|
August 17 to August 29, 2007 Recent News |
CORRUPTION UPDATES 110
Previous Page: Page 109 All Archives Next page: Page 111
Contact Us: Committeefordemocracy.org
1) The Article linked below was Abstracted from the source cited. After the abstract there's analysis and commentary, links to related articles, and a link to the database with suggested search terms.
Israel eyes Gaza
Saleh Al-Naami monitors Israeli preparations for a strike against Hamas
Al-Ahram, Egypt, 30 August - 5 September, 2007
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/print/2007/860/fr1.htm
Try as you might, by landline or mobile, you can't reach Amer Al-Jarah these days, or any of his senior aides. The general commander of the executive force for the Ismail Haniyeh government -- dissolved by the Palestinian president -- is now directing operations on the ground from secret shelters in anticipation of a military strike from Israel targeting Hamas militias. Hamas political leaders are also taking security precautions following indications that an Israeli operation in Gaza is imminent. On the evening of 26 August, Israeli television's Channel 10 revealed that the Israeli army Southern Command had completed intensive training exercises for a huge military campaign. According to Alon Ben David, the station's military commentator, the army's recent incursions into Gaza were preliminary exercises for a major offensive to be undertaken by occupation forces in coordination with Washington and Ramallah.
Ben Kasbit, senior commentator for Maarev, has confirmed that Fatah officials in Ramallah have asked Washington to persuade the Olmert government to press ahead with such an offensive. He added that when he was in the Palestinian president's Ramallah compound to interview Mahmoud Abbas, Fatah leaders there told him -- much to his surprise -- that they wanted Israel to crush Hamas in Gaza. Evidently Israel is acting on this hope. On 28 August, Israeli radio announced that the Palestinian president's office had notified Olmert that Abu Mazen understands why Israel might stage a military operation in Gaza given continued Qassam missile fire.
Also on 28 August, and following the latest meeting between Abu Mazen and Olmert, Israeli army radio revealed that PA security chiefs had presented the Israeli army command with a lengthy list of actions undertaken against Hamas operatives in the West Bank, in addition to closing down 103 organisations and charitable associations with links to Hamas. According to Ronny Daniel, Israeli TV 2 military commentator, the purpose of Israel's military operations in Gaza and of the security clampdown by the PA and the Israeli army against Hamas activists is to so debilitate Hamas it will be unable to hamper the success of the international "meeting" in Washington this autumn.
Israel, of course, has its own agenda. Israeli Interior Minister Avi Dichter told Israeli army radio on 24 August that, "Israel is committed to taking action against Hamas in Gaza, not for the sake of Abu Mazen but because Hamas's success at establishing an extremist Islamist entity on our southwestern border poses a strategic threat of the first order." According to Haaretz military commentator Amir Oren, there are many tactical aims that Israel hopes to achieve through a military operation, but the most salient strategic objective is to ensure that Hamas rule in Gaza is not stabilised in any way.
Military action against Hamas has become a matter of increasing urgency for the Israeli security establishment now that Hamas has consolidated its hold on Gaza. The Sunday edition of Maarev cites senior Israeli security sources as saying that they fear Hamas rule in Gaza will last longer than initially expected. They also believe that if free elections were to be held in the West Bank, Hamas candidates would probably beat Fatah's there as well. This alarming prognosis explains why members of the Olmert government have seized upon recent resistance operations (in which Hamas was not involved) to press for a debilitating blow against Hamas and why a 26 August cabinet session became a set piece in which doves joined the hawks in sounding a battle cry.
American Corporate Media fails to track Middle-East News Objectively
Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., August 29, 2007
This explains why we have been deluged with stories about how Israeli's children are living in fear. Although not a word has been published about the Israeli military buildup and their movements towards war, we are experiencing a propaganda campaign to prepare Americans for Israel's upcoming invasion of Gaza.
Gaza is a city, rather a mega-city, not a country with an army. Israel is preparing to invade a densely packed civilian population in an urban area.
Israel will be able to do in Gaza what they were unable to do in Lebanon, as the infrastructure is already wrecked, and the people who dare to elect a government unfavorable to Israeli and American Interests are weak, and unable to defend themselves against American Armaments. They will be liquidated.
Then we will hold elections again.
Note: 9-16-07: BBC reports "limited" incursions by Israeli armor in North, Central and Southern Gaza.
Book Review by Stepen Lendman: The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, by Ilan Pappe.
Book Review by Kim Petersen: The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, by Ilan Pappe.
Corruption Updates 37, 1st article on the page, "Poll: Israel, Iran, US most Negative Countries in World"
Corruption Updates 42, 4th article on the page, Bolton Admits US ALLOWED ISRAEL TO DESTROY LEBANON
Corruption Updates 64, 3rd article on the page,"British Academics’ Union Endorses Israel Boycott"
Corruption Updates 64, 4th article on the page, "Largest Labor Union in Britain May Consider a Boycott of Israel"
Corruption Updates 83, 10th article on the page, "Top Official of Hamas Is Rebuffed Over Talks"
Corruption Updates 90, 10th article on the page, "Israeli Settlements Found to Grow Past Boundaries"
Al-Ahram, Egypt, 30 August - 5 September, 2007; Israel eyes Gaza
Al-Ahram, Egypt, 30 August - 5 September, 2007; 'No elections if Hamas will win'
NY Times, September 12, 2007; U.S. Confirms Israeli Strikes Hit Syrian Target Last Week
NYT, July 23, 2007; In Arabic Textbook, Israel Calls ’48 War Catastrophe for Arabs: Arabs in Israel Live under Jim Crow Apartheid
NYT, July 31, 2007; U.S. Arms Plan for Mid east Aims to Counter Iranian Power: Bush fuels middle eastern Arms Race
BBC NEWS: September 14, 2007; Small Israeli force enters Gaza
Al Ahram, 13 - 19 September 2007; Marching to war with cold feet
Search the Corruption Database under
Israel (17 Abstracts)
Middle East (13 Abstracts)
Speak your Mind here! Send your Comments about the Topic Above for Posting!
Please limit comments to 400 words, unless you write really well! Remember to include the Corruption Updates page number, and the article number on the page. Example: (82_1.)
2) The Article linked below was Abstracted from the source cited.
