New BBC Scandal and a video

Israel will not be a Jewish state, video - Gilad Atzmon 

A video made by Morris Herman

http://www.gilad.co.uk/writings/israel-will-not-be-a-jewish-state-video-gilad-atzmon.html 

Well Done Frankie Boyle!!! By Gilad Atzmon

Scottish hero comedian Frankie Boyle has accused the BBC Trust of cowardly behaviour.

Boyle published an open letter describing the situation in Palestine as "in essence, apartheid" and lamenting the fact that the BBC was "now cravenly afraid of giving offence and vulnerable to any kind of well-drilled lobbying".

Back in 2008 Boyle made an astute joke on BBC's Radio 4 programme Political Animal. "I've been studying Israeli army martial arts. I now know 16 ways to kick a Palestinian woman in the back. People think that the Middle East is very complex but I have an analogy that sums it up quite well. If you imagine that Palestine is a big cake, well … that cake is being punched to pieces by a very angry Jew."

Click to read more ...

http://www.gilad.co.uk/writings/well-done-frankie-boyle-by-gilad-atzmon.html 

Playing peace to target Iran

Obama needs Palestine merely to pursue his scheme to isolate Iran, says Khaled Amayreh cynically in occupied JerusalemDesperate to achieve progress of any kind on the Israeli- Palestinian track, the Obama administration is pressuring, even bullying the weak and vulnerable Palestinian Authority (PA) to agree, at least in principle, to an Israeli proposal that would see the creation of a Palestinian "state" on some 60 per cent of the West Bank.

However, such an entity as proposed by the Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in recent talks with US officials, would be devoid of any semblance of sovereignty and conspicuously lacking control of its borders, which would be temporary in any case and tightly controlled by Israel.

Israel reportedly ensured the American administration that negotiations over the fate of the remaining 40 per cent of the occupied territories, including East Jerusalem and land located west of the Apartheid Wall, would ensure the creation of a viable mini- Palestinian state.

The Palestinian leadership in Ramallah, utterly desperate and confused as to the best approach to adopt, fears that Israel is only trying to trick the Palestinians (and the Americans) into accepting a vague arrangement that would eventually enable Israel to arrogate up to half of the West Bank under the rubric of a cumulative peace process and Palestinian statehood.

For its part, the Obama administration's representative George Mitchell has been holding several rounds of inconclusive talks with Israeli and Palestinian leaders. It seems desperate and determined to achieve something that would help isolate Iran and also enhance the Democratic Party's chances in the next Congressional elections in November.

The administration officials have been arguing that the resolution of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is of the utmost importance to American interests and affects US global strategic standing.

However, these statements are being interpreted by many experts as part of the administration's posturing to resist mounting pressure by pro-Israeli groups, including Congress. Congress is widely considered another "Israeli occupied territory" and is strongly trying to undercut President Obama's efforts to get Israel to freeze settlement expansion in the West Bank and East Jerusalem which is widely seen as a sin-qua-non for a successful peace process, let alone for the conclusion of a final peace agreement.

An expression of Abbas's confusion and desperation loomed large this week when he admitted that he had asked the US to "impose a solution on the sides". The admission is very telling since it presumed that Abbas believed that an American-imposed solution would be somewhat evenhanded.

Speaking in Ramallah before a meeting of Fatah's Revolutionary Council, Abbas said: "We've asked the American administration more than once to impose a solution."

Abbas said he would reject the creation of a Palestinian state with temporary borders. "The Palestinians were being asked to take a state with temporary borders on 40 or 50 per cent of the West Bank and then they [the Israelis] tell us 'we will see what comes up next.'"

Meanwhile, Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad continued to promise the Palestinians, even in a euphoric way, that a state would be born around this time next year with or without agreement with Israel.

Speaking at a conference "The Present and Future of Jerusalem" at Al-Quds University in Abu Dis on 26 April, Fayyad said Palestinian statehood was already a de facto reality and that the international community would soon come to the conclusion that a formal recognition of that reality was inescapable.

"Without a Palestinian state on the basis of the 1967 borders, there can be no stability or security in this region. The creation of a Palestinian state is not only a Palestinian interest, but is also an Israeli and world interest," Fayyad told Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) officials and a group of Palestinian intellectuals and academics present at the conference.

