Israeli Terrorism Against America?? INCONCEIVABLE.

What? What?? Whaaaaat?!?!?!

No, this can’t be. According to an article appearing in one of Israel’s biggest mainstream news outlets–Haaretz–Israeli Military Intelligence is AT THIS VERY MOMENT trying to “figure out” what went wrong in 1954 with something known as the “Lavon Affair”, described by the news outlet as a “sabotage operation” by Israel in “bombing theaters, post offices and U.S. and British institutions, and making it seem as though Egypt was behind the bombings”.

Ohhhh, this simply can’t be, or as the character Vizzini infamously said over and over again in that adorable movie the Princess Bride– “INCONCEIVABLE”. Israel–the apple of God’s eye–deliberately bomb American buildings with the intention of blaming it on her Arab enemies in order to achieve a desired political outcome? Deliberately put innocent civilian life in jeopardy with an overt act of state terrorism?

She would NEVER do something like this, and especially not to her bestest buddy in da whole-wide woyld, America. After all, the Jews are God’s chosen people, and something like this would be a sin and they–the Jewish people–don’t sin.

In a word–INCONCEIVABLE.

The article in question HAD to have been written by an Islamo-fascist. Yes, his name may be “Amos Harel,” but underneath, where it counts, no doubt he is Abdullah Hadid. There simply can be no truth to this story. It is simply INCONCEIVABLE.

No, what must have happened here in this “Lavon Affair” thing is a case of “mistaken identity”, just like when the Jewish state attacked an American ship the USS Liberty–for 2 hours resulting in 34 Americans being killed. She says she thought the 600 ft long ship with huge antennae dishes was actually an Egyptian horse ferry ¼ the size.

And “mistaken identity” is the only viable explanation here. The Jewish spies involved in this didn‘t know they were in Egypt, didn‘t know they were carrying bombs and didn’t know they were sent to blow up American buildings that would result in dead Americans. Israel would never do something like this to her bestest buddy in da whole-wide woyld, America. After all, the Jews are God’s chosen people, and something like this would be a sin and they–the Jews–don’t sin and so her doing something like this is simply INCONCEIVABLE.

Or like the 1983 US Marine baracks bombings in Beirut that resulted in 241 young Americans being killed as they slept. Ex-Mossad officer Victor Ostrovsy alleges in his book “By Way Of Deception” that Israel knew all about it beforehand and refused to warn the Americans, saying that the general attitude at Mossad was that the Americans were getting what they deserved. He must be an Islamo-fascist as well, because Israel knowing about what was to take place to her bestest buddy in the whole wide woyld and then not letting them know would be a betrayal and Jews betraying people is simply INCONCEIVABLE.

Same with Jonathon Pollard and the 1 million highly-classified documents he stole and then sold to Israel who in turn gave them to the Soviet Union, America’s sworn enemy at that time. It was a case of “mistaken identity”–Pollard didn’t know they were classified and Israel didn’t know she was selling them to America’s enemies and the 1,400 American intelligence assets killed as a result is all an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory because for Israel to betray her bestest buddy in da whole wide woyld is simply INCONCEIVABLE.

And 9/11–all those Mossad agents arrested, some seen cheering at the destruction of the towers and others caught driving vans laden with explosives as they headed towards the George Washington bridge…This all HAD to be a case of “mistaken identity”. They didn’t know it was America, didn’t know they were cheering and didn’t know the van they were driving was loaded with tons of C-4, because for Israel to do something like this, an act of terrorism against America that would then be blamed on her Arab enemies (just like in the Lavon Affair) is simply INCONCEIVABLE…

And all the other things as well–Monica Lewinsky being used by Israel to blackmail President Clinton. The Oklahoma City bombings originally done to blame Iraq. The anthrax letters. AIPAC spying on America. The organ harvesting rabbis, Bernie Madoff, and all the rest. What we see is simply an illusion, because the Jews being up to their eyeballs in something as nefarious as this is not only impossible, but indeed INCONCEIVABLE…

…or at least, that’s how it will all be described form virtually every pulpit in virtually every Christian church in America in the coming days and weeks, provided of course it even gets mentioned at all.

(c) 2009 Mark Glenn

nomorewarsforisrael@gmail.com

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Citing the Goldstone Report, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay told the Security Council Wednesday that Israel was responsible for the killing of more than 1,000 civilians in Gaza and attacks on schools and mosques and UN facilities.

The US is heading a group of nations in the efforts to prevent a Security Council discussion on the report, which was recently adopted by the General Assembly. “The corrosive effect of impunity on both human rights and peace is evident in the case of the Occupied Palestinian Territory, as documented in the report of the United Nations Fact-Finding Mission headed by distinguished international jurist Richard Goldstone, which has been transmitted to this Council,” Pillay wrote.

