Netanyahu's misplaced quest for legitimacy

Ramona Wadi 

During a press conference in Tel Aviv, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ensured the continuation of twisted rhetoric by evoking the deaths of Israeli soldiers as an ultimate expression of misplaced patriotism. Speaking at the Kirya Military Headquarters, the massacres committed during the operation it has called "Protective Edge" were described as the settler-colonial state's efforts in fighting "the battle against terror, which is part of the historic campaign to harm us since the foundation of the state".

Netanyahu also expounded upon Hamas' refusal to accept the Egyptian ceasefire proposal. According to the Times of Israel, opposition to the ceasefire served to bolster Israel's alleged "widespread international legitimacy", providing the brutal army with "the opportunity to deal with the 'strategic effort' of tunnel attacks".

Netanyahu's comments were echoed by Defence Minister Moshe Ya'alon and an unnamed senior Israeli official. Ya'alon hinted at a long operation following the destruction of tunnels in Gaza, while the Israeli official maintained the regurgitated argument involving the usual concoction of tunnels, terrorism and allegedly humanitarian concern for civilians in the form of ineffective warnings prior to a new bout of murder. "Our operation is against terrorist targets. In Shujaya there's production, storage and launching of rockets at Israel. You also have the terror tunnels used by Hamas terrorist operatives to infiltrate Israel in order to maim and murder."

While the world is left in no doubt as to the entity perpetrating maiming and murder, international complicity, hypocritically and intentionally misconstrued by Netanyahu as "legitimacy", remains Israel's best ally. The United Nations and its affiliated organisations indulge in citations of statistical data, while UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon usurps the temporary limelight by uttering statements concealing the brutal vengeance unleashed by the monstrosity the UN created through its endorsement of settler-colonialism in Palestine. Both tactics – the quoting of statistics and patronising statements attempting to portray an equal conflict, aid Netanyahu's strategy of creating an imaginary "terror" entity in order to assign blame. World leaders have defended Netanyahu's narrative, presumably the murdered Palestinian civilians in Gaza stand as testimony to the gruesome Zionist narrative of defending the fabricated "homeland".

In addition, "Protective Edge" is being perceived by Israel and its allies as an opportunity to further endless "peace" negotiations, indicating PA President Mahmoud Abbas' detachment from Palestinians' reality and the absolute adherence to Zionist narrative. Abbas has repeatedly distanced himself from Palestinian resistance, invoking diplomacy as a preferred option to recognising Palestinians' right to armed struggle and liberation of the entire territory. Recently, US Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro hinted at US attempts to enforce PA influence in Gaza as an allegedly strategic step in the aftermath of the current Israeli-inflicted bloodbath.

Contrary to Netanyahu's assertions, there is no historic campaign to "harm" the Zionist state. Hamas and other Palestinian resistance factions fighting colonial violence seek the liberation of historic Palestine – an absolute eradication of the settler-colonial state. "Protective Edge" is a massacre reflecting Zionist oppression to expand its illegal presence in Palestine. Hence, obliterating the myth of Israel and its manifestation remains a legitimate struggle that should be internationally endorsed.

Read More

Netanyahu’s Blood Feud

There is nothing that Benjamin Netanyahu likes better than a self-righteous act of retributive violence against Palestinian ‘terrorists’, and the murders of the three kidnapped Israeli teenagers have given him an excuse in spades.  From the moment these teenagers disappeared, Netanyahu blamed their disappearances on Hamas.  On June 13, the day after the kidnappings, he declared that ‘this is what happens when you bring terrorists into government’.

At that time the perpetrators were unknown, though an organization calling itself the ‘Islamic State of Syria and Iraq – Palestine’ had supposedly claimed responsibility. Since then two suspects have been identified who may have carried out these murders, and who were purportedly members of Hamas.  The Hamas leadership has insisted that it was not responsible for the kidnappings and did not authorize them, and there is no obvious reason why it would do something like this,  at a time when it has been actively trying to form a national unity government with Fatah.

