October 04, 2009

First Order of Business for Post-Lisbon EU: Appoint War Criminal As President

By James Corbett
The Corbett Report
4 October, 2009

Major media outlets from the BBC in Britain to RTE in Ireland are now reporting that the Yes side scored a resounding victory in Ireland's vote Friday on the EU Lisbon Treaty. With the treaty's ratification, the obstacles preventing the total federalization of the EU superstate are now removed.

As the Daily Mail reported earlier this week, one of the first orders of business for the post-Lisbon EU will be to appoint Tony Blair as the first President of the European Union. This move has been fully expected ever since Tony Blair's highly suspect conversion to Catholocism two years ago. Of course, the many laudatory pieces (and even the adversarial ones) we are likely to read about Mr. Blair in the coming weeks will signally fail to mention that he has been accused of numerous war crimes and crimes against humanity including:

- Continuing economic sanctions imposed on Iraq from 1990 until its invasion at the hands of his government in 2003 that resulted in the deaths of 500,000 Iraqi children.

- Conspiracy to join with another power in a war of aggression (the supreme international war crime).

- High treason in manufacturing a case for war (including the infamous Downing Street Memo).

- Participating in a political and military coalition with the U.S. in Iraq that deployed contravened weapons like white phosphorus.

Of course, the Irish electorate has not only allowed Blair to become the President of the EU. According to the National Platform EU Research and Information Centre, which has compiled a list of 13 Facts About the Lisbon Treaty, they have also created a self-amending treaty that will no longer allow national vetoes on key issues like tax harmonization, crime, transport, energy and public health and services. As the head of the National Platform Anthony Coughlan explained in a pre-vote interview on the significance of the treaty: "It [Lisbon] would establish a kind of European Federation which would in effect have all the powers of a traditional state. And this new EU Federation would then sign treaties with other states in all areas of its powers and would have its own voice at the United Nations and its own foreign minister and its own diplomatic service and so on." Listen to the interview in the audio player below:

Now that the EU has "won" by forcing the Irish public to vote on the Lisbon Treaty until they got it "right," liberty-minded people the world over will have the uncomfortable experience of watching the expansion of this vast new tyrannical superstate headed by unaccountable bureaucrats. Of course, given that the EU has been frustrated in its attempts to undermine national sovereignty again and again and again when the people are actually given a chance to have their say, we can only hope that the entire EU enterprise has been so discredited now that the political opposition to this rising EU Federation will continue to rise.

The coming weeks and months will be the most critical for the creation of this pumped-up regional superpower. One can only hope that the European citizenry will redouble their efforts to stop the inevitable power grabs before it is solidified because the consequences for the entire world if this Nazi-inspired and Bilderberg organized regional monstrosity is created are simply too ghastly to contemplate.

Israel shuts down Al-Aqsa mosque, turns violent

Press TV - October 4, 2009 - 14:21:47 GMT

Israeli police have fired tear gas at Palestinians protesting the closure
of Al-Aqsa holy compound (Temple Mount) in the occupied Jerusalem.


Israeli security forces beefed up security in the Old City Sunday and denied entry to the compound where the Al-Aqsa mosque and the Dome of the Rock shrine are located, said Adnan al-Husseini, the Palestinian-appointed governor of Jerusalem.

"The situation is very tense in the Old City," Husseini said.

An Israeli police spokesman, Micky Rosenfeld, also confirmed that the compound, known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as Haram al-Sharif, had been "shut to visitors."

Some 150 Palestinians protested the closure of the site, hurling stones and bottles at riot police.

Palestinian medical officials said nine people were treated for minor injuries including tear gas inhalation. Israel said one policeman was hurt by a rock.

Israeli police claim that the decision to close the site was made following calls, spread on the Palestinian media on Saturday evening and throughout the night, to "come protect the Mount."

Many Jewish visitors are also expected to flock to Jerusalem during the holiday of Sukkot, particularly to the Old City and the Western Wall.

Last week, 30 people were injured in similar clashes near the Al-Aqsa mosque, as Palestinians warned of a possible new uprising.