“The report lays out in detail the nature and scope of violations of international human rights and humanitarian law perpetrated on the civilian population of the Occupied Palestinian Territory, where in Gaza earlier this year Israeli forces killed well over one thousand civilians and attacked homes, schools, mosques, food and water installations, and UN facilities.”

In a speech delivered by her deputy, Pillay focused on Israel’s activities in the “occupied Palestinian territories”, saying that the siege (on Gaza) and the Israeli offensive in the Hamas-ruled territory constitute a violation of international human rights and humanitarian law.

“Collective punishment, as evidenced by the crippling Israeli blockade and the devastating military offensive, is a violation of international human rights and humanitarian law, as are the forcible evictions of Arabs, the demolition of homes, and the expropriation of occupied East Jerusalem lands for Israeli settlements,” wrote Pillay.

“Mr. President, until meaningful steps are taken to end impunity for these violations and assert the applicability of international law, peace and security will remain illusive for all the people of the region. The Council is urged to embrace the recommendations in the report so as to secure accountability for all perpetrators, and to fully integrate human rights guarantees into peacemaking efforts.”

Notes/Sources:
1.Ynet News

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This video lasts about as long as the American attention span.

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Israel: Forging NATO Missile Shield, Rehearsing War With Iran

Arrow-2 Anti-Ballistic Missile

(The Intelligence Daily) — “This is the most complete air missile defense system we’ve ever done anywhere in the world.”

The distance between Tel Aviv and Tehran is 993 miles [1,598 kilometers), so the U.S. missile radar overshoots the mark by almost 2,000 miles. Enough to cover all of eastern and most of southern Russia where the bulk of that nation's strategic missile forces are stationed.

The United States and Israel have just completed the largest joint interceptor missile exercises ever conducted by the two nations and, in terms of scope and sophistication, possibly the most comprehensive joint live-fire anti-ballistic missile drills held by any combination of countries.

Operation Juniper Cobra 10 began on October 21 and ended on November 3. During those two weeks over 1,000 U.S. and an equal number of Israeli troops participated in an integrated series of missile maneuvers whose main objective was "testing five different missile defense systems...and creating the infrastructure that would be necessary in the event that the Obama administration decides to deploy US systems here in the event of a conflict." [1]

The five missile interception system components employed for the exercises were:

The high-altitude Arrow 2 theater anti-ballistic missile system jointly developed by the U.S. and Israel – Israel Aerospace Industries and Boeing – and supervised by the Israeli Ministry of Defence and the Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency.

Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD), designed for destroying on impact short- and medium-range ballistic missiles, developed by Lockheed Martin Space Systems.

Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) guided missiles with seven times the range of earlier Patriot models.

The ship-based Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System equipped with the Standard Missile 3 (SM-3) and AN/SPY-1 radar with 360 degree coverage. The SM-3, which was used to shoot a U.S. satellite out of orbit in February 2008 to give an idea of its range, is to be modified for ground deployment as part of the new interceptor missile system announced by U.S. President Barack Obama and Defense Secretary Robert Gates on September 17.

This year’s fourteen-day Juniper Cobra was “the largest joint exercise ever held by the countries,” [2] which included seventeen U.S. warships, and represented “the first time that all these systems have been deployed in Israel together”. [3]

A U.S. Army colonel participating in the operation stated that it was “the first major exercise integrating THAAD and Patriot ground-to-air missiles and the ship-launched Aegis system” and added “This is the most complete air missile defense system we’ve ever done anywhere in the world.” [4]

An Israeli new source wrote that “An unprecedented number of American generals, along with 1,400 U.S. army soldiers, are participating with top IDF [Israeli Defense Forces] brass in the high-level Juniper Cobra military exercise that one U.S. Navy commander said is aimed at ’specific threats.’” [5]

The last day’s drills were attended by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Ehud Barak, Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi, the U.S. ambassador to Israel, James Cunningham, and another major American official, James Stavridis.

The drills received limited coverage in the world press and the fact that Admiral Stavridis, commander of U.S. European Command (USEUCOM) and NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR), arrived in Israel on November to inspect their final stages was only reported in the Israeli press.

During the visit, Stavridis met with “the Chief of the General Staff, Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, the Deputy Chief of the General Staff, Maj. Gen. Benjamin Gantz and several other commanders. The Admiral [was] accompanied by other EUCOM commanders.” [6]

A BBC report of November 2, “The shadow behind US-Israeli war games,” quoted a U.S. Navy commodore on one of the main objectives of Juniper Cobra: “We’re here for some very specific reasons, some specific threats that the Israelis are interested in, that we’re interested in. And that’s as far as I want to go down that road.”

