Armed Terrorist Groups also know in the Westen World as Peaceful Protesters are killing everyday innocent Civilians and Army Members. Schools are burning everyday. This is School number 1951 that has been burned by them.

Full Translation:

man 1, All the glass is broken in this School
They shot at this school
We can’t send our kids to school, because of this issue
Thank God, we don’t have any injured here
What should i tell you
I ask all people to stay at home
Shooting are coming from all Directions
We wish the Army will control this
man 2, It is enough we are scared the whole time…
We know the Army are suffering like us…
Those Terrorist are not Muslims…
man 3, We want the Army to enterfer
we have no other solution…
we are suffering
Now more than a Kid was shot
We just want the Army to come
man 2, A Kid running the street was shot, what did he wrong to be shoot
It’s Enough
It’s the 3 time they attack these schools
girl, We want from the President to bring the Syrian Army to us and protect us…
An RPG was shoot at our school… We are afraid… We want the Army
…minutes later an armed terrorist groups were attacking again
man 4, Come on
Camera man, look there an RPG
…man 2 who was speaking before was shoot in his face
man 5, This is the 3 Rpg at this School
Is this what the Arab League wants?!
This is what Hamad (Qatari Leader) wants?!
Isn’t this Syrian Blood?!
This is their Freedom
We want the Army to come (They repeat it several times)
look at this school, this is their Freedom
man 5, Please Mr President, may your father Rest in Peace…
We need your help!
*

Lebanon's Palestinian refugees cannot return home, but are treated with disdain in Lebanon. How can an impossible situation change?

by FRANKLIN LAMB

Shatila Camp, Beirut

During a workshop at the American University of Beirut last year on the subject of the right to  work and to purchase a home for Palestinian refugees, a young business major from the Christian village of  Bikerki posed a question that surprised some in the audience:   “Why if Palestinian don’t like it in Lebanon do they not go home?  Why did they even bother coming here in the first place?”

“Caroline” was not being antagonistic.  Many of the younger Lebanese population are taught in private and religious schools by the various sects using a curriculum including subjects that are heavily politicized and skewed, none more than modern Lebanese history.

Talking with Caroline during a tea break, she explained that she feels very politically oriented,  but admitted that she really doesn’t know much about Lebanese history and only vaguely why there are Palestinians in Lebanon.  What she does know, she explained, came from her parents and family members and not from schools in her Christian hamlet which happens to be the seat of Lebanon’s Maronite Patriarch, for whom she is a part time volunteer working with orphaned children.

In most private and public schools in Lebanon, sensitive political subjects have long been culled from textbooks by polarized confessional watchdog committees seeking a proper education for their children. UNWRA schools are forbidden to teach Palestinian history in Lebanon or even their history in Palestine lest the US Congress cut UNWRA funding.

This has prevented the development of a unified history curriculum. Most history lessons end in 1946, three years after Lebanon’s independence from French colonial rule. Many schools avoid teaching Lebanese history in order to prevent sectarian and political fervor.

According to Ohaness Goktchian, professor of political science at the American University in Beirut, “We are raising another generation of children who identify themselves only with their communities and not their nation… history is what unities people. Without history we can’t have unity.”

Sari Hanafi, a Palestinian professor of sociology at the American University of Beirut, says a unified history curriculum is necessary. “I think in terms of social identity it’s important for the Lebanese to have a shared history which also highlights their differences. We hold absolutely different visions of Lebanon. We should admit this, and admit our own limitations.” Hanafi continues, “There should be no vote (the content of history textbooks) by the council of ministers or the parliament… It should be defined and approved by a committee of historians and that’s it.”

All sects, get involved is checking what is being taught.  One of the Hezbollah officials this observer most admires is MP Mohammad Fneish, former Labor Minister and currently Minister of Agriculture. Fneish raised an issue with the Ministry of Education last week concerning the use of an American text book called Modern World History that is used at Beirut’s International College (IC), a popular private school.  What the Hezbollah MP and others found disturbing was that the US book states that “Hezbollah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad are terrorist organizations.”

A solution was quickly agreed upon by the Ministry of Education, the International College administration and Hezbollah. The offending passage was simply covered over in each of the books with a sticker and everyone seems more or less satisfied for now.

As a consequence of this impasse in education, which often sees 1946, three years after the end of the French occupation, as the end of the period of history taught in Lebanon, Caroline honestly did not know why Palestinians came to Lebanon. When it comes to the second half of the 20^th century, what happened during the Palestinian Nakba and its effects here in Lebanon are largely unknown among youth.

Caroline and I became friends and I gave her some articles from different scholars to read on the Nakba as I sensed she was becoming interested in this subject.  Partly as a dare, she agreed to do research and get back to me with what she discovered about the Nakba and its effects on Lebanon.  She wanted to write from the perspective of a Lebanese student and I in turn would try to help her get college credit for her thesis and maybe even published.

Frankly I had not thought much about our research arrangement for months, and was very happy and surprised when she contacted me the other day to say that she needed me to read her manuscript.

And quite a manuscript it is.

Why, Caroline asked her readers, did more than 129,000 Palestinians come to Lebanon during 1948 while a similar number arrived next door to Syria?

Then she laid out what she had learned and her conclusions:

The current fate of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, living for decades in inhumane conditions worse that any refugees on earth, is primarily the fault and responsibility of those who stole their lands and ethnically cleaned them during the 1948 Nakba. Additionally, the Palestinian refugees’ abject existence is the responsibility of those who have egregiously nurtured the nineteenth century Zionist colonial enterprise with aid and weapons while averting their eyes from the Palestinians Right of Return and the international responsibility to implement international law including many UN Security Council Resolutions 242, 338 and UNGAR 194. In addition to the United States and Europe, responsibility attaches to much of the World community.

They were forced out of 531 villages and 11 cities in Palestine as part of a series of detailed and meticulous ethnic cleansing campaigns rarely witnessed since Germany’s Third Reich.  Indeed, many of the same methods used to transfer the population of Palestine through terror and intimidation experienced under the Nazi administration of Germany were employed by the Zionist organizers of the Nakba.

“For more than six decades”, she wrote:  “the Zionist colonial enterprise that still occupies Palestine, falsely claimed that the Palestinians left their farms and homes because they were ordered to do so by Arab governments in order to clear the way for a massive Arab army that would soon throw the Jews into the sea.  It was nonsense of course, since the so-called Arab “army” was ten percent of the Zionist forces, had no such plan, and in the case of Syrian forces ran out of ammunition early on and the Jordanian did not want to fight at all and left after the fall  of Lod and  Ramle.”

But, according to Caroline, “the Zionist lobby in the USA and Europe repeated this and many other lies for more than half a century.” Caroline wrote that relatively recently, Walid Khalidi (1988), Zionist historian Benny Morris, the eminent Palestinian scholar Salman Abu Sitta and others exposed this lingering fraud.

Yet, during the 2012 American presidential campaigns in Florida, New York and elsewhere this shibboleth surfaced again without challenge or rebuttal by the main stream media, debate sponsors or claimed debate “fact checkers.”

A summary of Caroline’s research instructs us about the reasons Palestinians left their homes and land seeking sanctuary in Lebanon.

In approximately 90 per cent of the 531 villages, direct Zionist military attacks emptied the Palestinian population.  This took the forms of expulsion by Jewish forces (approximately 15 per cent), direct military assault by Zionist gangs and militia (60 per cent) and approximately 18 per cent as a result of an imminent attack following the destruction of a near-by village sometimes in view of neighboring villages.

Other villages were emptied by insidious “whispering campaigns” whereby Zionist agents, posing as “friendly Jewish neighbors” would whisper to Palestinian villagers that a horrible bombardment of their village was imminent and they must, at risk of their lives, leave for a week or so until ‘the situation’ returned to normal. Another 38 villages were ethnically cleansed because of “fear of Jewish attack” and five villages were emptied on orders of a local leader or Muktar.

Palestinian refugees who were forced into Lebanon more than six decades ago were all part of the Zionist creation of the so-called “refugee problem.”  They came as a direct result of a fanatical genocidal war waged against them by European colonial Zionists before, during and subsequent to the League of Nations British Mandate. Zionist tactics included military and psychological projects and both allowed for hasbara which generated some credence for the fake Zionist slogan: “Palestine is a land without people for a people without land”.

The myth that the Israelis were few and fought with sparse weapons against many well equipped Arab armies was only true in Hollywood’s “Exodus Fantasy.” The number of Arab armies participating went down during the war. The only ones who remained to the last rounds in October, November, and December were the Palestinians and Egyptians, according to Caroline. The Zionist plan from the very beginning emphasized the urgency of building a large army and out of a population of approximately 650,000. More than 100,000, or roughly 16 per cent of the colonial population were under arms.

Caroline is a credit to her religion, village, country and generation, in that she is determined to learn what Lebanon’s confessionalized education does not allow. She has pledged to send her research to all Member of Parliament and to support the intensifying campaign here in Lebanon to secure the right to work and home ownership for the ethnically cleansed Palestinian refugees.

*******

FRANKLIN LAMB volunteers with the Palestine Civil Rights Campaign and the Sabra-Shatila Foundation.  He is reachable c/o fplamb@gmail.com.

by Dr. Lawrence Davidon  -  Intifada-Palestine.com

Part I – Two Fronts

In January 2011, I wrote an analysis in support of a one-state solution to the on-going Israeli-Palestinian struggle. It is the Israelis themselves who have made the one-state solution the only practicable approach, because their incessant and illegal colonization of the West Bank has simply eliminated all possibility of a viable and truly independent Palestinian state. Israeli behavior has not changed in the past year and so I still stand by the position.

That being said, it is important to point out that even a one-state solution capable of bringing justice to the Palestinians, and in doing so, saving the Jews from the folly of Zionism, will not be possible without worldwide intervention. What is necessary is a struggle on two international
fronts:

A) A strong growing international boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign against Israel and
B) Growing popular pressure in the United States that forces a change in foreign policy toward
Israel.

Without achieving both of these goals the fate of both Palestinians and Jews looks very bleak indeed.
　
Part II – Israel Will Try To Prevent A Civil Rights Struggle

The necessity of this two-front international approach was reinforced for me upon reading a speech given by Noam Chomsky in Beirut in May of 2010. When commenting on a one-state solution to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, he made the following points:

1. For the indefinite future, “Israel will continue doing exactly what [its] doing….[taking] the water resources, the valuable land…the Jordan Valley…and send[ing] corridors through the remaining regions to break them up into separated cantons…”

2. In the process the Israeli government will make sure that “very few Palestinians [are] incorporated in the valuable areas that Israel will take over” and they will do so in order to preclude “any civil rights struggle.”

3. the Israelis can do this as long as the United States supports them. Chomsky calls this the “mafia principle.” He notes that in the case of South Africa, the apartheid state was able to hold out against an international boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign as long as the United States did not participate in it. And the primary reason the US gave for not doing so was that the leading resistance organization fighting apartheid, Nelson Mandela’s African National Congress, was a “notorious” terrorist organization.

4. However, international anti-apartheid sentiment did help push Washington to finally cease its support South Africa and then apartheid collapsed. Chomsky concludes: “When the godfather [that is, the U.S.] changes his policy, things change….I think this could happen with Israel. If the United States changes policy and decides to join the world[‘s growing opposition to Israeli behavior], Israel will have no option but to go along.”