However, a few hours later, Abbas was quoted as saying that the PA wouldn't declare Palestinian statehood without Israeli consent. "We stand by agreements. We will not declare Palestinian state unilaterally."

The Palestinian leader, who was being interviewed by the Israeli TV Channel-10, said he was extending his hand in peace to the Israeli people, saying that he was willing to work with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.

He also added that he would be willing to return to the negotiating table next month, saying he hoped to get Arab League approval for the proposed proximity talks.

Nonetheless, Abbas is unlikely to obtain Arab League approval for speedy but nearly unconditional talks with the Netanyahu government if only because such talks had been tried before ad nauseam but to no avail.

Abbas had been vowing not to resume talks with Israel unless the Jewish state froze settlement expansion in occupied East Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank.

According to Arab sources in Damascus and Cairo, the 22-state body, which is struggling to overcome an erstwhile notorious image of incompetence and reconstruct a more positive image, will reject any unconditional resumption of talks with Israel in the absence of guarantees regarding halting Jewish settlement expansion in the West Bank, including Jerusalem.

The League's Monitoring Committee, which is entrusted with following up on the Arab Peace Initiative, is expected to meet next week in order to vote on the proposal.

Despite repeated assertions rejecting a state with temporary borders, the Palestinian leadership in Ramallah is still reluctant to say a clear-cut no to the Americans, calculating that the Obama administration represents a rare opportunity that must not be allowed to be wasted or missed, and that it would be politically inexpedient for the overall Palestinian cause to reject outright the latest American proposals.

Indeed, it is likely that it was in this context that Abbas had asked the Obama administration to impose a solution on the sides.

There are those who are profoundly convinced that the extremist government of Binyamin Netanyahu is only prevaricating and playing tactics with both the Obama administration and the PA leadership.

One PA official present at the Al-Quds University conference described Mitchell's talks with PA officials in Ramallah as "a tedious repetition of the same old platitudes about the beauty of peace and need to restart talks."

"The Americans, unable or reluctant to pressure Israel, are trying to pressure us, given the fact that we are the weaker party. They think that the key to isolate Iran in the current standoff with the West lies in far-reaching Palestinian concessions to Israel on cardinal issues such as Jerusalem and the refugees. And I want to tell you something. Even if all Arab states say yes for such concessions, we, the mother of the child, will say a clarion no because this is our land, our future."

The official, who demanded that his name not be mentioned, said the bulk of the PA leadership was fully aware of "Netanyahu's tricks, deception, mendacity and stalling tactics".

"Netanyahu wants to gain more time to create more irreversible facts in Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank, and the Americans have come to think that we are merely obsessed with the symbol of statehood, even at the expense of losing Jerusalem and one third of the West Bank, in addition to the right of return for the refugees. Well, all I can tell you is that they are dreaming if they think that we will succumb to their designs and wishful thinking."

Needless to say, the Palestinian official's scepticism is more than justified. Netanyahu, while telling Mitchell and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that he is willing to conduct "frank and honest discussion" over all core issues, has been telling settlers, leaders and his own coalition partners that there is no way Israel would leave any part of Jerusalem to the Palestinians and that settlements west and east of the Annexation Wall would continue to grow irrespective of the peace process with the Palestinians.

Do you have it in you to pass the Iran Quiz?

By Jeffrey Rudolph

What can possibly justify the relentless U.S. diplomatic (and mainstream media) assault on Iran ?

It cannot be argued that Iran is an aggressive state that is dangerous to its neighbors, as facts do not support this claim. It cannot be relevant that Iran adheres to Islamic fundamentalism, has a flawed democracy and denies women full western-style civil rights, as Saudi Arabia is more fundamentalist, far less democratic and more oppressive of women, yet it is a U.S. ally. It cannot be relevant that Iran has, over the years, had a nuclear research program, and is most likely pursuing the capacity to develop nuclear weapons, as Pakistan, India, Israel and other states are nuclear powers yet remain U.S. allies—indeed, Israel deceived the U.S. while developing its nuclear program.