Israel occupied East Jerusalem during a 1967 aggression and later annexed it. The status of the city is among the thorniest issues of the peace process with the Palestinians, underscoring the reality that any Palestinian state should include the city as its capital.

Freed Palestinian prisoner, her child warmly received in Gaza

2009-10-02 | 21:39:13
by Saud Abu Ramadan, Emad Drimly, Fares Akram

EREZ CROSSING, Gaza Strip, Oct. 2 (Xinhua) -- Fatima al-Zeg, the 42-year-old prisoner, who was freed from an Israeli jail, together with 18 colleagues from the West Bank, arrived in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip with her two-year-old child Yousef on Friday.

Dozens of Palestinians received al-Zeg and her child, who was born during her captivity, at Erez border crossing at the northern tip of the Gaza Strip.

The mother and the child were warmly received by her mother, husband Mohamed and her other three children who haven't seen her since she was arrested in May 2007.

Amid a mixed feeling of tears and happiness, al-Zeg, the Islamic Jihad (Holy War) movement's member, hugged her family members and said "al-Hamdolillah (thank God)" while dozens of recipients shouted "Allah Akbar (God is great)."

"I thank God for my release first and thank the Palestinian armed resistance who made this prisoners' exchange deal. I'm so glad to be release together with my son and my colleagues, but this happiness would remain incomplete until all the prisoners are released," al-Zeg told reporters.

Israel and the captors of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit agreed on Wednesday through the Egyptian and German mediators to free 20 female Palestinian prisoners for handing Israel a recent one-minute videotape showing the soldier Shalit alive, sound and good.

Shalit was abducted wounded in June 25, 2006 inside an Israeli armored vehicle, during a cross-border triple armed attack southeast Gaza Strip carried out by Hamas armed wing and two other minor armed groups. Two Israeli army officers and four Palestinians were killed in the attack.

Since he was abducted, Shalit sent a letter to his family, but before Israel carried out a 22-day war on the Gaza Strip that ended in January 18. After that war was over, Hamas leaders said they are not sure if Shalit is still alive, due to the intensive Israeli air strikes and shelling on the impoverished enclave.

Israel and Hamas had agreed to involve Germany in the indirect negotiations to finalize a prisoners' swap deal between the two sides. Shalit's captors demand to free around 1,000 prisoners from Israeli prisons for the release of the captive soldier.

Al-zeg was the only prisoner from the Gaza Strip to be released, while 18 other female prisoners are from the West Bank, where they headed to Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas's office in Ramallah who received them in official ceremonies. They also laid flowers for late leader Yasser Arafat.

They were seen smiling and waving from Red Cross vehicles, as they made their way from the Ofer prison, where they were transferred from the Tel Hashomar prison. Two convoys took the women, who joined the crowds that celebrated their release.

Israel released the 19 women right after it received a video tape. According to Israel TV, channel 10, the tape, which was immediately handed to Shalit's family, is more than one minute and it showed him alive, sound and good. The tape also showed him holding a newspaper dated September 14, the TV said.

Members from Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip as well as members of the less influential Islamic Jihad movement escorted al-Zeg and her family to meet with Ismail Haneya, the deposed Prime Minister of Hamas government and other Hamas leaders in Gaza City.

A relative of Fatima, called Rawda, was supposed to be freed but Israel postponed her release to Sunday due to Jewish holidays. Fatima and Rawda were arrested at Erez Crossing on May 2007, as they were on their way to an Israeli hospital for a surgery of Rawda, Fatima's niece.

At Hamas government's headquarters, Haneya who warmly received the mother, her child and her family, described the release of al-Zeg and the other 18 female prisoners as "a day of triumph for the will of the Palestinian people and their brave resistance."

"This partial prisoners' exchange deal is a short step towards a long way the opens a door for hope to finalize a comprehensive and honorable deal and free a larger number of Palestinian prisoners," said Haneya. According to official estimations, there are 11,000 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.

Al-Zeg told reporters in a joint news conference with Haneya "I greet everyone, mainly the Palestinian resistance, for their efforts to ensure our release," adding "our happiness would remain incomplete until all Israeli jails are emptied of prisoners."