Chomsky’s analysis is a bit too reductionist for me. That is, he tends to bring everything down to positions taken by the U.S. government. But there is no denying that changing U.S. policy is one of two necessary international parts to any solution. And, he makes a seminal point when he tells us that the Israeli government has no intention of incorporating the mass of West Bank Palestinians (to say nothing of the Gazans) into the Jewish state.

Part III – Avoiding A Civil Rights Struggle Through “Transfer”

Indeed, Israeli strategy necessitates allowing a fake “Palestinian state” in the form of West Bank Bantustans, and then deporting their Arab Israeli citizens into those enclaves. No Arabs in Israel, no civil rights struggle.

An interesting piece of news that speaks to this possibility appeared on January 31, 2012. According to Associated Press reports, the Israeli Interior Ministry plans to deport thousands of Southern Sudanese refugees. Why so? Because, according to a ministry spokeswoman, “since the Southern Sudanese have an independent state, they will no longer be given protected status in Israel.” The first step will be to offer them “voluntary deportation and around $1300″ in ‘thanks for leaving’ money. After that, forced deportation and no money, will be the policy.

As the American Palestinian activist Ali Abunimah notes, “Israeli leaders have already hinted that they could use the same type of logic to justify removal of Palestinian citizens of Israel if a nominally independent Palestinian state is established on scrapes of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.”

This is known as a policy of “transfer” in Zionist parlance and it has been discussed at least since the time of Theodor Herzl. In recent years it has been suggested by former Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni (now head of the Israeli opposition in the Knesset) and the present Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman as well as a slew of other Israeli politicians. Abunimah’s conclusion is that a “two-state solution would be more likely to lead to further ethnic cleansing of Palestinians than to peace.”

Part IV – Conclusion

So what do we have here? On the one hand, Noam Chomsky points to the very real possibility that the Israelis will not allow a one state solution that creates the conditions for an internal struggle for civil and political equality. And, on the other hand, Ali Abunimah points to the very real possibility that any two state solution will lead to forced deportation of Palestinians into Bantustans.

Is there a way out of this? Well if the South African experience is to be a guide it is this: The sine qua non of any solution is the collapse of Israel’s ethno/religious, that is Zionist, ideology of governance. Just as the racist apartheid form of governance had to be changed for there to be a resolution of the South African struggle, so the Israeli Zionist form of governance has to be changed for there to be a resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian struggle.

And, I think that Chomsky is right when he says the Israelis have no intention of allowing such a change in governance to come about through an internal civil rights struggle. Therefore, the pressure for the necessary transformation will have to come from outside. It will have to come in the form a two-front movement: one front building the worldwide boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel, and the second front concentrating on making support of Israel a national scandal in the U.S. and therefore a domestic voting issue.

While there are good organizations in the U.S. (such as the U.S. Campaign To End The Occupation and Jewish Voices for Peace) involved in building this second front, I think that the effort has not been given enough attention by Americans involved in supporting the Palestinian cause. It is time this changed for, as Noam Chomsky suggests, it is unlikely that there will be a just solution to the Israeli-Palestinian struggle unless Israeli treatment of the Palestinians becomes a strong enough cause to impact U.S. policy.

ldavidson@wcupa.edu
www.tothepointanalyses.com
www.twitter.com/pointanalyses

*****

DR. LAWRENCE DAVIDSON is professor of Middle East history at West Chester University in West Chester, PA, and the author of America’s Palestine: Popular and Official Perceptions from Balfour to Israeli Statehood (University of Florida Press, 2001), Islamic Fundamentalism (Greenwood Press, 2003), and Foreign Policy, Inc.: Privatizing American National Interest (University of Kentuck Press, 2009).

William A. Cook  –   Intifada-Palestine.com

“Men use thought only to justify their injustices, and speech only to conceal their thoughts.”

(Voltaire: Dialogue XIV, Le Chapon et la Poularde)

Voltaire’s wit often illuminates truth. Consider this revealing “thought” as expressed recently in Alert, the voice of AIPAC to its membership: “Some Americans believe if the Israelis strike Iran, the U.S. will pay the political costs anyway, so it would be better for the Americans to do the job and do it properly. Their clock is a bit different from the one the Israelis hear. Because of their vastly superior firepower, the Americans could strike Iran later, more devastatingly and more sustainably.” How just is it for AIPAC’s mouthpiece to declare that America should “devastate” Iran because it has “vastly more firepower” than Israel and could “do a better job” and “do it properly,” as though this were a clean-up “job” of a waste dump and not an illegal invasion of a member country of the United Nations that has done nothing under international law to threaten the U.S. much less attack it, while the Israeli government and its IDF look on happily content that it is American boys and girls suffering the consequences of the unwarranted attacks and not Jewish boys and girls? Has it come to this, that unnamed Israeli spokespeople, voicing AIPAC’s policies, determine what nation the U.S. should invade without consultation with the representatives of the American people?

Not that this sentiment has not been expressed before. Netanyahu told Piers Morgan the same thing in an interview last year, as I have quoted in previous articles, noting Israel’s Zionist government’s desire to use America’s military as their own claiming that what is good for Israel is good for America. That protestation completes the wit contained in Voltaire’s quote: because Israel is America’s only friend in the mid-east, and the only Democracy, and the only nation in that part of the world aligned with the west, it alone deserves America’s “unquestionable” and “unbreakable” support.

Speech that conceals fails to mention that being Israel’s “only friend” has made the U.S. a pariah among nations in the world and made its touted “Democratic freedoms” a laughing stock as the other nations in the UN watch America “support” the Zionists’ agenda to attack Iraq and Lebanon and Gaza, abort international law as it, like Israel, commits extrajudicial executions in foreign states, equips Israel when it invades its neighbors to the north and attacks peace activists aboard vessels from peaceful nations including Turkey, and, ironically sits silently by as Israel dismantles what little of a democracy existed in that nation by creating new laws that deny full citizenship to anyone not a Jew. Thus have we become a nation supportive of a militaristic Theocracy while we continue to mouth the principle of separation of church and state, a principle founded on tolerance, concealing the truth that there are more than 20 great religions with well over a billion people who accept no religion (Adherents.com) all of whom deserve recognition and, as necessary, support from America.

Clearly Israel’s needs are not America’s needs if we mean by that more war in the mid-east. Have we pulled our troops from Iraq just to move them into Iran? Does any sensible person believe that the Iranians have a “need” or desire to attack the people of the United States? Our forces completely surround Iran. We are the nation with atomic weaponry, not Iran. What possible good would Iran achieve by having a nuclear weapon? Hasn’t Iran signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Agreement while Israel, who damns Iran for its nuclear “ambitions,” has an arsenal of nuclear bombs and has refused to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Agreement. Which of these nations is to be feared? Iran has never attacked a neighbor; Israel attacks and occupies its neighbors at will.

Have the Iranians reason to fear control of the U.S. military by Israeli operatives using this nation as its power because Israel wants to devastate Iran the way Iraq has been devastated? Yes. Israel’s ultimate goal is control of the mid-east by surgically cutting it into small indefensible sections that can be dominated by Israeli money and American forces. It would appear, however, that Israel fears America does not desire to follow Israel’s advice to “take out” Iran the way they convinced the Bush administration to “take out” Saddam Hussein. Hence the constant barrage that characterizes Iran as a warlike state set on wiping Israel off the map and becoming the dominant power in the mid-east.

It’s time, I believe, for the U.S. and the UN to consider how to avoid yet more devastation in the mid-east, not by expanding military operations there but by seeking peace through negotiations and cooperative support for the people of the mid-east. Both Israel and the United States must confront the reality on the ground today that they no longer have control over the people of the mid-east, and recognize the colonial drives that Zionism had designed for Israel are no longer tenable.

While Israeli control of America in the form of Las Vegas billionaires buying the presidency continues in the United States, and Republican candidates crawl to the altar of Mammon to remove Obama, who has already sold his soul to the forces of Evil, the people of the world look on in disbelief, having witnessed for sixty years the dominance of Zionist deceit, treachery, and manipulation of America as it savaged the mid-east in the name of friendship, democracy and shared values. But now, they have moved to take control of their own lives as they watch Israel corrode from within as it metamorphoses into a tribalistic, superstitious people further isolating themselves from the community of nations.

Can they not see that the people in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Syria, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and, arguably, in Yemen and Saudi Arabia have had enough of dictators imposed by the U.S. and Israel to control their governments; can they not see that Turkey broke with the Zionist forces that demanded compliance with their rule regardless of international law and due respect for neighboring nations; are they blind to the Jordanian efforts to take seriously their role as a Palestinian neighbor; do they not see that the people of Egypt have made possible the opening of Israel’s illegal siege of Gaza, that the people of the world have given notice that they will not cease to break that siege with boats entering Gaza through international waters, that the Iraqi people have made clear that they will not cave in to America’s continued control of their country by proxy power, that the peoples of Britain, the United States, Canada, and Australia have openly condemned Israel’s injustices to the Palestinian people regardless of their governments paid presidents and prime ministers that claim otherwise; have they stood by blind to the French Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee issuing its recent report condemning Israel’s apartheid practices against Palestinians in the West Bank, blind to Secretary Ban’s clear call to Israel that it must withdraw from the occupied territories, blind to the European Union as it issued its recent report critical of the Israeli government’s on-going occupation and settlement of Palestinian land, blind as well as Russia, China, Iran and numerous other mid-east nations put into practice what they have agreed upon by resorting to other currencies than the dollar to be the international means of finance; unable to see that once the people of the world have had an opportunity to view the critically acclaimed, dramatically powerful, passionately presented film, The Promise, by director Peter Kosminsky of the United Kingdom, where the inhumane policies of the Zionist criminals erupts in all its unguarded ferocity, the veil of respectability will be removed from Israelis’ atrocities for all, and blind, totally blind to the United Nations as it acts upon a resolution to recognize the rights of the Palestinian people to a state of their own, must they not see, both Israel and its people, as well as all Americans, that they must accept the reality that no single nation can force its will on all other nations with impunity; that time is over.

Clearly Israel’s militaristic approach to neighborliness does not work. Israel fears “delegitimization,” it fears boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS), and it fears total isolation from the world’s communities. Should the U.S. become financially incapacitated through the devaluing of its currency, should it not be able to create adequate jobs for its citizens, should its investment in Israel estimated at $8.2 million per day for a population that is approximately 7 million impair its stability, should the people of America awaken to the control AIPAC has over their President and representatives and the total disregard of America’s security as a result, then Israel could lose both the American veto that has protected it from world condemnation of its policies and America’s military support for its aggressiveness against its neighbors. That would leave Israel isolated, wrapped in fear, and psychologically unstable. Israel’s alternative can only be constant instability, never ending terror and war, hatred by their neighbors, innate, simmering self-hate, and mental anguish resulting from exclusionism that leaves open wounds of distrust and self-questioning, a state terribly close to insanity.

Is it not time for Israel to seek peace with its neighbors? Since no sensible person in the mid-east believes that the U.S. can act credibly as a broker for peace, Israel must seek other partners from the UN who can serve that purpose. It must be willing to accept as a premise for peace, justice as defined by the UN’s International Courts and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It must understand that the occupied territories must be returned to their native inhabitants, that the Partition Plan of November 1947 must be a basis for negotiations if only to provide a foundation for equitable land for both peoples. Modification of land distribution could follow as well as a means of providing for the rights of those displaced in the Nakba. The world peace body could serve to protect both peoples as generations come and go until a free movement of all is possible. Then perhaps we could say, men use thoughts to find justice and speech to communicate it.