'No elections if Hamas will win'
Saleh Al-Naami explains why Fatah, Hamas and Israel all reject elections
Al-Ahram, Egypt, 30 August - 5 September, 2007
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/print/2007/860/re5.htm
In a radical departure from the position he has held since Hamas took over Gaza, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas now maintains that legislative and presidential elections should not be held until the West Bank and Gaza are reunited under a single leadership. His prime minister, Salam Fayyad, worded this more explicitly. Holding these elections should be linked to "the end to the manifestations of the military coup" and the resumption of Abu Mazen's control over Gaza.
from statements issuing from Fatah leaders in connection with their appraisal of their movement's own performance it appears that Abu Mazen's shift in position stems primarily from the fear that Fatah would not be able to win the elections. Indeed, recent opinion polls gave them the warning signal. A poll appearing in Al-Quds, a Fatah mouthpiece funded by the Palestinian office of the presidency, indicated that Ismail Haniyeh would come out miles ahead of any other presidential candidate. According to the poll, if elections were held now, 51.38 per cent of the electorate would elect him, whereas only 13.37 per cent would vote for Abu Mazen, 12.62 per cent for Fatah leader Marawan Barghouti and a mere 4.99 per cent for Salam Fayyad, head of the current emergency government.
Apart from Palestinian legislative and presidential elections, Abu Mazen has voiced the possibility of elections within the PLO. Few, however, take this suggestion seriously. Even when the PLO was at the peak of its power, it never used the popular electoral system to select the leaderships of its various bodies. Also, practically speaking, the idea is virtually unachievable, since the PLO, theoretically at least, represents all Palestinians, whether in Palestine or in the diaspora.
Democracy of Fools: The Bush Vision for the Middle-East
Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., August 19, 2007
We have watched the lie of American democracy stripped naked before the Arab people in Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and now in Palestine.
The only democracy acceptable to America in the Middle-East is one that bends its will to our command. Any other outcome is unacceptable, and will be crushed by American political, economic, or if need be, military power.
We arm and fund Middle-Eastern dictatorships that pay off our support by acknowledging the "validity" of Israel, and serving us up the regions energy resources. The Saudis, Egyptians, and Jordanians do this by suppressing the political will and freedom of their own peoples with police state powers backed and equipped with US know how and technology.
In short, the political relationship of the US and the Middle-East is not, nor has ever been, based on spreading democracy. Our relationship with the Middle-East is based on suppressing the will and rights of local citizens, imposing dictators, and extracting hydrocarbons. Arabs have no power to select or influence their American Backed dictators outside of violent revolution..
Our government was a democracy until our parties, elections, candidates and political office was hijacked by a political parasite. Our corporate aristocracy has seized control of our government, swept aside our Constitution, and has attacked all freedom-loving peoples of the world.
The United States is spreading the very real doctrine of global wealth and power extracted through violence, while hiding behind the pretence of our broken democracy..
Our sole purpose in the Middle-East is to maintain unfettered direct control their oil, and therefore control global energy markets. We are not there to spread democracy.
Egyptian Dictator Condemns Democratically elected Hamas
Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., June 24, 2007, originally written for Corruption Updates 83 #10
Irony of Ironies: The freely elected Hamas government has been condemned by the American Backed Dictator, Mubarak, of Egypt.
Fatah refused to recognize Hamas' victory, and was encouraged, armed, and supported by Israel and the US to defy Hamas' victory. Fatah kept what amounted to an illegal militia in opposition to the elected government. Just like the militias of Hizbolla, Islamic Jihad, and the Madi army that we have designated as "terrorist" groups. This was only one of many of our acts of bad faith.
The real loss we sustained by charting a course that subverted the democratically elected government of Palestine, besides assuring that Fatah would self-destruct, is the loss of a golden opportunity to have a real negotiation with a legitimate representative of the Palestinian people.
Arafat was neither. Arafat believed in independence when he faced his people, and he believed in dependence when he faced the west. This suited neither side, and deteriorated into a regime of unmitigated corruption.
Abbas, on the other hand, is a Western Bitch, and is an unbalanced remnant of Arafat's Western face. But unlike Arafat, Abbas is incapable of changing faces when he turns to his own people. Abbas completely sold out when he assisted and served Israel and America's quest to crush Hamas. Abbas has lost all legitimacy in the eyes of Palestine.
Abbas was, and will be, easily defeated by Hamas in any fair election.
I laughed when The Jews danced in the streets at Arafat's demise, knowing he was the best friend they had with the Palestinians. If Arafat lived forever, he would have continued to balance his two faces, one against the other.
Abbas can suck western cock, but he cannot satisfy his own people. This lack of duplicity, his inability to balance the contradictory realities as Arafat did, has doomed Abbas, and made Hamas a shining example of a successful Islamic Independence movement across the whole Middle-East. The dancing Jews are wishing they had Arafat back.
The Jews, with our help, and fully backed by our stable of middle eastern dictators, were able to bulldoze Abbas, and the post-Arafat Fatah, into subservience to their claims of Israeli legitimacy. This means nothing. Israel can only be legitimized through negotiations with Hamas. Israel, despite 50 years of efforts, cannot buy legitimacy.
The source of failure in Palestine, and the rest of the world, is our failure to realize, either ethically or pragmatically, that legitimacy cannot be bought with bribes, nor violence.
Accepting Israeli claims to legitimacy without settling every major Palestinian claim and grievance was political suicide for Fatah, and increased domestic pressure on every American backed dictator in the middle east.
Prior to sponsoring Fatah's uprising against Hamas, we had the singular opportunity to open negotiations with the first legitimate, non-corrupted representative of the Palestinians, Hamas, for the first time in decades, and we blew it.
Blowing this opportunity to open real negotiations with the Palestinians will cost us dearly in the long run. In the short term, our attack on Hamas will fuel increased domestic resistance to our Saudi, Jordanian, and Egyptian dictatorships.
This will force our dictatorships to either turn against us to maintain their positions in the face of mounting domestic discontent, or declare war on their own people, and impose the will of the West through yet more violence.
Musharraf has reached this point in Pakistan. Egypt is not far behind.
Our response to Hama's victory was to undermine their democratic legitimacy by funding and arming attacks against them. Today, the troika of Israel, the US, and Fatah are trying to bludgeon and starve Hamas into submission. This will fail. The only legitimacy being undermined is our own, and that of our allies across the middle east.
Now we are faced with the ironic spectacle and hypocrisy of our Egyptian dictator Mubarak criticizing Hamas' legitimacy.
The situation is more desperate than we know, when Mubarak is forced to use the word "legitimacy" to criticize Hamas. How dare he use that word in any context other than a bad joke.
Mubarak speaks wisely and well against an elected government seizing legitimacy in Palestine, for he is an un elected tyrant, and represents American Power in the middle east.
If there was a real election in Egypt tomorrow, Mubarak would be hanging from a lamp post the next day, or living in a penthouse in Manhattan.
