation. That is a precise quotation of your prime minister."

Supplementary evidence backing D'Alema's story can be found in an expensively produced brochure prepared for Tourism Minister Benny Elon, who is promoting a two-state solution - Israel and Jordan. Under the title "The Road to War: a tiny protectorate, overpopulated, carved up and demilitarized," the Moledet Party leader presents "the map of the Palestinian state, according to Sharon's proposal." Sharon's map is surprisingly similar to the plan for protectorates in South Africa in the early 1960s. Even the number of cantons is the same - 10 in the West Bank (and one more in Gaza). Dr. Alon Liel, a former Israeli ambassador to South Africa, notes that the South Africans only managed to create four of their 10 planned Bantustans.

The Bantustan model, says Liel, was the ugliest of all the tricks used to perpetuate the apartheid regime in most of South Africa's territory. By 1986, unrest in the Bantustans turned into ongoing rioting and terror, which descended into coups in the so-called independent regimes, and South African intervention. The minuscule support the Bantustan governments did enjoy evaporated, so by January 1994, they were finally dismantled and became integrated into the united South Africa of black majority rule.

No country recognized the Bantustans nor did any drop embargoes against South Africa. But veteran leaders of the black struggle against apartheid remember that business people from Israel and Taiwan were the only foreigners who developed business relations with the Bantustan governments. The permission given to the largest of the Bantustans, Bophutatswana, to open a diplomatic office in Tel Aviv infuriated American opponents of the apartheid regime, including Senator Ted Kennedy, and some of the Jewish congressmen of the time.

An Israeli who spent many years nurturing Israeli relations with Africa was also at the dinner hosted by the Italian prime minister. He said that whenever he happened to encounter Sharon, he would be interrogated at length about the history of the protectorates and their structures..."

-- Sharon's Bantustans are far from Copenhagen's hope, by Akiva Eldar; Ha'aretz, 13 May 2003.

"A new map of the West Bank, 40 years after its conquest by Israel in the Six Day War, gives the most definitive picture so far of a territory in which 2.5m Palestinians are confined to dozens of enclaves separated by Israeli roads, settlements, fences and military zones.

Produced by the United Nations’s Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs, it is based on extensive monitoring in the field combined with analysis of satellite imagery. It provides an overall picture officials say is even more comprehensive than charts drawn up by the Israeli military.

The impact of Israeli civilian and military infrastructure is to render 40 per cent of the territory, which is roughly the size of the US state of Delaware or the English county of Norfolk, off-limits to Palestinians.

The rest of the territory, including main centres such as Nablus and Jericho, is split into isolated spots. Movement between them is restricted by 450 roadblocks and 70 manned checkpoints.

The UN mapmakers focused on land set aside for Jewish settlements, roads reserved for settler access, the West Bank separation barrier, closed military areas and nature reserves.

What remains is an area of habitation remarkably close to territory set aside for the Palestinian population in Israeli security proposals dating back to postwar 1967..."

-- New UN map charts West Bank reality; Financial Times, 4 June 2007.

Credit - The map and boundary data relating to the former bantustans of apartheid South Africa are copyrighted by Flags Of The World web site, and should not be reproduced without this notice.

The radical babes of Gaza

Gaza Mom

I want another baby. I really do. Yassine-not so much.
But he may not have to worry-at least not if Martin Kramer has his way. The current fellow at Harvard’s Weatherhead Center for International Affairs has suggested I -and other Palestinian women from Gaza- should deliberately be stopped from having babies because chances are, they will be grow up to be radicals.
According to the Electronic Intifada, who first broke the story last week, Kramer offered this fasinating piece of solicited advice in the annual Herzliyah Conference in Israel earlier this month in which he called on “the West” to take measures to limit the births of Muslim Palestinians of Gaza and consider them a form of terrorism, or, as Kramer puts it, “extreme demographic armament”. He also praised the unconscionable Israeli siege for getting the ball rolling already and reducing the numbers of Palestinian babies there (see: infanticide; Gaza Diet). If your skin didn’t curl watching the audience clap at the end of that video, well, save your soul somehow.

Family Planning, the Martin Kramer way

Kramer’s argument: Gaza is a cauldron of crazy; there is already an excess of aimless young Muslim men loitering around and ~~many~~ ~~most~~ all of them will be extremists! Solution: they shouldn’t be born to start with. Like I said: brilliant!

How does he suggest they implement this ground-breaking plan? Stop providing “pro-natal subsidies” that encourage these births. Pro-natal subsidies, you might ask? Is that like pre-natal vitamins? Close, but spinal bifida or not, a baby is still a baby. Kramer is referring to food and humanitarian assistance for “Palestinians with refugee status”, who make up 70% of the Gaza Strip ( and of whom, I might add, 40% are already malnourished, and 80% rely on food hand-outs for survival).

Yes, you read that correctly. “In other words”, says MJ Rosenberg, Kramer seems to be saying “starve the Palestinians so they don’t have babies and…starving the babies so they don’t grow up.”

Lest an outraged public be all up in arms about…plagiarism, Kramer himself notes the idea is “not at all original”. Got THAT right…let’s see, where HAVE we heard this kind of chilling drivel before? Hmmm. Oh wait- the Nazis beat you to it! Except back then they called it Eugenics. Juan Cole contends it is a recycled form of Malthusianism.

Nice company you keep, Kramer. Way to hog the limelight.
One would think such unapologetic racism need not even warrant discussion. Ever the flag bearer of academic ~~iniquity~~ freedoms, Harvard disagrees.

This, despite the fact that Kramer’s ideas appears to meet the international legal definition of a call for genocide according to the Geneva Convention (which includes measures “intended to prevent births within” a specific “national, ethnic, racial or religious group.”).

Electronic Intifada founder Ali Abunimah spread the word about it, trying to force Harvard to take a stand, but instead they rushed to his defense.

“I wonder how long Mr. Kramer’s views would be tolerated if — all other things being equal — he were an Arab scholar who had called for Jews to be placed in a giant, sealed enclosure which virtually no one is allowed to leave and enter, and deprived of food and schooling for their children in order to reduce their birthrate?” Abunimah asked.