******

Prof. William A. Cook

William A. Cook is a Professor of English at the University of La Verne in southern California. His works include Psalms for the 21st Century, Mellon Poetry Press, Tracking Deception: Bush Mid-East Policy, The Rape of Palestine, The Chronicles of Nefaria, and most recently in 2010, The Plight of the Palestinians. He can be reached at wcook@laverne.edu or www.drwilliamacook.com.

DAMASCUS, (SANA)_ The ongoing distortion, falsification and instigation media campaigns by some satellite channels are but to cover the crimes and aggressions of the armed terrorist groups in Syria, an information source underscored.

Some satellite channels earlier Saturday aired footage for a group of corpses with hands in chains claiming them to be killed by Army bombardment, while they in fact are the corpses of the innocent citizens kidnapped, tortured and slaughtered by the armed terrorist groups.

People of Homs Recognize Corpses of Their Relatives among the Victims of Armed Groups Aired by Satellite Channels

The corpses, in fetters, bear signs of torture and organized killing with no signs of artillery or mortar shells. Some Syrian citizens made calls to the Syrian TV asserting that they have seen in the footage of the corpses aired by Satellites of lies some of their relatives who were kidnapped earlier by armed terrorist groups.

Mrs. Thana al-Mohamad, a resident of Homs, said that she recognized two corpses of her relatives among those shown by fabrications satellites, who were kidnapped since 17 days in Homs Governorate.

Khalid al-Shalabi, another resident of Homs, said to Syrian TV, that some members of the armed terrorist groups are disguised in military uniforms shooting randolmly at the citizens of Homs.

Tens of innocent civilians were kidnapped by armed terrorist groups in different places inside Syria; many of them were tortured, raped and killed at the hands of the terrorists, supported by some countries like Qatar, Turkey, France and many others.

However, the TV satellites of lies and fabrications did not highlight the fact that had the killed were hit by mortars, as they claim, their bodies would have been turned into tiny pieces.

”The TV Satellites of instigation, partners with the armed terrorist groups and so-called the Istanbul council, have been launching a hysterical campaign of provocation and incitement to the shedding of the more of Syrian blood as to influence the stances of some countries at the UN Security Council,” added the source.

Some media outlets have launched  frenetic media campaigns against Syria   disseminating false information about Syria Army shelling of civilians in different Syrian Governorates, villages, quarters and cities.

Such campaigns are viewed by many observers and analysts as a sinister bid to negatively affect the ongoing UN Security Council discussions about Syria.

According to SANA correspondents in different Syrian Governorates life is normal in Damascus Country side, Hama, and Homs, where such media outlets, al-Arabyia- invented not only fabricated news but virtual correspondents on the ground.

Citizens of Homs: TV Channels Are Fabricating Pseudo-Massacre to Influence UNSC Resolutions against Syria

Having witnessed and experienced firsthand the crimes these provocative TV channels have contributed to committing though inciting the terrorists, citizens of Homs city considered that these channels are fabricating a pseudo- massacre in Homs to accuse the Syrian army to influence the UNSC resolutions against Syria.

They stressed that what happened last night was an order given to the armed terrorist groups by the so-called Istanbul Council and its head “the criminal Ghalioun” to kill the citizens in Homs and other areas and use their innocent blood in the Security Council’s lobbies.

In a phone call with the Syrian TV, Jihad Da’boul, a citizen from Karm Shamsham quarter, close to al-Khaledieyh neighborhood, said that over 300 gunmen with their weapons were operating last night in the area, as RPG missiles poured on the quarter causing 5 houses to burn completely. “The people were in a state of panic, particularly women and children.”

“It was like hell,” said a number of citizens from the neighborhoods Ikremah, al-Zahra and al-Muhajrin, still feeling the terror caused by last night, explaining how they were exposed to heavy gunfire, bombs and RPG and mortar attacks by armed terrorist groups.

Syrian Army Demanded to Enter Homs and Put End to the Crimes of Armed Groups

“Had the army been here, our houses wouldn’t have been shelled and those innocent people wouldn’t have been killed,” said Da’d Darwish from Ikremah neighborhood, sobbing with fear and anger.

The citizens called on the Syrian army to enter the city of Homs to protect them from the crimes of the armed terrorist groups that have been killing and abducting citizens and shelling the houses and neighborhoods.

Al-Ibrahim /H. Said

by Paul Balles

The real safeguard of democracy is education.

–Franklin D. Roosevelt

After a few hours of following the current debates between the Republican candidates for the presidency in America, I couldn’t resist the thought that “democracy” had become much less than promoted.

The U.S. is touted as having a great democracy. Everything good–either real or imagined—is supposedly due to their principles of democracy. Seldom do American politicians or members of the public define or clarify what those principles include.

America’s founding fathers, who were familiar with the democracies of the classical Greeks, distrusted democracy.

John Adams, second president of the U.S. wrote “Democracy… while it lasts is more bloody than either aristocracy or monarchy. Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There is never a democracy that did not commit suicide.”

In his book What’s Wrong with Democracy, Loren J. Samons professor of classical studies provides ample justification for America’s founding fathers’ distrust of democracy, a form of government they scorned precisely because of their familiarity with classical Athens.

Americans have come to embrace “democracy” in its modern form, with many of the beliefs we hold dear but seldom question, like the popular idea that majority rule leads to good government.

Samons finds that “democracy has begun to function like an unacknowledged religion in our culture, immune from criticism and dissent.”

How can it be a democracy when shadowy figures control events?

A classical example of this is the invasion of Iraq, cooked up and conditioned in the media by their secret rulers.

They even admit now that Iraq was a war based on false information, but so brainwashed, they are unable to ferret out the designers of the scenario and try them in criminal courts.

How is it a democracy when the public has no say over who will decide the country’s fate? Either George W. Bush is responsible and ought to be punished, or others made the decision that should have been his.

If others were responsible for the deaths of 4801 Americans and over a million and a half Iraqis, they should–in a democracy–be held accountable.

Mindless mobs in Egypt have been crying for democracy. Not only are they degrading the economy of their country, but they delude themselves into believing that a democracy will cure that too.

Do Egypt’s demonstrators believe for a minute that a popular democracy there would free up funds from their army’s payrolls to provide funds for the general populace?

As war correspondent Eric Margolis pointed out, “It’s difficult to see Egypt’s plutocratic military easily giving up all of its political and economic power to a rowdy civilian parliament, particularly when the US, Britain, Saudi Arabia, France, and Israel are all quietly backing the military regime.”

Egypt’s Nobel Prize winner Naguib Mahfouz noted realistically that, “In Egypt today most people are concerned with getting bread to eat. Only some of the educated understand how democracy works.”

Historian Alexander Fraser Tyler reported, “A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury.

“From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship.”

Thus, the utopian promise of a perfect society in a democracy turns out to be little more than a dream out of an opiate.

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About the Author

Paul Balles is a retired American university professor and freelance writer who has lived in the Middle East for many years. He’s a weekly Op-Ed columnist for the GULF DAILY NEWS . Dr. Balles is also Editorial Consultant for Red House Marketing and a regular contributor to Bahrain This Month.

Dr. Ismail Salami

The simmering tensions over the Malvinas Islands or Falkland Islands (off the coast of Argentina in the South Atlantic) as called by the British occupiers have become a matter of great concern as the UK decided to deploy destroyer HMS Dauntless to the islands.

The British Royal Navy is planning to send the Type 45 destroyer HMS Dauntless, a state-of-the-art warship, to the region on her maiden mission in a few months, a move interpreted by some experts as a provocation of war. Also known as the Daring class, HMS Dauntless is often regarded the most powerful air-defense warship in the world. This warship is equipped with the SAMPSON Multi Function Radar with the capability to detect hundreds of targets out to a distance of 400 km as well as outer atmosphere objects such as ballistic missiles.

Argentine Vice-president Amado Boudou sees the escalating conflict as an excuse to “distract public opinion from serious domestic problems such as unemployment.”

“London is after issues of big media impact to hide the daily sufferings of Britain with its problems of unemployment, shrinking economy, social unrest by appealing to a very distant situation such is the South Atlantic Islands dispute.”

However, the British Royal Navy says the Portsmouth-based destroyer’s deployment is “not a reaction to heightened tensions over the Falklands.” Paradoxically, Britain has already deployed anti-aircraft installations, a tracker station and modern jet fighters on the archipelago.

Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner says the UK harbors secret plans to plunder the natural resources such as oil and fish in the area of the territorial dispute and that Argentina insists on her legitimate claim to the islands.

“Don’t expect an outcry of xenophobia from us, we stand on the concept of sovereignty which is in agreement with the interests of the state, our people and protection of our natural resources.”

British Prime Minister David Cameron has recently slammed Argentina for trying to ‘colonize’ the Malvinas Islands while the UK has basically cast its specter of imperialistic domination and colonization of Argentina’s South Atlantic islands since 1833.

“What the Argentineans have been saying recently I would argue is actually far more like colonialism because these people want to remain British and the Argentineans want them to do something else,” Prime Minister Cameron said on Wednesday.

Mr. Cameron’s statement was, however, welcomed by a spate of criticism on the part of some Latin American leaders. For instance, Brazilian Foreign Minister Antonio Patriota said Latin America and the Caribbean “back Argentine sovereignty over the Malvinas and back the UN resolutions calling on the Argentine and British governments to hold talks on the issue.”

Although some pundits rule out the possibility of a full-scale invasion of the islands on the 1982 lines, Michael Clarke, head of the Royal United Services Institute, believes that a similar invasion particularly supported by the construction of an airfield at Mount Pleasant is possible. “In the event of tension, the UK could quickly reinforce the island because of its control of the airfield. We simply don’t need the kind of naval taskforce we had in 1982.”

On Friday 2 April 1982, Argentine forces mounted an attack on the Malvinas Islands and South Georgia in order to redeem their long occupied territory. Britain sent a naval task force and retook the islands through amphibious assault. The war, which lasted 74 days, ended to the triumph of the British imperialist army, claiming the lives of over 600 Argentine troops, and 255 British soldiers.

Britain has a long-standing interest in the Malvinas’ oil which originally dates back to a couple of decades. In 1975, Britain conducted preliminary studies in this regard and in 1998-2009, two British exploratory missions succeeded in proving the oil potential of the area. It remains unclear how much oil there is in the Malvinas islands but initial estimations place the offshore petroleum potential at a minimum of 6.525 billion barrels of oil.

On March 22, 2011, British transnational Rockhopper announced it had discovered a commercially viable deposit of crude oil in the Malvinas. Rockhopper Exploration PLC reported a “significant reservoir package” at its Sea Lion prospect.

When the company gave an initial report on its oil find at Sea Lion, Argentinean President Cristina Kirchner’s administration issued a statement and said the oil-drilling operation runs counter to international laws and treaties as well as UN resolutions which urge both sides to not take steps which might exacerbate the situation.

With an established history of imperialism and colonization, Britain has long coveted the windswept Malvinas as a strategic shipping stopover and treasure-trove of natural resources such as oil and fish.

With economy declining terminally at home, Britain is exploring ways to save itself either by virtue of climbing on the shoulders of others i.e. digging its imperialistically colonialist claws into others i.e. the Malvinas Islands or by foisting its weapons off on nations with a turbulent status quo such as Bahrain.

That the British government is contemplating another imperialist adventure in the Malvinas Islands is an irrefutable assumption but it is painfully difficult to conjecture how Britain is going to achieve this nefarious objective.