Iraq delays hydrocarbons law until after election: MP

Oct 3, 2009 - 1:53 pm ET

BAGHDAD (AFP) – Iraq has delayed the discussion of a stalled hydrocarbons law, seen as key to the country ramping up its oil production, until after parliamentary elections in January, a senior MP said on Saturday.

The proposed law, which would regulate the oil sector and divide responsibility between the central government in Baghdad and Iraq's provinces, has been held up for three years due to disagreements between MPs from the country's majority Shia and minority Sunni, Kurd and other communities.

"There is no agreement on the contents of the oil law ... because this government wants the management of the oil sector to be centralised," said Ali Hussein Balo, a Kurd and chairman of the parliamentary oil and gas committee.

"Due to these conflicts, we have decided to delay the oil law enactment until after the election," he told AFP.

Iraq hopes to be able to pump six million barrels per day, up from current output of around 2.5 million, within the next four to five years as new projects come online, Oil Minister Hussein al-Shahristani has said.

The country has the world's third-largest proven reserves of oil, with more than 115 billion barrels, behind only Saudi Arabia and Iran.

But investment in Iraq's ageing energy infrastructure has been hampered by delays to the hydrocarbons law.

When the government auctioned eight major energy contracts in June, only energy giants BP and China's CNPC won a bid, agreeing to receive only two dollars a barrel to operate the giant Rumaila field, which has known reserves of 17.7 billion barrels.

Mayor says army obstructing annual harvest

October 3, 2009

Ramallah – Ma’an – The mayor of Az-Zaytoon, Sa’eed Shreteh, demanded that official, civil and human rights institutions support farmers who he said were being persecuted by Israel's army and the settlers during their annual harvest.

Shreteh told Ma’an that the Israeli army had prevented a number of farmers from reaching their land west of the town and asked ordered them not to return to the Wad Abu Qare area.

“Such practices and violations practiced by the [Israeli] occupation's soldiers amount to persecution and attacks on farmers by settlers, which threatens the harvest, especially since most of the lands are planted with olive trees [targeted by settlers],” he added.

Shreteh added that the purported practices were intended to confiscate 600-700 acres from the town’s lands via attacks on farmers and forbidding them from entering their privately owned land.

Italian demonstrators call for press freedom

Press TV - October 4, 2009 07:13:53 GMT

Italians in their tens of thousands rallied in Rome
to protest against a recent 'government' lawsuit
seen as an encroachment of media autonomy.


Large crowds gathered in the Italian capital on Saturday in an effort to help reverse a new 'government' court case pressed by the Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi against a number of the country's newspapers that published details of the premier's scandal-hit private life.

The protesters demanded the withdrawal of the government bid which they see as a means to silence the independent media.

"I think that we have to say loudly that we want free information and free access to network(s) of information," a trade unionist participating in the rally told Press TV.

Meanwhile other press freedom supporters backed the latest demonstrations and called on the Italian government to allow the 'free' flow of information in the European country.

In an interview with the Press TV, Jean-Francois Julliard, a member of the Reporters Without Borders, a Paris-based nongovernmental organization that advocates media independence, said that since Berlusconi controls a number of news outlets in Italy, his latest court case against autonomous newspapers creates a "conflict of interest" in the broadcasting business as the head of the Italian government could use his "direct influence" in order to "choose programs" to be aired.

Berlusconi filed the lawsuit against the media after some Italian news outlets in the catholic-dominated country published records of the premier's sexual adventures with 'underage' girls and a 'paid escort,' in the wake of his troubled nuptial life.

October 03, 2009

The Lockerbie Bombing Seen as an Expression of a “Strenuous Disagreement”


September 1, 2009

In light of compelling information available on the Internet about the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty in 1967 as well as the destruction of three World Trade Center buildings with micro-thermite during the course of a well-planned Israeli linked false flag operation in 2001, the issue of Zionist false flag terrorism against the American people to achieve militarist aims is now widely understood. Less well known and further in the past the Lavon affair is another documented case of Israel framing Arabs in an attempt to generate Western reaction. The planned attack of the Lavon affair was foiled by Egyptian security, more recent attacks have been outside of Arab jurisdictions. Revelations about the details of these particular acts of terror, notwithstanding subsequent efforts by the US government to cover them up by preventing public inquiries, along with ongoing mass media disinformation regarding the facts, have confirmed a disturbing pattern of control that is leading toward mass revulsion amidst the population.