See the Links following the previous article
Search the Corruption Database under
Israel (17 Abstracts)
Middle East (13 Abstracts)
Please limit comments to 400 words, unless you write really well! Remember to include the Corruption Updates page number, and the article number on the page. Example: (82_1.)
3) The Article linked below was Abstracted from the source cited.
Stand off escalates
The confrontation between the government and the Muslim Brotherhood has reached new levels, writes Gamal Essam El-Din
Al-Ahram, Egypt, 30 August - 5 September, 2007
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/print/2007/860/eg5.htm
The Muslim Brotherhood parliamentary bloc will use the next session of the People's Assembly to launch a scathing attack on the record of the government of Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif. Saad El-Katatni, the bloc's parliamentary spokesman, said the Brotherhood's 88 deputies would join forces with 22 independent MPs to form a coalition of 100 deputies against the government. Their campaign, planned for November, will use all of parliament's supervisory tools in an attempt to embarrass cabinet ministers over a range of sensitive issues including torture in police stations and prison cells, the privatisation of Banque du Caire and the phasing out of energy subsidies. The Brotherhood will also seek to use the forthcoming parliamentary session to express their solidarity with the Islamist movement Hamas in Palestine.
The Brotherhood's announcement of its plans follows last week's government crackdown against the group which has upped the ante in the year-long standoff between security forces and the Brotherhood.
The crackdown began with the arrest of 16 Brotherhood leaders, including Essam El-Erian, Mahmoud Hussein, Ahmed Omar and businessman Nabil Moqbil, whose son is married to film star Adel Imam's daughter. El-Erian has been arrested five times in recent years, and had been released just three months ago. Police forces accused El-Erian and other Brotherhood leaders of belonging to an outlawed organisation and plotting to overthrow the regime. A few hours before the arrests the police had also detained mid-ranking Brotherhood leaders in Alexandria and Sharqiya governorates. In the meantime, former Brotherhood MP Gamal Heshmat was barred from travelling to Sudan.
The biggest blow, however, came on 22 August when Sabri Amer and Ragab Abu Zeid, two Brotherhood MPs from the Delta governorate of Menoufiya, were arrested. Amer and Abu Zeid were stripped of parliamentary immunity last May so that they could be interrogated on charges of attempting to revive the activities of an outlawed group. Meanwhile, President Hosni Mubarak warned that "some religious movements aim to turn the clock back."
The daily Al-Ahram reported on 25 August that the Brotherhood had reached a deal with four independent daily papers to publish "their allegations and lies against the government and the regime".
The Brotherhood's parliamentary bloc vowed that a delegation would soon head to Geneva to file a complaint with the Inter-Parliamentary Union. "We will also appeal to the African and Euro-Mediterranean parliaments to take a stand against the violation of the rights of Egyptian MPs," said El-Katatni.
"The Brotherhood is in favour of political stability in Egypt and does not have plans to incite the people on the street against the regime... the Egyptian street is boiling and still we prefer using parliament as a legal window for expressing our ideas," said El-Katatni.
Independent observers believe the recent escalation of the clampdown against the Brothers was sparked when it unveiled plans to establish a party programme. The programme, published three weeks ago by one of the four independent dailies, calls for a democratic state to be set up within an Islamic framework. Amr Elshobaki, of Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies (ACPSS), argues that the crackdown is a pre-emptive strike aimed at preventing the Brotherhood from further disseminating its programme.
El-Katatni also sees a connection between the renewed attack against the Brotherhood and the recommendation two weeks ago by the UK House of Commons that the British government open a dialogue with Islamist movements including Hamas in Palestine, Hizbullah in Lebanon and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.
THE COMMITTEE SAYS:
AMERICAN BACKED DICTATOR USING VIOLENCE, FRAUD, AND POWER OF STATE TO HOLD POWER
Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., January 16, 2007
Originally written for CU 30_7
Our support for democracy in the middle east is belied by the actions of our allies in the region. Hosni Mubarak's Dictatorship, which is living on borrowed time, is a perfect example.
The last Egyptian election proves the point well. In heavily rigged elections, backed by direct state violence against the opposition, the opposition party, the dreaded Muslim Brotherhood, won 20% of the seats in Parliament.
In real terms, Hosni lost, and only holds power by controlling the power of the State under a military dictatorship, a dictatorship he employed to assure victory in the last election. Today, he is consolidating his power further, to assure the ascension of his son to the military dictatorship of Egypt.
Hosni has began a multi-front attack on democracy in Egypt. He is arresting already outlawed political opponents, including students, teachers, and businessmen.
Hosni is personally altering the Constitution to further impede democratic input and “legally” consolidate the political and military power in his hands. This is a bit of a farce, as Mubarak already holds these powers.
Hosni, our good ally, is a tyrant.
The Corruption Updates have highlighted the historical, and increasing contemporary contradiction between our stated intentions, “spreading democracy in the middle east,” and the brutal American Sponsored violence our middle eastern dictators are using to maintain their authority.
The tyrants of the Middle-East maintain their authority with our arms, funds, and political support, not through local democratic institutions.
The governments within our alliance, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Egypt, would fold, or radically change, within seconds of the withdraw of American support. With our support, they may be under even more pressure to radicalize, or fold up their tents and move to America.
Our middle eastern alliance, despite being under the umbrella of American power, have lost the confidence of their people. No American allies in the Middle-East rule with political or moral legitimacy. Only violence, or the threat of violence, is holding our Arab Empire together.
Our solution has been to increase our already legendary tolerance for oppression and dictators, add Perez Musharrif to our stable of dictators, and increase our military, political, and economic support for the rest. We are allowing, if not encouraging, our dictators to use more violence to suppress their people.
So, let's get this straight. To spread “democracy” in the middle east, we must arm, fund, and politically support military dictatorships and authoritarian monarchies. We must invade broken, but rich, countries, and reject the sovereignty of countries when the voters make decisions we don't like.
Oh, and we Americans can't forget that “we” claim the right to kidnap, hold, torture, and “render,” without judicial constraint or overview, anyone the President designates as an “enemy combatant,” or a “detainee,” or some other made-up designation.
These failed crimes have put us on the verge of spreading the war to Iran, which will most likely spread war across the whole middle east.
The only surprise in all this is that our legitimacy has not been shattered here, at home, as it has been in the middle east, and the rest of the civilized world.
Don't be surprised if Egypt has a Revolution when Israel or America begins bombing Iran.