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Dr. Ismail Salami is an Iranian writer, Middle East expert, Iranologist and lexicographer. He writes extensively on the US and Middle East issues and his articles have been translated into a number of languages.

Uri Avnery: A Zionist warmonger masquerading as an activist for "peace."

by Jonathan Azaziah  -  Intifada-Palestine.com

Prelude: This is the first of a two-part series examining several critical positions of ‘Israeli’ “peace” activist Uri Avnery and how these positions relate to the overall rapidly-deteriorating status of the International Palestine Solidarity Movement. In this volume, Avnery himself is unabashedly slammed as an enemy of the Palestinian people and his piece “Shukran, Israel”, which is an attack on indigenous Islamic Resistance throughout the Middle East, is mercilessly skewered for the pack of Zionist lies that it is…

On January 2nd, 2012, Uri Avnery (real name: Helmut Ostermann), highly-touted ‘Israeli’ “peace” activist, released an article entitled “Shukran, Israel (1),” a fusion of colonial arrogance, Jewish supremacism and malicious Zionist propaganda that shocked me, infuriated me and made me chuckle after the rage simmered to a serenity at the thought of this diatribe even being composed to begin with. “Shukran, Israel” is the central focus of this paper but a few other key ‘gems’ from the wily old man will be mentioned for the sake of perspective. We will unforgivingly and devastatingly proceed with the review and deconstruction in just a moment.

Before the commencement however, something needs to be said that should have been said a long, long time ago. The reason why it hasn’t been said is a relatively simple, albeit terribly sad one: ‘activists’ within this ever-declining ‘movement’ do not have the courage to speak up because of fear; fear of being labeled “anti-Semitic” by the Zionist Power Configuration whose tentacles have deeply penetrated the solidarity network, as evidenced by the recent inexplicable expulsion of leading activist and thinker Dr. Francis Clark-Lowes from an important branch of the UK Palestinian Solidarity Movement (2). These ‘activists’ are intellectual, spiritual and political cripples posing as revolutionaries. Their cowardice has allowed the aforesaid supremacism to prosper under the guise of solidarity; another ‘mask of Zion.’ So here, let it be said; nay, let it be screamed so the skies tremble, and those activists with dignity never allow themselves to be silenced again.

Uri Avnery… you are not a peace activist. You do not represent solidarity. You are not a friend of Palestine. You are not a comrade of the oppressed anywhere and you never will be. You are an occupier, Uri Avnery. You are a land thief. You are a usurper. You are a colonist. You are a settler. You are an ethnic cleanser. You are an uprooter. You are a cold-blooded murderer. You are a planter of bombs. You are a butcher of men. You are a killer of women. You are a slaughterer of children (3). You are a terrorist. You have no right giving speeches. You have no right writing articles or books. You have no right to freedom. You deprived Palestinians of their very lives; you stole their lives, Uri Avnery. You stole their freedom and you stole their homeland. You, and every single other Zionist fanatic who served in the sadistic, bloodthirsty Irgun terror gang deserve perpetual imprisonment for the horrific crimes against humanity that you committed. You helped bring the Zionist entity into being and to this exact moment, you ‘fight’ to defend its criminal existence. That makes you a criminal. You are a Zionist, and Zionists have no place in holy Palestine. They never will and you never will. Ever.

It was tremendously vital for this to be stated in such unequivocal terms because Uri Avnery has been given a place in the discourse for Palestine’s liberation for far too long. Due to this, his supremacism has seeped through the cracks and infected the psyches of many; his analyses, some staunchly Zionist, some categorically and venomously false and others a mixture of both, are praised and looked upon as sources of sagacity. From this day forward, let this cease to be the case. Let the struggle of Palestine be spoken of by the dispossessed and those who wish to see them return to their homes, not those who carried out the dispossessing, like Uri Avnery.

“Shukran, Israel”: An Amalgamation of Supremacism, Orientalism and Zionist Lies

Uri Avnery would like the Resistance movements of the region to say "thank you" to 'Israel' for violating the humanity of their people. Preposterous.

From the onset of Uri Avnery’s atrocious smear of indigenous Islamic Resistance across the Muslim world, two specific narratives immediately emerge and intertwine with one another throughout. The first is the yarn of the Jewish supremacist and the second is the line of the colonialist. One may argue that the narrative could be reduced to one, that of the Zionist, which wouldn’t be an observation of inaccuracy but it would not be an observation of totality; hence the need for dichotomy. The latter, that of the colonialist, will be dealt with first. Essentially, the premise of “Shukran, Israel” is that Islamic Resistance groups should be thankful to the Zionist entity for their current positions of popularity and power. Without the Zionist regime, Avnery opines, these parties wouldn’t be where they are today. This, at its very core, is colonialist in nature: the indigenous should thank their colonizer for colonizing them, giving them purpose, providing them structure and freeing them from their previously pointless lives.

Avnery would quite literally like these parties to bow down before the illegitimate Zionist regime in gratitude. But gratitude for what exactly? What is this colonialist delusion actually suggesting? There is nothing benevolent about the Zionist entity; nothing pure, nothing decent and nothing even relatively redeemable on any kind of humanitarian level. The Zionist entity is a terror state; a usurping beast that has no ‘right to exist’ and was founded with an inspiration derived from the deepest, darkest caverns of criminality. It is an entity of baby murder, women slaughter and monstrous ethnic cleansing. Obviously, Avnery would like these Resistance groups to say “Shukran, Israel” for massacring, demolishing, uprooting, dispossessing, looting, bombing, raping, pillaging and plundering Palestine and its people. The reason why these groups exist to begin with is because ‘Israel’ was erected illegally and barbarically on Palestinian land; if the Zionist entity didn’t exist, Resistance to it wouldn’t exist either, because the peoples of the land, Muslim, Christian and Jew alike, would be living in peace, harmony and brotherhood, as they did prior to Zionist terror gangs carrying out Plan D and ethnically cleansing close to 800,000 Palestinians from their homeland. With this firmly in mind, it becomes exceptionally evident that Avnery’s suggestion is not only delusional and colonialist, but utterly insane.

'The good Rebbe' Menachem Mendel Schneerson and Uri Avnery are brothers in Jewish supremacism.

The Jewish supremacist angle to Avnery’s drivel isn’t even subtle. The very title of the piece betrays its blatancy. While he constantly attempts to portray himself as a secularist,  his tribal adherence to chosen-ness, and therefore, his Jewish supremacism, is as clear as day. The genocidal Chabad Lubavitch supremacist Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, spiritual guide to the Zionist policymakers who masterminded the dismemberment and butchering of Iraq (4), once declared, “Every Jew, men and even women and children, brings about the existence of the entire creation, they become masters over the world, and thus every single creation owes them recognition for this good (5).” Avnery’s piece represents a microcosm of Schneerson’s madness. ‘Israel’ is the Jewish ‘state’, comprised of Jews from the world over. In the mind of the Jewish supremacist, all creation flows from this living, ‘nation-state’ embodiment of Jewishness. There is no doubt that Avnery harbors this Judeocentric view or something closely resembling it, considering that he vehemently believes in the existence of the Zionist entity.

In his piece, Avnery pays homage to the Talmud, the most important book in supremacist Chabad Lubavitch’s ideology and in general, the holiest book of Judaism, as confirmed by the rabbinate’s highest-ranking ‘sages (6).’ He abhorrently writes, “Generations of Jews have been brought up on the Talmud, which is mainly a compilation of legal precedents, and their minds have been honed by legalistic arguments. Not for nothing are Jewish lawyers in demand the world over.” The Talmud is no such thing; it is a book written by megalomaniacal rabbis to train their Jewish supremacist devotees in the ways of subversion, murder, theft, circumvention, genocide, exceedingly vile anti-Gentile racism, pedophilia, disturbing rituals and denigration of prophets, including Jesus Christ the Messiah (‘Isa al-Masih in Arabic), who is designated by the Talmud as a black magic practitioner, sexual deviant and son of a whore who is rotting in his own excrement in the fires of hell (6). Of all irrelevant things to invoke in this piece, Avnery decided to invoke the Talmud; a transparent indication of his tribal need to acknowledge Jewish supremacy even when it isn’t pertinent to the matter at hand because, to the Zionist Jew, his supremacy always is the matter at hand, regardless of what the matter is.

Hamas According To Avnery: Creation Of Shin Bet

Hamas, the Islamic Resistance of illegally besieged Gaza and all of occupied Palestine, is NOT a creation of the Zionist entity.

It is odd that a person who vociferously prides himself on being an activist for ‘peace’ would repeat the most disgraceful hasbara in an attempt to get his point across. In light of everything written so far however, it isn’t so odd, is it? Avnery’s ‘peace’ activist persona is nothing but a ‘Mask of Zion’ and the point of his piece is the injection of more disinformation into the discourse on Palestine to malign real threats to Zionist hegemony. The first target of Avnery’s horrid hasbara is Hamas, the Islamic Resistance of illegally besieged Gaza. Prior to smearing Hamas though, he writes, “The General Security Service (known as Shin Bet or Shabak) had an active interest in the flourishing of the mosques. People who pray five times a day, they thought, have no time to build bombs.” What pathetic and egregious remarks. Maybe one should send a newsflash to Uri Avnery to remind him that the predominant religion wholeheartedly believed in by the majority of the Palestinian people is Islam. Yet again, the orientalism surfaces, by associating Islam, the religion of the indigenous, with primitiveness and passiveness, as if one who believes in it is incapable of engaging in Resistance to tyrannical occupation.

It is particularly nauseating that he would suggest Shin Bet would encourage Palestinians to turn to Islam. Palestinians need no such encouragement. Belief in Islam has been an integral element to their Resistance to 100 years of Jewish colonization and 64 years of Zionist occupation. Their faith in ALLAH (SWT) has granted them steadfastness, the likes of which the world has never seen, in the face of unrelenting ‘Israeli’ brutality. Palestinians view their survival on their land as a heavenly miracle; after a century of the Zionist entity’s mass murder campaigns, assassinations, home demolitions and acts of resource theft, the Palestinians remain. And the Palestinians will always remain, in their sincere opinion, because of ALLAH (SWT), because ALLAH (SWT) rewards those who are steadfast. Belittling the faith and dignity of a people under siege to justify a warped political thesis is revolting; just revolting. Avnery (baselessly) writes that Shin Bet initiated this policy of “turning the Palestinians towards Islam” to undermine the PLO and its chief component, Fatah, but this is massively false.

Yasser Arafat began selling Palestine down the river long before this horric, treasonous moment with Zionist war criminal Yitzhak Rabin.

The PLO began undermining itself when it turned away from its founding principles and began making backroom deals with the Zionist entity, culminating in the collaborationist disaster of the Oslo Accords. In September 1970, Fatah presented a revolutionary document to the Second World Congress on Palestine, laying out a strategy for the liberation of all Palestinian lands, those stolen by the Zionists during al-Nakba and al-Naksa. The document also made it clear that all peoples, Christians, Muslims and Jews alike, would be granted Palestinian citizenship upon liberation of the lands and expulsion of all colonizers and usurpers. These righteous and admirable ideas of restoration would vanish quickly unfortunately. To attain support from the Soviet Union, and as a means of internationalizing its representation of the Palestinian people, the PLO dropped these ideas in late 1973 and began secret contacts with the ‘Israelis’ as well as Zionist sympathizers in the West. The PLO leadership was prepared to give away all of the Palestinian people’s rights for a “mini-state”; for normalization with Zionism (7). Palestinians were quite aware of the PLO’s treachery and due to this, many found themselves supporting Hamas because the Islamic Resistance was unequivocally committed to liberating every inch of Palestine.

