Thousands of Israelis and Palestinians march for peace

For the first time in over 20 years, thousands of Israeli and Palestinian peace activists marched peacefully together on Friday to support the Palestinian drive for statehood expected to be endorsed at the UN General Assembly in September.

“Only a declaration of Palestinian statehood can prevent bloodshed,” said Hillel Ben-Sasson, a spokesman for the Sheikh Jarrah Solidarity movement, part of an alliance of left-wing civil society organizations that called for “marching toward independence.”

“Negotiations have been manipulated by [Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu, who’s doing everything in his power to bury any peace hope, not to advance peace,” the activist added.

Many demonstrators carried a poster that read “only free people can negotiate,” a paraphrase of Nelson Mandela’s words when the former South African president was the imprisoned leader of the anti-apartheid struggle. “If the UN recognizes an independent Palestine, then negotiations could restart from a completely different standpoint,” Ben-Sasson noted.

“You’d have peace negotiations between equals, not between occupied and occupier. That’s been the case till now, and it never succeeded.”

The half-mile-long procession snaked along the walls of the Old City, on the old no-man’s-land that used to divide Jewish West and Arab East Jerusalem before Israel occupied the oriental part of the city during the 1967 war.

The route taken by the demonstrators nowadays constitutes the symbolic, yet barely visible, seam that demarcates the Israeli-occupied part of the city which, since 1967, has been engulfed by a ring of Jewish suburban settlements, home to over 180,000 Israelis.

And for the past five years, an 8-meter-high security wall of concrete slabs, which both Palestinians and the Israeli radical left call the “apartheid wall,” separates East Jerusalem from its occupied West Bank heartland.

“Two cities for two people, independence for Palestine, one peace” read another placard carried by an international activist who’d managed to sneak through the police blockade at Israel’s international airport against last week’s “flytilla” attempt to break the Gaza blockade. The message itself carried the forlorn dream of a two-state solution. “It might already be too late,” acknowledged Galit Hasan-Rokem, an Israeli veteran activist.

The choice of Jerusalem as venue to celebrate Palestinian independence was no accident. “Jerusalem is not only the heart of the conflict, but also the core of a solution to the conflict,” said Ben-Sasson.

Indeed, beyond the declaratory display of good intentions, it was clear to all here that the celebration of Palestinian independence without sovereignty will remain in the realm of unfulfilled aspirations for now, and even after September.

After all, the demonstrators may aspire to declare Al Quds, the predominantly Palestinian neighborhood of East Jerusalem, as the capital of a sovereign state, but that state is also an aspiration at least as difficult to achieve in absence of negotiations and with the persistence of the occupation. Not to mention the assurance of a U.S. veto on Palestine at the Security Council.

But the march was also unique because, for the second time in 44 years and two generations of peace activism trying to correct the wrongs of the occupation, it brought together Israelis and Palestinians, even though most participants were Israelis.

Since the second Palestinian Intifadah uprising (2000-2005), Palestinian civil society organizations have been reluctant to participate in joint events. Fakhry Abu-Diab, a community activist from the embattled Palestinian neighborhood of Silwan, which is home to a stronghold of ultra-nationalist settlers, explained that “co-existence of this kind condones and legitimizes Israel’s policies as it shows the ‘pretty face’ of the occupation.” Yet he was there, marching.

For Muhammad Abu-Ayyash, an activist from the joint Bereaved Families organization, if East Jerusalem Palestinians didn’t show up in big numbers, “it’s because we live under Israeli control. We fear we’ll suffer if we demonstrate our support for our state and against the occupation of our capital. Besides, West Bankers cannot come to Jerusalem without an Israeli permit. And permits are hard to get.”

The last time such peaceful and festive event took place in Jerusalem was in December 1989, in the midst of the first Palestinian Intifadah uprising (1987-1993). Then, over 20,000 Israelis and Palestinians had formed a 2.5-mile-long human chain for peace around the walls of the Old City.

Violence had burst briefly when a group of Palestinian youths had waved Palestinian flags, then an outlawed action, and hurled rocks. The police responded with water cannons, tear gas, and rubber bullets at the crowd, injuring scores of Palestinians and a few Israelis. Tens of demonstrators were arrested. Yet the jolly human chain had gone unperturbed. You could see Palestinians handing flowers and olive branches, symbols of conviviality and peace, to Israelis.

During Friday’s demonstration, Palestinian flags were plentiful. Holding the red, black, white, and green banner is now tolerated.

So, times are changing, but the conditions on the ground are not — so long as the ingrained reality is one of exclusive national dreams, and mutual suppressions of such dreams, by spoilers on both sides.

The atmosphere was both lively and anachronistic, a carnival for statehood and independence… on paper and banners — with drummers rapping out their samba beat, accentuating the “free, free Palestine” chanted at full throat, in one voice.

“Sure, it’s not peace yet, but we carry the seeds of peace,” admitted Abu-Ayyash while the march stopped at the final station, the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, another of the city’s flashpoints. In 2009, four Palestinian refugee families were forcibly evicted from their homes while settlers moved in their stead.

“But we want them to hear that that there are Israelis who recognize our rights to a state,” Abu-Ayyash said as young Sheikh Jarrah settlers waving the blue and white Israeli flag chanted “Israel, Israel.” “Inshallah, God willing, it’d be great if Israel accepted Palestine before any other state in the world.”

http://www.stopwar.org.uk/index.php/palestine-and-israel/646-thousands-of-israelis-and-palestinians-march-together-for-peace

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Netanyahu: Israeli Army Ready For Anything!