The answer to the above-posed question is fairly obvious: Iran must be punished for leaving the orbit of U.S. control. Since the Islamic Revolution in 1979, when the Shah was removed, Iran, unlike, say, Saudi Arabia, acts independently and thus compromises U.S. power in two ways: i) Defiance of U.S. dictates affects the U.S.'s attainment of goals linked to Iran; and, ii) Defiance of U.S. dictates establishes a “bad” example for other countries that may wish to pursue an independent course. The Shah could commit any number of abuses—widespread torture, for example—yet his loyalty to the U.S. exempted him from American condemnation—yet not from the condemnation of the bulk of Iranians who brought him down.
The following quiz is an attempt to introduce more balance into the mainstream discussion of Iran.

Iran Quiz Questions :

1. Is Iran an Arab country?

2. Has Iran launched an aggressive war of conquest against another country since 1900?

3. How many known cases of an Iranian suicide-bomber have there been from 1989 to 2007?

4. What was Iran 's defense spending in 2008?

5. What was the U.S. 's defense spending in 2008?

6. What is the Jewish population of Iran ?

7. Which Iranian leader said the following? “This [ Israel 's] Occupation regime over Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time.”

8. True of False: Iranian television presented a serial sympathetic to Jews during the Holocaust that coincided with President Ahmadinejad's first term.

9. What percentage of students entering university in Iran is female?

10. What percentage of the Iranian population attends Friday prayers?

11. True or False: Iran has formally consented to the Arab League's 2002 peace initiative with Israel.

12. Which two countries were responsible for orchestrating the 1953 overthrow of Iran's populist government of democratically elected prime minister Mohammad Mossadegh, primarily because he introduced legislation that led to the nationalization of Iranian oil?

13. Who made the following address on March 17, 2000? “In 1953 the United States played a significant role in orchestrating the overthrow of Iran's popular prime minister, Mohammad Mossadegh. The Eisenhower administration believed its actions were justified for strategic reasons. But the coup was clearly a setback for Iran's political development. And it is easy to see now why many Iranians continue to resent this intervention by America in their internal affairs.”

14. Which countries trained the Shah's brutal internal security service, SAVAK?

15. Does Iran have nuclear weapons?

16. Is Iran a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)?

17. Is Israel a signatory of the NPT?

18. Does the NPT permit a signatory to pursue a nuclear program?

19. Who wrote the following in 2004? "Wherever U.S forces go, nuclear weapons go with them or can be made to follow in short order. The world has witnessed how the United States attacked Iraq for, as it turned out, no reason at all. Had the Iranians not tried to build nuclear weapons, they would be crazy. Though Iran is ruled by Islamic fundamentalists, most commentators who are familiar with the country do not regard its government as irrational. ...  [I]t was Saddam Hussein who attacked Iran, not the other way around; since then Iran has been no more aggressive than most countries are. For all their talk of opposition to Israel , Iran 's rulers are very unlikely to mount a nuclear attack on a country that is widely believed to have what it takes to wipe them off the map. Chemical or other attacks are also unlikely, given the meager results that may be expected and the retaliation that would almost certainly follow.”

20. What percentage of Iranians in 2008 said they had an unfavorable view of the American people?

21. What percentage of Iranians in 2008 expressed negative sentiments toward the Bush administration?

22. What were the main elements of Iran's 2003 Proposal to the U.S., communicated during the build-up to the Iraq invasion, and how did the U.S. respond to Iran's Proposal?

23. True or False: Iran and the U.S. both considered the Taleban to be an enemy after the 9/11 attacks.

24. Did the U.S. work with the Tehran-based Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq both before and after the 2003 invasion and occupation of Iraq?

25. In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, who said the following? "The Iranians had real contacts with important players in Afghanistan and were prepared to use their influence in constructive ways in coordination with the United States ."