Which brings us to the origins of this rotten Avnery-repeated hasbara which surmises that Shin Bet directly created or indirectly facilitated the growth of Hamas: the ‘Israeli’ military-intelligence establishment, through and through, top to bottom, in a clear Zionist PSYOP to discredit the Resistance. There is no Arab source for this scandalous ‘bombshell’. Two pieces and two pieces only are incessantly quoted regarding the alleged ‘Israeli creation’ of Hamas; one piece is from the normally-reliable Global Research, entitled “Hamas is a creation of Mossad (8),” and the other is from the Zionist propaganda rag The Wall Street Journal, entitled “How Israel Helped To Spawn Hamas (9).”

The Global Research piece staggeringly quips that “Hamas and Ariel Sharon, see eye to eye; they are exactly on the same wave length,” simply because Hamas rejected the treasonous Oslo Accords which legitimized the Zionist theft of Palestine. A brazen assertion if there ever was one, especially considering Hamas is resisting Zionist occupation and Sharon is one of the worst and most animalistic Zionist war criminals to ever set foot in Palestine. The source for the claims in the Global Research drivel is none other than ‘Israeli’ historian Ze’ev Sternhell, a professional hasbaranik for the usurping regime and a Zionist war criminal who served as a Golani Brigades commander in multiple ‘Israeli’ wars of expansion, including al-Naksa. Sternhell views ‘Israeli’ war crimes during al-Naksa as a “return to humanity” and al-Nakba as a “a miracle” and “a historic event informed by an almost metaphysical dimension.” Sternhell also unashamedly admits, “I am not only a Zionist, I am a super-Zionist. For me, Zionism was and remains the right of the Jews to control their fate and their future (10).” Even though that “future” is built on the bodies of murdered Palestinians, on top of ethnically cleansed land. Sternhell on Hamas is about as credible as Paul Wolfowitz on WMDs in now-annihilated Iraq.

The Wall Street Journal is a propaganda rag of ultra-Zionist media mogul Rupert Murdoch. Everything that it publishes benefits Zionism

It must be noted that the Wall Street Journal is an influential hasbara rag owned by notorious ultra-Zionist Rupert Murdoch, a multi-billionaire with Orthodox Jewish roots who is deeply concerned about the Jewish ‘state’, who is tremendously connected to the Zionist inner circle that carried out the 9/11 false flag attack and who is friends with a plethora of prominent ‘Israeli’ war criminals (11). Also, Murdoch’s Jewish mother makes it a point to routinely convene with a supremacist rabbi from the Melbourne branch of Chabad Lubavitch (12). The fact that a piece depicting Hamas as a creation of the Zionist regime would appear in a paper with a heavy pro-‘Israel’ bias is proof in and of itself that this information only benefits Zionism and only hurts the Resistance. “How Israel Helped To Spawn Hamas” is loaded with Zionist ‘perennial victim’ propaganda to a suffocating extent and its only sources are half a dozen officials from the Zionist occupation army, all of whom brag about their close contacts and interactions with Hamas at its very inception. This however, is the farthest thing from concrete evidence.The military of the Jewish ‘state’ is not a reliable source on any level; it is trained in the art of deception and this art is embedded in its protocol. Lying, cheating, subverting, distorting, all represent the actions of the ‘Israeli’ military in its attempts to defend the Zionist entity from criticism and there is no better example of this than the skullduggery on full display during the Operation Cast Lead genocide (13). The psychological warfare was global, with official Zionist occupation army spokespersons and unofficial Zionist fanatics engaging in an international media assault against anyone pointing out the Zionist entity’s crimes against humanity in illegally besieged Gaza (14).

The martyr Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, founder of Hamas. Murdered by the Zionist entity on March 22, 2004. Palestine still sheds tears for this giant; this hero.

Ironically, the lone Palestinian quoted in the Wall Street Journal’s piece of hasbara is a supporter of Hamas who vehemently denied that his group had any association with the Zionist regime. The piece also made numerous attempts to smear the righteous martyr Sheikh Ahmad Yassin, founder of Hamas, by depicting him as a Zionist collaborator and downplaying ‘Israeli’ aggression against him. Avnery echoes the downplaying in his piece, “Yet it took Shabak more than a year before it arrested Sheikh Ahmad Yassin, the Hamas leader.” His insinuation is insulting. The Sheikh was known to all in the Arab world as a staunch force against Zionism and its illegal occupation of all of Palestine. There were countless threats on his life at the hands of Shin Bet, Mossad and elite units of IOF since 1987. His arrests, imprisonments and tortures that followed during his time in lock-up are also well-known; these ‘Israeli’ measures are particularly despised and decried because the Sheikh was a blind man and confined to a wheelchair, an example of his monumental courage as well as ‘Israel’s’ legendary cowardice.

Uri Avnery and the Zionist writer behind the putrid Wall Street Journal hasbara should be reminded of the ‘Israeli’ oppression of the Sheikh, as well as the two public assassination attempts against him, with the second one of course, being a ‘success’ for the Zionist regime. On March 22nd, 2004, an ‘Israeli’ helicopter gunships fired missiles into the Islamic Association Mosque in al-Sabra neighborhood of central Gaza City as Sheikh Ahmad Yassin and dozens of worshipers were leaving after the completion of Fajr, the Islamic dawn prayer. The savage Zionist attack not only murdered the 66-year old wheelchair-bound Sheikh, but at least 7 Palestinian civilians and gravely wounded 17 others, including the Sheikh’s two sons (15). This also serves as a destroyer of Avnery’s sheepish claim that the Zionist entity has some sort of affinity for mosques, as if the 34 mosques totally destroyed in Operation Cast Lead (16) and more than six decades of Zionist destruction, desecration and confiscation of Palestinian religious properties (17) weren’t proof enough.

Hezbollah According To Avnery: “Encouraged” By The Zionist Entity

Hezbollah, the righteous Islamic Resistance of Lebanon, was NOT created by 'Israel' or encouraged by it; Hezbollah has been a thorn in the side of Zionism from the very beginning of time.

The second target of Uri Avnery’s orientalist-supremacist assault on indigenous Islamic Resistance is Hezbollah, the righteous Islamic Resistance of Lebanon. Avnery elevates himself to another level in this section however as he transcends mere orientalism. To make it extraordinarily clear, what Avnery did with this piece vis-à-vis the oppressed people of Southern Lebanon and Hezbollah is a gross perversion of the historical record and a dastardly insult to any and every soul who fought and died in the struggle against the illegal 22-year Zionist occupation of Lebanese land.

Avnery writes, “The Israeli soldiers were received as liberators {in Southern Lebanon} — liberators from the PLO, which had turned this area into a state within a state.” What a monumentally detestable lie. The people of Southern Lebanon have been vigilantly opposed to Zionism even prior to the creation of ‘Israel,’ as they were quite aware of the original Zionist intention to colonize and ethnically cleanse Lebanese land up to the Litani River as part of ‘Greater Israel’. The people of Southern Lebanon did not forget the Salha Mosque Massacre of 1948, in which Zionist terrorists marched 105 Lebanese men, women and children into the mosque of the small village and didn’t stop shooting until everyone was dead. The people of Southern Lebanon did not forget the Houla Massacre, also of 1948, in which ‘Israeli’ occupation forces burned 85 Lebanese civilians alive and ethnically cleansed nearly 11,000 Lebanese from their lands (18). And during the 1978 Zionist invasion, Operation Litani, and the 1982 Zionist invasion, Operation Peace For Galilee, Palestinians and Lebanese fought together against ‘Israel’s’ aggression, with many Lebanese even comprising the ranks of Palestinian Resistance groups (19).

Sayyed Musa al-Sadr: the spiritual godfather of Lebanese Resistance who Uri Avnery completely ignored in his "analysis.

Avnery’s next lie, is this one, “It took the Shi’ites just a few weeks to realize that they {the Zionist invaders} had no intention of leaving. So, for the first time in their history, they rebelled.” Where to begin with this orientalist-supremacist inanity? The Zionist intent to spread division through sectarian rhetoric is obvious, deliberate and trashy. Shi’a are not the only religious group in Southern Lebanon and they, like the smaller communities of Sunni, Druze and Christians, were acutely aware of the Zionists’ machinations to steal and divide their lands, hence their Resistance to the occupation from genesis. Avnery’s history is off by about two decades; the uprising against the Zionist occupation was not the first uprising in the history of the Lebanese Shi’a. The righteous, charismatic and unifying Lebanese-Iranian cleric, Sayyed Musa al-Sadr, who disappeared in Libya in 1978, was an inspiration to the abjectly impoverished Shi’a of Southern Lebanon, as well as the other ethnic and religious communities, and as early as 1960, the Shi’a were protesting for equality and an end to the terrible discrimination that they had dealt with for decades.

Sayyed Musa al-Sadr is the missing link in Avnery’s hasbara festival. He founded the Amal Movement in 1975 in hopes of deterring ‘Israeli’ aggression against Lebanon, maximizing the struggle to liberate Palestine and reforming the Lebanese political system which was disgustingly set up on ethno-sectarian lines by French colonialism. When the Sayyed vanished in 1978, it threw Amal into chaos. A power struggle ensued and many members who wanted to maintain their dignity and righteousness and preserve the Sayyed’s teachings, broke away.

These breakaway members would join the growing number of revolutionary youth inspired by architect of Iran’s Islamic Revolution, Grand Ayatollah Sayyed Ruhollah Khomeini, preeminent Lebanese religious authority Grand Ayatollah Sayyed Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah and revolutionary Lebanese cleric Sayyed Abbas al-Musawi, who was later brutally assassinated by the Zionist regime along with his wife and son on February 16th, 1992. Hezbollah had a brotherly working relationship with the PLO while it clung to its righteous and revolutionary principles, with the two coordinating numerous retaliatory attacks against the Zionist occupation as early as 1973, 9 years before Hezbollah was officially founded with its trademark name. But as the PLO began its shift towards collaboration and increased its corrupt, abusive policies towards both the Palestinian refugees and the poverty-stricken Lebanese Shi’a, its relations with Hezbollah badly deteriorated (20).

Nabih Berri: head of Amal and current Speaker of the Lebanese Parliament; Berri and his thugs did the dirty work of 'Israel' during the Lebanese civil war by fighting Hezbollah and the Palestinian refugees.

Meanwhile, when the dust settled in the battle to control Amal, it was current Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri who emerged as the head. Under his command, and in collusion with the Syrian regime of Hafez al-Assad, Amal launched the ‘War of the Camps,’ besieging, shelling, assaulting and starving the Palestinians in Lebanon’s refugee camps for over three years and spilling the blood of thousands, including women and children (21). Women who attempted to escape the War of the Camps to attain supplies for their children were shot dead by Amal snipers (22). To this day, Berri strives to deprive the Palestinian refugees of Lebanon their basic human rights (23), and unlike the other war criminals of the Lebanese civil war, a conflict started and sustained by the Zionist entity (24), Berri refuses to apologize for the horrific crimes that his militiamen committed (25); he refuses to admit that Amal performed a great service for the Zionist entity and that it committed high treason against the cause of Arab liberation. If Sayyed Musa al-Sadr is alive and well, he is shaking his head in sheer disgust and if he has passed away, then he is spinning in his grave over what Amal became in the wake of his disappearance.