Recently, newspapers reported that a Libyan, Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, accused of being the “Lockerbie bomber”, was released from imprisonment in Scotland. It is truly remarkable that his incarceration dragged on for so long, for it was already evident during the course of the trial, that no credible evidence linking him to the crime existed. In the meantime, mainstream media in Britain have reported that he was framed, through false testimony and the intentional withholding of exculpatory information by the court. His appeal was likely to be granted, and attention would inevitably have focused on the question of who actually did carry out the bombing. The calculation appears to have been, that one might circumvent such a situation by releasing him on “humanitarian” grounds, in exchange for dropping the appeal. No later than two years ago, it must have become clear to anyone following the case, that al Megrahi would have to be released, because the head of a Swiss company Mebo, Edwin Bollier, admitted, after the statute of limitations for such a crime had expired, that key evidence used in the trial had actually been faked. Also, in June 2007 the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission, upon a three year investigation, reported that there may have been a miscarriage of justice.

Fingering the perpetrators of this act of terror that occurred more than two decades ago is inconvenient because the plausible outcome of an analysis of the situation, back then, while taking into account motive, means, and opportunity, could surely point to a group of known terrorists, enjoying strong support in the United States among influential supporters of Israel, as the primary suspects. These Zionist terrorists and their Jewish supremacist supporters have become so successful through their campaigns of mass murder that they have actually formed and developed a state with a huge military and propaganda apparatus. Indeed, as people have begun to realize, they have effectively taken over the United States government through corruption, coercion and blackmail. Some of their staunchest supporters are in control of financial, media, and academic institutions, thus wielding undue power. Though many have been aware of the facts for a long time, controllers need to present a different story for public consumption, hoping to induce a distorted perception among the masses.

The time elapsed since that fateful bombing over Scotland is half of the time elapsed since the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. With the benefit of hindsight and an improved realization of the nature of Zionist inspired terrorism, both historically and currently, a review of the political circumstances during the two final months in 1988 sheds light on what could have been a primary motive for the bombing. On November 1, 1988, elections for the twelfth Knesset took place in Israel, with an outcome that made the formation of a stable government difficult. Exactly one week later, American elections took place, in which Vice President George Herbert Walker Bush beat Governor Michael Dukakis of Massachusetts. During the transition phase of the ensuing weeks, certain political developments could take place that might have seemed too risky to push through if Congress had been in session.

One week after the American elections, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), operating from Tunis, attempted to regain control of events in Palestine, where a popular uprising, the Intifada, had been going on for months. Thus, on November 15, in Algiers, the Palestinian National Council (PNC) formally proclaimed a Palestinian state, with Jerusalem as its capital, and Yasser Arafat as its president. Additionally, the PNC voted to revise the PLO charter and recognized the UN resolutions 242 and 338 as the basis of an international peace conference. This announcement was an important milestone in the Palestinian struggle against the ongoing, forceful, and illegal occupation of their land by an oppressive Israeli regime, and the lame-duck administration of Ronald Reagan would have to address the issue somehow.

According to a 1975 memorandum agreement with Israel, arranged by Henry Kissinger, the United States agreed to not recognize or negotiate with the PLO unless the organization formally recognized Israel and accepted UN resolutions 242 and 338 as the basis for peace in the Middle East. Even engaging in curt small talk with a PLO representative at a party in Amman during the summer of 1979 was taboo. One may recall that Ambassador Andrew Young was forced into resignation from his position as U.S. ambassador to the U.N. during the Carter Administration. Zionist leaders had somehow convinced themselves, that these conditions were too onerous for the PLO to adhere to, and were thus complacent in believing that the US government would continue to refuse any dealings with the PLO. They felt much assured when Secretary of State George Schultz refused a visa to PLO Chairman Arafat a day after he had requested one at the American Embassy in Tunis, so that he could address the UN General Assembly in New York in December. This decision, by Schultz, based on the PLO’s alleged association with terrorism, surprised the diplomatic community.