“To you, Sovereign Grand Inspectors General (of the 33rd degree), we say this, that you may repeat it to the brethren of the 32nd , 31st and 30th degrees – The Masonic Religion should be, by all of us initiates of the high degrees, maintained in the purity of the Luciferian doctrine. … Yes, Lucifer is God … “ Albert Pike, Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry in 1871 (blasphemy)

Who does Freemason Netanyahu serve? The God of the Bible? I don’t think so! FreeMasonry has its roots in the Jewish Cabala, Jewish mysticism. Of course, calling it Jewish is an insult to Jacob. Modern Judaism is not the religion of the Bible. It is mainly Babylonian Talmud and the Cabala. These form the basis of modern Satanism. Higher order FreeMasons ie. 30th and above are all willing/knowing Luciferians.

Freemason Israel Prime Ministers, 1948-2008
… A total of thirteen different people have served as Prime Minister of Israel. [including "acting" PM's] Four of those people have served on two non-consecutive occasions. Of these 13 people, documentation and/or references found thus far indicate at least eight (8) of these people are (were) Masons:

David Ben-Gurion – Freemason
Moshe Sharett
Levi Eshkol
Yigal Allon
Golda Meir – Co-Mason
Yitzhak Rabin – Freemason
Shimon Peres* – Freemason and Jesuit (Roman Catholic) trained
Menachem Begin
Yitzhak Shamir
Benjamin Netanyahu – Freemason
Ehud Barak – Freemason
Ariel Sharon – Freemason
Ehud Olmert** – Freemason

Illuminati (Freemasons) in control of Israel
Masons: Masters of Israel and the World
“The rise of Masons to political power in Israel dates back to 1948 and to Israel’s founding as a modern-day nation. David Ben-Gurion, its first Prime Minister, was both a Mason and an avowed Marxist-Leninist and Communist. Since that time, every single Prime Minister has been a high-level Mason, including Golda Meier, who was a member of the women’s organization, the Co-Masons.”
….
“Former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has publicly stated (see the Israeli publication Shishi, Spring 1994) that he was initiated into the Masonic Lodge while in the United States. The La Republica newspaper stated that Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin was active in Masonry and estimated there are 4,000 Israeli Freemasons, divided into 76 lodges. Most Israeli judges and religious figures are Masons. Rothschild-supported Hebrew University in Israel has erected an Egyptian obelisk, symbol of Freemasonry, in its courtyard, and inside the new Israeli Supreme Court building is a law library architecturally designed in the shape of an Egyptian pyramid.”

Netanyahu is an Illuminati FreeMason. He is simply playing his ‘ordained’ role to foment fear and hate in Zionist Israel. To gear Zionist Israel for the coming great blood sacrifice in Palestine. Zionist Israel will be destroyed in this coming Satanic Greater Middle East War: Zionist Israel vs Muslim World. But before it is destroyed, it will be used (as useful idiots) to destroy the Muslim world.

“The Third World War must be fomented by taking advantage of the differences caused by the “agentur” of the “Illuminati” between the political Zionists and the leaders of Islamic World. The war must be conducted in such a way that Islam (the Moslem Arabic World) and political Zionism (the State of Israel) mutually destroy each other. …. Albert Pike, Satanic World War 3 Plan.

Here is my advice again to all Israelis: renounce your citizenship, burn all Satanic Hexagram(Star of David), denounce genocide and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people and leave Palestine!

Netanyahu: Israeli army ready for anything
February 14, 2011
JERUSALEM (AFP) — The Israeli military is “ready for all eventualities” as the Arab and Muslim world undergoes “an earthquake,” Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday just days after Egypt’s regime collapsed.

“An earthquake is shaking the whole Arab world and a large part of the Muslim world and we don’t yet know how these things will turn out,” the premier said at a swearing-in ceremony for new army chief Major General Benny Gantz. “We are ready for all eventualities because we know that the foundation of our existence, and our capacity to convince our neighbours to live in peace with us, is based on the Israeli army,” he said during a ceremony at his Jerusalem office.

Gantz takes over the post as Israel’s strategic stance in the Middle East undergoes a shakeup in the wake of a popular revolt in Egypt which ousted president Hosni Mubarak after three decades in power. Israel has reacted cautiously to the overthrow of Mubarak, an ally who was involved in years of Middle East peace negotiations.

But it welcomed a statement by Egypt’s new military ruling council that Cairo remains committed to all its treaties, including its landmark 1979 peace deal with Israel.

http://socioecohistory.wordpress.com/2011/02/16/freemason-netanyahu-israeli-army-ready-for-anything/
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Barenboim to conduct 'peace concert' in Gaza

JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israeli conductor Daniel Barenboim will on Tuesday lead an orchestra of European musicians in a peace concert in Gaza, in the first-ever performance there by such a prestigious international ensemble.

The rare concert, which will take place at lunchtime at the Al-Mathaf Cultural House, was announced on Monday by the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East peace process (UNSCO).

It will be the first time that Barenboim, an outspoken proponent of peace between Israel and the Palestinians, has visited the coastal territory, a spokeswoman for the chamber orchestra told AFP.

"It is the first time," Judith Neuhoff confirmed, saying that the ensemble, which is made up of 25 musicians and known as the "Orchestra for Gaza," had been put together especially for the visit.