Corruption Updates 18, 7th article on page, FOR MODERATE DEMOCRACY: EGYPTIANS BELIEVE DEMOCRACY IN EGYPT IS NOT A REAL CONCERN” (of the United States)
Corruption Update 21, 3rd article on he page, Egypt Sends Sadat's Nephew to Prison for Defaming Military page, states that:
“The United States had at one time talked about Egypt as leading the way toward democratic reform in the Middle East. But with the chaos in the region, and the political uncertainty in Egypt, officials in Egypt said the United States has dropped all pressure to make democratic reforms.” Now compare that with our latest rational for the Iraq war: “We Will Spread Democracy across the Middle East.”
Corruption Update 27, 5th article down, Egypt Cracks Down on Brotherhood
Corruption Update 27, 5th article down, Egypt adopts Bush style arrests based on no more than the will of the President
Corruption Update 27, 6th article on page,“2007, Redrawing the Map,” This article describes Mubarak's suppression of democracy through arbitrary Constitutional amendments.
Corruption Update 30, 7th article on page, “Egypt detains Brotherhood backers”
Corruption Updates 31, 10th article on page, “Pakistan US DICTATORSHIPS CONTINUES TO FUEL “TERRORISM”
Corruption Updates 32, 1st article on page, “RICE THANKS EGYPTIAN DICTATOR FOR REGIONAL SUPPORT”
Corruption Updates 32, 8th article on page, BROTHERHOOD MODERATE IN FACE OF DICTATORIAL REPRESSION
Corruption Update 40, 6th article on page, "Before the vote" (MUBARAK ABOUT TO IMPOSE BUSH RULES ON EGYPT The Constitutional changes Mubarak is about to impose on Egypt are the same powers Bush has claimed here
Corruption Updates 52, 5th article on page, Muslim Brothers in military trial
Corruption Updates 64, 5th article on page, Egypt, Commentary: Time to cut Israel off
Corruption Updates 70, 1st article on page, Ballot Boxes? Yes. Actual Democracy? Tough Question
Corruption Updates 74, 10th article on page, Egypt's dissidents held down by law
Corruption Updates 77, 1st article on page, Egypt:Arrests Point Toward a Crackdown
Corruption Updates 78, 9th article on page, Egypt: Twisted democracy
Corruption Updates 78, 10th article on page, Egypt: After Shura Council Elections
Corruption Updates 83, 10th article on page, Hamas Is Rebuffed Over Talks, Egyptian Dictator Condemns Democratically elected
Hamas Corruption Updates 97, 1st article on page, U.S. Arms Plan for Mideast Aims to Counter Iranian Power: Bush fuels middle east arms race
Search the Corruption Database under
Egypt
Please limit comments to 400 words, unless you write really well! Remember to include the Corruption Updates page number, and the article number on the page. Example: (82_1.)
4) The Article linked below was Abstracted from the source cited.
The colonial mistake
Mixing religion and politics was a colonial scheme that is now haunting the West, writes Ayman El-Amir*
Al-Ahram, Egypt, 30 August - 5 September, 2007
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2007/860/op11.htm
Since the attacks of 11 September, terrorism has come to be identified with Islam. Whenever there is a plane crash, a train accident, a gas pipeline explosion or a university campus shooting, investigators first ask if it is an act of terrorism and secondly whether it is the work of Muslim fundamentalists.
The definition is all- inclusive and it makes no distinction between attacks on school children in Moscow, hotels in Amman, a suicidal attack on a coalition force patrol in Afghanistan, a roadside bomb blast against US occupation forces in Baghdad, or a shootout with Israeli troops in occupied Palestine. It even goes to the extreme of ostracising a majority government in occupied Palestine that has been elected according to the best tradition of Western liberal democracy.
Differences have been completely blurred since the former Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon tutored US President George W Bush that Palestinian resistance against the Israeli occupation was an integral part of the global attack on democracy and deserved to be included in Bush's global war on terrorism. Islamic extremists were painted as being behind it all.
The US and Israel adamantly fought against a definition of terrorism that excluded national resistance against foreign military occupation because it was contrary to Israeli designs for Palestinian land. The Bush administration distorted the standards of international law that were developed to legitimise armed resistance against Nazi Germany's military invasion and occupation of European territories.
When, for ulterior colonialist motives, all national resistance is dubbed terrorism then all acts of terrorism assume the mantle of national resistance. International standards were converted to convenient national and even individual standards and both terrorism and the national liberation struggle were judged in the eye of the beholder.
Thus the indiscriminate global war on terrorism, devoid of any collective international standards, is doomed and can only spawn a global war of terrorism. That is the prophecy of Russian President Vladimir Putin that he called "the curse of the 21st century."
Bush "Democracy" Requires People Vote for Bush's Side, or our Dictators will Brand you as a "Terrorist" and Kill you.
America only respects elections that have a preordained Outcome: our dictator wins.
Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., June, 2007
The governments of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Egypt are American supported dictatorships who have no democratic or Islamic legitimacy. Their Kingdoms are propped up by American political, military and economic support.
The opponents of these regimes have been labled "terrorists," as have the opponents of Israel Occupation.
50 years of denying the democratic rights of colonized Arabs, especially the Palestinians, has caused Arabs to look towards religion, rather than secular Western "democracy," for political justice.
Our denial of democratic justice to the Middle-East has radicalized resistance by forcing insurgents to depart "democracy," and find justification for their resistance to Western Imperialism in religion. Our "democracy" has delivered nothing but dictators, invasions, occupations, and injustice by any standard.
Thus our military and political victories, as complete as they seem to us, have laid the groundwork for our ultimate failure. Our victory has repudiated our legitimacy, and empowered radical Islam to provide justice and legitimacy to replace our secular democratic injustices.
The ethical and moral void created when the West and its dictators denied political legitimacy, democracy, and self-determination to Arabs is now filled with radical Islam.
50 years of military domination and occupation has not forced the Palestinians to accept defeat. Instead, they brazenly deny Israeli victory, and willingly give up their lives in asymmetrical warfare against the overwhelming superiority of Israeli and American weapons.
An American Patriot once said he was sorry he had only one life to give, in pursuit of his country's freedom.
The Palestinians are, at their most destructive, no threat to Israel. The real threat the Palestinians pose to to the Israeli-American domination of the Middle-East is their refusal, at the cost of lives, liberties, and property, to accept Israel's "victory," over them, let alone accept the terms of victory the Israelis are dictating.
This bare rejection of Israeli legitimacy is a shining example of the triumph of the spirit of freedom and justice even when crushed under the treads of an American supplied Israeli tank.
Our response to this temerity is to declare the defeated, occupied residents of Palestine who refuse to accept Israeli victory, occupation, and domination "Terrorists."
This designation, according to Bush, puts the Palestinians beyond the pale of humanity, and the protections of international law. They may be kidnapped, tortured, and killed with extra-legal impunity.