There is, on the other hand, every reason why a rightwing Israeli government which opposes these developments would seek to implicate Hamas, and the official Israeli response to the kidnappings has all the hallmarks of an orchestrated offical effort designed to mobilize public opinion to support military action against Hamas.

Since they were kidnapped on June 12, the three teenagers have become the objects of a national and international campaign aimed at ‘bringing back our boys’, which has gone some way to restoring the myth of Israeli victimhood, at a time when Israel is uncomfortably conscious of having lost the sympathy, not just of international public opinion, but of the powerful states whose support it has always relied on.

These efforts have largely succeeded.  Already Israel has carried out punitive air strikes on Gaza, and military operations in the West Bank which Israeli spokesemen have described as a ‘ thorough cleansing’ intended to arrest those ‘infected’ with Hamas, with the passive acquiescence of the ‘international community’.

Amidst the outpouring of sympathy, there has been little or no recognition of the wider circumstances in which these murders took place.   The three teenagers were part of a settler community in illegal occupation of the West Bank, whose essential purpose is the  conquest and absorption of Palestinian territory and the marginalization and removal of its inhabitants.

Violence is always an inherent and inevitable component of settler colonialism.  If one group of people attempts to dispossess another of their lands, their homes, and livelihoods, of their past and their future; if these two groups are placed in face-to-face, everyday contact, then it doesn’t require a sociologist to point out that they are likely to loathe and fear each other.

Historically, such interactions have often been associated with particularly cruel and very personal forms of violence, in which families are pitted against families, and children, women, and the elderly are killed alongside armed combatants.  The Irish ‘plantations’, the expansion of the American frontier, the French-Algerian war, and the so-called ‘Mau Mau’ insurgency in Kenya are just a few examples of this pattern.

What the world politely calls the ‘Israeli-Palestinian conflict’ is no exception.  Many years ago, back in the early 80s I visited the West Bank town of Hebron.   Above the town was the Jewish settlement of Kiryat Arba, one of the earliest Israeli settlements and a centre of the racist Gush Emunim movement which believed that ‘Judea and Samaria’ had been promised to Jews by God.

At that time some of these settlers occupied buildings in the heart of Hebron itself and lived under the protection of the Israeli army.   I remember sitting in Hebron market, watching orthodox Jewish settlers – some of whom were extremely young – swaggering around with Uzis on their backs and the hard, contemptuous expressions of men who clearly regarded themselves as overlords in conquered territory.

The hatred was entirely mutual, and the town positively seethed wth tension and the potential for violence.  In the ensuing three decades of occupation, settlers have bullied, beaten, and killed Palestinians and destroyed their homes or olive orchards,  and Palestinians have killed and attacked settlers – despite invariably harsh retaliation from the Israeli army.

In the same period Israeli settlements have more than doubled, and much of this expansion took place during the so-called ‘peace process’ that began in Oslo in the 1990s and expired so ignominiously earlier this year.

This is what the ‘Israeli-Palestinian conflict’ entails, and the three Israeli teenagers are victims of this brutal process.   You can use all the adjectives you like to describe their murders.  Call them cruel, immoral, criminal, barbaric, atrocious.   All these terms are accurate – even if they are rarely, if ever, applied to the more than 1,400 Palestinian children who have been shot by the Israeli army since 2000, or died under Israeli bombs, or the tens of thousands of children and teenagers who have been locked up and beaten, or who had their arms and legs broken during the first Intifada under Yitshak Rabin’s policy of ‘teaching the Arabs fear’ during the first Intifada.

That Netanyahu should seek to make political capital out of these murders is only to be expected.  This is a politician whose cynicism and opportunism have always been matched by a reckless willingness to use Israel’s military might on every available opportunity.

Hamas, unfortunately, is only too willing to play Netanyahu’s game.  While Israeli politicians promise to transform Hamas membership into an ‘entry to hell’, Hamas has promised to ‘open the gates of hell’ if Israel attacks Gaza.   These gates have in fact been open for a long time, and this latest atrocity will only widen them still further, as Israel kills Palestinians, and Palestinians kill Israelis, until the prospects of Palestinian unity are destroyed.