In a statement released by UNSCO, Barenboim said he was "very happy" to be coming to Gaza. "We are playing this concert as a sign of our solidarity and friendship with the civil society of Gaza," he said.

The musicians, who belong to five prestigious European orchestras, were expected to enter Gaza from Egypt on Tuesday, via the southern Rafah border crossing, a UNSCO spokesman said.

They will travel directly to the venue where they will play a programme of pieces by Mozart including Eine Kleine Nachtmusik and the G minor symphony to an audience of between 300 to 400 people, which will include music students and other members of Gaza's civil society.

"The concert is to try and bring something to the people of Gaza," he said. "It is not a political event in any sense."

Ibrahim al-Najjar, director of Al-Qattan Music School, the only such establishment in Gaza, told AFP that he and a group of his students would greet the 68-year-old maestro and his delegation, which numbers around 50 people, at the Rafah border.

"This visit is very important to us for many reasons, both cultural and civil," he told AFP.

Although a handful of musicians had visited Gaza in recent months to support the school and to teach classes, it was the first time such a large group of so many prestigious players was coming, he said.

The ensemble includes players from the Berlin Philharmonic, Staatskapelle Berlin, the Vienna Philharmonic, Orchestre de Paris and the Orchestra of La Scala di Milano.

"We love culture, and music is a way of expressing peace and showing that we Palestinians are civilised," Najjar said, adding that it was important that people had a chance to meet the orchestra and get to know different musical instruments.

"And from a political perspective, it is important to show that Gaza is a safe place," he said.

Israelis are forbidden by law to venture into Palestinian territory. Barenboim has previously been refused entry to Gaza by the Israeli army -- most recently in April 2010 -- meaning the only way for him to enter the Hamas-run territory is via Rafah.

The legendary conductor, who lives in Berlin and holds Argentine, Israeli and Spanish citizenship, also accepted honorary Palestinian citizenship in 2008, saying he hoped the move would be an example of the "everlasting bond" between Israelis and Palestinians.

He has long used his fame as a conductor and pianist to promote the cause of peace between Israel and its neighbours, and in 1999 co-founded a "peace orchestra" with his friend Edward W. Said, a Palestinian-American scholar who died in 2003.

Known as the East-West Divan orchestra, it brings together Israeli, Arab and international musicians, and in 2005 it performed in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

Barenboim performs regularly in the West Bank, but has never performed in Gaza, which has been subjected to a crippling Israeli blockade since 2006, which was eased somewhat last year following international pressure.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110502/wl_mideast_afp/israelpalestiniansgazamusicbarenboim

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Bin Laden’s theology a radical break with traditional Islam

Osama bin Laden wore the mantle of a religious leader. He looked the part and talked a good game, but his theology was a radical departure from traditional orthodox Islam.

The pitch to join al Qaeda did not start with an invitation to put on a suicide vest but, like other religious splinter groups and cults, took advantage of disenfranchisement and poverty.

Bin Laden had no official religious training but developed his own theology of Islam.

“We don’t know that (bin Laden) was ever exposed to orthodox Islamic teachings,” said Ebrahim Moosa, a professor of religion and Islamic studies at Duke University.

The writing of ideologues in the Muslim Brotherhood influenced bin Laden heavily, Moosa said.

“He takes scriptural imperatives at their face value and believes this is the only instruction and command God has given him – unmediated by history, unmediated by understanding, unmediated by human experience. Now that’s a difference between Muslim orthodoxy and what I would call uber- or hyperscripturalists,” Moosa said.

The vast majority of Islamic scholars and imams say the teaching of the Prophet Mohammed happened in historical context that needs to be understood when reading and interpreting the Quran.

“If the likes of bin Laden, if they had spent one day or maybe one month possibly, in a madrassa (Muslim religious school) and understood how the canonical tradition is interpreted, they would not go onto this kind of destructive path they go on,” Moosa said.

In the entire leadership structure of al Qaeda, “no one has had any sort of formal religious training from any seminary,” said Aftab Malik, a global expert on Muslim affairs at the United Nations Alliance of Civilization. He is researching a Ph.D. on al Qaeda.

“What you had was an engineer and a doctor leading a global jihad against the whole world,” Malik said. “That would never happen in normative Islam. It’s just such an aberration.”

John Esposito, a professor of religion and international affairs at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, said bin Laden “appropriates Islam … to legitimate and mobilize people.”

“If you look at bin Laden’s early statements and arguments, his interview with Peter Bergen on CNN … lots of people would see it as something that would go down very well not just with many Muslims but among many analysts when he talks about longstanding political grievances,” Esposito said.

“What bin Laden ends up doing is saying anyone who disagrees with him, any Muslim, is in fact an apostate,” he said. That includes Muslims who would not join his fight, he said. “It’s a distortion of the traditional teaching, and it just extends the parameters and the consequences in order to legitimate how when you’re fighting on the ground you’re fighting against your own people.”

Malik said, “The key issue is of apostasy,” referring to when a person leaves a faith. “One of the things Osama bin Laden deviates from is calling those people who do not implement Sharia, or God’s law, on the planet as apostates. If they did not implement Sharia, they deserved death. This is a major departure from normative Islam.”

“The second major deviation is the targeting of noncombatants. Even when you read in the Quran there are injunctions for fighting. But before and after the injunctions for fighting are calls for restraint. ‘Do not attack monks, do not attack women, do not attack children.’ And these are numerated heavily in the Hadith, which are uncontested,” Malik said, referring to the sayings of the prophet and his close companions.