26. Who wrote the following in 2004? “It is in the interests of the United States to engage selectively with Iran to promote regional stability, dissuade Iran from pursuing nuclear weapons, preserve reliable energy supplies, reduce the threat of terror, and address the ‘democracy deficit' that pervades the Middle East …”

Iran Quiz Answers :

1. No. Alone among the Middle Eastern peoples conquered by the Arabs, the Iranians did not lose their language or their identity. Ethnic Persians make up 60 percent of modern Iran, modern Persian (not Arabic) is the official language, Iran is not a member of the Arab League, and the majority of Iranians are Shiite Muslims while most Arabs are Sunni Muslims. Accordingly, based on language, ancestry and religion, Iran is not an Arab country. ( http://www.slate.com/id/1008394/ )

2. No.
-According to Juan Cole, the Richard P. Mitchell Collegiate Professor of History at the University of Michigan, Iran has not launched such a war for at least 150 years. ( Juan Cole; Engaging the Muslim World; Palgrave Macmillan; New York: 2009; p.199.)
-It should be appreciated that Iran did not start the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s: “ The war began when Iraq invaded Iran, launching a simultaneous invasion by air and land into Iranian territory on 22 September 1980 following a long history of border disputes, and fears of Shia insurgency among Iraq's long-suppressed Shia majority influenced by the Iranian Revolution. Iraq was also aiming to replace Iran as the dominant Persian Gulf state.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Iraq_War)

3. Zero. There is not a single known instance of an Iranian suicide-bomber since the end of the Iran-Iraq War in 1988. ( Robert Baer; The Devil We Know: Dealing with the New Iranian Superpower; Crown Publishers; New York: 2008.)
-According to Baer, an American author and a former CIA field officer assigned to the Middle East, it is important to understand that Iran has used suicide bombers as the ultimate “smart bomb.” In fact there is little difference between a suicide-bomber and a marine who rushes a machine-gun nest to meet his certain death. Therefore, while Iran had used suicide bombers for tactical military purposes, Sunni extremists use suicide bombing for vague objectives such as to weaken the enemy or purify the state.

4. $9.6 billion. ( http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article25279.htm )

5. $692 billion. ( http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article25279.htm )
-There is also little doubt that Israel could defeat Iran in a conventional war in mere hours. ( Juan Cole; Engaging the Muslim World; Palgrave Macmillan; New York: 2009; p p.206-7.)

6. 25,000. It is one of the many paradoxes of the Islamic Republic of Iran that this anti-Israeli country supports by far the largest Jewish population of any Muslim country. After the 1979 Islamic revolution, thousands of Jews left for Israel, Western Europe or the U.S., fearing persecution. But Ayatollah Khomeini, Iran's first post-revolutionary supreme leader, issued a fatwa, upon his return from exile in Paris, decreeing that the Jews and other religious minorities were to be protected, thus reducing the outflow of Iran's Jews to a trickle. ( http://www.sephardicstudies.org/iran.html )

7. Ruhollah Khomeini. ( Juan Cole; Engaging the Muslim World; Palgrave Macmillan; New York : 2009; p.201.)
-This wasn't a surprising statement to come from the leader of the 1979 Revolution as Israel had been a firm ally of both the U.S. and the Shah.
-According to Cole, Ahmadinejad quoted this statement in 2005 yet wire service translators rendered Khomeini's statement into English as “Israel must be wiped off the face of the map.” Yet, Khomeini had referred to the occupation regime not Israel , and while he expressed a wish for the regime to go away he didn't threaten to go after Israel . In fact, a regime can vanish without any outside attacks, as happened to the Shah's regime in Iran and to the USSR. It is notable that when Khomeini made the statement in the 1980s, there was no international outcry. In fact, in the early 1980s, Khomeini supplied Israel with petroleum in return for American spare parts for the American-supplied Iranian arsenal. As both Israel and Iran considered Saddam's Iraq a serious enemy, they had a tacit alliance against Iraq during the first phase of the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s. It should also be noted that Ahmadinejad subsequently stated he didn't want to kill any Jews but rather he wants a one-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict. While Ahmadinejad's preferred solution is a non-starter, Israel 's refusal to pursue a comprehensive peace creates space for Arab hardliners whose agendas do not include a realistic peace with Israel .

8. True. Iranian television ran a widely watched serial on the Holocaust, Zero Degree Turn , based on true accounts of the role Iranian diplomats in Europe played in rescuing thousands of Jews in WWII.
( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJljqWQAqCI&feature=related )

9. Over 60%. ( M. Axworthy; A History of Iran : Empire of the Mind; Basic Books; New York : 2008.)
-In fact, many women—even married women—have professional jobs.