The ghastliness of it all was best summed up by an exchange between the mock Dan Halutz and Doron Almog to the real Martin Kramer on Twitter:

danhalutz RT @doronalmog: @DanHalutz Remember that time u, me, & @Martin_Kramer debated @Harvard over drinks on how to get rid of those superfluous Gazans? Good times

danhalutz @DoronAlmog Of course! @Martin_Kramer was all about the “pro-natal subsidies” and you just wanted to bulldoze those Gazans. Me, I like F16s

danhalutz @Martin_Kramer Dear Sir: I admire your brilliant ideas but fear ending pronatal subsidies will not eliminate superfluous Arabs fast enough.

danhalutz @Martin_Kramer: I say replace ‘pronatal’ subsidies with ‘pro-morbid’ ones: cluster bombs, white phosphorus, napalm. Let’s co-author a paper!

"500 Montreal artists against Israeli apartheid,"

Article of interest from the Israeli Ezine Occupation Magazine.

Ed Corrigan

A call from Montreal artists to support the international campaign for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions against Israeli apartheid…

Today, a broad spectrum of Montreal artists are standing in solidarity with the Palestinian struggle for freedom and supporting the growing international campaign for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against the Israeli state. Last winter, the Israeli state launched a violent military assault on the Palestinian people of the Gaza Strip, leaving over 1400 Palestinians dead, including over 300 children. Despite the official end of military operations, the blockade continues to this day, with devastating consequences for Gaza's residents.

Over 60 years from the beginning of the ongoing Palestinian Nakba (catastrophe) in 1948, in which hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were forced from historic Palestine through Israel`s creation, Montreal artists are united in solidarity with the Palestinian struggle for freedom and justice.

Montreal artists are now joining this international campaign to concretely protest the Israeli state's ongoing denial of the inalienable rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties, as stipulated in and protected by international law, as well as Israel`s ongoing occupation and colonization of the West Bank (including Jerusalem) and Gaza, which also constitutes a violation of international law and multiple United Nations resolutions.

Palestinian citizens face an entrenched system of racial discrimination and segregation, resembling the defeated apartheid system in South Africa. A matrix of Israeli-only roads, electrified fences, and over 500 military checkpoints and roadblocks erase freedom of movement for Palestinians. Israel's apartheid wall, which was condemned by the International Court of Justice in 2004, cuts through Palestinian lands, further annexing Palestinian territory and surrounding Palestinian communities with electrified barbed wire fences and a concrete barrier soaring eight meters high.

Gaza remains under siege. Israel continues to impose collective punishment on the 1.5 million Palestinians of Gaza, who still face chronic shortages of electricity, fuel, food and basic necessities as the campaign of military violence executed by the apartheid state of Israel endures. UN officials recently observed that the `situation has deteriorated into a full-fledged emergency because of the cut-off of vital supplies for Palestinians.` As a result of Israeli actions, Gaza has become a giant prison.

The global movement against Israeli apartheid, supported by a large majority of Palestinian civil society, is not targeted at individual Israelis but at Israeli institutions that are complicit in maintaining the multi-tiered Israeli system of oppression against the Palestinian people.

In fact, the Palestinian civil society BDS call, launched by over 170 Palestinian organisations in 2005, explicitly appeals to conscientious Israelis, urging them to support international efforts to bring about Israel`s compliance with international law and fundamental human rights, essential elements for a justice-based peace in the region. The present appeal is also rooted in an active engagement with many progressive Israeli artists and activists who are working on a daily basis for peace and justice while supporting the growing global movement in opposition to Israeli apartheid.

During the first and second intifadas, Israel invaded, ransacked, and even closed down cinemas, theatres and cultural centers in the occupied territories. These deliberate attempts to stifle the Palestinian cultural voice have failed and will continue to fail. Around the world, the call for BDS is growing and is strongly rooted in the historic international solidarity movement against apartheid in South Africa.

In keeping with Nelson Mandela's declaration that `our freedom [in South Africa] is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians,` we believe that international solidarity is critical to liberating Palestinians from Israeli colonialism and apartheid. This struggle will continue until all Palestinians are granted their basic human rights, including the right of return for all Palestinian refugees living in the Diaspora.

Today, a diverse array of artists in Montreal, from filmmakers, musicians and dancers to poets, authors and painters, are joining the international movement against Israeli apartheid. On the streets, in concert halls, in words and in song, we commit to fighting against apartheid and call upon all artists and cultural producers across the country and around the world to adopt a similar position in this global struggle.

To add your support to this letter or to present questions or suggestions please write to info@tadamon.ca

Full list of signatories is available at http://www.tadamon.ca/post/5824

“Barak: make peace with Palestinians or face apartheid,”

Article of interest on the Israel apartheid comparison.

Ed Corrigan

Excerpt: "Ehud Barak, Israel's defence minister, last night delivered an unusually blunt warning to his country that a failure to make peace with the Palestinians would leave either a state with no Jewish majority or an "apartheid" regime."

'If this bloc of millions of Palestinians cannot vote, that will be an apartheid state' –

Ehud Barak, Israel's defence minister, last night delivered an unusually blunt warning to his country that a failure to make peace with the Palestinians would leave either a state with no Jewish majority or an "apartheid" regime.

His stark language and the South African analogy might have been unthinkable for a senior Israeli figure only a few years ago and is a rare admission of the gravity of the deadlocked peace process.

There have been no formal negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians in more than a year, but Barak was speaking at a rare joint event with the Palestinian prime minister, Salam Fayyad, as part of an annual national security conference in the Israeli city of Herzliya. The pair shook hands and both were warmly applauded.

Barak, a former general and Israel's most decorated soldier, sought to appeal to Israelis on both right and left by saying a peace agreement with the Palestinians was the only way to secure Israel's future as a "Zionist, Jewish, democratic state".

"As long as in this territory west of the Jordan river there is only one political entity called Israel it is going to be either non-Jewish, or non-democratic," Barak said. "If this bloc of millions of Palestinians cannot vote, that will be an apartheid state."

He described Israel and the Palestinian territories as the historic "land of Israel" to which Israelis had a right.

"We have to demarcate a border within the land of Israel," he said.

"We have a linkage, we have a right, but the reality of standing on the stage of history in realistic terms requires us to pay attention to international constraints." Barak is in a delicate political position. He leads the Labour party, supposedly a centre-left movement, but accepted a position in a rightwing coalition under Binyamin Netanyahu, a decision that split his party.

