Dehumanizing the Palestinians

By Ali Abunimah

The Israeli cabinet has voted to declare the occupied Gaza Strip a
"hostile entity," thus in its own eyes permitting itself to cut off
the already meagre supplies of food, water, electricity and fuel
that it allows the Strip's inmates to receive. The decision was
quickly given backing by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Israel is the occupying power in the Gaza Strip, despite having
removed its settlers in 2005 and transforming the area, home to 1.5
million mostly refugee Palestinians, into the world's largest
open-air prison which it besieges and fires into from the perimeter.
Under international law Israel is responsible for the well-being of
the people whose lives and land it rules.

There have been barely audible bleats of protest from the UN
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon ("Such a step would be contrary to
Israel's obligations towards the civilian population under
international humanitarian and human rights law") and the European
Union ("The [European] Commission hopes that Israel will not find it
necessary to implement the measures for which the [cabinet]
decisions set the framework yesterday."

What? It hopes that Israel will not find it necessary to cut off
water supplies to 1.5 million people of whom half are children?

These statements serve only to underline that Israel operates in a
context where the "international community" has become inured to a
discourse of extermination of the Palestinian people -- political
and physical.

Yossi Alpher, for example, a former director of the Jaffee Center
for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University and once a special
adviser to former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak, argued coolly
this week that Israel should murder the democratically-elected
leaders who won the Palestinian legislative election in January 2006
-- calling for "decapitating the Hamas leadership, both military and
'civilian.'" True, he admitted, there would be a possible downside:
"Israel would again undoubtedly pay a price in terms of
international condemnation, particularly if innocent civilians were
killed," and because "Israel would presumably be targeting legally
elected Hamas officials who won a fair election." Nevertheless, such
condemnation would be quickly forgotten and, he argued, "this is a
mode of retaliation and deterrence whose effectiveness has been
proven," and thus, this is "an option worth reconsidering."

Alpher incited the murder of democratically-elected politicians not
in a fringe, right-wing journal, but in the European Union-funded
online newsletter Bitterlemons, which he co-founded along with
former Palestinian Authority minister Ghassan Khatib. What journal
would publish a call by a Palestinian -- or anyone else -- to murder
the Israeli prime minister? Alpher presumably does not worry that he
will be denied visas to travel to conferences in the European Union,
or will fail to receive invitations to American universities.
History tells us that he can feel confident he will suffer no
consequences. Indeed, in the current political climate, any attempt
to exclude Alpher might even be cast as an attack on academic
freedom!

Declarations that reduce Palestinians to bare biological life that
can be extinguished without any moral doubt are not isolated
exceptions. In May, as reported by The Jerusalem Post, Israel's
former Sephardic Chief Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu issued a religious
ruling to the prime minister "that there was absolutely no moral
prohibition against the indiscriminate killing of civilians during a
potential massive military offensive on Gaza aimed at stopping the
rocket launchings" (See "Top Israeli rabbis advocate genocide," The
Electronic Intifada, 31 May 2007). I could find no statement by any
prominent Israeli figure condemning Eliyahu's ruling.

And, in a September 6 blog posting, an advisor to leading US
Republican Presidential hopeful Rudolph Giuliani argued for
"shutting off utilities to the Palestinian Authority as well as a
host of other measures, such as permitting no transportation in the
PA of people or goods beyond basic necessities, implementing the
death penalty against murderers, and razing villages from which
attacks are launched." This, the advisor stated, would "impress
Palestinians with the Israeli will to survive, and so bring closer
their eventual acceptance of the Jewish state." (See: "Giuliani
Advisor: Raze Palestinian Villages," by Ken Silverstein, Harper's
Magazine, 14 September 2007) Giuliani faced no calls from other
candidates to dismiss the advisor for advocating ethno-religiously
motivated war crimes. Indeed the presence of such a person in his
campaign might even be an electoral asset.

The latest Israeli government declaration comes as Palestinians this
week marked the 25th anniversary of the massacres in Sabra and
Shatila refugee camps in Beirut, in which the Israeli occupation
army and political leadership were full participants. We can reflect
that Israel's dehumanization of Palestinians and other Arabs, its
near daily killing of children, destruction of communities and
racist apartheid against millions of people has been so normalized
that if those massacres occurred today Israel would not need to go
through the elaborate exercise of denying its culpability. Indeed,
the "international community" might barely notice.