While the leader of Amal seeks to maliciously hurt Palestinians, Hezbollah enjoys more than 90% support from the Palestinian refugees confined to camps (20). The Islamic Resistance of Lebanon offers the Palestinian refugees social services and carts water into the camps on a daily basis (26). Hezbollah has guarded the Palestinian people of the camps from any and every threat since its official birth in 1982, with its mujahideen giving their very lives for their brothers and sisters, and Palestinians humbly and triumphantly acknowledge this (27). While Amal and the Syrian regime starved the Palestinian refugees, Hezbollah smuggled food to those in need. While Amal sniped women and children, Hezbollah fought Zionism and its proxies, direct and indirect, including Amal. While Amal embarrassed the memory of Sayyed Musa al-Sadr, Hezbollah fought to honor it.

Avnery actually had the gall to pen this ‘nugget’: “To outflank Amal, Israel encouraged a small, more radical, rival: God’s Party, Hezbollah.” No further analysis is needed; the facts of history laid out above in meticulous detail lay waste to the former Irgun terrorist’s nonsense. Because Hezbollah is the only power to militarily defeat the usurping Zionist entity, not once, but twice, in 2000 and 2006, it shouldn’t be too strenuous to comprehend why Avnery would purposefully and horrendously distort history to smear this group of righteous men. Axiomatically, he was merely behaving like the Zionist he is and doing his utmost to defend the precious Talmudic enclave built upon the bodies of slaughtered Palestinians and Lebanese that he just so happens to call ‘home.’

Avnery On Egypt’s Ikhwan: Geopolitical Idiocy

The Muslim Brotherhood is not what it used to be and not, by any means, what it seems.

The frequent use of the term “Islamist” throughout “Shukran, Israel” is one of the largest indicators that the piece is written from a hyper-orientalist perspective. It is the ultimate sign of ignorance regarding all matters pertaining to Islam. Originating in the bigoted minds of French ‘scholars’ a little over 250 years ago, the term was popularized by the ‘war on terror’, an Orwellian, neo-‘Israeli’ declaration of global war on all nations resisting the hegemonic aspirations of the Zionist Power Configuration that was designed entirely by Zionist warmongers (28). It is a term that has been rejected by all scholars and clerics of note in the Islamic world, Sunni and Shi’a alike; anyone who uses this term, whether knowingly or unknowingly, has fallen into the Zionist trap. Avnery falls into the ‘knowingly’ category.

Avnery accurately points out that the Muslim Brotherhood (Ikhwan al-Muslimun; Ikhwan for short) was created in Egypt 20 years before al-Nakba and because of the fervent anti-Zionist stance of its founder, the great martyr, Sheikh Hassan al-Banna, it sent volunteers to fight against the creation of the usurping regime. Many Ikhwan members valiantly died fighting for the preservation and freedom of Palestine. He also accurately renders that with the expansion of ‘Israel’ during al-Naksa (and all of the brutality before it, which Avnery conveniently fails to mention), Ikhwan’s popularity soared.

But what Avnery left out is that with the martyrdom of al-Banna at the hands of the Egyptian monarchy, and the subsequent martyrdom of his spiritual successor, the highly-revered Syed Qutb, at the hands of the justifiably paranoid Nasser government, the moral fiber that held Ikhwan together plummeted. And while Ikhwan still provided vast social services to the people of Egypt, everything from housing to education, food to health care, its allegiances shifted away from Palestine and the oppressed peoples exploited by imperialism and colonialism, paying homage to them only in rhetoric. Ikhwan found a home with the devilish, reactionary House of Saud, which became its principal and habitual financier, as well as support from the CIA, which used it as a tool against Nasser and future endeavors in psychological warfare to mask aggression against Islamic countries (29).

The relationship between the usurping Zionist entity and the House of Saud has become so close, one cannot determine where 'Israel' begins and where Saudi Arabia ends.

Flush with Saudi funds and CIA protection, Ikhwan expanded, establishing branches throughout the Arab world. It is integral to understand that Saudi money… equals Zionist money. The House of Saud has been a dear ally of the Zionist entity since the earliest days of Saudi Arabia’s establishment, in which the kingship promised its British masters that it had “no objection” with Palestine being given to “the poor Jews (30).” Decades and decades of collaboration followed, with a Zionist-Saudi nexus being established to not only undermine Palestine and its fight for liberation at all costs, but all nationalist Arab-Islamic movements that sought freedom from Zionist domination. Since al-Nakba, Saudi princes and government officials have regularly met with Zionist entity leaders. The House of Saud applauded as the Zionist entity massacred more than 1,400 Lebanese in 2006, stood silent as it mass murdered 431 children in illegally besieged Gaza in 2008-09 and is now actively working with ‘Israeli’ intelligence to destroy the Islamic Republic of Iran (31). Thus, unequivocally, Ikhwan, is a Zionist tool. Nothing remains of the original Ikhwan model set up by the great martyr Sheikh Hassan al-Banna, excluding Hamas; nothing at all.And it is here where the geopolitical idiocy of Avnery is exposed. He wrote his piece under the impression that Ikhwan hates ‘Israel’ but despite this, it should thank the Zionist entity for its meteoric rise to power. It is the exact opposite that is true. Ikhwan should thank the Zionist entity and shake the hands of its leaders because that is what friends do; that is what allies do. The Zionist entity and Ikhwan are partners in the repression of the Palestinian cause and Arab-Islamic Resistance in general.The multiple factions of Ikhwan across the region, now backed by GCC giant Qatar too, are ready, willing and able to kowtow to all demands of the Zionist entity and its Lobby-controlled surrogates in the United States (32). Egypt’s Ikhwan has already given guarantees to the Zionist-occupied United States government that it will respect the traitorous Camp David Accords (33). Ikhwan’s denials of this are overridden by the fact that Zionist-occupied Washington has pledged $150 million to the Ikhwan-controlled Egyptian Parliament (34). That kind of money simply wouldn’t be on the table without guarantees for the Zionist entity.While Tunisian youth parties move to criminalize normalization with the usurping Zionist regime (35), Ikhwan’s Tunisia branch, al-Nahda, opposes this revolutionary move and confirmed it during a recent trip to Washington D.C. at WINEP, the research wing of AIPAC (36). While in the American capital, al-Nahda also forged links with the US Congress’ top Zionists, including Joe Lieberman and Gary Ackerman (37). And there is no place where Ikhwan is dirtier or where its partnership with Zionism is more evident than in Syria, where the powerful Saudi-Qatari-funded branch has rigorously worked with Mossad and its American partners in the Zionist-founded, Zionist-controlled National Endowment for Democracy (NED) to destabilize Syria, overthrow the vastly-popular Assad government and replace it with an anti-Resistance regime totally subservient to the House of Saud and the Jewish supremacist entity (38). All of these acts of treason must be part of Ikhwan’s “luster,” as Avnery calls it.

The closeness between the Zionist entity and Ikhwan deepens in the shadows.

As the shadow relationship between ‘Israel’ and Ikhwan flourishes, the Zionist media continues its relentless campaign of incitement against Ikhwan, depicting it as an existential threat to the Zionist entity. This too is by design. While there indeed are revolutionary aspirations and anti-Zionist, anti-imperialist, anti-colonialist and anti-Western sentiments amongst the Arab youth, the “Arab Spring”, a name originally conceived by Zionist warmonger Charles Krauthammer in 2005 (39), is an operation of mass Zionist subversion launched by the international intelligence directorate of ‘Israel’ and its global network of sayanim to erode the sovereignties of all neighboring Arab states under the guise of “democracy” and foster the illusion of an atmosphere of hostility against the Jewish ‘state’, setting the stage for another 1967-style war of Zionist expansion (40). ‘Israeli’ military measures are already underway in the Sinai to recapture the territory it abandoned under the false pretext of ‘peace (41).’ It isn’t expected that Avnery would reveal this kind of information, nor is it expected that Avnery should even be aware of it. What is expected is that Avnery, a Zionist living on stolen Palestinian land, keeps his immensely moronic opinions of Arab-Islamic history and Arab-Islamic Resistance to himself.

Avnery On The Islamic Republic Of Iran: Unadulterated Zionist Audacity

Proudly sporting his peace activist 'Mask of Zion,' Uri Avnery repeats the same warmongering Zionist lies against Iran.

The final target of “Shukran, Israel” is none other than the revolutionary Islamic Republic of Iran. Strangely, Avnery fully admits in the piece that there was a treacherous and incestuous relationship between the US-UK-installed Shah and the Zionist entity. He notes the fortunes made by ‘Israeli’ arms dealers from selling guns to the brutal Shah regime. He notes that Shin Bet provided training to SAVAK, the Shah’s secret police, including in the area of torture. He notes that the Shah built oil pipelines to the Zionist entity, plundering Iran’s natural resources to please his ‘Israeli’ bosses and went as far as allowing ‘Israeli’ generals to use Iran as a launchpad to train Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq to undermine the revolutionary government that toppled the monarchy in Baghdad. The Islamic Revolution of 1979, led by the aforementioned Grand Ayatollah Sayyed Ruhollah Khomeini, overthrew the Shah and vowed never to cooperate with the Zionist entity again. Not only for the sake of Iran but for the sake of humanity.Why then, should the Islamic Republic be thanking the entity that helped a demonic dictator oppress and torture its people for nearly three decades? According to Avnery, because the Revolution’s Resistance to Zionism has helped unify the nation and without it, the Islamic Revolution would have gone nowhere. More unadulterated Zionist audacity wrapped in orientalist-supremacist trash. The real reason for including Iran in “Shukran, Israel” is revealed with this statement, “It seems that all Iranian factions — including the opposition — now support the Iranian effort to obtain a nuclear bomb of their own, ostensibly to deter an Israeli nuclear attack.” Avnery is spreading Zionist warmongering propaganda while masquerading as a ‘peace’ activist. Iran is not seeking a nuclear weapon. And despite all of the bellicose rhetoric in the Zionist media to the contrary, there isn’t a lick of evidence to substantiate the claims. Period (42). And the “Iranian factions” mentioned by Avnery aren’t unified in their desire to acquire a non-existent nuclear weapon, they are unified in their commitment to defend Iran from Zionist aggression (43). Avnery has an ostensible problem with getting his facts straight, like all Zionists do.

Iran has been targeted by the Zionist entity since the triumph of the Islamic Revolution in 1979

After the overthrow of the Shah, still the Zionist entity has tormented the Islamic Republic of Iran. It backed Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Iran, a disastrous act of aggression that left 400,000 Iraqis and over one million Iranians dead after 8 years of Western-fueled war. It launched an all-out hasbara assault in an attempt to malign the revolution, disseminating ‘Israeli’-intelligence-cooked lies about backroom weapons deals between Khomeini and the Zionist occupation. It has armed, funded and worked intimately with the Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MEK), an international terrorist outfit responsible for the deaths of more than 16,000 Iranians since 1979. It has instigated unrest on the streets of Tehran with the NED-engineered “Green Revolution.” It has attacked Iran with vicious cyber warfare; yes, the Stuxnet Virus was made in ‘Israel.’ And as of recent, its Mossad has infiltrated several levels of Iranian society to carry out acts of war (44).So should Iran thank ‘Israel’ for ordering its Mossad to assassinate 32-year old nuclear scientist Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan (45)? Should Iran thank ‘Israel’ for ordering its Mossad to pose as CIA agents to recruit Jundallah terrorists to carry out acts of mass murder against Iranian civilians (46)? Should Iran thank ‘Israel’ for ordering its Mossad and its proxy, the MEK, to bomb an Iranian missile base and murder up to 40 soldiers in cold blood (47)? Should Iran thank ‘Israel’ for calling on the world to aerially and navally blockade Iran, even after its lobbies in Europe and America pressured those governments into passing crippling sanctions against the Islamic Republic (48)? The answer of course, is no; no, it absolutely, positively shouldn’t. And it is just downright repugnant for anyone to suggest that it should. “Shukran, Israel” is the embodiment of this repugnance. 