The same report mentioned a scenario that American military personnel interviewed by the BBC wouldn’t discuss:

“Israel bombs Iranian nuclear facilities – and Iran hits back.

“In that case, Israel would definitely need the missile shield – sophisticated long-range radars and Patriot anti-missile devices – being tested in joint war games this week.

“Operation Juniper Cobra involves some 2,000 American and Israeli personnel. It is a regular event, taking place every two years, but this year speculation is more intense than ever that Israel is prepared to bomb Iran to stop its supposed nuclear weapons programme.” [7]

Shortly before and during the course of the exercises – which were scheduled to begin on October 12 and postponed without explanation the day before, although U.S. warships were docked in the port city of Haifa – several other reports surfaced that lend credence to the above suspicion.

In late October it was announced that Raytheon Missile Systems “was awarded two contracts worth in excess of $100 million by [Israel's] Rafael Advanced Defense Systems Ltd. to design and develop the David’s Sling Weapon System [DSWS].

“The DSWS is a joint program between the Missile Defense Agency and the Israel Missile Defense Organization. The system will defeat short-range ballistic missiles, large-caliber rockets and cruise missiles in their terminal phase of flight.

“The first contract was awarded to codevelop the Stunner Interceptor, the missile component of the DSWS. Stunner is an advanced hit-to-kill interceptor designed for insertion into the DSWS and allied integrated air and missile defense systems.” [8]

Five weeks earlier Germany delivered two U212 Dolphin-class submarines, which “can launch cruise missiles carrying nuclear warheads,” to Israel ahead of schedule. They were initially to have arrived in 2010.

“Including the new subs, Israel has five German submarines – the most expensive weapon platforms in Israel’s arsenal.

“Israeli media have written that the Dolphin submarine could be key in any attack on Iran’s controversial nuclear sites.” [9]

On October 15 the Jerusalem Post ran a story that included the following alarming information:

“Israel is planning to carry out military attacks in Iran after December, a French magazine reported….According to a report in Le canard enchainé quoted by Israel Radio, Jerusalem has already ordered from a French food manufacturer high-quality combat rations for soldiers serving in elite units and also asked reservists of these units staying abroad to return to Israel.”

The French magazine was also cited as claiming that “in a recent visit to France, IDF [Israeli Defense Forces] Chief of General Staff Gabi Ashkenazi told his French counterpart Jean-Louis Georgelin that Israel is not planning to bomb Iran, but may send elite troops to conduct activities on the ground there [which] may involve sabotage to nuclear facilities as well as assassinations of top Iranian nuclear scientists.” [10]

On November 2 Arabic language news sites reported that “The US military has finished erecting an advanced radar system in Iraq to monitor the border with Iran, Syria and Turkey….” [11]

Iran and its neighbors are not the only nations in the gun sights of the layered, integrated missile killer system premiered in Israel over the past two weeks.

In addition to the “specific threats” motif that ran through reports of Juniper Cobra, another theme was repeatedly stressed: That what the exercises focused on was a trial run for a NATO missile system to encompass the entire European continent.

The American and Israeli press in unison highlighted that plan. For example:

“It’s a very prompt and sizable demonstration of what the new administration’s missile defense plans are.” [12]

“A major air defense exercise launched with Israel this week will help the United States craft its European missile shield, a U.S. commander said….Featuring in the three weeks of maneuvers is Aegis, a U.S. Navy anti-missile system that the administration of President Barack Obama plans to deploy in the eastern Mediterranean as the first part of a missile shield for Europe announced last month.” [13]

“A U.S. military officer said Tuesday that a major missile defense exercise staged by American and Israeli forces will help the development of a planned NATO missile shield for Europe.”

The officer in question, U.S. Army Col. Tony English, explicitly stated, “We’re going to learn a lot of lessons here that will definitely apply to that later system.” [14]

“On a wider perspective, what the Americans learn from these complex exercises will help shape a NATO defense shield for Europe.” [15]

“Results of the Juniper Cobra missile defense exercise staged by Israeli and American forces…will be used by the US Defense Department to help formulate a new NATO missile shield for Europe, senior defense officials said….The drill was also relevant for a potential European missile shield, since the Americans would need to test their systems in different weather conditions.

“[A] new plan under consideration will include the deployment of US navy ships equipped with Aegis missile defense systems to form a front line in the Mediterranean Sea alongside a few land-based missile systems in Europe.