Though Barak articulates a willingness for peace talks, he represents a government that has defied US and Palestinian calls for a full settlement freeze as a prelude to any negotiations. He was also defence minister during last year's Gaza war in which nearly 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis were killed.

The Herzliya conference has echoed Israeli concerns about growing international criticism, particularly in the year since Gaza. Barak himself alluded to the danger that Israel might lose legitimacy if no peace deal was forthcoming. "The pendulum of legitimacy is going to move gradually towards the other pole," he said.

He acknowledged that Washington was pushing the two sides towards "proximity talks" but said this was "only an initial stage" before any return to full negotiations.

Fayyad, who has a limited political following among Palestinians, called on Israel to stop settlement building in the occupied territories and to halt military incursions in Palestinian cities as a sign of seriousness about negotiations.

"Things have to begin to happen in order to give the suggestion that this occupation is going to end," he said. "That Palestinian state is supposed to emerge precisely where settlements are expanding." Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, has refused to start fresh negotiations with Israel unless settlement construction stops, in line with the 2003 US road map. Nearly 500,000 Jewish settlers live in east Jerusalem and the West Bank, even though settlements on occupied land are illegal under international law.

"How confident can we all be that once relaunched that political process is going to be able to deliver that which needs to be delivered, the permanent status issues and the key question of ending the occupation?" Fayyad asked.

Wolf Sightings At University of California

Desert Peace

Images ‘Copyleft’ by Carlos Latuff

I have always maintained that there is a difference between anti Semitism and anti zionism. As in most instances, the zionists disagree and pull the ‘anti Semitism Card’ out whenever it suits their needs. Their ‘cries’ are not unlike the boy who cried wolf…. one day the wolf just might come and no one will believe them. Below is the most recent example…..

Last week, Some 100 Arab students tried to disrupt a speech by Israeli Ambassador to the United States Michael Oren during a speech at the University of California in Irvine Monday.

Oren is currently touring the West Coast giving lectures, and decided to visit Irvine despite the fact that the local campus is considered hostile to Israel, and despite the high likelihood that there would be attempts to disrupt his speech.

Taken from THIS report including video

The above action was seen as anti Semitism by the local zionist community which resulted in them taking the following actions…

Bna’i Brith sends letter to university chancellor, expressing ‘deep dismay at the severe and persistent atmosphere of hatred and intimidation for Jewish students’

Last week, B’nai B’rith International President Dennis W. Glick and Executive Vice President Daniel S. Mariaschin have sent a letter to the chancellor of the University of California, Irvine, expressing “deep dismay at the severe and persistent anti-Semitic harassment experienced by Jewish students at the University of California, Irvine.”

The letter was sent following recent anti-Israel demonstrations at a campus appearance by Israel’s Ambassador to the United States Michael Oren, where students repeatedly disrupted his remarks. Such heated protests contribute to a persistent atmosphere of hatred and intimidation for Jewish students at the school, the Jewish group said.

B’nai B’rith also provided Chancellor Michael Drake a copy of the European Union Fundamental Rights Agency’s working definition of anti-Semitism that has been in worldwide use since 2005, in the hope it will be used to help students and faculty better understand and identify all forms of anti-Semitism. B’nai B’rith helped develop this description as an essential tool for educators, government officials, journalists, and others to understand contemporary manifestations of anti-Semitism.

Above is from THIS report

Where are the manifestations of anti Semitism? Do you see them??

America's Permanent War Agenda

in Stephen Lendman

by Stephen Lendman

Cartoon by Carlos Latuff

Post-9/11, Dick Cheney warned of wars that won't end in our lifetime. Former CIA Director James Woolsey said America "is engaged in World War IV, and it could continue for years....This fourth world war, I think, will last considerably longer than either World Wars I or II did for us." GHW Bush called it a "New World Order" in his September 11, 1990 address to a joint session of Congress as he prepared the public for Operation Desert Storm.The Pentagon called it the "long war" in its 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), what past administrations waged every year without exception since the republic's birth, at home and abroad. Obama is just the latest of America's warrior presidents that included Washington, Madison, Jackson, Lincoln, T. Roosevelt, Wilson, F. Roosevelt, Truman, Johnson, Nixon, Reagan, GHW Bush, Clinton, and GW Bush preceding him.

This article covers WW II and its aftermath history of imperial wars for unchallengeable global dominance throughout a period when America had and still has no enemies. Then why fight them? Read on.

Wars Without End

America glorifies wars in the name of peace, what historian Charles Beard (1874 - 1948) called "perpetual war for perpetual peace" in describing the Roosevelt and Truman administrations' foreign policies - what concerned the Federation of American Scientists when it catalogued about 200 post-1945 conflicts in which America was, and still is, the aggressor.

Historian Gore Vidal used Beard's phrase in titling his 2002 book, "Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace" and saying:

"our rulers for more than half a century have made sure that we are never to be told the truth about anything that our government has done to other people, not to mention our own."

In his 2002 book "Dreaming War," he compared GW Bush's imperial ambitions to WW II and the 1947 Truman Doctrine's pledge:

"To support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures."

It was to keep Greece and Turkey from going communist, but it applied globally and initiated America's National Security State strategy that included:

-- NATO in 1949 for offense, not defense;

-- NSC-68 against Soviet Russia in 1950 to "contain" what was called an enemy "unlike previous aspirants to hegemony....animated by a new fanatic faith, antithetical to our own (wishing to) impose its absolute authority over the rest of the world" at a time America was the only global superpower, the Soviet Union lay in ruins, threatened no one, and needed years to regain normality.

Then came:

-- Truman's instigated June 25, 1950 war after the DPRK retaliated in force following months of ROK provocations, what Americans call the Korean War, South Koreans the 6-2-5 War (meaning June 25), and the North its "fatherland liberation war" that left it in ruins, the South occupied to this day, and it was only the mid-century beginning as succeeding administrations continued an agenda for what's now called "full spectrum dominance" for global US hegemony.

It worried historian Harry Elmer Barnes (1889 - 1968) in his 1953 collection of leading historical revisionists' essays titled, "Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace: A Critical Examination of the Foreign Policy of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and It's Aftermath" in which he wrote in the preface:

"If trends continue as they have during the last fifteen years, we shall soon reach this point of no return, and can only anticipate interminable wars, disguised as noble gestures for peace. Such an era could only culminate in a third world war which might well, as Arnold J. Toynbee has suggested, leave only the pygmies in remote jungles, or even the apes and ants, to carry on 'the cultural traditions' of mankind."