The Ironic counterpoint to our "war on terror," is that to maintain the pretense of Israeli legitimacy in the Middle-East we fund and arm the Saudi, Jordanian and Egyptian Dictatorships. These governments recognize no civil rights. They arbitrarily detain, torture, and kill their opponents.
Our state sponsored terror has stimulated individual "terror" which has triggered a flood tide of state terror. Now we have a self-sustaining cycle of terror that is going to alter the political geography of the Middle-East.
Our Middle-Eastern Dictatorships repay our support by recognizing the legitimacy of Israel. They can only recognize Israel by holding their people in check at gunpoint.
Calling Islamic resistance to foreign dictators and foreign occupation "terrorism" is a thin effort win the war of words, and define the situation away. But as I pointed out above, Arabs are retreating from Western political and diplomatic forms, which have completely failed them, and are now basing the legitimacy of their insurgencies on Islam.
Winning the war of words is irrelevant when you have lost the war for the hearts and minds of the Middle-East.
The change in the terms of legitimacy in the Middle-East, from secular to Islamic, was spawned by our long term abuses of Palestine and our long term support of despotic regimes.
Iraq has merely released long pent up forces, instantly, and has accelerated the de colonization that was already changing the political landscape of the Middle-East.
Bush's definition of terrorism, combined with his attacks on Islamic nations, when coupled with our long term support of Arabic dictatorships, has created the conditions for a perfect storm of Islamic legitimacy to blow down our corrupted Middle-Eastern Empire.
The reversion to Islamic legitimacy has made American support for our dictatorships there as much a threat their continuation in power, as our support is necessary for these dictators to continue in power.
These governments will instantly crumble in open elections, or if our military and economic support was withdrawn. They are presently under serious domestic pressure for accepting our support.
American supported dictatorships in the Middle-East have only one viable solution to this contradiction: radicalizing their positions to reflect their peoples' hatred of America. Only by putting themselves at the head of rising popular sentiment against American interference can our dictators hope to retain power.
Our dictators must do this to maintain what little moral authority they still have over their people, to postpone the day when they either pay for their disloyalty with their heads, go radically "native," or flee to the protection of the United States.
Bush has accelerated the process of Middle-Eastern de colonization by highlighting and inflaming Arabic rage against their American supported dictators by de legitimizing the Palestinians as "terrorists," and attempting to steal Iraq.
Our grasping for empire has hastened the inevitable fall, or radicalization of the Saudi, Jordanian, and Egyptian dictatorships. This will end the Arab peoples' forced recognition of Israel, and leave Israel in a considerably degraded negotiating position.
Israel's legitimacy cannot be honestly recognized in the Middle-East until the Arab peoples have rid themselves of American supported dictatorships, and form legitimate governments that represent their beliefs, positions, and interests.
Only then will there be legitimate negotiating partners that represents the Arab's true perspective on Israel.
This has already happened in Iran and Syria. And it should come as no surprise that they hate and mistrust both Israel and the US. Until we stop imposing dictators and policies on the Middle-East that puts our interests above local self-determination and self-rule, we will continue to be confronted by people who will go to great lengths to give up their lives to kill us.
We can strengthen and expand this hatred, by crushing the Arabs as they revolt against American dictatorships. This will fail, and when the Arabs emerge out from under American-sponsored dictatorships, there will be hell to pay for both Israel and the US.
Or we can diminish the hatred. We have a choice with the parts of the Middle East we still control, Let's tell our Arab dictators that our reign of terror is over, and so is theirs. We can demand free and fair elections under threat of taking away the military and political protections that we shield our dictators under.
It is obvious that rather than justice, we have chosen to strengthen tyranny and increase violence. This will fail, and it will fail in a bloodbath.
When failure occurs, the survivors, the rich Saudi Princes, and the minions of the Egyptian dictator, will move here, their true “homeland,” with billions of dollars.
We can still avoid the bloody birth of an independent Middle-Eastern Enemy. Before us lays a critical choice. We can continue down the present path of supporting dictatorships and occupations which are accelerating the breakdown of our moral authority and legitimacy. Our legitimacy, and the legitimacy of our various dictatorships, no longer extends beyond the range of our weapons.
Our other option is to radically shift direction by empowering Hamas as a legitimately elected representative of the Palestinians, and begin peace negotiations that respect their position. Our only requirement should be that they come to the negotiation table.
This would have to be accompanied by an refusal to fund or arm Israel unless they agreed to put the legitimacy of Israel up for negotiation with Hamas. We would also have to de fund, disarm, and demand that our Middle-Eastern Dictatorships immediately democratize. Our first demand must be that the region's armies have no role in domestic politics or security.
The price Israeli would pay for legitimacy in negotiations with Hamas would be substantial. But giving up East Jerusalem, Golan, the right of return, and linking the West Bank with Gaza would not just buy peace for Israel, but would de fang Islamic fundamentalism around the world.
If Israel fairly negotiates for its legitimacy with the Palestinians, rather than imposing itself through violence, the United States will no longer need to fund and support regional dictators to protect Israel. A deal between Hamas and Israel would defuse the vast majority of Islamic hatred for the Jews.
But even more importantly, an honestly negotiated settlement between Israel and Palestine would re legitimize the validity of western secular democracy and be more effective at deflating the expansion of radical Islam than any dictator or war on "terror" we ever could throw at them.
We've thrown vinegar on the Arabs for long enough. Let's try sugar.
Unfortunately, the state of American Politics makes it virtually impossible to rip our foreign policy out of the grip of Big Oil and the Israeli Lobby. The only way to stop our government from supporting tyranny around the world is to take it back from the corporate fascists who have captured our parties, elections, and the government itself. A tall order indeed.
The problem is deeper than party or political belief. Our democratic system itself has been hijacked by wealth and power. The fact is that we are no longer a democracy, independent of which party controls which branch of government. Both parties use our foreign policy as a weapon of empire.
Look for the US to attempt to bomb Iran into the Stone Age, triggering a massive regional war, if not an eventual global conflict. At the very least the bloody emergence of an independent, post-colonial Middle-East will formalize a new world balance of power that will feature China, Russia and India rising to fill the power vacuum our moral and military blunders are creating. American control of the world oil markets is ending.
For the Middle-East this will involve changing the definition of "terrorism" from applying to those who oppose tyranny, to those who impose it.
That's us.
Links Above, Egypt
Links Below, Israel
Sac Bee, September 19, 07; College Kids set up, Knocked Down by Government Terror Laws
Search the Corruption Database under
Egypt
Middle East
Please limit comments to 400 words, unless you write really well! Remember to include the Corruption Updates page number, and the article number on the page. Example: (82_1.)