“The Americans are currently considering which land-based system to use. NATO is pushing for the SM-3, the missile that is the backbone of the Aegis ship-based system, but the US military will likely review other systems as well, including Israel’s Arrow and Arrow 3, development of which began recently and which is being funded by the administration. ” [16]

In late August, weeks before the announcement that Washington was going to abandon previous plans for ground-based interceptor missiles in Poland and an X-band missile radar installation in the Czech Republic, the Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza revealed that “Washington is now looking for alternative locations including in the Balkans, Israel and Turkey….” [17]

A previous article in this series explored this development before the September 17 revelations. [18]

In mid-October Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak was in Poland, still slated to be a central location for U.S. and NATO missile shield plans and to host Patriot missiles and SM-3s on ships in the Baltics, on land or both. While in Warsaw he applauded the “US move to create a sea-borne anti-missile shield” and stated:

“The new approach really provides more flexibility and, in a relatively short time, a much more effective, economical way to deal effectively with the challenge of missiles from Iran.” [19]

Polish Radio reported that “According to a statement by the Israeli defence ministry, Barak will be having talks in Poland and the Czech Republic on a common approach to Iran’s nuclear ambitions and further developing defence industry contacts….” [20]

At the same time Israeli sources confirmed that the nation’s navy will join NATO’s Operation Active Endeavor, the eight-year-old naval surveillance and interdiction program which has comprehensively policed the entire Mediterranean Sea and all entrances into it (the Strait of Gibraltar, the Suez Canal, the Dardanelles) under the aegis of the Alliance’s Article 5 collective military assistance provision.

Discussions have been common in leading Western circles on extending the Article 5 clause – “The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all” – to NATO partners as well as to full member states. In all some 60 nations.

Israel is a case in point. And so are Iran’s neighbors in the Persian Gulf.

NATO’s Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen was in the United Arab Emirates on October 29-30 to attend and address an international conference called NATO-UAE Relations and the Way Forward in the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative along with “NATO Permanent Representatives on the North Atlantic Council, the Deputy Secretary General of NATO, the Chairman of the NATO Military Committee and high level NATO officials with government representatives, opinion leaders, academics and senior scholars from countries in the Gulf region….” [21]

The Istanbul Cooperation Initiative was launched at the NATO summit in Istanbul, Turkey in 2004 to upgrade the bloc’s Mediterranean Dialogue partners (Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia) to a level comparable to members of the Partnership for Peace program, used to promote ten new nations into full membership over the past decade, and to forge a military alliance with the six members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC): Bahrain, where the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet is headquartered, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

An article in an Emirati newspaper featured the title “NATO will defend UAE if attacked: Rasmussen” and quoted the NATO chief on an agreement that was signed between the bloc and the UAE:

“The agreement was signed to deepen cooperation on security matters….There is another angle…that we agree with the GCC countries on the security and safety of each other and sound cooperation. So, in case anything happens, we would collectively defend it.” [22]

During his stay in the UAE Rasmussen also said in regards to ties with that nation that “We share an interest in helping countries like Afghanistan and Iraq to stand on their feet again, fostering stability in the Middle East more broadly, and preventing countries like Somalia and Sudan from slipping deeper into chaos….We all are seriously concerned about Iran’s nuclear ambitions….” [23]

Along with escalation of troop deployments to Iran’s eastern neighbor, Afghanistan, NATO’s expansion into the Persian Gulf is an integral component of the encirclement of Iran preparatory to any future military attack on that country.

Another aspect of the campaign to neutralize Iranian military capabilities and thus prevent retaliation in the event of a first strike assault on it was started in September of 2008, a year before the announced changes in U.S. plans for the European flank of its global missile interception system.

The U.S. Senate voted to allot $89 million for the deployment of a Forward Based X-Band Transportable Radar, now Army Navy/Transportable Radar Surveillance (AN/TPY-2), to Israel. According to an American armed forces publication at the time, “The radar [is] reportedly capable of tracking a baseball-size object from a distance of 2,900 miles [4,300 kilometers]….” [24]

The distance between Tel Aviv and Tehran is 993 miles [1,598 kilometers), so the U.S. missile radar overshoots the mark by almost 2,000 miles. Enough to cover all of eastern and most of southern Russia where the bulk of that nation's strategic missile forces are stationed. Moscow is 2,641 kilometers from Tel Aviv. An Israeli newspaper estimated the range of the radar to be 4,800 kilometers, another 310 miles. [25]

U.S. European Command (EUCOM), which is in charge of the project and whose top military commander, Admiral James Stavridis, is also NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe, in late September of 2008 listed American military units assigned to set up and staff the missile radar deployment:

-357th Air Missile Defense Detachment, U.S. Army

-21st Theater Sustainment Command, U.S. Army

-Fleet Antiterrorism Security Team, U.S. Marine Corps

-86th Contingency Response Group, U.S. Air Force

-31st Logistics Readiness Squadron, U.S. Air Force

-5th Signal Command, U.S. Army

-Missile Defense Agency

120 personnel from the U.S. Army, Air Force and Marine Corps were involved and according to a EUCOM spokesman, “[The radar] was provided at the request of the Israeli government to improve their defensive capabilities.” [26]

This represents the first formal deployment of American troops, of any foreign soldiers, to Israel in the nation’s 61-year history. Although not formally a permanent assignment, there is no reason to believe that the radar installation will ever be withdrawn. It is located at the Nevatim airbase in the Negev Desert where Israeli nuclear weapons are assumed to be stored.