This is clearly what Netanyahu and his government want.     But those world leaders who now express their ‘solidarity’ with Israel, and who never condemned the settlement of the West Bank or tried to stop it,  and who remain silent when Israeli once again bombs and kills Palestinians, are not just pious hypocrites; they are moral cowards and willing accomplices in Netanyahu’s blood feud – a feud that is designed to kick the possibility of peace – let alone justice – further into the long grass,  where nobody will be able to find it again.

Source

Read More

Bibi Netanyahu walking on thin ice

“I’m a proud member of the rabble.” …Bibi Netanyahu

… by  Jim W. Dean, 

Lady Ashton – the Center of Attention

As I am typing the EU’s Catherine Ashton is having dinner with Iran’s Foreign Minister, Mohammed Zarif at the home of Mohsen Naziri, Iran’s Permanent Representative to International Organizations in Geneva.

Normally I would not open a commentary with what appears to be a mundane line, but it is not.

It is a diplomatic signal that the Geneva P5+1 meeting is going to be closely coordinated to make sure there are no screw ups.

Much has been invested in the huge shift in East-West relations and everyone wants to keep the train on the tracks…everyone but Netanyahu that is.

If Bibi had dinner he is taking something like Tums for an upset stomach now. All of his harem scarem tactics to try to stop or slow down the process are meeting a worldwide rejection unheard of in recent Israeli political history.

Am I the only one who is sensing some ‘pay back’ for Israel’s ignoring over 200 UN resolutions for their crimes against the Palestinian people? Has the world finally woken up? Is what we are watching here a peaceful attempt to reduce conflict and threats in the Mid East so that Israel can no longer play the premiere eternal victim?

If this happens then Israel would not need to be protected, right? And she would not need all of the WMD that is stockpiled there. That would change the whole imbalance of power we have always had for having a WMD free Mid East.

The Jewish DNA tie to the Holy Land has been debunked, and by an Israeli geneticist, Dr. Eran Elhaik.

A refusal by Israel under this new paradigm could only be seen as wanting to maintain its aggressive military stature which has been the cause of so much misery.

I personally believe the world would be ready then for sanctions against Israel.

You can laugh all you want, but if ever there was a country that deserved to be sanctioned it is Israel.

I sense the world is long past tired of being manipulated by the crummy little country for Jews only and whose Holy Land DNA would fit in a thimble.

[Note: Dr. Elhaik's work is an incredible breakthrough, and one that has made more than a few people unhappy, just the kind that we love to publish. If you missed it, you have my personal guarantee it is worth the read time... New Genome Study Destroys Zionist Claims to Palestine.  Snordster's dramatic reading of itis here.

What has really changed things is the domestic and international financial pressure all countries currently find themselves under. The days of Israel's 'cutting in line' as the number one concern are over. The evidence is all around us.

Public trust in government continues to head down in most countries. I will go ahead and say it...there is a whiff of revolution in the air, sparked by peoples who feel they have been betrayed by their own political systems serving the special interests needs of the gander and left the goose to fend for itself.

The US government partial shutdown has boomeranged on the Republicans who felt they could hang it around Obama's neck, but the public is not buying it. The Tea Party handlers pulled a slick move using the Vets going into Washington behind the smoke screen of the closed national memorials.

Sarah Palin plays biker for the Washington Mall day

When the most clueless Vice Presidential candidate that ever lived showed up, Sarah Palin…we knew it was a bash Obama moment for political gain.

Yes folks, Dan Quayle has forgotten more than Sarah Palin ever knew.

Obama’s people bungled on some of their shut down moves when the polls showed the Republicans getting most of the blame.

Republican numbers were hitting historical lows. Obama’s went down, also, but will bounce back when they work out a deal, which will be soon. The whole world has lined up for a debt limit increase.