“What bin Laden has done is ignored those injunctions,” he said. “The reason he has ignored them, in Osama bin Laden’s theology it’s basically a theology of anarchy.

“Once you let the genie out of the bottle you can’t put it back in, and that’s the big difference between al Qaeda theology and normative Islam. Normative Islam has heavy constraints – very, very heavy.”

Bin Laden’s theology is waning greatly in influence, Esposito said, in part because of the rise of the Arab Spring, the revolts of people on the street across the Middle East that have overthrown regimes in Tunisia and Egypt.

“(Al Qaeda’s) whole notion was to develop a mass movement,” Esposito said. “Well, they never did.”

Source 

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Body of kidnapped Italian peace activist Vittorio Arrigoni found in Gaza

 

Vittorio Arrigoni in Gaza in 2008. The pro-Palestinian activist has reportedly been killed by Islamic militants. Photograph: Suhaib Salem/Reuters

 

An Italian pro-Palestinian activist has reportedly been kidnapped and killed by Islamic militants in Gaza.
The body of Vittorio Arrigoni was found in an abandoned house in the Gaza Strip on Friday following his abduction by militants, a Hamas official said.
Two men were arrested and others were being sought in the killing, the official added.
A Jihadist Salafi group in the Gaza Strip aligned with al-Qaida had threatened to execute Arrigoni by 5pm local time on Thursday unless their leader, whom Hamas arrested last month, was freed.
"A security force entered a house and they found the Italian's man body, he is dead," the source told Reuters from the scene.
Arrigoni, a pacifist and blogger, had lived in the Gaza Strip for some time.
In a YouTube clip posted by his abductors, he was shown blindfolded with blood around his right eye and a hand can be seen pulling his head up by his hair to face the camera.
The accompanying Arabic text said: "The Italian hostage entered our land only to spread corruption." It described Italy as "the infidel state".
The body was found dressed in black clothes as he appeared in the video clip, a witness said. No blood was seen, which suggested he may have been strangled or hanged.
Arrigoni was the first foreign national to be abducted in the Gaza Strip since BBC journalist Alan Johnston, who was held for 114 days by an al Qaeda-inspired clan group named the Army of Islam. He was released in 2007.
Arrigoni arrived in the Gaza Strip on a boat bringing humanitarian supplies in 2008 that Israel, which enforces a blockade on the tiny coastal territory, allowed into Gaza port.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/apr/15/gaza-threaten-execute-vittorio-arrigoni

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Egypt President Mubarak is doing fine after surgery.

Images of Egypt's president have appeared for the first time since he underwent surgery in Germany over a week ago.

Hosni Mubarak, who has ruled the country for nearly three decades, was said to be recovering well following the operation on his gallbladder, which had sparked concerns over the state of his health.

Egyptian state television released the video on Tuesday of Mubarak, 81, talking to two doctors.

"He was upbeat and in very good spirits as usual," Dr Markus Buechler, head of his medical team, said.

"His resolve and willpower ... was very obvious this morning as he looked forward to going back to his normal life."

An Egyptian government spokesman said Mubarak would address the nation by the end of the week.

A statement by Egyptian authorities said he left intensive care at the Heidelberg hospital last Wednesday, and that tests showed he did not have cancer.

Speculation over health

The release of the video comes after a swirl of rumours and speculation over his health, after a marked lack of pictures following his surgery on March 6.

Amr El-Kahky, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Egypt, said news of Mubarak's improvement gave a boost to Cairo's main stock market index, which bounced back from a six per cent loss over the past two days.

Mubarak, who has never appointed a vice-president since he took over in 1981, handed powers temporarily to his prime minister, Ahmed Nazif, before the operation.

He has not said whether he will run again for a sixth six-year term in the 2011 presidential election.

Many Egyptians believe that if he does not, he will try to hand power to his politician son, Gamal, 46. Both Mubaraks deny any such plan.

In 2005, Mubarak allowed multi-candidate elections which he won overwhelmingly, but election observers said at the time there were irregularities in the polls.

In parliamentary elections the same year, police closed down polling stations and judges who oversaw the election said some results were rigged in favour of government candidates.

Opposition groups in the country command little power, but dissidents have been galvanised by a new reform group founded by Mohammed ElBaradei, the former head of the UN nuclear agency.

Last month, ElBaradei flew to Cairo to a rapturous welcome from supporters and formed the National Association for Change.

He has said he is prepared to run against Mubarak in the 2011 presidential election.




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Obama embarks on Mid-East mission

Mr Obama says he wants America to re-engage with the Middle East
US President Barack Obama is heading to the Middle East on a visit aimed at increasing US engagement with the Islamic world.

Mr Obama travels first to Saudi Arabia and then to Egypt, where he will make a keynote speech on ties with the region.

He says he wants to open dialogue with Muslims and overcome misapprehensions on both sides. He also wants to revive Middle East peace negotiations.

It is his first Middle East visit since taking office.

Barack Obama's goal is to improve perceptions of the US and to push for a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians, says BBC Diplomatic Correspondent Jonathan Marcus.

In the process he wants to make other US strategic goals in the region - like stability in Iraq and the containment of Iran - easier to achieve.