The radar station became fully operational last December and in April of 2009 U.S. troops participated in a trial of the system. “Israel conducted a test of an upgraded version of the Arrow anti-missile system that involved shooting down a rocket…This was the first Israeli test to include the U.S. radar.” [27]

The 2,900-3,200-mile range missile radar system was put to far more extensive use over the past two weeks in the Juniper Cobra exercises, and was integrated into not only a pilot project for layered, joint land and sea, missile interception, but also served as the prototype for the new American and NATO “stronger, smarter, and swifter” (Barack Obama on September 17) missile system that will take in the entire European continent and extend into the Black Sea, the Caucasus, the Eastern Mediterranean, the Persian Gulf and points further south and east.

A system that will render potential victims of a first strike military onslaught incapable of threatening retaliation – the deterrence capability – or of effectively responding after the fact.
Rick Rozoff has been involved in anti-war and anti-interventionist work in various capacities for forty years. He lives in Chicago, Illinois. Is the manager of the Stop NATO international email list at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato/

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By SAEED SHAH

McClatchy Newspapers

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BBC

Some Palestinians only get 20 litres of water a day, Amnesty says

Israel is denying Palestinians access to even the basic minimum of clean, safe water, Amnesty International says.

In a report, the human rights group says Israeli water restrictions discriminate against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.

It says that in Gaza, Israel’s blockade has pushed the already ailing water and sewage system to “crisis point”.

Israel says the report is flawed and the Palestinians get more water than was agreed under the 1990s peace deal.

‘Basic need’

In the 112-page report, Amnesty says that on average Palestinian daily water consumption reaches 70 litres a day, compared with 300 litres for the Israelis.

Israel must end its discriminatory policies, immediately lift all the restrictions it imposes on Palestinians’ access to water Donatella Rovera Amnesty International Gaza thirsts as sewage crisis mounts Water shortages plague West Bank

It says that some Palestinians barely get 20 litres a day – the minimum recommended even in humanitarian emergencies.

While Israeli settlers in the West Bank enjoy lush gardens and swimming pools, Amnesty describes a series of Israeli measures it says are discriminating against Palestinians:

• Israel has “entirely appropriated the Palestinians’ share of the Jordan river” and uses 80% of a key shared aquifer
• West Bank Palestinians are not allowed to drill wells without Israeli permits, which are “often impossible” to obtain
• Rainwater harvesting cisterns are “often destroyed by the Israeli army”

Recommended for short-term survival: 20 litres For the medium term: 70 litres Recommended for the long term: 100 litres (Source: WHO)

Israeli soldiers confiscated a water tanker from villagers who were trying to remain in land Israel had declared a “closed military area” An unnamed Israeli soldier says rooftop Palestinian household water tanks are “good for target practice” Much of the land cut off by the West Bank barrier is land with good access to a major aquifer Israeli military operations have damaged Palestinian water infrastructure, including $6m worth during the Cast Lead operation in Gaza last winter The Israeli-Egyptian blockade of Gaza has “exacerbated what was already a dire situation” by denying many building materials needed for water and sewage projects. The report also noted that the Palestinian water authorities have been criticised for bad management, quoting one audit that described the sector as in “total chaos”. “Water is a basic need and a right, but for many Palestinians obtaining even poor-quality, subsistence-level quantities of water has become a luxury that they can barely afford,” Amnesty’s Donatella Rovera said. “Israel must end its discriminatory policies, immediately lift all the restrictions it imposes on Palestinians’ access to water.” ‘Fair share’ Ms Rovera also urged Israel to “take responsibility for addressing the problems it created by allowing Palestinians a fair share of the shared water resources”. Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev said “the idea that we’re taking water away from someone else is simply preposterous”. He argued that Israeli fresh water use per capita had gone down since 1967 due to efficiency and new technologies, while the Palestinians’ use had increased and more than a third of their water was wasted. FROM BBC WORLD SERVICE More from BBC World Service If there were allegations of military wrongdoing, those would be investigated, he said. He also rejected the claim that Israel was preventing Palestinians from drilling for water, saying Israel had approved 82 such projects but the Palestinians had only implemented 26 of them. “They have received billions of dollars in international aid over the last decade and a half, why have they not invested that in their own water infrastructure>?” he asked. The report also criticised the Oslo Accords, which the Palestinians agreed to in 1993. It said that under them, the Palestinians gained the responsibility for managing an “insufficient” water supply and maintaining “long neglected” water infrastructure. Also, the deal left the Palestinians paying Israel for half of the domestic water used in the West Bank, despite the fact it is extracted from the shared aquifer. Mr Regev said Israel provides the Palestinians with more water than it was required to under the accord.