In early December of 1988, at the invitation of the Swedish government, Arafat met in Stockholm with a group of five American Jews, including Stanley Sheinbaum, one of the Regents of the University of California at the time, to discuss the Middle East situation. After a couple of days of talks, on December 7 Arafat announced the existence of Israel and denounced all forms of terrorism. However, George Schultz proclaimed that the PLO “still has a considerable distance to go” before the United States would deal with it. Israel’s expectations were thus upheld again. During this time, Israel had still not formed a government. However, a week later, on December 14, Arafat gave a press conference in Geneva and clarified the points he had given in a speech at the UN there the previous day. Though the language he used was barely different from that of previous statements rejected by Schultz as being insufficient, this time Schultz accepted the formula and promptly announced that the US State Department would begin discussions with the PLO.

News of this development was greeted with great shock and dismay at the time by Israeli politicians and the public. The PLO was their archenemy, regarded as a group of terrorists bent on destroying them. Extremist Zionists in particular perceived the announcement to recognize the PLO as the end of their dreams for a greater Israel, a genuine existential threat to their future survival. They had just been publicly stabbed in the back by the American administration. This decision could not stand, a strong message, would have to be sent, in response. The Americans could not get away with this, how “dare they” act independently.

With this pace of development, what might the new American regime do upon Bush’s inauguration? This was indeed a most serious development, and Israeli politicians gathered to engage in crisis discussions and expedited negotiating sessions in order to form a new government and deal with this unexpected threat. The possibility of events occurring beyond their control seemed real, and it became an imperative to forestall the U.S. engaging with the PLO.

Exactly one week after the formal American recognition of the PLO, Pan Am Flight 103, exploded in the air on its journey from London to New York on December 21, 1988. Only a few hours after news of this event became public, the reporter for a local television station in California interviewed an “expert on terrorism” live from his location at the RAND Corporation in Santa Monica. Interestingly, when asked which group might have engaged in such an act of terrorism, the expert from RAND, upon citing the usual Arab suspects, cautioned that one should not exclude the possibility that a rogue group inside the Israeli military might have felt compelled to carry this out. This was truly unfiltered commentary, as the initial news came trickling in. Afterward, once the mainstream television media had regained their grip, explicit suggestions like this were presumably not heard again. (In contrast, with the benefit of months of operative planning, on September 11, 2001, the media worked from a prepared script; Osama bin Laden was declared the suspect within minutes of the demolition of the second World Trade Center tower, and the collapse of WTC Building 7 was announced at least twenty minutes before it actually occurred.)

Initially, one angle of speculation had been, that the attack was meant to target South Africa because a high level delegation of officials from its government, most notably foreign minister Pik Botha, were said to have been on that flight. Yet later the media reported that Botha had changed his scheduled flight to an earlier one that day and was indeed to arrive in New York. Ad hoc, raw news items like this, with the connotation of a possible advance tip-off, naturally arouses suspicion, especially since the South African government had few close political allies at the time, and so the media did not dwell on this message either. As it turned out, the South African government officials had been booked for Flight 103 but wound up flying to New York on an earlier plane. The next day they were present at UN headquarters to sign the Tripartite Agreement with representatives from Cuba and Angola. Years later, it was revealed that other people mysteriously chose not to take that flight at the last moment. Students from Syracuse University consequently got last minute seats which earlier were said to have been full. Which group of possible perpetrators could have had the technical means to both access the passenger list of a future flight and forewarn selected people? One cannot but help recall what seems to have been an analogous situation, many years later on September 11, 2001, when a select group of individuals received advance warning about the impending operation through an Israeli-based text messaging service, Odigo.

According to a former American ambassador to Qatar, Andrew I. Killgore, who has written articles about the Lockerbie bombing in the Washington Report for Middle East Affairs, there are other interesting facts surrounding the Lockerbie bombing that are not widely known. For instance, in 2002 (but presumably also earlier during investigations) a retired security guard, Ray Manly, revealed that the Pan Am baggage area at Heathrow Airport had been broken into 17 hours before Flight 103 took off. Certainly, planting a bomb directly onto an intended plane is a surer method of targeting that flight than sending an unattended piece of luggage laden with a bomb from Malta to Frankfurt, and then from there to London, which is the narrative that prosecutors concocted to frame al Megrahi. In the case of the latter method, there is no way of being sure that the suitcase will actually be on the target flight, but alternatively there is a slight chance, due to general sloppiness, that it could wind up on a flight one definitely would not want to target.