OBAMA'S TOUR
3 June: Saudi Arabia - talks with King Abdullah on Israel-Palestinian peace negotiations
4 June: Egypt - talks with President Hosni Mubarak, keynote speech at Cairo university
5 June: Germany - meets Chancellor Angela Merkel, visits to Dresden and to Buchenwald concentration camp
6 June: France - meets President Nicolas Sarkozy, attends D-Day events in Normandy
To do this he needs Arab partners and this trip takes in two key nations - Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

bbc



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Popular Committee Against the Siege calls on the Pope to visit Gaza

The Popular Committee Against the Siege demanded Pope Benedict XVI to visit the Gaza strip during his tour in the region in order to observe the destruction and devastation inflicted during the Israeli offensive, and to observe the suffering of the residents.

Legislator Jamal El Khodary, head of the Committee, stated that it is essential that the Pope, Christian and Muslim figures, visit Gaza in order to observe the suffering of the residents as the Israeli siege is still ongoing in addition to the repeated Israeli attacks.

He added that the Pope should have a clear stance against the siege, and should practice pressure on the occupation to end the siege and ease the suffering of the residents.

El Khodary also said that ending the siege requires full opening of all border terminals and allowing the entry of all needed supplies, goods and medications.

The legislator added that the residents, fishermen, farmers and every person in Gaza should be able to work and sustain decent livelihood, and that the patients should be allowed access to proper medical treatment especially since the siege emptied Gaza hospitals of the basic equipment and supplies.

On Sunday, May 3 2009, a Palestinian patient, identified as Wael Obeilan, died at a Gaza hospital after Israeli barred him from receiving medical treatment outside the coastal region.

He died just a number of days after a 5-year old child, identified as Mohammad Al Qabbani, died at a local hospital in Gaza. Source




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Hamas Officials Supportive of Syrian-Israeli Talks

04/05/2009

By Kifah Zaboun

Ramallah, Asharq Al-Awsat – Two high-level ranking Hamas leaders have vehemently emphasized that the Hamas organization does not operate in any Arab or non-Arab territory and that it has no military activity except in Palestine. In statements to Asharq Al-Awsat, Yahya Musa and Atif Adwan stressed that Hamas is satisfied with the Syrian role in supporting the Palestinian issue, and noted that Syria's stance is different from the stances adopted by several Arab countries. They said that Hamas respects the Syrian option to hold dialogue with Israel, that these negotiations are legitimate, and that there is no reason for concern about the outcome of these negotiations.

Both Hamas leaders were commenting on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's interview in Asharq Al-Awsat where he stated that Hamas and Hezbollah would not attack Israel from Syria. He pointed out that in the direct negotiations with Israel through Turkish mediation efforts, he reached a stage closer to an agreement than that reached in the era of his father's negotiations with the then Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and former US President Bill Clinton in 2000.

Yahya Musa, member of the Palestinian Legislative Council and deputy leader of the Hamas bloc in the council, said that Hamas does not interfere in the affairs or options of other Arab country, but respects these options. He added: "We know that the Arab regimes have their own needs, but we do not interfere in the political dealings that have to do with the circumstances, balances, and situations facing these countries."

Musa said that the Muslim community of nation should focus its efforts on backing the Palestinian issue because it is an Arab and Islamic cause. He added: "We are against the divisions that prompted the nation to shirk its responsibility toward contributing to the Palestinian efforts and resistance to the occupation. However, this does not mean that we should dictate to this or that country advice." He added: "These are big and independent states that have their own conditions, circumstances, and complicated situations." He stressed that "we accept whatever all Arab countries any effort they make and whatever they offer. We consider that a state like Syria has borne a great deal in the interest of the Palestinian question. We are satisfied with the Syrian position that embraces the resistance in Lebanon and Palestine and defends it in various forums." He said: "We did not oppose the other Arab countries that took a position against Hamas, nor did we attack them or make an issue with them. We accepted their efforts and dealt with them according to what Arab relations and sensitivities dictate."

As to why Hamas rejects Palestinian-Israeli negotiations whereas it agrees to Arab-Israeli negotiations, Musa said: "The Palestinian affair concerns us. We are responsible for our people, and have our free option entrusted with us by our people."More



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weekly report Of Israeli Human Rights Violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territory

Israeli violations of international law and humanitarian law escalated in the OPT during the reporting period (23 – 28 April 2009):

Shooting: During the reporting period, 20 Palestinian civilians, including 6 children, were wounded by IOF and Israeli settlers in the West Bank.

On 24 April 2009, 12 Palestinian civilians, including two children, were wounded when Israeli settlers and IOF troops attacked 'Ourif village, south of Nablus. This joint attack was the second of its kind in the West Bank this April; IOF and Israeli settlers launched a similar attack on Safa village, north of Hebron, on 08 April, in which 9 Palestinian civilians were wounded.

On 26 April 2009, an Israeli settler fired at a Palestinian child in Madama village, south of Nablus. The child was seriously wounded by a gunshot that entered the back and exited the chest.

On the same day, a Palestinian civilian was wounded when IOF moved into Rantis village, northwest of Ramallah, and opened fire indiscriminately.

Also on the same day, IOF troops positioned at Tarqoumia crossing, southwest of Hebron, fired at an old Palestinian man, wounding him.

During the reporting period, 5 Palestinian civilians, including two children, were wounded when IOF used force against peaceful demonstrations organized to protest the construction of the Annexation Wall.

Incursions: During the reporting period, IOF conducted at least 28 military incursions into Palestinian communities in the West Bank. IOF arrested 32 Palestinian civilians, including 6 children.

During the reporting period, IOF stormed the public yard opposite 'Aaida refugee camp, north of Bethlehem. The yard was being readied in advance of the Pope's intended visit. IOF forced workers to stop technical and construction preparations.