He cited how America's "needless" entry into two world wars converted its pre-1914 dream "into a nightmare of fear, regimentation, destruction, insecurity, inflation, and ultimate insolvency." He debunked the cause and merits of WW I, "the folly of our entering it, and the disastrous results that followed." He cited "popular fictions" about WW II, the injustices to Germany and Austria that caused it, the war Roosevelt wanted early in the 1930s as captured Polish documents and the censored Forrestal Diaries confirmed.

Before it began, he wanted US neutrality legislation ended, then after September 1939, he dropped any pretense by supporting Britain and France and opposing peace efforts after Poland's defeat. His June 1940 "dagger in the back" address was a de facto act of war by beginning vast amounts of weapons and munitions shipments to Britain after Dunkirk, followed by the September 1940 (peacetime) Selective Service Act, the first in US history, in preparation for what close advisor Harry Hopkins told Churchill in January 1941 that:

"The President is determined that we shall win the war together. Make no mistake about it," followed by Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Harold Stark telling his fleet commanders that "The question of our entry into the war now seems to be when, and not whether."

Only a pretext was needed, first by trying and failing to provoke Germany, then deciding Japan would be attacked, whether or not it struck US ships, territory, or forces in the Pacific. In a July 4 radio broadcast, Roosevelt said:

"solemnly (understand) that the United States will never survive as a happy and fertile oasis of liberty surrounded by a cruel desert of dictatorship." Then his July 25 Executive Order froze Japanese assets, stating it was:

"....To prevent the use of the financial facilities of the United States in trade between Japan and the United States in ways harmful to national defense and American interests, to prevent the liquidation in the United States of assets obtained by duress or conquest, and to curb subversive activities in the United States."

Britain followed suit the next day, and Roosevelt nationalized the Philippines' armed forces "as Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States" with dominion over its Asian colony.

As early as 1937, he planned a naval blockade, but dropped the idea after an adverse reaction. It resurfaced in 1938 because he knew strangling Japan economically assured war.

Throughout his administration, from 1933 through late 1941, he spurned Japanese peace overtures that would have protected all American interests in the Pacific. By November 25, the final die was cast. America chose war, and on that day, War Secretary Henry Stimson wrote in his diary that it depended only on how to maneuver Japan to attack with the lowest number of US casualties.

Tokyo had no other recourse, knowing it couldn't win, but hoping for a negotiated settlement to solidify whatever Asian control it could retain. It failed, lost the war, and remains an occupied US vassal state.

In the late 1930s, Roosevelt encouraged a Japanese attack by stationing the Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor against the advice of two key admirals, James Richardson, Pacific Fleet commander and Harold Stark, Chief of Naval Operations until March 1942.

Selling arms to Japan's enemies and an embargo assured war, and US cable documentation confirmed it was coming. Breaking the Japanese code let Britain and Washington track its fleet from the Kurile Islands to its North Pacific refueling point en route to Pearl Harbor on or about December 7.

At a December 5 cabinet meeting, Navy Secretary Frank Knox said: "Well, you know Mr. President, we know where the Japanese fleet is?"

"Yes, I know," responded Roosevelt, saying "Well, you tell them what it is Frank," who explained where it was, where it was heading until Roosevelt interrupted adding that perfect information wasn't available in spite of navy reports confirming it in Pacific waters heading toward Hawaii. On December 6, officials awaited the attack until it came the next morning at 7:55AM Hawaii time.

It was a day of infamy and deceit, with Pearl Harbor's commander, Admiral HE Kimmel, denied crucial intelligence to let it proceed unimpeded, arouse public anger, and give FDR his war - one decoded Japanese messages showed they didn't want but Roosevelt gave them no choice.

Like other presidents, he lied the country into war against the wishes of 80% of the public, at a cost of millions of lives in both theaters, and a policy henceforth of perpetual wars for perpetual peace to achieve unchallengeable US dominance. In the modern era, FDR's foreign policy began it, leaving a bankrupted moral and political legacy active to this day.

Consider also what revisionist historians say about Lincoln - that he provoked the Fort Sumpter (in Charleston, SC harbor) attack and began the Civil War for economic reasons, not to end slavery.

Consider also that ordinary people and soldiers don't want war, just their leaders and commanders - to wit, Christmas 1914 during WW I when German and British troops stopped fighting, didn't know why they were doing it, then defied orders by fraternizing with each other for two weeks despite risking being court-martialed. Unable to stop them, their officers joined them in a celebratory pause that didn't stop another three years of carnage, millions of lost lives, and post-war policies that assured WW II.

The lesson is clear. All wars are immoral, unnecessary, and only happen when one side provokes the other for reasons unrelated to national security threats.

In his seminal book, "A Century of War," Gabriel Kolko called the 20th century:

"the bloodiest in all history. More than 170 million people were killed," 70% of whom in WW II were civilians, "mainly (from) the bombing of cities by Great Britain and America." There was nothing good about "the good war" nor any others.

In Kolko's later book "Another Century of War," he stressed how America contributes to much of the world's disorder through its interventions and as the world's largest arms producer and exporter. Post-WW II, the US became a global menace, today claiming "terrorism" as the main threat - a bogus fiction to justify militarism, perpetual wars heading the nation for moral, political and economic bankruptcy. According to Kolko:

"The way America's leaders are running the nation's foreign policy is not creating peace or security at home or stability abroad. The reverse is the case: its interventions have been counterproductive."

In his newest book, "The World in Crisis," Kolko believes that America's decline "began after the Korean War, was continued in relation to Cuba, and was greatly accelerated in Vietnam - but (GW Bush did) much to exacerbate it further." He also thinks:

-- US power is declining everywhere;

-- "the world is no longer dependent on its economic might" because other nations like China and India are growing and may some day equal or surpass America;

-- after the Soviet Union's collapse, "the absence of identifiable foes has been a disaster, leaving the US aimless - (so) it picks and chooses enemies: rag-tag Afghan tribesmen, Iraqis or all sorts, perhaps China, perhaps Russia....South American caudillos," whatever bogus ones can be invented for imperial wars, but the justification is wearing thin, and the burgeoning cost unsustainable.