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(Photo by Robin Holland)

This week on the JOURNAL, Bill Moyers spoke with Justice Richard Goldstone, a respected figure in international law who headed the controversial UN Human Rights Council investigation into Israel and Hamas’ actions during military operations in Gaza that began last December.

While the resulting ‘Goldstone Report’ concluded that both sides had committed war crimes and, potentially, crimes against humanity, it was especially harsh in its condemnation of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) for their actions in Gaza, saying that they were “a deliberately disproportionate attack designed to punish, humiliate, and terrorize a civilian population, radically diminish its local economic capacity both to work and to provide for itself, and to force upon it an ever increasing sense of dependency and vulnerability.”

Last month, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered a speech to the UN in which he argued that the report was unfair and morally misguided. The released text of the speech says:

“For eight long years, Hamas fired from Gaza thousands of missiles, mortars, and rockets on nearby Israeli cities. Year after year, as these missiles were deliberately hurled at our civilians, not a single UN resolution was passed condemning those criminal attacks. We heard nothing, absolutely nothing, from the UN Human Rights Council, a misnamed institution if ever there was one… Faced with an enemy committing a double war crime of firing on civilians while hiding behind civilians, Israel sought to conduct surgical strikes against the rocket launchers. That was no easy task because the terrorists were firing missiles from homes and schools, using mosques as weapons depots and ferrying explosives in ambulances. Israel, by contrast, tried to minimize casualties by urging Palestinian civilians to vacate the targeted areas… Never has a country gone to such extraordinary lengths to remove the enemy’s civilian population from harm’s way. Yet faced with such a clear case of aggressor and victim, who did the UN Human Rights Council decide to condemn? Israel. A democracy legitimately defending itself from terror is morally hanged, drawn and quartered, and given an unfair trial to boot. By these twisted standards, the UN Human Rights Council would have dragged Roosevelt and Churchill to the dock as war criminals. What a perversion of truth, what a perversion of justice.”

On the JOURNAL, Justice Goldstone addressed critics of the report and described his experience conducting the investigation in Gaza:

“I would like to see [critics’] response to the substance [of the report], particularly the attack on the infrastructure of Gaza, which seems to me to be absolutely unjustifiable… I saw the destruction of the only flour-producing factory in Gaza. I saw fields plowed up by Israeli tank bulldozers… I had to have the very emotional and difficult interviews with fathers whose little daughters were killed, whose families were killed… It was a very difficult investigation which will give me nightmares for the rest of my life.”

Bill Moyers then asked Goldstone why he considers Israel’s actions to have been war crimes. Goldstone said:

“[In] humanitarian law, really fundamental is what’s known as the principle of distinction. It requires commanders, troops, all people involved in war to distinguish between civilians and combatants, and then there’s a question of proportionality. One can, in war, target a military target, and there can be what’s euphemistically referred to as ‘collateral damage,’ but the collateral damage must be proportionate to the military aim. If you can take out a munitions factory in an urban area with a loss of 100 lives, or you can use a bomb twice at large and take out the same factory and kill 2000 people, the latter would be a war crime. The former wouldn’t… We found that [Hamas’] firing of many thousands of rockets and mortars at a civilian population to constitute a serious war crime, and we said possibly crimes against humanity… It’s difficult to deal equally with a state party with the sort of sophisticated army Israel has, with an air force and a navy and the most sophisticated weapons [and] with Hamas using really improvised, imprecise armaments. It’s difficult to equate their power.”

Click here to review the Goldstone report and some of the voices responding to it.

What do you think?

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By F. William Engdahl
.
October 21, 2009 “Information Clearing House” — One of the most remarkable aspects of the Obama Presidential agenda is how little anyone has questioned in the media or elsewhere why at all the United States Pentagon is committed to a military occupation of Afghanistan. There are two basic reasons, neither one of which can be admitted openly to the public at large.

Behind all the deceptive official debate over how many troops are needed to “win” the war in Afghanistan, whether another 30,000 is sufficient, or whether at least 200000 are needed, the real purpose of US military presence in that pivotal Central Asian country is obscured.

Even during the 2008 Presidential campaign candidate Obama argued that Afghanistan not Iraq was where the US must wage war. His reason? Because he claimed, that was where the Al Qaeda organization was holed up and that was the “real” threat to US national security. The reasons behind US involvement in Afghanistan is quite another one.