10. 1.4%. ( M. Axworthy; A History of Iran : Empire of the Mind; Basic Books; New York : 2008.)

11. True. In March 2002, the Arab League summit in Beirut unanimously put forth a peace initiative that commits it not just to recognize Israel but also to establish normal relations once Israel implements the international consensus for a comprehensive peace—which includes Israel withdrawing from the occupied territories and a just settlement of the Palestinian refugee crisis. (This peace initiative has been subsequently reaffirmed including at the March 2009 Arab League summit at Doha.) All 57 members of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, including Iran , "adopted the Arab peace initiative to resolve the issue of Palestine and the Middle East ... and decided to use all possible means in order to explain and clarify the full implications of this initiative and win international support for its implementation." ( Norman G. Finkelstein; This Time We Went Too Far: Truth and Consequences of the Gaza Invasion; OR Books; New York : 2010; p. 42.)

12. The U.S. and Britain . ( Stephen Kinzer; All The Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror; John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; New Jersey: 2008.)
-According to Kinzer, Iranians had been complaining that the British-owned Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC) had not been sharing profits on Iranian petroleum with Iran fairly; and Iran's parliament (Majles) had tried to renegotiate with the AIOC. When the AIOC rejected renegotiation, Mossadegh introduced the nationalization act in 1951. In response, Britain and the U.S. organized a global boycott of Iran which sent the Iranian economy into a tailspin. Later, the military coup was orchestrated that reinstalled the shah. (One irony is that Britain itself had nationalized several industries in the 1940s and 1950s.)

13. Madeleine Albright: U.S. Secretary of State , 1997 -2001. ( Stephen Kinzer; All The Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror; John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; New Jersey : 2008; p.212.)

14. According to William Blum, a highly respected author and journalist, "The notorious Iranian security service, SAVAK, which employed torture routinely, was created under the guidance of the CIA and Israel in the 1950s. According to a former CIA analyst on Iran, Jesse J. Leaf, SAVAK was instructed in torture techniques by the Agency. After the 1979 revolution, the Iranians found CIA film made for SAVAK on how to torture women." (http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Blum/Torture_RS.html)
-According to Reed College Professor Darius Rejali, one of the world's leading writers on the subject of torture and the consequences of its use for modern society, “[T]he Iranian revolution of 1978-1979 was the revolution against torture. When the Shah criticized Khomayni as a blackrobed Islamic medieval throwback, Khomayni replied, look who is talking, the man who tortures. This was powerful rhetoric for recruiting people, then as it is now. People joined the revolutionary opposition because of the Shah's brutality, and they remembered who installed him. If anyone wants to know why Iranians hated the U.S. so, all they have to do is ask what America 's role was in promoting torture in Iran . Torture not only shaped the revolution, it was the factor that has deeply poisoned the relationship of Iran with the West. So why trust the West again? And the Iranian leadership doesn't.” ( http://www.harpers.org/archive/2008/02/hbc-90002387 )

15. No.
-"We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons
program …” “ We judge with high confidence that Iran will not be technically capable of producing and reprocessing enough plutonium for a weapon before about 2015.” ( U.S. National Intelligence Estimate Iran: Nuclear Intentions and Capabilities November 2007
http://www.dni.gov/press_releases/20071203_release.pdf )
-According to U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency Chief Lt. Gen. Ronald Burgess, "The bottom line assessments of the [National Intelligence Estimate] still hold true, " … We have not seen indication that the government has made the decision to move ahead with the [nuclear weapons] program." (http://www.globalsecuritynewswire.org/gsn/nw_20100115_1438.php)