~ End Of Part I ~

 Next: Uri Avnery’s support for war criminal Barack Obama, the aggression against Libya and the ongoing destabilization of Syria are exposed, the current state of the International Palestine Solidarity Movement is picked apart in graphic detail and a call for revolution is issued…

 Sources:

(1) Shukran, Israel by Uri Avnery, Antiwar.com

(2) The Wandering Hugh by Gilad Atzmon, deLIBERATION

(3) Uri Avnery Interview by Jon Elmer, The Progressive

(4) Libya: The Zionist Dragon And The Drums Of War; Section – Conclusion: Purim And Occupation by Jonathan Azaziah, Mask of Zion

(5) “Jews Brought About The Existence Of The ENTIRE Creation” Says Rebbe Menachem Schneerson! by Nahida Izzat, Salem News

(6) The Truth About The Talmud: A Documented Exposé Of Supremacist Rabbinic Hate Literature by Michael A. Hoffman II, Independent History and Research

(7) The Hidden History Of Zionism; Chapter 13 – A Strategy For Revolution, Pages 126-129 by Ralph Schoenman, Veritas Press

(8) Hamas Is A Creation Of Mossad by Hassane Zerouky, Global Research

(9) How Israel Helped To Spawn Hamas by Andrew Higgins, The Wall Street Journal

(10) Amazing Grace: An Interview With Ze’ev Sternhell by Ari Shavit, Haaretz

(11) Murdoch’s Deeply Hidden Jewish Roots – A Biography by Christopher Bollyn, American Free Press(12) The Rabbi And The Dame by Henry Benjamin, J-Wire

(13) Israeli Lies by Dr. Elias Akleh, Counter Currents

(14) Lies And Israel’s War Crimes by Ben White, The Electronic Intifada

(15) Israel Assassinates Sheikh Ahmed Yassin by The Electronic Intifada/The Palestinian Center For Human Rights

(16) Cash Shortage Hampers Rebuilding Of Mosques Destroyed by Israel by Eva Bartlett, Inter Press Service

(17) Destruction Of Waqf: The Grave Offences Of The Israeli State by Mya Guarnieri, Al-Akhbar English

(18) Palestine; Chapter – Zionist Terror by Harun Yahya, Harun Yahya Books

(19) A War That Never Occurred by Professor As’ad Abu Khalil, The Angry Arab News Service

(20) Will Hezbollah Support Right To Work For Palestinian Refugees? by Dr. Franklin Lamb, The Palestine Chronicle

(21) 13 Years After Massacre, Beirut’s Palestinians Are Still Under Siege by Stephen J. Sosebee, Washington Report On Middle East Affairs

22) Waging War On The Camps, Once Again by Andrea Becker, The Electronic Intifada

(23) Living War: Palestinians Refugees In Lebanon by Stefan Christoff, The Electronic Intifada

(24) The Anniversary Of The Lebanese Civil War: The Wars That Never End by Professor As’ad Abu Khalil, The Angry Arab News Service

(25) Lebanon In The Eyes Of Palestinian Refugees by Qassem Qassem, Al-Akhbar English

(26) Interview With David Lewis: Negotiating With Hezbollah by PBS Frontline World

(27) Bourj El-Barajneh: Searching For Meaning In A Refugee Camp by Ramzy Baroud, the Palestine Chronicle

(28) September 11, 2001: Zionist Shock Therapy And The Birth Of The Lie by Martin Iqbal, Empire Strikes Black

(29) Washington’s Secret History With The Muslim Brotherhood by Ian Johnson, The New York Review Of Books

(30) Saudi Monarchy Founder Assured UK On Palestine by Press TV

(31) Saudi Arabia, Zionism, Peace And The Palestinian Cause by Haytham A. K. Radwan, Intifada Palestine

(32) The Ugly Face Of The Muslim Brotherhood by Professor As’ad Abu Khalil, Al-Akhbar English

(33) U.S.: Muslim Brotherhood Gave Assurances On Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty by Natasha Mozgovaya, Haaretz

(34) US Pledges $150 Million To Help Egypt’s Transition by Reuters Africa

(35) Tunisians To Launch Campaign Against Normalization With Israel by The Middle East Monitor

(36) Mr. Ghannouchi Goes To The Washington Institute by Maidhc Ó Cathail, The Passionate Attachment

(37) An-Nahda And US Zionists by Professor As’ad Abu Khalil, The Angry Arab News Service

(38) Syria Under Fire: Zionist Destabilization Hits Critical Mass by Jonathan Azaziah, Mask of Zion

(39) The Arab Spring Of 2005 by Charles Krauthammer, The Seattle Times

(40) TUT Podcast Jan 10, 2012: Sheikh Imran Hosein by The Ugly Truth

(41) PSYWAR: The Fake Fall Of Tripoli And The Zionist Dragon’s Butchery Across Palestine II by Jonathan Azaziah, Mask of Zion

(42) US, Israel Agree: Iran Not Building Nukes by Ray McGovern, Antiwar.com

(43) Iran Opposition Will Unite With Government Should Israel Attack by Haaretz

(44) Ofergate: The Latest Zionist Propaganda Blitz Against Iran by Jonathan Azaziah, Mask of Zion

(45) Sunday Times: Mossad Agents Behind Iran Scientist Assassination by Haaretz

(46) False Flag by Mark Perry, Foreign Policy Magazine

(47) Mossad-MEK May Have Bombed Iranian Missile Base, 40 Dead And Wounded by Richard Silverstein, Tikun Olam

(48) ‘Massive’ Blockade Needed To Stop Iran Threat, Steinitz Says by Flavia Krause-Jackson and Tal Barak Harif, Bloomberg Business Week

 Source of Article: Mask of Zion

*********

Jonathan Azaziah is an Iraqi-American Muslim poet, activist, analyst, writer and journalist from Brooklyn, New York, currently residing in Florida. His articles, poems and music predominantly deal with international Zionism and the cruel effect that it has on the world’s oppressed people. He is also a staff writer for Pakistan’s premier alternative media outlet, Opinion Maker, and a frequent guest and co-host of the Crescent and Cross Solidarity Movement’s Ugly Truth radio broadcast.

by Stuart Littlewood

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was in London recently.

Did anyone know? Did western media care?

No. Not until reports appeared that Jewish community leaders cancelled a meeting with him after intervention by Israeli PM Netanyahu’s office and Israel’s embassy in London, and Palestinian legislator Hanan Ashrawi condemned the move as “seeking to suppress and manipulate Jewish public opinion”.

It was also typical of Netanyahu’s “persistent efforts” to prevent dialogue, she said, according to Ma’an News.

Even then, western media were much interested.

I put it to the Palestinian ambassador in London, Prof Manuel Hassassian, that such a blunder by Israel was a gift to any alert PR/Public Affairs team. Why didn’t the Palestinian Authority seize it?

Hassassian denied the Palestinians asked to meet with the Jewish community.

It seems odd that Ashrawi, a shrewd, well respected politician and close colleague of prime minister Salam Fayyad, could have got it wrong. Or indeed the normally reliable Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz, which reported that Hassassian himself, together with British diplomats, had pushed for Jewish leaders to meet with Abbas http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/british-jews-cancel-meeting-with-abbas-in-wake-of-pressure-from-netanyahu-1.408688.

Confused? Me too. Whatever the truth, the Palestinian administration is in the habit of missing open goals. It has dumbed right down. The London embassy’s smart new palestinianmissionuk.com website carries a selection of items from news agencies but nothing journalists can get their teeth into. It doesn’t introduce us to Palestinian chiefs and their ‘team’. It offers no strategic briefing material on current events. And, crucially, there is no attempt to set the news agenda.

Information the embassy sends direct to people like me is mostly notification of social events and similar ‘froth’.

After all these years, and with momentous opportunities and threats looming, Ramallah still fails to give a good account of itself. Is that by accident or design?

If it was never Abbas’s intention to meet Jewish community leaders, what exactly did he come to the UK for?

What passes for ‘success’

The embassy says his “successful visit” included meetings with Prime Minister David Cameron, Foreign Secretary William Hague and Nick Clegg, Deputy Prime Minister. President Abbas also met with opposition leader Ed Miliband and other parliamentarians. In addition, he met the Archbishop of Canterbury and other church leaders to brief them on the ongoing violations of places of worship and the Judaization taking place in East Jerusalem.

Cameron told him: “Obviously, as a friend of Israel and a friend of the Palestinian Authority and the Palestinian people, we want to see a strong, democratic, peaceful Israel alongside a strong, democratic and peaceful Palestine. We believe that is achievable, but we can’t achieve it without the two parties coming together and talking and discussing. In the end, this two-state solution can only come about from the two parties talking to each other. We cannot want it more than you want it.

“So, we wish you well… and we say that as a friend of Israel but also a very strong friend of the Palestinian people…”

To which I understand Abbas replied: “Of course, nothing can be achieved without negotiations… we hope that there will be something tangible as a result of these negotiations.

“Of course, time is of the essence; there must be speed, we must be fast in achieving those things because the settlements and the whole thing will go on – seeing the settlements going on, is going to help everything; it’s what stands in the face of everything at the same time. So, settlements have to stop. Settlements have to stop in order for us to be able to continue our negotiations; to come to some sort of solution and a solution which will encompass the vision of the Palestinian state to come in the future.

“I personally know very well that you have a very balanced relationship, be that towards Israel or the Palestinian Authority. This at the same time is of great importance because you could play a political role, so to speak, so that we can find the balance that we all want to seek. We always need your help, sir.”

Good grief, is that the best Ramallah’s speech-writers can do? And what was that about Britain’s Israel-firster government having “a very balanced relationship”…?

Where was Abbas’s concern for Gaza, or isn’t Gaza part of Palestine any more? Doesn’t the blockade of Gaza have to end before Palestinians even think about getting once again embroiled in futile negotiations?

The idea, voiced by Zionist Cameron and repeated by Abbas, that nothing can be achieved without negotiation is of course utterly false. There’s no mention – on either side – of international law enforcement and the essential role it must play before any negotiations can be considered fair or honourable.

Hague said after his meeting with Abbas: “I stressed the importance Britain attaches to a secure and universally recognised Israel living alongside a sovereign and viable Palestinian state, based on the borders of 1967, with Jerusalem the future capital of both states, and a fair settlement for refugees.”

Only weeks earlier Hague, a fanatical Israel flag-waver, was preparing to betray the Palestinians by abstaining if their quest for statehood was pushed to a vote at the UN.

More pretty words devoid of meaning were paraded in the Archbishop of Canterbury’s press release: “We continue to share the hopes of the Palestinian leadership for a lasting and just peace in the Holy Land, and we pray for the courage on all sides to break the current deadlock. Young people in Israel and in the Palestinian territories long for justice and stability and they must not be let down. We were deeply grateful to President Abbas for taking time to share with us his concerns and aspirations.”