[Co-founder of The Electronic Intifada, Ali Abunimah is author of One
Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse
(Metropolitan Books, 2006). ]

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article9002.shtml

 

Angry activists confront Greenspan

WeAreChange Unmask Former Federal Reserve Chair's Role in Globalist
Takeover and Currency Assassination

Aaron Dykes

Activists angry at Alan Greenspan's recent deliberate attack on the
U.S. dollar -- which has already resulted in further devaluation and
asset seizure by foreign entities-- gathered at an event in New York
to confront the former Federal Reserve Chairman on his shameful
actions in contributing to a dollar collapse.

Members of WeAreChange.org were grabbed by police and forced out of
the building after criticizing Greenspan for "destroying the country."
Individuals who waited in line to ask Greenspan a question were told
that there were "no interviews" by event handlers, who then signaled
for police to take over.

Nate Evans was grabbed by more than four officers after criticizing
the "Federal" private bank Greenspan previously headed. Other
activists confronted Alan Greenspan as he left the event, giving him a
public shaming for acting on behalf of his globalist masters.

While the globalist-controlled mainstream media rewards economic
sabotage by portraying Greenspan and other financiers as economic
'saviors,' it is refreshing to know that many others are standing up
in defiance of deliberate devaluation.

Congressman Ron Paul ripped into current Federal Reserve Chairman Ben
Bernanke yesterday for intentionally weakening the dollar and
misleading the public when his sole function is supposed to be
maintaining the value of the dollar....

 

http://www.infowars.com/articles/economy/greenspan_confronted_by_activists_flees_from_angry_mob.htm

State Dept. vs. the Pentagon on Iraq

A disturbing bit of news in the New York Sun today: Eli Lake reports that the Sunni sheik who was assassinated Thursday was supposed to be in the United States last week, but his trip was delayed. The State Department says a problem with the paperwork held up the visa, but a military official told Lake that State Department officials deliberately sabotaged the trip....

.....I asked a former State Department official who currently works for the Pentagon if there was a danger that this sort of infighting could undermine Gen. Petraeus's strategy. He said that as long as Petraeus had the full support of the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, dissent at Foggy Bottom would likely remain limited to these sorts of petty squabbles. "[Crocker] isn’t doing one thing that hasn’t been approved by the Secretary of State," he said. "There are debates within the State Department, of course, but Condi Rice has made the decision and Ambassador Crocker is being a loyal soldier.

"Dissent within the State Department, particularly from a guy who doesn’t like the administration, who goes outside the policy and tries to put focus on himself, there’s nothing unusual about it," he said, adding that most career diplomats were Democrats. "If you don’t have dissent at the State Department, there’s probably a Democrat in office."

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YTU2YzgxNTc3YzcwYjZhMDQ2NWQ0YzY2NjVmN2FiYjA=

Murdered Sunni Sheik Was Set To Visit U.S.

By ELI LAKE
Staff Reporter of the Sun
September 18, 2007

WASHINGTON — The Iraqi Sunni sheik credited with sparking the rebellion against Al Qaeda — and who was murdered Thursday — was scheduled to visit Washington last week, according to two American officials and an Iraqi politician close to the slain leader.

Yesterday, a State Department spokesman confirmed that Sheik Abdul Sattar al-Rishawi had applied for a visa to visit Washington. "We cleared him with absolutely no reservations, and the visa was being held up due to paperwork with the application and sponsor," the spokesman said.

Sheik Abdul Sattar, or as Iraqis called him, Abu Risha, was the leader of the Anbar Awakening, a political front that President Bush and General David Petraeus credit with driving Al Qaeda from its base in Anbar province this year. The late sheik was also emerging as a national Sunni politician who could provide Iraqis an alternative to the corrupted Sunni Tawafuq faction that started a boycott of the government in August. The Tawafuq bloc comprises three Sunni fundamentalist Muslim parties that have called for a withdrawal of American troops and supported violence against American troops. Some of the party's leadership has been implicated in acts of terrorism.

An American military official yesterday said the delay in Abu Risha's visa was in part political. This source pinned the decision to scuttle the trip on senior leaders at the State Department. However, the State Department spokesman yesterday dismissed the charge.