The America people enjoy a subsidized standard of living due to their having the world’s reserve currency. They don’t know what financial problems are if something triggered a stampede in other directions. All that has to happen is one week of bond holders not rolling them over, but cashing them in instead. The stampede would be on.

Those who actually still hold reserves like China do not want to take a big hit on them. So Americans will have to pony up to the table to keep the ship afloat while working toward a feasible solution to the debt problem.

One of the big issues being debated in the Intel community is the diversion of our financial resources into the foreign wars which more and more are resource acquisition than fighting world terrorism. We were fought by them where we were…simple because we were there.

Most all agree that the handling of our economy has been such a disaster that those in power have the dishonor of having been a major national security threat.

Our now decade old wars were the perfect backdrop for rigging the energy markets through layers of manipulations, not one of which by itself would have tumbled the system.

There is a consensus now that that inflated energy prices during the recession were a huge damper on recovery efforts everywhere, and there was no real need for it.

Western sanctions backfired – They united Iran in its huge infrastructure drive and defensive military expansion

Take Iran for example. Their isolation was all partly due to preventing the development of their petrochemical resources being brought onto the market and pushing prices down. Oil insiders wanted to keep prices up to pay for their own exploration and discovery of more reserves while making it harder for others to do. It’s an old game.

The discovery that Africa is floating on an ocean of oil triggered a number of major intelligence agencies, Western ones, into creating terror wars in Africa to hold back the development of their interior through constant instability.

The Israelis are all over Africa, rigging elections and causing mayhem. Their main scam is cranking up a terror campaign and then having Team B go in to guarantee they can stop it if paid x number of millions of dollars. It’s an advanced version of the ‘good cop, bad cop’ ploy. Why the Africans just don’t kill these people is beyond me.

But someone turned on the light for the Western dummies. An idiot can see that the austerity measures are not going to work long term because the reduction in domestic investment and spending dooms growth unless there is some outside stimulus. But when everyone else is broke…guess what? They aren’t spending.

Countries all over Europe are under multiple debt and cost strains. All of them seem to be figuring out that working to create a significant reduction in overall energy costs through increased supply allows the huge savings to go into the economic and job expansion that everyone needs so badly.

Iran is at the crossroads here. What she has done on infrastructure expansion, especially in the energy fields while under sanctions, will be studied at top business schools all over the world. On top of this they had to greatly expand their defensive military capability under the threat of American and Israeli pre-emptive attacks over the bogus nuclear threat that no one believes, other than Israel.

My adopted Rabbi, David Weiss, feels the atheist Jews claiming God gave them the land is an abomination

The dummies in Zioland recently polled about 65% willing to go along with an Iran strike if their government ‘felt’ it was necessary. This is absolute proof that Israelis are not smart, so let’s kill that rumor here and now.

Press TV published some US polls of rabbis (90%) and Jews (45 to 50%) showing strong disapproval of Israel’s handling of the Palestinian problem, especially through continued settlement building.

But I spotted a repeated statement today by Iran’s negotiation team, a warm up for the talks this week. They referenced the ‘step-by-step’ process that was agreed upon at their UN meeting. That is a strong hint to me that they (Iran and the P5+1) already have the outline for a deal.

But the Western countries need to keep opposition (Jewish Lobbies) under control back home, so they need a carefully staged process to assure their publics that they are not being snookered by the Iranians.

The traditional way to do this is making one move at a time that is not too scary for the public to accept, and which prepares them for the next one.

These steps will of course have to include the beginning of sanction removals. Iran’s code language for this has been their repeated use of the term ‘building trust’, as they have their own domestic skeptics to keep comfortable. The easing of sanctions would help them maintain domestic support for the process which is as critical for them as the West.

The Israeli leaders see this all happening, hence you have had Bibi out beating the Iran ‘zero nuclear activity’ drum, and then keeping all the sanctions in place. Bibi knows these would kill the success that everyone else needs and wants now…and the sooner the better.