The US military is in Afghanistan for two reasons. First to restore and control the world’s largest supply of opium for the world heroin markets and to use the drugs as a geopolitical weapon against opponents, especially Russia. That control of the Afghan drug market is essential for the liquidity of the bankrupt and corrupt Wall Street financial mafia.

Geopolitics of Afghan Opium

According even to an official UN report, opium production in Afghanistan has risen dramatically since the downfall of the Taliban in 2001. UNODC data shows more opium poppy cultivation in each of the past four growing seasons (2004-2007), than in any one year during Taliban rule. More land is now used for opium in Afghanistan, than for coca cultivation in Latin America. In 2007, 93% of the opiates on the world market originated in Afghanistan. This is no accident.

It has been documented that Washington hand-picked the controversial Hamid Karzai, a Pashtun warlord from the Popalzai tribe, long in the CIA’s service, brought him back from exile in the USA, created a Hollywood mythology around his “courageous leadership of his people.” According to Afghan sources, Karzai is the Opium “Godfather” of Afghanistan today. There is apparently no accident that he was and is today still Washington’s preferred man in Kabul. Yet even with massive vote buying and fraud and intimidation, Karzai’s days could be ending as President.

The second reason the US military remains in Afghanistan long after the world has forgotten even who the mysterious Osama bin Laden and his alleged Al Qaeda terrorist organization is or even if they exist, is as a pretext to build a permanent US military strike force with a series of permanent US airbases across Afghanistan. The aim of those bases is not to eradicate any Al Qaeda cells that may have survived in the caves of Tora Bora, or to eradicate a mythical “Taliban” which at this point according to eyewitness reports is made up overwhelmingly of local ordinary Afghanis fighting to rid their land once more of occupier armies as they  did in the 11980’s against the Russians.

The aim of the US bases in Afghanistan is to target and be able to strike at the two nations which today represent the only combined threat in the world today to an American global imperium, to America’s Full Spectrum Dominance as the Pentagon terms it.

The lost ‘Mandate of Heaven’

The problem for the US power elites around Wall Street and in Washington is the fact that they are now in the deepest financial crisis in their history. That crisis is clear to the entire world and the world is acting on a basis of self-survival. The US elites have lost what in Chinese imperial history is known as the Mandate of Heaven. That mandate is given a ruler or ruling elite provided they rule their people justly and fairly. When they rule tyrannically and as despots, oppressing and abusing their people, they lose that Mandate of Heaven.

If the powerful private wealthy elites that have controlled essential US financial and foreign policy for most of the past century or more ever had a “mandate of Heaven” they clearly have lost it. The domestic developments towards creation of an abusive police state with deprivation of Constitutional rights to its citizens, the arbitrary exercise of power by non elected officials such as Treasury Secretaries Henry Paulson and now Tim Geithner, stealing trillion dollar sums from taxpayers without their consent in order to bailout the bankrupt biggest Wall Street banks, banks deemed “Too Big To Fail,” this all demonstrates to the world they have lost the mandate

In this situation, the US power elites are increasingly desperate to maintain their control of a global parasitical empire, called deceptively by their media machine, “globalization.” To hold that dominance it is essential that they be able to break up any emerging cooperation in the economic, energy or military realm between the two major powers of Eurasia that conceivably could pose a challenge to future US sole Superpower control—China in combination with Russia.

Each Eurasian power brings to the table essential contributions. China has the world’s most robust economy, a huge young and dynamic workforce, an educated middle class. Russia, whose economy has not recovered from the destructive end pf the Soviet era and of the primitive looting during the Yeltsin era, still holds essential assets for the combination. Russia’s nuclear strike force and its military pose the only threat in the world today to US military dominance, even if it is largely a residue of the Cold War. The Russian military elites never gave up that potential.

As well Russia holds the world’s largest treasure of natural gas and vast reserves of oil urgently needed by China. The two powers are increasingly converging via a new organization they created in 2001 known as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). That includes as well as China and Russia, the largest Central Asia states Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.

The purpose of the alleged US war against both Taliban and Al Qaeda is in reality to place its military strike force directly in the middle of the geographical space of this emerging SCO in Central Asia. Iran is a diversion. The main goal or target is Russia and China.

Officially, of course, Washington claims it has built its military presence inside Afghanistan since 2002 in order to protect a “fragile” Afghan democracy. It’s a curious argument given the reality of US military presence there.

In December 2004, during a visit to Kabul, US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld finalized plans to build nine new bases in Afghanistan in the provinces of Helmand, Herat, Nimrouz, Balkh, Khost and Paktia. The nine are in addition to the three major US military bases already installed in the wake of its occupation of Afghanistan in winter of 2001-2002, ostensibly to isolate and eliminate the terror threat of Osama bin Laden.