The only genuine boost he received was a remark by Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, referring to Israel’s illegal settlements: “Once you place physical facts on the ground which make it impossible to deliver what everyone has for years agreed is the ultimate destination, then you do immense damage.

“It’s an act of deliberate vandalism to the basic premise upon which negotiations have taken place for years and that is why we have expressed our concerns as a government in increasingly forceful terms.”

He prefaced his comments by saying there was “no stronger supporter of Israel than myself as a beacon of democracy in the region”. It’s a sad reflection on the Westminster scene when Clegg, a Liberal Democrat and supposedly possessed of certain principles, feels obliged to say such a silly thing when it’s tantamount to defending the indefensible.

Didn’t Abbas remind him about Israel’s abduction and imprisonment without trial of the 26 elected members of the Palestinian Legislative Council including its head, Dr Aziz Dweik? Dweik is reported to have been arrested by Israel three times since 2002 and twice held without formal charges. This wholesale kidnapping of democratically elected officials underlines yet again Israel’s disregard for international law and the absurdity of its claim to be the only beacon of democracy in the Middle East.

So, does Abbas seriously believe his visit was “successful”? This dreary ‘grey suit’ of a man might have done better to just meet ordinary people… people like the 40,000 or so displaced Palestinians living in the UK and longing to return, and the numerous activist organisations that devote much time and energy putting across the Palestinian case, slapping down Israel’s propaganda lies and generally doing the job that Abbas and his lacklustre Fatah outfit have failed to do.

That’s if he wanted their ongoing support. Maybe he’s not bothered.

Under orders not to rock the Israeli boat?

Some time ago Hamas complained that the Palestinian Authority was not getting its message across thanks to “poorly qualified or unqualified spokespersons with inadequate political and linguistic abilities”. Diplomacy had failed and Palestinians needed “professional spokespersons with excellent knowledge of the world and mastery of foreign languages, especially English, to tell the world in a straightforward manner that Israel is a murderer, liar and land thief…”

Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Ron Prosor, who ran rings round the Palestinians whilst ambassador in London, recently addressed the Security Council on the situation in the Middle East. He said: “And how many times have members of this Council – and many others – repeated: ‘settlements are the primary obstacle to peace’?… The primary obstacle to peace is not settlements. The primary obstacle to peace is the so-called ‘claim of return’. Let me repeat that: the major hurdle to peace is the Palestinian’s insistence on the so-called ‘claim of return’ [he means the ‘right of return’].”

Any press team worth its salt could make mincemeat of Prosor. A competent Palestinian administration would have had a news release in every activist’s inbox and on every mainstream editor’s desk within hours and made spokespersons (speaking perfect English) available to follow through with additional briefings and further comment. It would have gone worldwide via all embassies and missions. But Prosor broadcasts his toxic nonsense non-stop, knowing there will be no effective rebuke from the Palestinians.

It is six years since the Palestinian Authority/PLO was urged to have all their key people professionally trained in media skills. They haven’t done so. Consequently for the last six critical years the Palestinian people have continued to lose ground.

The Palestinian High Command behaves as if under strict orders not to rock the boat and not to make waves or even the slightest ripple. They continue to squander their chances and make little impact even though truth and justice are on their side. So Israel has been the undeserving winner in the propaganda war.

Will the Palestinians ever seize the opportunity and gear up properly for the communications struggle to win justice? If it’s left to the likes of Abbas the answer is no and the outcome will be disastrous.

As campaigner Robert Stiver commented a few days ago, we need “ideas and commitments on how we can finally get serious, via a mass uprising, to ‘out’ Zionism beyond the choir and bring an end to the Palestinians’ unbearable torment”.

But hopes of mobilizing the necessary numbers are thwarted by the continuing presence of Mahmoud Abbas. His presidential term ran out long ago and he’s clinging to power unlawfully. He needs to step down or be removed. Someone with unquestionable legitimacy and true leadership qualities must fill the void and deploy skilled resources.

On Abbas’s watch disunity has triumphed. He rides roughshod over the Basic Law and has a crime sheet as long as your arm. He’ll be remembered mostly for doing the Israeli Occupation Force’s dirty work.

Another problem is chief negotiator Saeb Erekat who has occupied that vitally important position for nearly 20 years and achieved… well, what? He must be the most unsuccessful negotiator on the planet. Why is he still there?

If Palestinians are to retain worldwide sympathy and support, build additional strength and galvanise the whole movement into action against the corrupt political

class, they will have to find leaders of a much higher calibre. And fast.

Stuart Littlewood

2 February 2012

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Stuart Littlewood’s book Radio Free Palestine can now be read on the internet by visiting www.radiofreepalestine.org.uk.

Franklin Lamb

Shatila Camp, Beirut

We all know it is not just American and Lebanese politicians who use Palestinian refugees as political footballs during electoral campaigns. But they are currently the two most egregious apart from most Zionist politicians in temporarily occupied Palestine.

In the US, it would not be a difficult task to find even more revolting and groveling intellectual “half-men” to borrow a phrase from Syria’s beleaguered President Bashar Assad than Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich during their recent “debate” in Jacksonville Florida.

While a high percentage of Republican Jewish voters will go to the polls in this winner take all primary, Mitt and Newt are also pondering their national fundraising networks as they gratuitously misrepresented history and betrayed their claimed religious and moral beliefs.

Romney repeated his screed that President Obama “threw Israel under the bus” by following international law, seven UN Security Council Resolution and World opinion by designating the pre-1967 borders as the starting point for peace talks. He also complained that America’s President “disrespected” Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu when Obama spoke recently at the UN and mentioned in passing illegal Israeli settlement building but did not discuss retaliatory rockets being fired from Gaza into occupied Palestinian territory.

Genuflecting just as obsequiously to the Zionist lobby, Gingrich insisted to Florida voters once again that “Palestinians are an ‘invented people who historically were considered Jordanians and Syrians.”  No one in the audience was so impolite as to remind the claimed student of history that Jordan did not even exist until created by the pro-Zionist British occupiers of Palestine, well into the 20^th Century, while Palestinians have lived in Palestine for more than 3000 years.  While more than 95% of Zionist colonists have zero historical links to Palestine and their genealogical roots are in Europe, Russia and elsewhere, despite the fact that millions have invaded Palestine seeking free land and US government funded cash and housing handouts.  Morally and legally these colonists have no right to even one grain of sand in Palestine.

Newt again promised his audience that on his first day as President, he will for sure issue an Executive Order moving the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, another violation of International law.

Florida’s nearly 640,000 Jews are just 3.4 percent of Florida’s population. But because they vote in extraordinarily high numbers, they are 6 to 8 percent of Florida’s general election turnout but not of course when it comes to Republican primaries.  Yet one recent poll estimates that 52% of the state’s registered Jewish voters would support a Republican presidential ticket such is their mistrust of Obama and what he might do in a second term with respect to occupied Palestine.

As with his rival Mitt, President Newt’s first foreign trip will be to Israel.   With these latter two pledges Newt joins 19 Presidential primary aspirants who since 1967 have made similar promises. Fortunately, for what is left of American Humanitarian values, not one has been elected President.

Lebanese style anti-Palestinian political speech is more sophisticated and subtle, like the Lebanese people themselves,  and nearly always devolves to the gut wrenching warning, delivered with a straight face,  that “if we allow Palestinian refugees the right to work or to own a home (as required by International Law and currently enjoyed by refugees in 192 other countries) it might encourage them to get lazy and become too comfortable in Lebanon and they might, God save us all, seek naturalization.  And this could interfere with the Palestinian refugees internationally guaranteed Right to Return to their homes in occupied Palestine which Lebanese strongly support for their brotherly and sisterly guests.

Lebanese politicians, including every party and religious grouping bar none, except the Druze and the National Syrian Socialist Party, use voter’s fear of naturalization (in America think immigration) to undercut growing human rights pressure for Lebanon to give Palestinians elementary human rights.

A rare exception for a Lebanese politician shocked many here when earlier this month, to his eternal credit and honor, Social Affairs Minister Wael Abu Faour became the first Lebanese Cabinet member to make an official visit to a Palestinian refugee camp in six years when he toured south Beirut’s Burj al-Barajneh camp before signing a memorandum of understanding with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNWRA). The agreement will enable UNRWA for the first time to work in coordination with the Social Affairs Ministry to provide some services to some of the most vulnerable people in the camps.

The lack of employment opportunities for Palestine refugee prolong and intensify their hardship and poverty.  In the five Southern Lebanon camps, according to a recent Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) and UN International Labor Organization study, more than 81 per cent of all refugees are living in abject poverty. Young people are particularly affected, with unemployment for Palestinians between 15 and 24 reaching 60%. The employments figures are not must better in the northern camps.

Speaking at the event, Minister Faour, a Druze and member of Walid Jumblatt’s  Progressive Socialist Party,  called on his fellow politicians to follow his lead and experience firsthand conditions in Lebanon’s 12 Refugee camps.  “Whoever wants to rediscover his humanity has to see the living conditions in Palestinian camps in Lebanon” Minister Faour told Lebanon’s Parliament.  “We are used to bringing Palestinians to discussions in fancy hotels and then sending them back to the misery in the camps. We decided to invert these traditions by coming to the camps.”

Unfortunately Minister Abu Faour undercut some of the positive contribution of his visit by emphasizing to the media “the difficult relationship between Lebanon and the Palestinian population. The Lebanese government has consistently declined to grant rights to Palestinian refugees for fear that it would pave the way to naturalization, which it argues would diminish their right to return to Palestine.”

It would be difficult to find one Palestinian in Lebanon, or any advocate of human rights here, who truly believes the Lebanese politicians claimed notion of concern for the sanctity of the Palestinians Right of Return justifies keeping a quarter million human being in the most degrading squalor while outlawing even the right to work or to own a home out of an altruistic concern to keep hallow some of the refugees other international rights.  Palestinian refugees in Lebanon reject more than any of the politicians here any form of settlement, naturalization, implantation or tawtin.  They have a county just across the southern Lebanese border and their goal, now in its 64^th year, is to return without more delay.

Many Palestinians in Lebanon’s camp mention a new energy among their fellow refugees as a result of the continuing, broadening and deepening Arab and Islamic Awakening which erupted one year ago in Tunisia and whose spread continues.

The swelling bud of intifada! is also being observed by foreigners here and as Palestinian camp residents invite Pope Benedict to visit their camps in the Spring during his reported visit to Lebanon, one idea from kids at Ramallah school in Shatila Camp is for the Vicar of Christ to hold a Mass for tens of thousands in the new Cite Sportiff, on the edge this Camp.  For it was at this sports center 30 years ago  that part two of the Massacre at Sabra-Shatilla was organized by Israeli and Phalange troops on September 18^th and   for which, like the other 43 hours of uninterrupted  slaughter, no one person has ever been held accountable.

It would be an enormously powerful historic event should Pope Benedict fill Cite Sportiff with people of good will, and there are many such people here like Minister Faour, from all the confessions and political parties, joined by all religious and civil society leaders in Lebanon, and with the Pope’s blessing and admonition for all of us to follow in the path of Mohammad and Jesus and their deciples, that Palestinian refugees in Lebanon might be granted even the most elementary human rights.

**********

Franklin Lamb volunteers with the Sabra-Shatila Foundation and the Palestine Civil Rights Campaign.  He is reachable c/o fplamb@gmail.com