If you look back at all the moves, all the countries publicly stating their desire to improve relations with Iran, literally within a two week period…the Israeli Lobby people ran into a brick wall trying to stop it. The Syrian chemical weapons disposal got cranked up almost at lightening speed, with diplomatic standing ovations by everyone involved. The second disposal team is there now.

Bibi has taken Israel out onto the thin ice while the world was warming up to a transitioning Iran.

It’s hard to believe really, but I think what we are seeing here is a recognition from the West to reverse their failed policy and bring Iran back into the international trading community to the benefit of themselves. They need it now, and they are not about to let Israel screw it up.

Lady Ashton is standing tall, and in command at Geneva. Our prayers are with her.

Read More

The Messianic, Apocalyptic Bibi Netanyahu

 For much of the past few years, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has described the ruling regime in Iran as “messianic” and “apocalyptic”, a talking point he repeated over and over again last week during his latest trip to the United States.

“You don’t want to be in a position where this messianic, apocalyptic, radical regime that has these wild ambitions but a nice spokesman gets away with building the weapons of mass death,” he told NBC’s Andrea Mitchell on Oct 2. The following day, he was at it again, insisting to Stephen Inskeep of NPR that “Iran’s doctrinaire, messianic, apocalyptic regime” was also a “terrorist regime bent on world domination.”

Of course, it was much easier to make such claims when Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was the public face of the Islamic regime — particularly during his annual appearances at the UN General Assembly, where he craved the spotlight and often made deeply provocative statements in order to gain it. As Netanyahu himself has argued, it’s much more difficult to make that case now that Ahmadinejad has been replaced by Hassan Rouhani, who has explicitly rejected much of the style and substance of his predecessor. So far, Rouhani has been an unqualified hit — Newsweek’s Christopher Dickey suggested that he came across as a kind of “Santa Clause in a turban” during his maiden visit to the UN — and his much-publicized phone call with President Obama at the end of his visit has raised hopes of a rapprochement over the Iranian nuclear issue.

Hopes for some, at least. Politically speaking, such a rapprochement would be Netanyahu’s worst nightmare — both in terms of potentially legitimizing some Iranian nuclear enrichment and, perhaps more importantly, in returning attention to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which Netanyahu has effectively relegated to the back burner with his repeated threats of war against Iran. It’s therefore hardly surprising that Netanyahu, who has called Rouhani a “wolf in sheep’s clothing” since the beginning of the President’s new term, feels compelled to repeat ad nauseam the “messianic, apocalyptic” nature of the “cult” for which Rouhani serves as a mere“clerk.” (As LobeLog noted several years ago, this is a familiar dance for Iran hawks: when the Iranian president is a radical like Ahmadinejad, they play up his power; when it’s a moderate like Rouhani, they deride him as a mere figurehead.)

We do not doubt that there may be “messianic” and “apocalyptic” currents within the Iranian regime. But even a cursory examination of Netanyahu’s rhetoric indicates that there may be more than a little projection at work here.

A quick look at definitions helps demonstrate what we mean. “Messianic,” according to Merriam-Webster, means “supporting a social, political, or religious cause or set of beliefs with great enthusiasm and energy” — a description that certainly applies to Netanyahu’s Likudist faith. “Messianism,” according to the Free Dictionary, may include a “belief that a particular cause or movement is destined to…save the world.”

Consider in that connection what Netanyahu himself told the UN General Assembly in his speech last week:

I want there to be no confusion on this point. Israel will not allow Iran to get nuclear weapons. If Israel is forced to stand alone, Israel will stand alone. Yet, in standing alone, Israel will know that we will be defending many, many others.

In the Weekly Standard’s lead editorial this week, Bill Kristol and Michael Makovsky argued that Netanyahu was referencing Winston Churchill’s remarks in July 1940 during the Battle of Britain: “And now it has come to us to stand alone in the breach…We are fighting by ourselves alone; but we are not fighting for ourselves alone” as London “enshrines the title deeds of human progress.” Thus we are made to understand that Netanyahu sees himself as Churchill (indeed, the authors tell us that he has a photo of the great man on his office wall behind his desk) standing alone and defiant against the barbarity of Nazism — whose modern-day equivalent, of course, is the Islamic Republic of Iran (or the Biblical Amalek). Who knows if Netanyahu, in his heart of hearts, really sees his conflict with Iran in the same light as Churchill’s conflict with Nazi Germany. In any case, “messianic” would certainly be one way of describing both his rhetoric and its historical allusions.