5) The Article linked below was Abstracted from the source cited.
The Ethnic Cleansing Of Palestine
Review By Stephen Lendman
2-8-7
http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2007/02/review-of-ethnic-cleansing-of.html
Ilan Pappe is an Israeli historian and senior lecturer at Haifa University. He's also Academic Director of the Research Institute for Peace at Givat Haviva and Chair of the Emil Touma Institute for Palestinian Studies. Pappe is an expert on Israel and Zionism and the Palestinians' Right of Return to their homeland, is considered "an honourable academic with integrity and conscience," and is a member of the Advisory Board of the Council for Palestinian Restitution and Repatriation (CPRR), an organization declaring that "every Palestinian has a legitimate, individual right to return to his or her original home and to absolute restitution of his or her property."
Pappe is also one of Israel's "new historians" whose scholarship and writings are based on access to material now available from British Mandate period and Israeli archives that provide the most accurate and authentic documented history of Israel before and after it became a state and which now serve to debunk the myths about the years leading up to the Jewish State's founding and those following it to this day.
He proves from official records how the Israeli state came into being with blood on its hands from lands forcibly seized from its Palestinian inhabitants who'd lived on it for hundreds of years previously. Since the 1940s, they were ethnically cleansed and slaughtered without mercy so their homeland would become one for Jews alone.
The shameful result is that Palestinians then and today have almost no rights including being able to live in peace and security on their own land in their own state that no longer exists. Survivors then and their offspring either live in Israel as unwanted Arab citizens with few rights or in the Occupied Palestinians Territories (OPT) where their lives are suspended in limbo in an occupied country in which they're subjected to daily institutionalized and codified racism and persecution.
Nakba: The Israeli Holocaust Denial
The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine
by Kim Petersen
www.dissidentvoice.org
March 18, 2007
by Ilan Pappe
(Oneworld Publications, 2006)
Hardcover: 336 pages
ISBN: 1-85168-467-0
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Mar07/Petersen18.htm
Ilan Pappe deserves credit. He goes further than most Israelis in deconstructing the Jewish state’s historical revisionism, which he calls a “Zionist whitewash of words.” But does Pappe go far enough?
The iconoclastic Haifa University historian has written a book, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, destroying the “Israeli foundational myth,” which he describes as a “sheer fabrication.” Pappe sets straight the Israeli historiography. Central to Zionist historical revisionism is Nakba (catastrophe) denial. Pappe affirms the occurrence of the Nakba which he states was not a “voluntary flight” but part of a Zionist blueprint (Plan Dalet) for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine. It was ethnic cleansing, but was it not also something more sinister?
Pappe identifies the perpetrators of the Nakba as the “heroes of the Jewish war of independence,” of who the best known is David Ben-Gurion, “the architect” of ethnic cleansing. Ben-Gurion is more accurately viewed as one of history’s vilest war criminals.
Pappe writes, “[C]ontrary to claims historians such as Benny Morris have made, Plan Dalet was handed down to the brigade officers not as vague guidelines, but as clear-cut operational orders for action.” The action resulted in the expulsion of almost 800,000 people and the destruction of 531 villages and 11 urban neighborhoods. Palestinian villages were literally wiped off the map by Zionists.
In addition to the ethnic cleansing and massacres, Pappe details the crimes committed by the Zionists against Palestinians: bioterror, imprisonment, abuses, ghettoization, rapes (Ben-Gurion was, perversely, informed of every case), looting, and desecration of religious sites.
(More text in original article)
Hidden History of Israel: Born in Terror, Ethnic Cleansing, and Genocide; Perpetuated by Crimes against Humanity
Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., September 20, 2007
"Israel" Thievery of Arab Lands continues from 1948 to Present
Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., July 20, 2007
Israel has no legitimate basis. Israel is based on violence, ethnic cleansing, and the military, economic and political power of the United States, and nothing else.
All of Israel is occupied land gained through terrorism, war, and other crimes against humanity.
Until the US recognizes these facts, the middle east will resist, and eventually overthrow, our Saudi, Jordanian, and Egyptian Dictators. Then the middle east will destroy Israel.
Until the US defines "democracy" as something more than a thin cover for Corporate control of our nation's politics, our middle eastern foreign policy will continue to be nothing more than a tool of the Oil and Israel lobbies. Both political parties have been corrupted by these fascistic interests, and both parties are incapable of dealing honestly with the middle east.
The dismal situation in Iraq represents the final failure of Democracy in America, not the spread of American Democracy.
America's unwarranted attack on Iraq represents the victory of wealth and power over our American democracy, and our foreign policy. In the case of the Iraq war, we got an example of the massive power of the Oil and Israeli lobbies to easily use America's power and wealth to advance their criminal agendas. They have stolen yet another nation. Except this time their hand is wedged tight in the cookie jar.
The Iraq war, and how it came about, does not represent the actions of a democratic country. The Iraq war represents the actions of a corporate fascist state.
Unfortunately for us, the majority of Arabs who are suffering under our various middle eastern dictators and the iron fist of our Jewish colony, have concluded that what we call "democracy" is completely unjust, patently immoral and unacceptable, and are instead embracing political forms based on religion.
Sadly, these religiously based systems, despite their considerable drawbacks and shortcomings, provide considerably more justice than our "democratic" system delivers.
The fault for the rise of extreme islamic radicalism lies with us, with us for allowing our own corporate christian taliban to smash our democracy, and seize the reigns of our foreign policy.
The rise of radical islam is nothing more than a response to our own extreme corruption, which is also the source of the loss of our own democracy.
This tragedy did not begin with 911, as our political and media liars constantly tell us. 911, and many more tragedies to come, began with the loss of our democracy, and our imposition of dictators and tyrants on countries in every continent in the world.
Resistance to American-supported puppet governments around the world is growing rapidly as colonized nations are rejecting our farcical "democratic" governments run by dictators, and seizing the right to define their own identities, cultures, and political systems.
This inevitable post-colonial evolution will only stop if America recognizes the right of every country in the world, especially the nations sitting on top of Oil, mineral resources, and labor, to self-determination and self-definition without us threatening them with war, death squads, or military coups to seize their assets.
If we continue to pursue our program of corporate globalism, the post colonial revolution we are experiencing will end with the violent destruction of our middle eastern dictatorships, Israel, and the shattering of our globalized web of corporate thievery.
A Democrat Congress and President is not going to change this scenario one iota. Until we reimpose democracy on our corporate politicians and release our "free" press from its corporate bondage, the corporate politicians of both parties will only be capable of spreading our corruption and tyranny, not our Democratic Principals, around the world.