The result is that America's "century of domination is now ending."

America's Permanent War Economy

It's how Seymour Melman (1917 - 2004) characterized it in his books and frequents writings on America's military-industrial complex. One of his last articles was titled "In the Grip of a Permanent War Economy (CounterPunch, March 15, 2003) in which he said:

"at the start of the twenty-first century, every major aspect of American life is being shaped by our Permanent War Economy." He then examined the horrific toll:

-- a de-industrialized nation, the result of decades of shifting production abroad leaving unions and communities "decimated;"

-- government financing and promoting "every kind of war industry and foreign investing by US firms;" war priorities take precedence over essential homeland needs;

-- America's "Permanent War Economy....has endured since the end of World War II....Since then the US has been at war - somewhere - every year, in Korea, Nicaragua, Vietnam, the Balkans, Afghanistan - all this to the accompaniment of shorter military forays in Africa, Chile, Grenada, Panama," and increasingly at home against its own people;

-- "how to make war" takes precedence over everything leaving no "public space....on how to improve the quality of our lives;"

-- "Shortages of housing have caused a swelling of the homeless population in every major city (because) State and city governments across the country have become trained to bend to the needs of the military....;" the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless (CCH) currently estimates over 21,000 are on city streets nightly, and during winter months it's dangerous;

-- the result is a nation of growing millions of poor, disadvantaged, uneducated, and "disconnected from society's mainstream, restless and unhappy, frustrated, angry, and sad;"

"State Capitalism" characterizes America's government - business partnership running a war economy for greater power and wealth at the expense of a nation in decline, corrupted leadership, lost industrialization, crumbling infrastructure, and suffering millions on their own, uncared for, unwanted, ignored, and forgotten.

Melman stressed that:

"Further evasion is out of order. We must come to grips with America's State Capitalism and its Permanent War Economy." Re-industrialization is essential "to restore jobs and production competence - industry by industry."

"Failing that, there is no hope for any constructive exit," for the nation or its people.

Dwight Eisenhower's January 17, 1961 Address to the Nation

It was his farewell address delivered 30 years to the day before Operation Desert Storm began in which he warned about the "military-industrial complex," citing the "grave implications" of a "coalition of the military and industrialists who profit by manufacturing arms and selling them to the government."

He stated "we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence....by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist."

He also said that:

"Every gun that is made, every war ship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, from those who are cold and not clothed," the result of what some analysts call the "iron triangle" of Congress, the Pentagon, and the defense industry that includes producers of sophisticated technology for digital age warfare of a kind Eisenhower never imagined.

In combination, they've addicted America to war, not for threats, but for the power and profits that result. In his book "The Political Economy of US Militarism," Professor Ismael Hossein-Zadeh refers to "parasitic military imperialism," consuming over 40% of the national tax revenue at the expense of unmet human needs.

Morality aside, it's not justified economically. It's wasteful, inefficient, comes at a great cost, and over time is ineffective and self-destructive.

"The control over huge amounts of national resources tends to lead to an undermining of democratic values, a perversion of republican principles and a reduction of civil freedoms, as well as to the political corruption at home and abroad." Moreover, "The constant need for international conflicts makes (America's) military imperialism....more dangerous than the imperial powers of the past."

It's made war-making a giant enterprise "not only for expansionism but, in fact, for the survival of this empire," yet consider the fallout Hossein-Zadeh examined in a July 10, 2007 article titled, "Parasitic Imperialism:"

-- the redistribution of income and resources to the wealthy;

-- the undermining of physical and human capital;

-- the nation's increased vulnerability to natural disasters;

-- economic and financial instability, the result of the growing national debt now totally out of control;

-- less foreign market potential for non-military ventures;

-- the undermining of civil liberties and democratic values; and

-- "foster(ing) a dependence on or addiction to military spending, and, therefore....a spiraling vicious circle of (unsustainable) war and militarism" that's sucking the nation into decline.

America's Post-WW II Imperial Grand Strategy

Post-WW II, America emerged as the world's sole superpower - economically, politically and militarily, given the war's toll on East Asia, Europe and Soviet Russia. In his book, "The Cold War and the New Imperialism," Professor Henry Heller examined it with emphasis on the Cold War, America's containment policy, and its efforts against leftist forces in support of fascist elements on the right at both state and local levels.

The Soviet Union controlled Eastern and Central Europe while Mao's War of Liberation defeated Chiang Kai-Shek Nationalists. Cold War confrontation followed. It pitted US imperialism against an opposing ideology, the aim being which side would triumph or could both co-exist peacefully and avoid conflict.

War was never an option given each side's nuclear strength under a policy of "mutually assured destruction (MAD)". In addition, post-Stalinist Russia began reforms and expanded its sphere of influence. It wasn't to destroy the West, but to co-exist equally. America and Soviet Russia only competed for developing country allies to keep them from the opposing camp, so neither would be dominated by the other or more vulnerable to being isolated, marginalized, or shut out from world markets and influence.

US Imperialism Post-WW II

James Petras and others have said behind every imperial war is a great lie, the more often repeated the more likely to be believed because ordinary people want peace, not conflict, so it's vital to convince them.

In the 1950s, the Eisenhower administration overthrew two popularly elected governments in Iran and Guatemala, and sought greater influence in Africa and Southeast Asia as anti-colonial movements gained strength.

On January 1, 1959 Fidel Castro's socialist revolution ousted the US-backed Batista dictatorship. He then survived America's failed 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion, but faced decades of US hostility, including an embargo, destabilization, intimidation, and hundreds of attempts to kill him, unsuccessful so Cuba is still free from US dominance, but hardly safe from its northern hegemon.

In the 1950s, America also backed French Southeast Asian imperialism until defeat at Dien Bien Phu drove them out. A repressive South Vietnamese client regime was established at the same time, supported by US military advisors teaching war and repression tactics. Unifying North and South elections were blocked, and direct intervention began in 1961. In 1958, Washington also subverted Laotian democracy and incited civil war. Cambodia as well was targeted but remained free.

Early in his administration, Kennedy intervened, but a new James Douglass book titled "JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters" says without conviction because he opposed using force. After the Joint Chiefs demanded troops for Laos, he told his Geneva Conference representative, Averell Harriman:

"Did you understand? I want a negotiated settlement in Laos. I don't want to put troops in."