As for “apocalyptic,” Netanyahu’s descriptions of Iran, particularly an Iran armed with a nuclear weapon, would seem apt. Merriam-Webster defines the word as “of, relating to, or involving terrible violence and destruction” and “of or relating to the end of the world.”

“A nuclear Iran is an existential threat on the State of Israel and also on the rest of the world,” he said at Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem, last year, arguing that those who dismiss the Iranian threat “have learned nothing from the Holocaust.” He posed a similar question just last week in his UN speech, leaving little doubt that he was paralleling Iran with Nazi Germany:

Now, I know that some in the international community think I’m exaggerating this threat. Sure, they know that Iran’s regime leads these chants, “death to America, death to Israel,” that it pledges to wipe Israel off the map. But they think that this wild rhetoric is just bluster for domestic consumption. Have these people learned nothing from history? The last century has taught us that when a radical regime with global ambitions gets awesome power, sooner or later its appetite for aggression knows no bounds.

That’s the central lesson of the 20th century. And we cannot forget it. The world may have forgotten this lesson. The Jewish people have not.

Elsewhere, Netanyahu has dropped the insinuations and veiled parallels, however obvious they might be, and stated his position baldly: “It is 1938,” he told the Jewish Federations of North America back in 2006 when he was chairman of Likud. “Iran is Germany, and it is about to arm itself with nuclear weapons.” One really can’t get more apocalyptic than that.

Again, it’s difficult to tell whether Netanyahu actually believes any of this or is just trying to rally support for Israel’s hard-line positions and deflect international attention from the Palestinian question. While we are inclined to view his rhetoric as mostly cynical, his recently-espoused claim that Iranians are not permitted to wear jeans or listen to western music suggests that we can’t completely discount sheer ignorance or a Manichaean worldview that can’t reconcile blue jeans with his image of the Islamic Republic. In either case, we can probably expect his rhetoric to become increasingly messianic and apocalyptic if and when the possibility of peace between the US and Iran increases.

Jim Lobe who wrote the above piece  is best known for his coverage of U.S. foreign policy, particularly the neo-conservative influence in the Bush administration.  http://www.lobelog.com

Read More

Worst nightmare looming for Netanyahu

"The worst nightmare for Netanyahu’s autocratic rule of Israel has come, a forced visit by an American president with an agenda, an end to occupation of the West Bank, a fully operating independent Palestinian state by 2014 and more.”

The president’s decision, after consultation with Democratic leaders in congress, including the Jewish caucus and Secretaries Kerry and Hagel, representing Departments of State and Defense, is primary driven by economic issues.

Continuing a foreign policy predicated on unquestioning support for Israeli expansionism at the cost of American security and economic viability is no longer something Israel’s AIPAC lobby is capable of bullying and blackmailing American politicians into.

Netanyahu’s attempts to crush Obama have failed miserably while it is Netanyahu who is unable to put together a ruling coalition government after recent electoral reversals.

American focus

The projected dual focus of American foreign policy, toward both the Far East and Africa, has been deemed impossible until a Palestinian settlement is in place and relations with Iran have been stabilized and Iran is released from crippling sanctions.

The 176 to 6 vote in the UN General Assembly on December 4, 2012, passing a resolution demanding inspection of Israeli nuclear facilities had left the United States in an untenable situation.

Citing Iran for “possible violations” while recent intelligence has now undeniably confirmed, not just Israel’s illegal nuclear arsenal but has tied Netanyahu personally to an espionage ring inside the US responsible for the theft of nuclear triggers and their illegal transfer to Israel.