According to the military official, the State Department in particular is wary of following through too much on General David Petraeus's "bottom up" strategy. "There were howls of complaints when Abu Risha met with President Bush over Labor Day," this official said. "The truth of the matter is that the more we strengthen the tribes, the less cooperation we are going to get from the Sunnis in Baghdad."

Last week, the American ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, pointed to ad hoc efforts from the government of Prime Minister al-Maliki to share oil revenue with the Sunni-dominated Anbar province in the absence of an oil law, one of the key political benchmarks for the Iraqi government that remains unfulfilled.

An independent Iraqi parliamentarian, Mithal al-Alusi, who was an ally of the Anbari sheik, yesterday confirmed that Abu Risha intended to travel to America with a delegation. Mr. Alusi said Abu Risha had intended to make the case to Congress last week for the same strategic patience counseled by General Petraeus.

Mr. Alusi also said that in August, Abu Risha said he hoped to be martyred, or made a shahid. "I met with him in August at Ibrahim Jaafari's house for dinner in Baghdad in the Green Zone, and he said to me, ‘I wish to have the honor to be a shahid before you.' From his understanding, I am a target for the terrorists, he is a target of the terrorists, so we were allies."

Mr. Alusi said the process for even Iraqi parliamentarians to receive a visa to travel to America is frustrating. "The visa issue in Baghdad is very terrible, it now takes weeks to get a visa even if you are a politician going back to the Iraqi governing council. If I ask for a visa, it takes at least three weeks until I have it, maybe more," he said.

Yesterday, the spokesman for Multinational Forces Iraq, Navy Rear Admiral Mark Fox, told reporters that coalition forces had tracked down a suspect in the assassination....

http://www.nysun.com/article/62864

 

Dan Rather : 'Somebody's got to take a stand..."

Dan Rather : 'Somebody's got to take a stand and say democracy cannot survive... with government interference in news'

09/21/2007

Filed by Mike Aivaz and Muriel Kane

 

 

Former CBS anchor Dan Rather recently filed a $70 million lawsuit against CBS, saying they made him a "scapegoat" when he was fired for a September 2004 story on 60 Minutes about President Bush's unsatisfactory service in the Texas Air National Guard.

 

When Rather appeared on Larry King's program Thursday, King began by showing him a 2005 clip of himself saying, "I'm not a victim of anything except my own shortcomings."

But he added, "Somebody, sometime has got to take a stand and say democracy cannot survive, much less thrive with the level of big corporate and big government interference and intimidation in news."

"I've learned a good deal since that time," said Rather. "It's reported that Sumner Redstone [president of Viacom] ... was described as being enraged that the news division, this story, had cost Viacom and CBS in Washington, and he wanted Dan Rather and everybody connected with it out."

"They sacrificed support for independent journalism for corporate financial gain, and in so doing, I think they undermined a lot at CBS News," he said.

Rather said he still believes the 60 Minutes report was correct. "[CBS] sacrificed support for independent journalism for corporate financial gain," he stated, "and in so doing I think they undermined a lot at CBS News."

"Nobody to this day has shown that these documents were fraudulent," continued Rather, referring to the disputed memos featured in the 60 Minutes story. "Nobody has proved that they were fraudulent, much less a forgery. ... The truth of this story stands up to this day." Rather added that he believed somebody with subpoena power could get to the bottom of the matter pretty quickly.

The following video is from CNN's Larry King Live, broadcast on September 20, 2007....

http://rawstory.com//news/2007/Dan_Rather_talks_about_Bush_AWOL_0921.html

 

Ingushetia is not Chechnya II...

...But Possibly Something Worse

 

Vienna, September 13 – Most commentators on the upsurge in violence in Ingushetia have suggested that this North Caucasus republic is set to become the next Chechnya. But two of the more thoughtful argue instead that Ingushetia is not Chechnya, with one of them suggesting that it represents something far more dangerous....