The global revolution of democracy must start here, not over there.
Mearsheimer and Walt, March 2006, THE ISRAEL LOBBY AND U.S. FOREIGN POLICY.
Book Review by Stepen Lendman: The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, by Ilan Pappe.
Book Review by Kim Petersen: The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, by Ilan Pappe.
Corruption Updates 37, 1st article on the page, "Poll: Israel, Iran, US most Negative Countries in World"
Corruption Updates 42, 4th article on the page, "Bolton Admits US ALLOWED ISRAEL TO DESTROY LEBANON"
Corruption Updates 64, 3rd article on the page,"British Academics’ Union Endorses Israel Boycott"
Corruption Updates 64, 4th article on the page, "Largest Labor Union in Britain May Consider a Boycott of Israel"
Corruption Updates 83, 10th article on the page, "Top Official of Hamas Is Rebuffed Over Talks"
Corruption Updates 90, 10th article on the page, "Israeli Settlements Found to Grow Past Boundaries"
Israel, $30 Billion in Military Aid From U.S. essay: Bush Wars Push Saudi Arabia..., nyt, 8-15-07
Al-Ahram, Egypt, 30 August - 5 September, 2007; Israel eyes Gaza
Al-Ahram, Egypt, 30 August - 5 September, 2007; 'No elections if Hamas will win'
BBC NEWS: 10-25-07; Israel approves Gaza power cuts
NYT, July 23, 2007; In Arabic Textbook, Israel Calls ’48 War Catastrophe for Arabs: Arabs in Israel Live under Jim Crow Apartheid
NYT, July 31, 2007; U.S. Arms Plan for Mideast Aims to Counter Iranian Power: Bush fuels middle eastern Arms Race
Israel to Get $30 Billion in Military Aid From U.S., NYT, August 17, 2007
NY Times, September 12, 2007; U.S. Confirms Israeli Strikes Hit Syrian Target Last Week
BBC NEWS: September 14, 2007; Small Israeli force enters Gaza
Al Ahram, 13 - 19 September 2007; Marching to war with cold feet
rice backs Israeli naming Gaza “Hostile Entity:”a War Crime, bbc, 9-20-07
UN: cutting off gaza is an international crime, haaretz,9-20-07
'Israeli warplanes raid' Lebanon, BBC NEWS, 9-18-07
Iran: Retaliation for Any Israeli Attack, AP, September 19, 2007
Israel approves Gaza power cuts, BBC NEWS: 10-25-07
Corruption Updates 127, 3rd article on the page, IAEA chief lashes out over Israeli raid in Syria
Agence France-Presse, October 28, 2007: ElBaradei: No Evidence Iran is Making Nukes
Corruption Updates 127, 4th article on the page, Sabra and Shatila Massacres, 25 years later
Election power of the Israel lobby, aljazeera, 12-30-07
Bush Who? goes to Israel, independent (UK) 1-7-08
Israel esclates violence as tribute to bush policies, bbc, 1-7-08
Bush predicts Victory in Middle-east, ft, (uk) 1-6-08
Israel tribunals (bush courts) assure convictions, ap, 1-6-08
Kill Bush: American Taliban, daily times, (pk) 1-7-08
Bush has little respect in Mid-East, ft, 1-9-08
Will Israel sneak attack Iran?
Israel threatens Iran with sneak attack, ap, 9-29-04
Is Israel Planning a Nuclear Strike on Iran? der spiegel, 1-8-07
Pentagon ready for spring attack on Iran, guardian, 2-10-07
Iran and Russia cooperating on mutual defense, BBC, Nov 13, 07
Israel ready to attack Iran, ap, 1-14-08
rogue nuke nation Israel fires ballistic missile, aljazeera, 1-17-08
US: Israel's Bitch, aljazerra, 1-17-08
Bush visits his Egyptian dictator, lat, 1-17-08
Hammas breaks Rafa wall
Hamas breaks blockade, apa, 1-25-08
Israel abdicates legal responsibilities for gaza, yet another war crime, ap, 1-24-08
Gaza: free for a day, independent, 1-24-08
Israel wants its prison re-secured, hosni wants to save face, gaza wants food, meo, 1-28-08
Israel intentionally making civilians suffer in gaza, lat, 1-28-08
hamas assists egyptians to close border, meo, 1-29-08
US Kills UN resolution against israeli crime of collective punishment, meo, 1-30-08
Snow further complicates relief supplies to Gaza, irni, 1-30-08
no end in sight to gaza's suffering, al ahram, 1-31-08
egypt secures rafa crossing, guardian, 2-4-08
Israeli crime of collective punishment sparks Gaza humanitarian crisis, suffering. ap, 2-15-08
Hamas ends their one sided cease fire
Hamas Claims Responsibility for Blast, nyt, 2-5-08
guns blaze across Gaza border, yorkshire post, 2-5-08
war crimes, but no trials: cluster bombs in lebanon, lat, 2-1-08
Gunmen attack Israeli embassy in Mauritania, meo, 2-1-08
UK police tip embassy, let jewish war criminal escape arrest, yalibnan, 2-10-08
Arab bitch states expect israel to destroy iran nuke tech, dawn, 2-12-08
end of the "two-state" farce? nyt, 2-22-08
jew leader calls for holocaust on palestinians; bloodbath follows, aljezeera, 3-1-08
'US plot against Hamas' revealed, aljazeera, 3-4-08
israeli MP vows to expel arabs after gaza demo, middle east online, 3-5-08
third intifada in sight, Al Ahram, 3-5-08
A jew view of hamas, arab news, 3-6-08
gaza conditions worst since 1967, bbc, 3-6-08
US allows egypt to talk to hamas, meo, 3-8-08
hostile entity holocaust: the jew's final solution for gaza, meo, 3-8-08
Israeli Advocate Barred From Britain, nyt, 3-12-08
Hamas men 'tortured by Egyptians,' BBC, 3-21-08
zawahiri call for global attacks against US & jews, meo, 3-24-08
Nasrallah vows revenge against Israel, meo, 3-24-08
another jewish traitor betrays US for Israel, international, 3-23-08
Iran extends nuke tech, says, "will never bow to bullies," press tv, 4-8-08
Hamas build up anticipates israeli invasion, reuters, 4-10-08
Bush Administration Counsels Carter Not to Meet With Hamas, voa, 4-10-08
Israel: Genocide announced, al ahram, 4-16-08
The middle east yesterday, today, and tomorrow, committee, 4-17-08
Syria: Israel ready to return Golan, usa today, 4-24-08
US set to offer Israel powerful new radar, israel news, 5-10-08
Bush's Best Friend. BUSH announces New Axis of Evil: US partnership with Israel war crimes, crimes against humanity: What's New? ynet, 5-14-08 how long can we impose jewish invaders/occupiers and american dictators on the Arabs? Not much longer.