Israeli response

Israeli sources, quoted in the World Tribune stated today:

“Obama has made it clear to Netanyahu that his visit is not about photo-ops, but the business of Iran and a Palestinian state.  The implication is that if Israel won’t give him something he can work with, then he’ll act on his own.

The Obama people are making this a litmus test of Netanyahu’s leadership and credibility.  Obama supporters in Congress have sent Netanyahu a similar message.”

Netanyahu’s options

Netanyahu faces the toughest political battle of his career. Despite the two-week extension from President Simon Perez, Netanyahu has been unable to assemble a working coalition government.   The primary stumbling block for Netanyahu is finding political parties willing to begin dismantling settlements in the West Bank, over a half million Israeli Jews living illegally on land under military occupation.It is Netanyahu’s job to convince Israelis that he can deceive the United States by dismantling settlements in peripheral areas that are difficult to supply and defend while hoping for “lightning” to strike.

The events on 9/11, 2001 were a form of “lightning,” a serendipitous “terror attack” that began a worldwide war on Islam, a war that left many regional leaders either clinging to Israel’s “skirts” like frightened children or subject to the wrath of America’s “shock and awe.”

No one has ever officially noted the curious fact that only Israel benefitted from 9/11.  Canada only this week affirmed that asking such a question was, in itself, considered an “act of terrorism.”

Unreported around the world

The story of the Obama mission was first reported by the World Tribune.  However, there was not sufficient credible basis for moving forward with the story until Israel’s own Ynet News Service carried the story itself. (http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4351970,00.html)

In fact, there is no reporting of this story whatsoever in the Washington Post and reporting in the New York Times characterizes the president’s upcoming visit to Israel as one of “giving assurances and issuing threats to Iran.”

There are no reports whatsoever in British papers, none of the upcoming Obama visit to Israel nor of defense cutbacks or moves to redress illegal settlements in the West Bank.

American television news has not noticed the story whatsoever.

Cutback of US aid

With $46 billion in Pentagon cuts being implemented this week due to “sequestration,” military aid to nations in the Middle East, Israel, Jordan and Egypt, will be reduced. In response, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak arrived in Washington today for talks with Defense Secretary Hagel, whose confirmation he attempted to block only days before.

Israeli Ambassador and “former” Mossad spymaster, Michael Oren is quoted:

“The Israeli embassy still doesn’t know what will be the extent of the sequester, the aid to Israel is included in the federal budget. Just as this budget is cut, so can the aid to Israel.”

Naval forces in gulf “halved”

Defense Secretary Hagel has announced that the nuclear supercarrier, USS Harry Truman will not be deploying to the Persian Gulf as previously scheduled.

That will leave only one carrier available, a 50% reduction in naval forces in the region. GOP lawmakers cite the threat to Israel Iran poses if America is to reduce its carrier presence.

The lawmakers, part of the Pro-Israeli Republican Party, cite President Obama’s purposeful focus on endangering Israel as a way of punishing political enemies who forced the US into the unwieldy austerity plan known as “sequestration.”

Further military cuts will include an end to all Army training except for troops already stationed in Afghanistan.

The “invisible policy change”

A philosopher once asked the question: “If a tree fell in the forest, and no one was around, would it make a sound?”

Thus, we may now ask, if a change in American policy moves forward and no one is told and nothing is reported, can the policy have a real impact?

In this case, our question is one of substance: “Can a sovereign Palestinian state be established with respected and defensible frontiers, a state like all others if a massive program of planet wide censorship and factual distortion suppresses all reporting?

To Americans, there is no election struggle in Israel, as the totally unreported crisis doesn’t exist where it cannot be written nor spoken of.

Similarly, the change in recent days regarding Iran’s nuclear program, systems only a week ago designated as “military” are now “medical.”

One might also ask; “If some sanctions can be lifted as ‘unsupportable’ for reason of fact, why do others remain?”

Read More

Mother Teresa died in September 1997 at home of the Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta. At the time, there were 4.000 Missionaries of Charity in 123 countries, and 3.000.000 people worked with them.