On 24 April 2009, IOF conducted a joint operation with Israeli settlers against 'Ourif village, south of Nablus. Both forces fired at Palestinian civilians, wounding 12 of them.

Restrictions on Movement: IOF have continued to impose a tightened siege on the OPT and imposed severe restrictions on the movement of Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including occupied East Jerusalem. Source



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Israel shoots an Irish Nobel Peace Prize winner

Irish Nobel Peace Prize winner Mairead Maguire has been shot with a rubber[-coated metal] bullet by the Israeli military while taking part in a nonviolent civil rights protest organised by Palestinians and Israelis.

The incident took place on Friday 20 April, and Ms Maguire, famed for her work for reconcilition in Northern Ireland, has now returned home.

She won her Nobel Laureate for galvanizing popular demands for a just peace and opposition to both military and paramilitary acivities during 'the troubles'.

She said yesterday: “I was invited with my friend to attend a nonviolent conference in Bilin, a village outside Ramallah [in the West Bank], and to give a talk there, which I did. At the end of the conference, we were invited to participate in a nonviolent demonstration with some of the Palestinian members of parliament and Israeli peace activists and local villagers and international visitors.

“We walked along to try to walk up toward the separation wall, and it was a totally nonviolent protest. And we were viciously attacked by the Israeli military. They threw gas canisters into the peace walkers, and they also fired rubber-covered steel bullets."

More on this Story




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Watching Darfuris Die

The first gauntlet thrown at President Obama didn’t come from Iran, Russia or China. Rather, it came from Sudan, in its decision to expel aid groups that are a lifeline keeping more than a million people alive in Darfur.

Unfortunately, the administration’s initial reaction made Neville Chamberlain seem forceful. The State Department blushingly suggested that the expulsion “is certainly not helpful to the people who need aid.”

Wow.

Since then, the administration has stiffened its spine somewhat. Susan Rice, the ambassador to the United Nations and designated hitter on Sudan, told me, “If this decision stands, it may well amount to genocide by other means.”

That’s exactly what we may be facing, for President Omar Hassan al-Bashir is confirming the International Criminal Court’s judgment when it issued an arrest warrant for him on Wednesday for “extermination,” murder and rape. Now Mr. Bashir is preparing to kill people en masse, not with machetes but by withholding the aid that keeps them alive.

More than one million people depend directly on the expelled aid groups for health care, food and water. I’ve been in these camps, so let me offer an educated guess about what will unfold if this expulsion stands.

The biggest immediate threat isn’t starvation, because that takes time. Rather, the first crises will be disease and water shortages, particularly in West Darfur.

The camps will quickly run out of clean water, because generator-operated pumps bring the water to the surface from wells and boreholes. Fuel supplies to operate the pumps may last a couple of weeks, and then the water disappears.

Health clinics have already closed, and diarrhea is spreading in Zam Zam camp and meningitis in Kalma camp. These are huge camps — Kalma has perhaps 90,000 people — and diseases can spread rapidly. Children will be the first to die.

Hundreds of thousands of people in the camps may try to flee to Chad, but that would overwhelm Chad’s own impoverished and vulnerable population. And to top it off, Mr. Bashir has armed a large proxy force of Chadian rebels who are said to be preparing an attack on the Chadian government.

“This is a whole new kind of hell for the people of Darfur,” Josette Sheeran, the head of the United Nations World Food Program, told me. “The life bridge for more than a million people has just been dismantled.”

Full article

Clinton Accuses Iran of Intimidating

Iran wants to "intimidate as far as they think their voice can reach."

Hillary Rodham Clinton
U.S. Secretary of State was harsh with Irans positions on Wednesday, accusing its hardline leaders of making divisions in the Arab world, as well that Iran is promoting terrorism and as always posing threats to Israel

A Few Questions about Israel and a so called Terror List

Why is Israel not on the terror list, when its occupation of Palestine caused more death to the Palestinians then the actions of all the Palestinian terrorists combined ???????????????

Why is Israel not on the Terror list, when its war on terror is terrifying the WORLD. Protests are every where, all across the globe and here on the vine it's an everyday battle in regards to Israel being justified for protecting its people and it's right to exist.

But anyone who supports Hamas position for trying to protect its PEOPLE and also their right to EXIST, they are terror supporters.

What is this so called terror list and what does it mean??? And why its NOT OK to have terrorist, but when the war on terrorism is more costly, its OK to do it ??

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Israel demolished two Palestinian houses in East Jerusalem

Israel demolished two Palestinian houses in East Jerusalem on Monday, a day before U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was to launch an initial effort to shore up the foundations of a shaky peace process.

Two bulldozers flattened a home owned by Mahmoud al-Abbasi in the Arab neighborhood of Silwan.

Israeli authorities said the house was built without a municipal permit.
Palestinians say building permission is nearly impossible to obtain from Israel's Jerusalem city hall and say this is part of a policy to drive out Arab residents.


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War and Natural Gas: The Israeli Invasion and Gaza's Offshore Gas Fields

War and Natural Gas: The Israeli Invasion and Gaza's Offshore Gas Fields

by Michel Chossudovsky


The military invasion of the Gaza Strip by Israeli Forces bears a direct relation to the control and ownership of strategic offshore gas reserves.

This is a war of conquest. Discovered in 2000, there are extensive gas reserves off the Gaza coastline.