He wouldn't agree to using nuclear weapons in Berlin and Southeast Asia and refused to bomb or invade Cuba during the 1962 missile crisis, saying afterwards that "I never had the slightest intention of doing so."

In June 1963 (a few months before his assassination), he called for the abolition of nuclear weapons, ending the Cold War, and moving forward for "general and complete disarmament." In October 1963, he signed National Security Action Memorandum (NSAM) 263 to withdraw 1,000 US forces from Vietnam by year end and all of them by 1965. He said he wanted "to splinter the CIA in a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds." He wanted peace, not conflicts. It cost him his life, and future presidents got the message.

Johnson resumed Southeast Asian escalation to establish client regimes and military bases across East and South Asia, encircle China, and crush nationalist anti-imperial movements. The Indochinese war engulfed Cambodia and Laos as well under Johnson and Nixon. It killed three to four million, inflicted vast amounts of destruction, caused incalculable human suffering, got America to sign a peace treaty in January 1973, but war continued until its clients were defeated in April 1975.

Prior to Reagan's election, the "Vietnam syndrome" and easing Cold War tensions and disarmament efforts alarmed militarists to fear defense spending cuts detrimental to profits. A propaganda campaign exaggerated bogus threats, manipulated intelligence to heighten fear, and got the Reagan administration to approve large military spending increases to confront "Soviet expansionism" at a time it was transitioning from Brezhnev, Andropov, and Chernenko to Gorbachev in 1985, followed by perestroika in 1986, glasnost in 1988, border openings and the Berlin Wall's collapse in 1989, then the Soviet Union's dissolution in 1991 - a new threat militarists feared would bring large, not to be tolerated, defense budgets cuts.

In the late 1980s, however, leading figures, including Henry Kissinger, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Samuel Huntington, and Albert Wohlstetter alleged Third World conflicts threatened US interests in the Middle East, Mediterranean, and Western Pacific, and recommended deterrence to stop them. Joint Chiefs Chairman Colin Powell and Defense Secretary Dick Cheney agreed. Others wanted large defense cuts for a peace dividend, including Johnson's DOD chief Robert McNamara who proposed reductions up to 50%.

Throughout the 1989 - 1999 period, mostly under Bill Clinton, US-instigated provocations, sanctions, and armed insurrections support involved America in 134 military operations according to the Federation of American Scientists. The most egregious was Clinton's bombing and dismemberment of Yugoslavia, an act playwright Harold Pinter called:

"barbaric" and despicable, "another blatant and brutal assertion of US power using NATO as its missile" to consolidate "American domination of Europe." Worse was yet to come with the election of George Bush, America's worst president in a country that never had a good one and never will as it's now governed.

Long before 9/11, Middle East restructuring plans were based on bogus terrorist, rogue state, and "clash of civilizations" threats by hordes of Islamofascists, including the Palestinian resistance, the Islamic Republic of Iran, and Saddam Hussein targeted in the 1990 - 91 Gulf War, followed by years of devastating sanctions, then ousted by GW Bush in 2003.

Iraq was destroyed, occupied and balkanized. Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran face similar threats, the common thread being dominating Eurasia through endless conflicts and increased military spending for war profiteering bounties. September 11 assured it, and got Michelle Ciarocca of the Arms Trade Resource Center, in September 2002 to say:

"The whole mind set of military spending changed on Sept. 11. The most fundamental thing about defense spending is that threats drive (it). It's now going to be easier to fund almost anything."

Hossein-Zadeh investigated the growing role of private contractors creating a "built-in propensity to war that makes the US military-industrial complex a menace to world peace and stability, a force of death and destruction," as virulent under Obama as George Bush.

The fallout includes a burgeoning national debt, loss of civil liberties and democratic freedoms, erosion of social services, collapse of the dollar, America already in decline, its coming loss of preeminence as a world power, its potential bankruptcy, perhaps demise in its present form. and the possibility of WW III.

America's Illegal Wars of Aggression - The "Supreme Crime"

All US post-WW II conflicts were premeditated wars of aggression against nations posing no threat to America -
what Justice Robert Jackson at Nuremberg called:

the "supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole."

Canadian Law Professor Michael Mandel explained America's guilt in his superb 2004 book, "How America Gets Away with Murder: Illegal Wars, Collateral Damage, and Crimes Against Humanity," his main theme being Jackson's Nuremberg "supreme crime" declaration, as relevant now as then.

Tragically, as Edward Herman observed in reviewing Mandel's book:

"The problem for the United States (and the world) has been that this country is now in the business of aggression and its commission of the "supreme crime" is standard policy, thereby bringing the "scourge of war" across the globe in direct violation of the UN charter."

Its Purposes and Principles state that:

"The Purposes of the United Nations are:

(1) To maintain international peace and security, and to that end: to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace, and to bring by peaceful means, and in conformity with the principles of justice and international law, adjustment or settlement of international disputes or situations which might lead to a breach of the peace."

Conspiratorially with NATO and Israel, America willfully and repeatedly violates international and US laws, punishes its victims, absolves itself, and since WW II has directly or indirectly murdered millions of people globally, mostly civilian non-combatants.

Barack Obama - America's New Warrior President

America glorifies conflicts and the righteousness of waging them, packaged as liberating ones for democracy, freedom, justice, and the best of all possible worlds. Obama is just the latest in a long line of warrior leaders promising peace by waging war, justifying them by bogus threats, and calling pacifism unpatriotic to further an imperial agenda for greater wealth, power, and unchallengeable global dominance.

In opposition to his announced Afghanistan surge, peace activists gathered across from the White House on December 12 for an "Emergency Anti-Escalation Rally" organized by "End US Wars"- a new coalition of grassroots anti-war organizations.

Speakers included Kathy Kelly, David Swanson, Granny D (age 100 on January 24, 2010) former Senator Mike Gravel (1969 - 1981), and former Representative and 2008 Green Party presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney, among others.

This writer was asked to prepare a short commentary to be read to the crowd. Updated, it's reproduced below:

Obama's Permanent War Strategy

Disingenuously calling Afghanistan a "war of necessity, not choice," Obama ordered 30,000 more troops deployed over the next six months with perhaps many more to follow. In one of his most defining decisions, he's more than doubled the force count since taking office, angered a majority in the country, and continues his permanent war agenda while calling himself a man of peace.