Netanyhau’s Deep Pockets: The Price of Silence

God is the friend of silence.—Mother Teresa

—

By RoiTov

—

Arafat Jaradat

It was difficult to find out why there were protests, though they took place in an extensive geographical area and seemed related.

Following the death of Arafat Jaradat, a Palestinian prisoner in Megiddo Prison, the reports became less foggier. Four Palestinian prisoners, defined in Israel as “security prisoners,” meaning that they are not criminals but freedom fighters, had begun a hunger strike because they are discriminated against Jewish prisoners; the widespread protests were in their favor.

On Saturday, Mr. Jaradat died due to heart failure caused by unknown reasons (sometimes this is the main sign of foul play by security services). At the same time, the condition of at least one of the protesters that was hit by a bullet shot by an IDF soldier deteriorated seriously, and he was moved to a hospital within Jerusalem.

The protests worsened to the extent that the 4,500 Palestinian “security prisoners” held in Israeli prisons decided to join the hunger strike. Member of the Knesset Mohammad Barakeh, from the Israeli Communist party Hadash, met shortly afterwards with Samer al-Aysawi, who after surviving seven months in a partial hunger strike stopped drinking on Friday and faces immediate death danger.

Through the Israeli parliament member, the prisoner sent a request to the international community to get involved. On Sunday, the protests intensified.

Netanyahu’s Greasy Doughnut

On Sunday, Netanyhau delivered urgently Yitzhak Molco, a lawyer who often acts as his personal messenger to the Palestinian Authority Headquarters in Ramallah. The subsequent reports on the Hebrew media disclosed Netanyahu’s shameful message: “Money for Quiet,” they said. Mr. Molco demanded the Palestinian Authority to put an end to the protests.

The Hebrew used to describe the event was pretty wild, showing how determined and powerful Netanyahu was towards his favorite colony. Towards the end of the news, it was disclosed that Netanyahu did that only after “thawing” the Palestinian tax revenues that Israel holds illegitimately; before making his unshakeable and righteous demand, Molco had shown that the funds had been transferred. Better not to add even one word to this.

Netanyahu disclosed himself not only as a weak leader, but also as one with doubtful moral values. Worse than that, he showed to which extent he and his people are detached from reality. The Palestinian Authority is remarkably weak within Israeli Prisons. In the West Bank, Hamas is quickly replacing it due to its being perceived as being more socially responsible. The Palestinian Authority is often seen as corrupt and a collaborator with Israel.

At this point, if they get involved they would be kicked out of power. Does Netanyahu think that the silence of freedom fighters, who in some cases have been many years in jail, can be bought with thirty silver coins? Read my lips, Mr. Netanyahu: J-U-S-T-I-C-E. Nothing else.

American police officers buy greasy doughnuts, add an over-sweet cup of stale coffee, and then go out to hunt-down Latinos. Stereotypes are wrong and ugly; “You were born to Jews; thus you must behave like this and this.”

The examples are infinite. What happens when Israel’s Prime Minister decides to behave according to the worst stereotypes plaguing his people? It is impossible to make a more direct comment without crossing a legal line, thus let’s take a look at Netanyahu’s odd reaction at the wave of violence that set the last weekend of February 2013 on fire.

West Bank Violence February 2013 Silence    West Bank Violence February West Bank Violence February 2013 In Pursuit of Silence: Listening for Meaning in a World of Noise  

Violence in the West Bank

Protests in the West Bank are not rare; if they end without violence they won’t even be mentioned by the media. If there was violence, but the event took place in a remote area, it would appear as a tiny news item hidden in the local news section. Thus, when the mainstream media reported protests last Friday (Feb 22, 2013), there was no reason to worry too much.

The first reports I saw claimed that thirty Palestinians had been wounded, there were neither dead nor significant material damages. There was nothing unusual about the event. Next morning, the reports claimed that there were one hundred wounded and that the protests were intensifying. This was the first real sign that something else was happening this time.

Read More