British Gas (BG Group) and its partner, the Athens based Consolidated Contractors International Company (CCC) owned by Lebanon's Sabbagh and Koury families, were granted oil and gas exploration rights in a 25 year agreement signed in November 1999 with the Palestinian Authority.



The rights to the offshore gas field are respectively British Gas (60 percent); Consolidated Contractors (CCC) (30 percent); and the Investment Fund of the Palestinian Authority (10 percent). (Haaretz, October 21, 2007).

The PA-BG-CCC agreement includes field development and the construction of a gas pipeline.(Middle East Economic Digest, Jan 5, 2001).

The BG licence covers the entire Gazan offshore marine area, which is contiguous to several Israeli offshore gas facilities. (See Map below). It should be noted that 60 percent of the gas reserves along the Gaza-Israel coastline belong to Palestine.

The BG Group drilled two wells in 2000: Gaza Marine-1 and Gaza Marine-2. Reserves are estimated by British Gas to be of the order of 1.4 trillion cubic feet, valued at approximately 4 billion dollars. These are the figures made public by British Gas. The size of Palestine's gas reserves could be much larger.


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Iraqi Shoe-Thrower Stands Trial.

The brave Iraqi journalist famous for throwing his shoes at George W. Bush is now standing trial and is explaining why he did what he did. He has testified that he threw the shoes because of Bush's cold smiles as he claimed to have brought freedom to Iraq, when in fact, all the US occupation has brought to Iraq is misery, destruction, rape and killing.

updated 8:25 a.m. PT, Thurs., Feb.19, 2009

BAGHDAD - An Iraqi reporter who hurled his shoes at George W. Bush said in the past he had videotaped himself practicing the Arab insult to use against the president whose "icy smile" had filled him with uncontrollable rage.

At the start of his trial in Baghdad on charges of assaulting a foreign leader, Muntadhar al-Zeidi said he recorded his shoe-throwing training two years ago and had hoped to accost Bush in Jordan but this did not take place.

Al-Zeidi, who was hailed across the Middle East by critics of the Iraq invasion and who also called Bush a "dog," told the court he had acknowledged making a training film under interrogation after his arrest at a Baghdad news conference.

"I said this before the guards of the prime minister after I was beaten and after my body was devoured by electricity," said al-Zeidi, who added that his original plan had been to throw the shoes at Bush during a news conference in Amman.

But al-Zeidi, whose unusual protest overshadowed Bush's final visit to Iraq in December, insisted he had not planned to attack Bush this time.

Instead, he said Bush's smile as he talked about achievements in Iraq had made him think of "the killing of more than a million Iraqis, the disrespect for the sanctity of the mosques and houses, the rapes of women," and enraged him.


Al-Zeidi himself said he could not be charged with assaulting a visiting head of state when that leader was also the chief of an occupation force. "How can he be a guest in an area that they themselves run?" he said.

"I did not intend to kill U.S. President Bush. But I wanted to express what is inside of me and what is inside all Iraqis, from north to south and east to west, the hatred we have for this man.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29273263/

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Conn Hallinan - Israel Treated Gaza Like Its Own Private Death Laboratory

Israel tested out a "focused lethality" weapon that minimizes explosive damage to structures while inflicting catastrophic wounds on its victims.

Erik Fosse, a Norwegian cardiologist, worked in Gaza hospitals during the recent war."It was as if they had stepped on a mine," he says of certain Palestinian patients he treated. "But there was no shrapnel in the wound. Some had lost their legs. It looked as though they had been sliced off. I have been to war zones for 30 years, but I have never seen such injuries before."

Dr. Fosse was describing the effects of a U.S. "focused lethality" weapon that minimizes explosive damage to structures while inflicting catastrophic wounds on its victims. But where did the Israelis get this weapon? And was their widespread use in the attack on Gaza a field test for a new generation of explosives?

DIMEd to Death

The specific weapon is called a Dense Inert Metal Explosive (DIME). In 2000, the U.S. Air Force teamed up with the University of California's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The weapon wraps high explosives with a tungsten alloy and other metals like cobalt, nickel, or iron in a carbon fiber/epoxy container. When the bomb explodes the container evaporates, and the tungsten turns into micro-shrapnel that is extremely lethal within a 13-foot radius. Tungsten is inert, so it doesn't react chemically with the explosive. While a non-inert metal like aluminum would increase the blast, tungsten actually contains the explosion to a limited area.

Within the weapon's range, however, it's inordinately lethal. According to Norwegian doctor Mad Gilbert, the blast results in multiple amputations and "very severe fractures. The muscles are sort of split from the bones, hanging loose, and you also have quite severe burns." Most of those who survive the initial blast quickly succumb to septicemia and organ collapse. "Initially, everything seems in orderbut it turns out on operation that dozens of miniature particles can be found in all their organs," says Dr. Jam Brommundt, a German doctor working in Kham Younis, a city in southern Gaza. "It seems to be some sort of explosive or shell that disperses tiny particlesthat penetrate all organs, these miniature injuries, you are not able to attack them surgically." According to Brommundt, the particles cause multiple organ failures.

If by some miracle victims resist those conditions, they are almost certain to develop rhabdomyosarcoma (RMS), a particularly deadly cancer that deeply embeds itself into tissue and is almost impossible to treat. A 2005 U.S. Department of health study found that tungsten stimulated RMS cancers even in very low doses. All of the 92 rats tested developed the cancer.

While DIMEs were originally designed to avoid "collateral" damage generated by standard high-explosive bombs, the weapon's lethality and profound long-term toxicity hardly seem like an improvement.