16. Yes. ( http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/04/18/world/AP-ML-Iran.html )

17. No. ( http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/04/18/world/AP-ML-Iran.html )

18. Yes.
-According to Juan Cole, The NPT specifies that “Nothing in this Treaty shall be interpreted as affecting the inalienable right of all the Parties to the Treaty to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes without discrimination.” Therefore, as long as Iran meets its responsibilities under the NPT and continues to allow inspections by the IAEA, it is acting within its rights. The sorts of research facilities maintained by Iran are common in industrialized countries. The real issue is trust and transparency rather than purely one of technology. Yet, Iran has not always been forthcoming in fulfilling its obligations under the NPT.
The Ford administration of the mid-1970s produced a memo saying that the shah's regime must “prepare against the time … when Iranian oil production is expected to decline sharply.” Iran 's energy reserves are extensive, so that fear was misplaced. But Iran already uses domestically 2 million of the 4 million barrels a day it produces, and it could well cease being an exporter and even become a net importer in the relatively near future. (This helps explain Iran's focus on nuclear energy. Yet, the desire for nuclear weapons isn't irrational either.) Ford authorized a plutonium reprocessing plant for Iran , which could have allowed it to close the fuel cycle, a step toward producing a bomb.

In the 1970s, GE and Westinghouse won contracts to build eight nuclear reactors in Iran . The shah intimated that Iran would seek nuclear weapons, without facing any adverse consequences beyond some reprimands from the U.S. or Western Europe . In contrast, Khomeini was horrified by the idea of using weapons of mass destruction, and he declined to deploy chemical weapons at the front in the Iran-Iraq War, even though Saddam had no such compunctions and extensively used mustard gas and sarin on Iranian troops. ( Juan Cole; Engaging the Muslim World; Palgrave Macmillan; New York: 2009)

19. Martin van Creveld: Distinguished professor of military history and strategy at Hebrew University in Jerusalem . ( http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/21/opinion/21iht-edcreveld_ed3_.html )
-It should not be surprising that Creveld would deem it rational for Iran to want nuclear weapons. "For more than half a century, Britain and the US have menaced Iran . In 1953, the CIA and MI6 overthrew the democratic government of Mohammed Mossadegh, an inspired nationalist who believed that Iranian oil belonged to Iran . They installed the venal shah and, through a monstrous creation called SAVAK, built one of the most vicious police states of the modern era. The Islamic revolution in 1979 was inevitable and very nasty, yet it was not monolithic and, through popular pressure and movement from within the elite, Iran has begun to open to the outside world – in spite of having sustained an invasion by Saddam Hussein, who was encouraged and backed by the US and Britain.

At the same time, Iran has lived with the real threat of an Israeli attack, possibly with nuclear weapons, about which the ‘international community' has remained silent.” ( http://www.antiwar.com/orig/pilger.php?articleid=8533 )

20. 20%. ( Juan Cole; Engaging The Muslim World; Palgrave Macmillan; New York : 2009; p.197.)

21. 75%. ( Juan Cole; Engaging the Muslim World; Palgrave Macmillan; ( New York : 2009); p.197.)
-One wonders what the percentage of Canadians—or Americans—held the same view?

22. According to the Washington Post, “Just after the lightning takeover of Baghdad by U.S. forces … an unusual two-page document spewed out of a fax machine at the Near East bureau of the State Department. It was a proposal from Iran for a broad dialogue with the United States , and the fax suggested everything was on the table -- including full cooperation on nuclear programs, acceptance of Israel and the termination of Iranian support for Palestinian militant groups. But top Bush administration officials, convinced the Iranian government was on the verge of collapse, belittled the initiative. Instead, they formally complained to the Swiss ambassador who had sent the fax with a cover letter certifying it as a genuine proposal supported by key power centers in Iran …” ( http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/17/AR2006061700727_pf.html )

23. True. According to Ali M. Ansari, Professor of Iranian history at the University of St. Andrews, “[K]hatami, moved quickly to offer his condolences to the US President [after the 9/11 attacks]. … [T]he Iranians soon recognized the opportunity that now confronted them. The United States was determined to dismantle Al Qaeda, and in the face of Taleban obstinacy decided on the removal of the Taleban. Nothing could be more amenable to the Iranians, who had been waging a proxy war against the Taleban for the better part of five years. … The collaboration which took place both during and after the war against the Taleban seemed to inaugurate a period of détente between Iran and the United States … It came as something of a shock therefore to discover that President Bush had decided to label Iran part of the ‘Axis of Evil' … Now it appeared that the [Iranian] hardliners within the regime had been correct after all; the United States could not be trusted …” ( Ali M. Ansari; Modern Iran: The Pahlavis and After Second Edition; Pearson Education; Great Britain: 2007; pp. 331-332.)