Killgore refers to reports that Pan Am had commissioned a team to handle the baggage security at 25 branches around the world. One member of that team was Isaac Yeffet, who headed a company by the name of Alert Management Inc. Employees of Yeffet’s company had full access to the Pan Am facility at Heathrow Airport and thus might have been expected to detect an unattended bag coming from Malta, or prevent the introduction of a bomb at Heathrow.

According to media reports, Isaac Yeffet is the former chief of security for El Al and an ex-director of Israel's Mossad intelligence agency, and now runs a security company based in New Jersey. In this context, the reader might recall, that responsibility for security at all three airports of alleged hijackings on September 11, 2001 also lay with an Israeli owned company.

One feature of grand scale terrorist events, such as airplane bombings, is that perpetrators tend not to reveal themselves to the public, so the question of culpability becomes a mystery. One method of following up is for the perpetrators to attempt to make it appear as if though an enemy was actually responsible. Israeli operatives have repeatedly deployed this trick for at least half a century, at least since the incident in Cairo that led to the Lavon Affair. However, it is impossible to fool the entire population. After the Lockerbie bombing, the predominately Jewish controlled media in America planted several accusations against various groups or governments, Ahmed Jabril of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Abu Nidal, Syria, Iran, and of course Libya. Yet none of these groups really had the means or opportunity to carry out such an operation. Palestinians certainly didn’t have a motive in light of the breakthrough for their cause a week earlier, which didn’t preclude hypotheses of some rival Palestinian group committing the act out of sheer jealousy or disagreement from being presented.

As if these accusations and hypotheses in the media were not enough to distract and saturate the public with psychological propaganda, the New York Times Magazine, on Sunday March 18, 1990 (which coincided with the date of the only parliamentary elections in East Germany) proffered yet another malicious insinuation. Appearing as a bold headline on its cover, above a photo of the front of the jumbo jet lying on its side in Lockerbie, one could read the following words: “The German Connection”. This was likely part of the New York Times' conspicuous “hate campaign” against Germany in general, but also against the impending German reunification in particular, which during early 1990, during the time of the negotiations leading to the so-called “Two Plus Four Agreement”, had reached a feverish pitch, spearheaded by former executive editor A. M. Rosenthal in various vitriolic editorials.

Another noteworthy piece of information relates to the disappointment of some British family members of persons who had been on that flight, with the way the case was developing. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was said to have blocked a full judicial inquiry into the issue. This raises the question, which group in Britain would have had sufficient influence to prevail upon the highest governmental official? An alternate explanation is, that President George H. W. Bush had prevailed upon her to tone down the investigation, which merely shifts the same question of complicity or cover-up toward power circumstances in the United States.

However, it was reported in 1993 that according to Minister of Parliament Tam Dalyell, Thatcher, who also had the role of being the head of intelligence services, stated unequivocally, that Libya did not carry out the bombing. It would seem that there was pressure to hide certain facts.

The violent destruction of an airplane with innocent people is also a highly political statement directed toward an élite group of decision makers in order to affect a particular policy. Therefore, it is fair to surmise that the perpetrators, who had to have had the motive, means, and opportunity to carry out the heinous crime, intended to signal their involvement, without stating it explicitly. If the intended recipients of such hints of involvement were themselves top-level criminals or terrorists, with blood on their hands, they would tend to acknowledge the hints in a different manner than the public inevitably would and, unlike the public, not get emotional about the situation. This can be viewed as part of a political game engaged in by psychopaths. Therefore, one should monitor official statements or communiqués for clues. During the Cold War there were American specialists called Kremlinologists, who would notice subtle and innocuous messages or announcements with important meaning. This is the diplomatic language of polite understatement.