It appears DIME weapons may have been used in the 2006 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, but not enough to alarm medical workers. But in Gaza, the ordinance was widely used. Al-Shifta alone has seen 100 to 150 victims of these attacks.

Gaza as Test

Dr. Gilbert told the Oslo Gardermoen, "there is a strong suspicionthat Gaza is now being used as a test laboratory for new weapons."

DIME is a U.S. invention. Did the Israelis get the weapons from the United States, or did they design similar ones themselves? Given the close relations between the two militaries, it isn't unlikely that the U.S. Air Force supplied the weapons or, at least, the specifications on how to construct them. And since the United States has yet to use the device in a war, it would certainly benefit from seeing how these new "focused lethality" weapons worked under battlefield conditions.

Marc Garlasco, Human Rights Watch's senior military advisor, says "it remains to be seen how Israel has acquired the technology, whether they purchased weapons from the United States under some agreement, or if they in fact licensed or developed their own type of munitions."

DIME weapons aren't banned under the Geneva Conventions because they have never been officially tested. However, any weapon capable of inflicting such horrendous damage is normally barred from use, particularly in one of the most densely populated regions in the world.

For one thing, no one knows how long the tungsten remains in the environment or how it could affect people who return to homes attacked by a DIME. University of Arizona cancer researcher Dr. Mark Witten, who investigates links between tungsten and leukemia, says that in his opinion "there needs to be much more research on the health effects of tungsten before the military increases its usage."

Beyond DIMEs

DIMEs weren't the only controversial weapons used in Gaza. The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) also made generous use of white phosphorus, a chemical that burns with intense heat and inflicts terrible burns on victims. In its vapor form it also damages breathing passages. International law prohibits the weapon's use near population areas and requires that "all reasonable precautions" be taken to avoid civilians.

Israel initially denied using the chemical. "The IDF acts only in accordance with what is permitted by international law and does not use white phosphorus," said Israel's Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi on January 13.

But eyewitness accounts in Gaza and Israel soon forced the IDF to admit that they were, indeed, using the substance. On January 20, the IDF confessed to using phosphorus artillery shells as smokescreens, as well as 200 U.S.-made M825A1 phosphorus mortar shells on "Hamas fighters and rocket launching crews in northern Gaza."

Three of those shells hit the UN Works and Relief Agency compound on January 15, igniting a fire that destroyed hundreds of tons of humanitarian supplies. A phosphorus shell also hit Al-Quds hospital in Gaza City. The Israelis say there were Hamas fighters near the two targets, a charge that witnesses adamantly deny.

Donatella Rovera of Amnesty International said: "Such extensive use of this weapon in Gaza's densely-populated residential neighborhoodsand its toll on civilians is a war crime."

Israel is also accused of using depleted uranium ammunition (DUA), which a UN sub-commission in 2002 found in violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the UN Charter, the Geneva Conventions, the International Convention Against Torture, the Conventional Weapons Convention, and the Hague Conventions against the use of poison weapons.

DUA isn't highly radioactive, but after exploding, some of it turns into a gas that can easily be inhaled. The dense shrapnel that survives also tends to bury itself deeply, leaching low-level radioactivity into water-tables.

War Crimes?

Other human-rights groups, including B'Tselem, Gisha, and Physicians for Human Rights, charge that the IDF intentionally targeted medical personal, killing over a dozen, including paramedics and ambulance drivers.

The International Federation for Human Rights called on the UN Security Council to refer Israel to the International Criminal Court for possible war crimes.

Although the Israelis dismiss the war-crimes charges, the fact that the Israeli cabinet held a special meeting on January 25 to discuss the issue suggests they're concerned about being charged with "disproportionate" use of force. The Geneva Conventions require belligerents to at "all times" distinguish between combatants and civilians and to avoid "disproportionate force" in seeking military gains.

Hamas' use of unguided missiles fired at Israel would also be a war crime under the Conventions.

"The one-sidedness of casualty figures is one measure of disproportion," says Richard Falk, the UN's human rights envoy for the occupied territories. A total of 14 Israelis have been killed in the fighting, three of them civilians killed by rockets, 11 of them soldiers, four of the latter by "friendly fire." Some 50 IDF soldiers were also wounded.

In contrast, 1,330 Palestinians have died and 5,450 were injured, the overwhelming bulk of them civilians.

"This kind of fighting constitutes a blatant violation of the laws of warfare, which we ask to be investigated by the Commission of War Crimes," a coalition of Israeli human rights groups and Amnesty International said in a joint statement. "The responsibility of the state of Israel is beyond doubt."

Source

Secret Iraq Withdrawal Agreement

An agreement regarding the withdrawal of the U.S. forces from Iraq and regulating the U.S. activities during its temporary presence, between the United States and the Iraqi government

November 16th, 2008

Foreword

Iraq and the U.S., referred to here as “both sides”, affirm the importance of: supporting their joint security, participating in global peace and stability, fighting terrorism, cooperation in the fields of security and defense, and deterring invasions and threats against Iraq’s sovereignty, security, territorial integrity, and Iraq’s democratic federal constitutional regime.

Both sides affirm that this cooperation is based on mutual respect of both sides’ sovereignty in accordance with the United Nations’ goals and principles.

Both sides want to achieve mutual understanding to support their collaboration, without jeopardizing Iraq’s sovereignty over its land, water, and sky, and based on the mutual guarantees given as equal and independent sovereign partners.

Both sides have agreed on:

Check it