24. Yes. ( http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/how_bush_created_a_theocracy_in_iraq )
-One wonders what the Bush administration thought the party name entailed? Would it have been unreasonable to assume it had good relations with Iran and might support an Islamic Revolution?
-In 2007, the party, showing good public relations, changed its name to the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq .

25. Flynt Leverett: Senior director for Middle East affairs in the U.S. National Security Council from March 2002 to March 2003. He left the George W. Bush Administration and government service in 2003 because of disagreements about Middle East policy and the conduct of the war on terror. ( http://www.antiwar.com/orig/porter.php?articleid=8590 )

26. A task force sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations and chaired by two prominent members of the American foreign policy establishment, former CIA director Robert Gates and former national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, recommended “a revised strategic approach to Iran.” Their report included the above statement. (http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2005/mar/24/clouds-over-iran/?pagination=false )
Jeffrey Rudolph, a college professor in Montreal, was the Quebec representative of the East Timor Alert Network, and presented a paper on its behalf at the United Nations. Source
Did you know

Mississippi in US calls on Iran for help with primary health care system

Palestinians need real freedom, not a deformed state

Commentary by Khalid Amayreh

Day after day, it is becoming amply clear that the Palestinian Authority (PA) regime in Ramallah is implicated in the gradual implementation of conspiratorial designs devised by the U.S. and Israel and aimed at liquidating the Palestinian national cause.

Today, the United States is belatedly discovering that its protracted dark embrace of Israeli apartheid which is morphing itself in many respects into a sort of home-grown Nazism, is costing America dearly in terms of its reputation and vast geopolitical interests in the Muslim world.

This is obviously what has prompted some American officials to remark that resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a vital U.S. strategic interest.

In the meantime, it is equally obvious that in order for Washington to maintain Israel as the undisputed military master of the region, the U.S. would have to enlist the support and unhesitating backing of most if not all of the Arab world behind the current American crusade against Iran.

But in order to do the job successfully, the U.S. must at least appear to be carrying out genuine efforts to get the Arab-Israeli "peace process" moving, even if only seemingly.

In short, we are witnessing another affronting replay of the deceptive American tactics that we had witnessed in the early 1990s when then US Secretary of State James Baker convinced certain Arab states to back the war on Iraq in return for pressuring Israel to give up the spoils of the 1967 war.

Eventually, the mostly gullible Arab regimes obliged, and Israel remained quiet for a while, while Zionist efforts to arrogate more and more Arab land in the West Bank continued unabated.

Today, the same stupidity, same gullibility and probably same treachery as well are being played out as the American-funded PA is reacting nearly euphorically to manifestly false American promises about pressuring Israel to end its Nazi-like occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

First of all, it is highly unlikely that a U.S. administration that has been utterly unable to force Israel to stop demolishing even a single Arab home at the Sheikh Jarrah or Silwan neighborhoods will be able to force Israel to end the occupation and give up the spoils of the 1967 war.

Indeed, it is almost a foregone conclusion that for purely domestic American factors, the Obama administration will be neither able nor willing to do what it takes to end the chronic stalemate in occupied Palestine, namely forcing Israel to return to the pre-1967 borderlines.

The American political environment is simply too Zionized and too infested with and prostituted by virulent Zionist influence that a pro-active and genuine American effort to control the Zionist devil is simply unlikely and unexpected, at least in the foreseeable future.

Yes, we might very well hear some un-classical remarks from this or that American official about endangerment to American national interests in the Middle East and beyond as a result of Israeli policies. But these remarks, music to some naïve Arab ears, are utterly unlikely to lead to any substantive change in the basic American embrace of Israeli Nazism.

The US realizes too well that the Palestinian issue is not and won't soon be a first-degree preoccupation for most if not all tyrannical Arab regimes whose ultimate strategic goal is to remain in power for as long as possible. Just look how Mubarak, the emperor of Egypt, is striving to please the Americans, even at the expense of impoverishing, humiliating and even murdering his own people.