On December 23, 1988, within two days after the Lockerbie bombing Israeli politicians agreed to form a coalition or unity government, headed by Yitzhak Shamir, who had gone to high school in Bialystok and became a terrorist in Palestine before World War II, after Hebraizing his surname from Jeziernicky. On that day, Shamir addressed the newly formed twelfth Knesset, in which he made multiple references to the PLO and the implications of its international recognition (which on the following day, Christmas Eve, included a meeting between Chairman Arafat and Pope John Paul in the Vatican). Below are key passages, translated into English by the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs:
It is regrettable that we were forced to strenuously disagree with the recent U.S. decision regarding a dialogue with the PLO which, as far as we see and know, has not changed its character or ways, its malicious covenant and the terrorism that it perpetrates. We know this from the statements of its central figures, and from its actions in the field, and the government of Israel, in accordance with its guidelines, will not negotiate with it. We still hope that the U.S. will reconsider its decision vis-a-vis the PLO. We have paid close attention to the statements made by administration spokesmen regarding their approach to the issue of terrorism; we hope that after due consideration, they will draw the necessary conclusions regarding the PLO.

The developments in the international arena and the challenges that we will face oblige us to overcome our differences in order to confront the problems together, and to overcome the obstacles and dangers that have been placed in our way. I am referring chiefly to the large-scale propaganda and diplomatic offensive being conducted now against Israel in the international diplomatic arena by the terrorist organizations and their friends and supporters, an offensive which is based on deception and on misleading. Its obvious objective is to gain international support for the establishment of a PLO-Palestinian state within Eretz Israel. In addition, we see special preparations being made to exert great pressure on us to cause us to make a complete withdrawal to the suffocating borders of 1967.
At that time there was no Internet, so only a few of the people who do not understand Hebrew were actually privy to the text at the time. Adopting a Talmudic perspective and the aggressive mindset that prevails among militant Zionists in Israel, one could certainly rationalize the Lockerbie bombing as an act of self-defense, a means to prevent suffocation and encirclement before such efforts can attain momentum. Shamir’s violent life had been filled with acts of terror. In this light the Lockerbie bombing can be viewed as an irate expression of “strenuous disagreement”.

- by reader submission

Everything is OK



A montage — “Do you have permission to be here?” Funny and wonderfully subversive.

You can see the whole Everything is OK series here.

H.T. - Pulse Media

Lieberman: Norway too 'hostile' to have monitors in Hebron

By Barak Ravid, Haaretz
October 2, 2009

Israel should consider ousting Norwegian monitors from Hebron due to Oslo's "hostility" toward Israel, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman told the cabinet Thursday.

An overall reassessment of Israel's relationship with Norway is needed, he argued, and expelling the monitors could be one element of this. The monitors are part of an international observer group, the Temporary International Presence in Hebron. TIPH was introduced into the city in 1994, by agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, after Baruch Goldstein massacred 29 Muslim worshipers at the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron.

At a meeting last week with Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Store on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York, Lieberman protested Oslo's contacts with Hamas, as well as the celebrations Norway is sponsoring in honor of the 100th birthday of writer Knut Hamsun, who supported the Nazis during World War II. Of all the foreign ministers he met with in New York, Lieberman told the cabinet, this meeting was the most difficult, because "the Norwegians take a very hostile line against us."

"It may be the time has come to reassess our relations with them and reexamine our position on matters important to them, like their monitors in Hebron or [Israel's] cooperation with the forum of donor states [to the PA], which they head," Lieberman added.

Although TIPH also includes monitors from Italy, Sweden, Turkey, Denmark and Switzerland, Norway is the group's principal supporter and is effectively in charge of it. The forum of donor states is involved in institution-building in the PA, and until now, Israel has cooperated closely with it.

Tension between Jerusalem and Oslo increased recently after Norway's government pension fund decided to divest from an Israeli company, Elbit.

Video: Territorial Domination in the West Bank

Sam Mayfield

October 2, 2009



Settlement expansion in the Occupied Territories of Palestine is about more than constructing houses for Jewish settlers. Palestinian farmland is being turned into industrial space. Illegal outposts on Palestinian land are protected by Israeli military. Roads, if Palestinians are allowed to drive on them, are often blocked without warning.
I toured Illegal settlements and outposts in the West Bank with Dror Etkes.