Next target, Yemen, and its newest, occupied Haiti for plunder, exploitation, and very likely killing unwanted Haitians by neglect, starvation, disease, and face-to-face confrontations if they resist.

As a candidate, Obama campaigned against imperial militarism, promised limited escalation only, and pledged to remove all combat troops from Iraq by August 31, 2010. That was then. This is now, and consider what he has in mind - the permanent occupation of Iraq, Afghanistan and more.

Besides the Afghan escalation, he's also destabilizing Pakistan to balkanize both countries, weakening them to control the Caspian Sea's oil and gas riches and their energy routes to secured ports for export. The strategy includes encircling Russia, China, and Iran, obstructing their solidarity and cohesion, defusing a feared geopolitical alliance, weakening the Iranian government, perhaps attacking its nuclear sites, eliminating Israel's main regional rival, and securing unchallenged Eurasian dominance over this resource rich part of the world that includes China, Russia, the Middle East, and Indian subcontinent.

Like George Bush, Obama plans permanent war and more military spending than all other nations combined at a time America has no enemies. He promised change and betrayed us. Grassroots activism must stop this madness and make America a nation again to be proud of. The alternative is too grim to imagine.

Over 50 years ago, Bertrand Russell (1872 - 1970) warned:

"Shall we put an end to the human race, or shall mankind renounce war" and live in peace, because we have no other choice.

Stephen Lendman is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization. He lives in Chicago and can be reached
at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

http://lendmennews.progressiveradionetwork.org/

More details emerge on assassination of Hamas leader in Dubai

By Ann Talbot

More details are emerging on the murder of Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, who was killed in Dubai on January 20 in what is widely thought to be an Israeli security service operation.

Dubai Police Chief Dahi Khalfan Tamim claims to be "99 percent, if not 100 percent" certain that Mossad, the Israeli secret service organisation, was responsible for the assassination.The authorities in Dubai have now identified 26 people whom they allege were involved in the assassination. They are said to have carried fake passports in the names of British, Irish, French, Australian and German citizens. It is reported that 12 British, six Irish, three French, one German and three Australian passports were used.

Closed circuit television cameras have allowed the assassins’ movements to be traced through the airport and hotel as they made their way to Mabhouh’s room. Phone calls to a number in Vienna have been tracked, and credit cards linked to what was clearly a highly organised team.

Robert Baer, a former CIA operative, commented in the Wall Street Journal on the number of people involved: "The truth is that Mr. Mabhouh’s assassination was conducted according to the book—a military operation in which the environment is completely controlled by the assassins. At least 25 people are needed to carry off something like this."

Bruce Reidel, a former CIA agent who is now at the Brookings Institution in Washington DC, told the BBC:

"This most likely was a Mossad operation. All the signatures—European passports, the way the team moved quickly to leave the country—cumulatively paint a pretty convincing case."

"What the Dubai authorities are uncovering now is not just the assassination team, but probably the entire Mossad station," Reidel continued. "Dubai would be a perfect place to carry out not just a one-off operation, but a long-term one against Iran."

A retired operative for Mossad’s undercover operations division known as Michael Ross told the BBC, "It would be disingenuous to say Israel wasn’t involved in some fashion."

But he pointed to international aspects of the assassination, saying, "I think there are more aspects and international players involved in this case than are visible to the naked eye."

One of the international aspects is the use of credit cards by many of the latest suspects from the same small Iowa-based Meta Bank. Ross regards the use of a US bank as "very odd."

He suggests that Mossad may not have expected the Dubai authorities to investigate the murder of Mabhouh thoroughly because they would not wish to upset the Emirate’s close relations with the West.

Britain, France, Germany and Australia have protested at the use of their passports in the assassination of Mabhouh. But there are suggestions that foreign governments and security services may have known more about the plot than they are willing to admit.

Allegations that Mossad warned Britain in advance have surfaced in the UK-based Daily Mail. The paper claims to have been told that the British Foreign Office and MI6 were informed about the operation before it took place. What the newspaper describes as "a British security source" claims to have met a Mossad agent who spoke of a "courtesy call" prior to the assassination.

The Daily Mail continues: "This is a serving member of Israeli intelligence. He says the British Government was told very, very briefly before the operation what was going to happen. There was no British involvement and they didn’t know the name of the target. But they were told these people were travelling on UK passports."

According to the Daily Mail report, Mossad understood that the Foreign Office would have to "slap them on the wrist," and that "The British government has to be seen to be going through the motions."

A Foreign Office spokeswoman denied the report and claimed that the British government was informed about the use of fake British passports only hours before the Dubai police announced it at a press conference. "Any suggestion that we knew anything about the murder in Dubai before it happened, including about the misuse of British passports, is completely untrue," she said.

"Any interference with British passports is an outrage," Foreign Secretary David Miliband declared. "We take this case extremely seriously—the integrity of our system is critical."

He vowed to "get to the bottom" of the affair and has demanded that the Israeli authorities cooperate fully with the UK investigation.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown has announced an inquiry into the use of British passports, and police officers from the Serious Organised Crime Agency have been sent to Israel to interview the UK citizens whose documents were cloned.

Israel’s ambassador, Ron Prosor, was invited to attend a meeting at the Foreign Office. He emerged after a 20 minute session with Sir Peter Ricketts, head of the diplomatic service, in relaxed mood. Prosor said he was happy to cooperate with Sir Peter’s request for a meeting, but added, "I was unable to shed any further light on the events in question."

He refused to say what was discussed, telling reporters that it was "not the usual way to talk about what happens in those meetings."

Miliband also refused to reveal what was said. He told the BBC’s Jeremy Vine, "It’s very, very important that we don’t make accusations until we know that they’re well founded."

Miliband was one of a number of foreign ministers who met with Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman in Brussels. Irish Foreign Minister Micheál Martin was said to be "very angry" about the use of Irish passports. Martin spoke of his "deep concern."

Dr. Zion Evrony, the Israeli ambassador to Ireland, was called for talks at the foreign ministry, but said that he had "no information" about the affair.

The French foreign ministry was said to be "demanding explanations" from the Israeli embassy.

Andreas Michaelis, Germany’s Middle East envoy, held a meeting with Emmanuel Nahshon, a counsellor at the Israeli embassy in Berlin. German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said, "I believe it is imperative to explain the circumstances surrounding the death of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh."