And since the US is the ultimate "power broker" in the region, at least as far as these corrupt and decadent despots are concerned, the US is likely to continue pursuing the same whoring policy, namely keep the regimes in power in return for getting them to pay little or no attention to what Israel is doing to Palestine and its people.

Now, it is not only the hypocritical Arabs that are harrowing after the American mirage, the increasingly disconcerted PA is also jumping out of its skin to laude the disingenuous American efforts as if Obama were ushering the Second Advent of Christ.

I think the PA is being deceived and tricked. First of all, the eyes of the U.S. are being focused on Iran, not the Palestinian issue which is only being used to isolate Iran by depriving it of a credible "propaganda asset" or "red herring" that help divert attention from the Iranian nuclear program, as the Americans seem to think.

Yes, Iran , and nothing else, is the driving and main motive behind accelerated U.S. efforts to woo states such as Syria and also to induce false euphoria in occupied Palestine similar to that which was fostered prior and after the Madrid Peace Conference in 1991 when frustrated but utterly gullible Palestinian rabbles were duped to break their own olive trees into shreds in order to hoist olive branches on the hoods of Israeli military jeeps and armored vehicles that didn't hesitate to shoot them.!!

Today, some Palestinians are acting very much like a whore during the Holy Month of Ramadan, as the adage goes. They are so desperate that they want to see a state, even, a deformed or hollow one, established and recognized by the West as if such a brat would finally come up with a magical solution for all Palestinian ills.

The Obama administration reportedly has privately promised PA leader Mahmoud Abbas a state within two years. Well, this joke reminds me of a Quranic verse about Satan and his false promises. "Like Satan when he said to man: Disbelieve, but when man disbelieved, Satan said: I am surely clear of you; surely I fear God, the Lord of the worlds" (suratul Hashr-59-16).

How many times do we have to remind ourselves of the utter worthlessness of American pledges and promises?

They promised to protect our people in Lebanon, following the withdrawal of PLO forces from there in 1982, and the result was a genocidal slaughterhouse for our helpless refugees in Sabra and Shatila, at the hands of the Nazis of our time, the very people who continue to cry "Auschwitz, Bergen Belsen, holocaust, gas chambers, suicide bombing" at any gesture of dissatisfaction directed at Israel while indulging themselves in actions befitting the Gestapo, SS and the Wehrmacht.

George W. Bush, the former Fuhrer of Washington, promised us a state in 2005 and 2006, but his promises eventually landed in the dustbin of history. This is the man who invaded, occupied and destroyed two Muslim countries and killed, or caused the death, of millions of innocent people because "God told me to do it."

And then came the hapless "roadmap" or more correctly "lie-map" which promised us a breakthrough. However, instead of ending the occupation, the roadmap saw a phenomenal expansion of Jewish-only settlements on the very land that is meant to be home for a future Palestinian state.

And now we are being affronted with another scheme, another deception, and another lie while our leaders are mistaking their gullibility and stupidity for statesmanship and brinkmanship.

Well, has it not occurred to them that the thoroughly savaged Palestinians won't accept anything less than real freedom after all these years of brutalization, humiliation and homelessness?

Has it not occurred to them that the state being promised by Hillary Clinton is actually a whore of a state, a brat as deformed as the international order that allows Israel commit every conceivable crime under the sun with impunity thanks to American protection?

Well, let me be clear. The "state" we are being offered is a state that is not worth the name; it is a state without the bulk of Jerusalem, without the repatriation of the refugees, but with most of these satanic settlements and settlers remaining in place, a perpetual thorn in our side.

It is a state that would be made up of territorially discontinuous cantons whereby traveling from one canton to the other would have to be okayed by the ultimate master, Israel.

It is a state that has no real sovereignty or authority and certainly not a modicum of dignity. It is a state that would perpetuate and even consolidate the Israeli occupation and domination of our land and our lives.

For God's sake, we decline to accept such a state. History after all shall not expire upon the end of the Obama administration's term in office. And the Palestinians, who have survived despite history and kept up the struggle for decades, can still go on and on and on.

We shall not commit adultery with our just cause just to please and appease some immoral politicians in Washington.

We never will.