 

http://windowoneurasia.blogspot.com/2007/09/window-on-eurasia-ingushetia-is-not.html

Vanessa Redgrave Combines Lifelong Devotion to Acting and Political Involvement in New HBO Film "The Fever"

Vanessa Redgrave in an excerpt from 'The Fever':

 

"The people who have a little determine a little, and the people who have a lot determine a lot, and the people who have nothing, determine nothing. And the workers obey the instructions of the money. Money tells some of them to grow rice and transport it to places where children are starving, and it tells others to sew costumes and repair violins. And each day there is an amazing moment before the day starts, before the market opens, before the bidding begins. There's a moment of confusion. The money is silent. It hasn't yet spoken. Its decisions are withheld, poised, perched"

 

...more

 

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/06/13/1514241

UN talks achieve faster phaseout of ozone-depleting HCFCs

 Montreal ­ Delegates at the United Nations climate conference in Montreal reached a landmark deal late Friday to accelerate by a decade the phaseout of ozone-depleting chemicals. The new timetable agreed by environment ministers and high-level officials from 191 countries, meeting under the auspices of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), calls for the eventual phaseout of ozone-damaging chemicals known as hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs) by developing countries by 2030.

Developed countries will accelerate their phase-out and are expected to complete it by 2020.

Canadian Environment Minister John Baird, who addressed the late- night meeting, called the occasion "a historic night."

European Union chief negotiator Marianne Wenning said that the agreement was a significant step to both protect the ozone layer and fight climate change.

"We feel that the achievement of an early phaseout of HCFCs is another historic moment in the life of the Montreal Protocol," Wenning said.

The new agreement will amend the calendar established by the 1987 Montreal Protocol, which had called for developed countries to stop using ozone-damaging chemicals found in many refrigerators, air conditioning units and hairspray by 2030, and for developing nations to follow suit by 2040.

Lambert Kuijpers, co-chair of UNEP's Technology and Economic Assessment Panel, said the biggest achievement was getting China on board.

"HCFCs had seen a very big growth in the developing countries, especially in China," he said. "China represents 80 per cent of HCFC consumption among developing countries, so China has been the player in these negotiations."

Wenning said the agreement came after a tough and grueling round of negotiations, as China and other developing countries sought assurances that developed countries will contribute enough money to a multilateral fund to ease the financial burdens of switching to new technologies.

"It was a very tough but a very fair discussion," Wenning said. "And in the end, after long hours of disagreements, I'm very happy that we all came to a compromise that serves us well."

Durwood Zaelke, president of the Washington-based Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development, an environmental research and advocacy group, said that accelerating the ban on HCFCs will have a positive effect not only on the ozone layer that protects the Earth from harmful solar radiation but also greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global warming.

"We have on the table 25 billion tons of CO2-equivalent that we can capture with this decision," Zaelke said. "This represents five times what the Kyoto Protocol asks their parties for the first commitment period from 2008-2012."

Between 1990 and 2002, the Montreal Protocol has already reduced climate emissions as a co-benefit by 135 billion tons of CO2- equivalent, Zaelke said.

"That has delayed climate change by up to 12 years," he said.

The HCFCs came to replace more dangerous chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs).

In the 1980s, a series of international treaties culminating with the 1987 Montreal Protocol banned the use of CFCs, after scientists connected CFCs to holes being arising in the ozone, the atmospheric layer that screens out ultraviolet radiation. The chemicals were considered a contributor to higher solar radiation exposure and greater growth and severity of human skin cancer.

As an interim measure to replace CFCs, the chemical industry developed hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs) for use in refrigeration, air conditioning, foam production and other applications.

Meanwhile, climbing temperatures and world affluence have vastly increased demand for air conditioning, boosting production of HCFCs and their associated risks. HCHCs erode the ozone layer, if to a lesser extent than CFCs, and also produce a harmful carbon emission called hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), which contribute to global warming, Kuijpers said.

 

http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/111972.html

The Oldest Living Participatory Democracy on Earth

 The people of the Six Nations, also known by the French term, Iroquois Confederacy, call themselves the Hau de no sau nee (ho dee noe sho nee) meaning People Building a Long House. Located in the northeastern region of North America, originally the Six Nations was five and included the Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, and Senecas. The sixth nation, the Tuscaroras, migrated into Iroquois country in the early eighteenth century. Together these peoples comprise the oldest living participatory democracy on earth. Their story, and governance truly based on the consent of the governed, contains a great deal of life-promoting intelligence for those of us not familiar with this area of American history. The original United States representative democracy, fashioned by such central authors as Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, drew much inspiration from this confederacy of nations. In our present day, we can benefit immensely, in our quest to establish anew a government truly dedicated to all life's liberty and happiness much as has been practiced by the Six Nations for over 800 hundred years.... [much more]

 

http://www.ratical.org/many_worlds/6Nations/index.html