Israel requires Syria submits to all demands before talks begin, just like the US with Iran, afp, 5-24-08
Massive bribes by American Jews to Israel PM detailed, haaretz, 5-27-08
US scientist has donated Israeli award to Palestinians, aljazerra, 5-26-08
Carter: Gaza blockade is 'human rights crime,' meo, 5-26-08
Zionism and power, middle east times, 5-31-08
Beyond Chutzpah, Norman G. Finkelstein
war criminals olmert, bush, and rice to meet in washington this week, ynet, 6-2-08
the candidates bow before AIPAC: And the winner is ... the Israel lobby, Asia times, 6-3-08
more crimes against international law: UN ‘deeply concerned’ with Israel's housing move, meo, 6-3-08
Bush meltdown building pressure in Israel to Sneak Attack Iran, ynet, 6-6-08
TRAITORS: california candidates must visit israel to be viable, lat, 6-11-08
Israel and America, an analysis by Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, meo, 7-26-08
Search the Corruption Database under
Israel (17 Abstracts)
Please limit comments to 400 words, unless you write really well! Remember to include the Corruption Updates page number, and the article number on the page. Example: (82_1.)
5b) The Article linked below was Abstracted from the source cited.
THE ISRAEL LOBBY AND U.S. FOREIGN POLICY
Mearsheimer and Walt, London Review of Books, March 2006
For the past several decades, and especially since the Six-Day War in 1967, the centrepiece of US Middle Eastern policy has been its relationship with Israel. The combination of unwavering support for Israel and the related effort to spread ‘democracy’ throughout the region has inflamed Arab and Islamic opinion and jeopardised not only US security but that of much of the rest of the world. This situation has no equal in American political history. Why has the US been willing to set aside its own security and that of many of its allies in order to advance the interests of another state? One might assume that the bond between the two countries was based on shared strategic interests or compelling moral imperatives, but neither explanation can account for the remarkable level of material and diplomatic support that the US provides.
Instead, the thrust of US policy in the region derives almost entirely from domestic politics, and especially the activities of the ‘Israel Lobby’. Other special-interest groups have managed to skew foreign policy, but no lobby has managed to divert it as far from what the national interest would suggest, while simultaneously convincing Americans that US interests and those of the other country – in this case, Israel – are essentially identical.
6) The Article linked below was Abstracted from the source cited.
Israel to Get $30 Billion in Military Aid From U.S.
NYT, August 17, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/17/world/middleeast/17israel.html?ref=todayspaper&
JERUSALEM, Aug. 16 — Israel and the United States signed a deal on Thursday to give Israel $30 billion in military aid over the next decade in what officials called a long-term investment in peace.
The officials insisted that the deal was not dependent on a simultaneous American plan for $20 billion in sales of sophisticated arms to its Arab allies, including Egypt and Saudi Arabia. But Israeli officials acknowledged that the aid to Israel would make it easier for the Bush administration to win Congressional approval of the arms sales to Arab countries.
The American under secretary of state for political affairs, R. Nicholas Burns, speaking at the signing ceremony here, said, “There is no question that, from an American point of view, the Middle East is a more dangerous region now even than it was 10 or 20 years ago and that Israel is facing a growing threat” from Iran and its ally, Syria.
The threat, he said, is “immediate and it’s also long term,” and he cited Iran’s support for organizations that the United States classified as terrorist and that were opposed to peace and stability in the region, like Hamas and Islamic Jihad in the Palestinian territories and Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.
The new aid to Israel will average $3 billion a year on a sliding scale, an increase of about 25 percent from current figures, to begin in October 2008. That year, American economic aid to Israel, which has a vibrant, growing economy, is scheduled to end. Uniquely, officials said, the new deal allows Israel to spend 26.3 percent of the aid on arms from Israel’s domestic military industry; the rest of the money must be spent on American equipment.
Representative Steny H. Hoyer, Democrat of Maryland and the House majority leader, said in an interview on Thursday that “Congress will be supportive of the aid to Israel, but with respect to Saudi Arabia I think we will look at that more closely.” He said there were “specific concerns on guided missile technology that could be used defensively against Israel and that would be problematic.”
Mr. Burns and the Israeli team, led by the governor of the Bank of Israel, Stanley Fischer, who holds both American and Israeli citizenship, would not comment on the specifics of the arms deal.
Mr. Fischer said that Israel was grateful for the help, since it had one of the highest defense burdens “in what used to be called the free world,” amounting to 10 percent of gross domestic product.
Mr. Burns said, “This $30 billion in assistance to Israel is to be an investment in peace, in long-term peace — peace cannot be made without strength.”
In Gaza, Hamas, the Islamic group that has taken control there, briefly detained the Palestinian attorney general, Ahmed Mughami, who is allied with Fatah, after he returned to the Gaza Strip to try to prevent Hamas from altering the area’s judicial system. Fatah has ordered the police and other civil servants, including judges, not to work for Hamas in Gaza, and Hamas then said it would set up Islamic courts.
Israel, US Declare: WAR is PEACE
Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., September 22, 2007
Bush Wars Push Saudi Arabia out of American Axis
Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., July 27, 2007
When Bush attacked Iraq, he also attacked the stability and credibility of the Saudi Royal Family. The Saudi royal family's position is delicately balanced on a double-edged sword. One edge of the sword faces America. The other edge of the sword faces the Arab people.The Arabs hate our support of Israel, and resent our support for the resource-rich tyrannies that ring the Gulf, and dominate middle eastern politics and economics.
When Bush attacked Iraq, the Saudi royal family's position became unbalanced between their people and our empire. The "King" has three choices: turn the sword towards America, the people, or himself.
Bush has destabilized this delicate balance, requiring the "king" to re calibrate his position between his people and American foreign policy. As the "king" depends on American power to maintain his tyrannical dictatorship, lessening his dependence on America requires broadening his appeal to his own people.
The King's people are sunnis who are seriously pissed off about Iraq. Bush's Iraq adventure has so enraged the Sunni Arabs that the "King" has been forced to take drastic action to preserve his dictatorship.
The "King" will no longer turn up oil production at our command. The "King" has declared that our occupation of Iraq is illegal. It appears that the "King" is tolerating the movement of Saudi fighters and dollars into Western Iraq to directly confront the Illegal American Occupation. The "King" has independently tried to restart negotiations wi