Lieberman’s response to the protests from EU countries was to claim that Israel was being made into a scapegoat. "There is no proof that Israel is involved in this affair, and if somebody had presented any proof, aside from press stories, we would have reacted," Lieberman said. "But since there are no concrete elements, there is no need to react."

Lieberman is fully aware that relations are continuing normally beneath the public protests. Miliband has happily accepted an invitation to attend a reception at the recently refurbished Israeli embassy in London.

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has protested at the use of Australian passports. He said that he was not satisfied with the Israeli response. But he cautioned that Australia must "proceed very carefully" in the matter because of "very complex security and intelligence matters."

In reality, the use of Australian passports by the Israeli security services is not new. Ian Wilcocks, the former Australian ambassador to Israel, said that during the 1990s he twice warned Israeli foreign ministry officials not to forge Australian passports for intelligence operations.

Mossad agents have been caught using Canadian and New Zealand passports in the past.

The governments involved may express their shock and anger, but the practice is one of long standing. Their protests are strictly for the record.

Whether or not the countries whose passports were used in the Dubai operation were warned in advance, they are well aware of Mossad’s record in these matters. The Israeli government has a well established practice of using assassination as a political weapon.

Israel has always operated in close association with the US. This latest assassination was an integral part of the US campaign in the Middle East and beyond. Robert Baer, who was himself once accused of trying to assassinate Saddam Hussein, put the assassination of Mabhouh in an international context.

He said, "The CIA has fired an untold number of Hellfire missiles at Al Qaeda and Taliban operatives in the mountains between Pakistan and Afghanistan… In addition to the intended targets, thousands of other people have been killed."

All those countries whose passports have been used in the murder of Mabhouh have been involved in the US-led "war on terror" and are therefore implicated in countless numbers of deaths.

Frank Barat

March 1, 2010

Today, the first session of the Russell Tribunal on Palestine (RTP) will be held in Barcelona. The RTP is a peoples' tribunal focusing not on Israel's obligations under international humanitarian law (IHL) such as the Fourth Geneva Convention, but on the obligations of the international community of signatory states which sustain and enable Israel's continuous violations of international law.

Israel has violated more than 60 UN resolutions and countless legal and diplomatic calls to abide by international law in relation to the expansion of illegal settlements, denial of the right of return and the continuing occupation of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip and the Syrian Golan Heights. Dozens of reports, investigations and inquiries have produced evidence of alleged Israeli war crimes and crimes against humanity, including massacres, collective punishment, home demolitions and extrajudicial killings on a cyclical scale over the past 62 years.

In 2004, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued an advisory opinion finding Israel's wall in the West Bank illegal and contrary to international law. The opinion was the key tenet of a 54-page document covering illegal settlements, the appropriation of natural resources and Israel's violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention over the past 40 years, and reminded that IHL signatory states had an obligation "not to recognize the illegal situation resulting from the construction of the wall and not to render aid or assistance in maintaining the situation created by such construction" and "to ensure compliance by Israel with international humanitarian law as embodied in that Convention."

The ruling sparked hopes in the Palestinian community and international solidarity movements that finally, not only had Israeli violations been legally judged but that the responsibilities of the states which enable Israeli impunity to continue would be put to the test. Six years and 500 kilometers of wall on, the continued construction of the wall casts a shadow over international law.

Or does it?

The RTP is an independent initiative which intends to generate a public literacy in international law and the possibilities for the rule of law if respected to dismantle and disempower the reproduction of the occupation as a military, cultural and economic movement.

Israel is an international entity, kept afloat not just financially and politically by international state partners and supporters, but "legally" by the continued legitimization of illegal acts and "facts on the ground" by these states. Israel's most important market is not economic or military -- it is the market of legitimacy, the permission it receives to normalize crimes against humanity to its own citizens and the international community. This can only happen with the complicity of non-IHL compliant states. The RTP is a way of publicly pointing the finger at these states and mobilizing public opinion towards holding them accountable for the ongoing human rights violations in Palestine.

The RTP is composed of four sessions. The first in Barcelona from 1-3 March, focuses on establishing whether the European Union as an entity has fulfilled its obligations under international law. At the end of 2010, a London session will scrutinize the complicity of corporations in normalizing and perpetuating Israel's violations of international law as well as labor rights in Palestine/Israel. In mid-2011, a session in South Africa will examine the applicability of the crime of apartheid in the context of Israel. The final session will be held in the United States in late 2011 and will analyze the role of the US within the United Nations and decision-making processes on issues of violating international law.

The RTP is not a talking shop. For too long Israel has been the focus of international campaigning as if it alone is responsible for the oppression of the Palestinian people, and as if it has been acting alone. The RTP is about making the links between the crimes committed on the ground in Palestine and their international sponsors. If we want to popularize the notion of "normalization" of the occupation as a key obstacle to a just peace, then understanding how this "normalization" operates on an international legal level in the corridors of Washington, Brussels and London, as well as Tel Aviv, is a vital part of challenging it.

As Israeli think tanks and lobby groups bemoan the rise of "delegitimization" of Israel on a popular level within Europe, the actual, pragmatic delegitimization of Israeli criminal policies is still unrealized and unimplemented by countries that have not just the means but the obligations to do this. The RTP contributes to the growing movement for boycott, divestment and sanctions by popularizing the facts behind the arguments for why states have a responsibility to implement sanctions against Israel, and for companies to withdraw from illegal projects and for the public to boycott Israeli institutions, goods and the normalization of apartheid.

The Geneva Conventions were created and agreed upon by the countries of the world in 1949, under popular pressure, as the legal means to ensure that crimes against humanity committed around the world during the Second World War would never happen again. The principles and tenets of these laws are being violated by Israel continuously. These laws stem from liberation struggles and sacrifices of movements in the past, and are on our side, the side of the people. We can use these laws as guides to build the conditions for genuine justice and universal human rights, and a world based on solidarity and equality.

Frank Barat is coordinator of the Russell Tribunal on Palestine (http://www.russelltribunalonpalestine.com). A live streaming of the session can be viewed here: http://www.bcnsolidaria.tv/tv/ and a list of jury members as well as experts and witnesses participating in the tribunal is available for download (PDF)

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