The Pentagon built its first three bases at Bagram Air Field north of Kabul, the US’ main military logistics center; Kandahar Air Field, in southern Afghanistan; and Shindand Air Field in the western province of Herat. Shindand, the largest US base in Afghanistan, was constructed a mere 100 kilometers from the border of Iran, and within striking distance of Russia as well as China.

Afghanistan has historically been the heartland for the British-Russia Great Game, the struggle for control of Central Asia during the 19th and early 20th Centuries. British strategy then was to prevent Russia at all costs from controlling Afghanistan and thereby threatening Britain’s imperial crown jewel, India.

Afghanistan is similarly regarded by Pentagon planners as highly strategic. It is a platform from which US military power could directly threaten Russia and China, as well as Iran and other oil-rich Middle East lands. Little has changed geopolitically over more than a century of wars.

Afghanistan is in an extremely vital location, straddling South Asia, Central Asia, and the Middle East. Afghanistan also lies along a proposed oil pipeline route from the Caspian Sea oil fields to the Indian Ocean, where the US oil company, Unocal, along with Enron and Cheney’s Halliburton, had been in negotiations for exclusive pipeline rights to bring natural gas from Turkmenistan across Afghanistan and Pakistan to Enron’s huge natural gas power plant at Dabhol near Mumbai. Karzai, before becoming puppet US president, had been a Unocal lobbyist.

Al Qaeda doesn’t exist as a threat

The truth of all this deception around the real purpose in Afghanistan becomes clear on a closer look at the alleged “Al Qaeda” threat in Afghanistan. According to author Erik Margolis, prior to the September 11,2001 attacks, US intelligence was giving aid and support both to the Taliban and to Al Qaeda. Margolis claims that “The CIA was planning to use Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda to stir up Muslim Uighurs against Chinese rule, and Taliban against Russia’s Central Asian allies.”

The US clearly found other means of stirring up Muslim Uighurs against Beijing last July via its support for the World Uighur Congress. But the Al Qaeda “threat” remains the lynchpin of Obama US justification for his Afghan war buildup.

Now, however, the National Security Adviser to President Obama, former Marine Gen. James Jones has made a statement, conveniently buried by the friendly US media, about the estimated size of the present Al Qaeda danger in Afghanistan. Jones told Congress, “The al-Qaeda presence is very diminished. The maximum estimate is less than 100 operating in the country, no bases, no ability to launch attacks on either us or our allies.”

That means that Al-Qaeda, for all practical purposes, does not exist in Afghanistan. Oops…

Even in neighboring Pakistan, the remnants of Al-Qaeda are scarcely to be found. The Wall Street Journal reports, “Hunted by US drones, beset by money problems and finding it tougher to lure young Arabs to the bleak mountains of Pakistan, al Qaeda is seeing its role shrink there and in Afghanistan, according to intelligence reports and Pakistan and U.S. officials. For Arab youths who are al Qaeda’s primary recruits, ‘it’s not romantic to be cold and hungry and hiding,’ said a senior U.S. official in South Asia.”

If we follow the statement to its logical consequence we must conclude then that the reason German soldiers are dying along with other NATO youth in the mountains of Afghanistan has nothing to do with “winning a war against terrorism.” Conveniently most media chooses to forget the fact that Al Qaeda to the extent it ever existed, was a creation in the 1980’s of the CIA, who recruited and trained radical muslims from across the Islamic world to wage war against Russian troops in Afghanistan as part of a strategy developed by Reagan’s CIA head Bill Casey and others to create a “new Vietnam” for the Soviet Union which would lead to a humiliating defeat for the Red Army and the ultimate collapse of the Soviet Union.

Now US NSC head Jones admits there is essentially no Al Qaeda anymore in Afghanistan. Perhaps it is time for a more honest debate from our political leaders about the true purpose of sending more young to die protecting the opium harvests of Afghanistan.

F. William Engdahl – Author of Seeds of Destruction: The Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation.. He also authored A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order (Pluto Press). His latest book is Full Spectrum Dominance: Totalitarian Democracy in the New World Order (Third Millennium Press)  www.engdahl.oilgeopolitics.net.

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At least 29 people, including senior military officers and tribal leaders, were killed when a suicide bomber blew himself up at a meeting of the elite Revolutionary Guards in southeastern Iran on Sunday, the interior ministry said.

“Based on the information… as a result of today’s terrorist action… so far 29 people have been martyred and 28 have been wounded,” the ministry said on its website.

“The martyrs include several innocent Shiite and Sunni people, tribal chiefs and commanders of Guards (including senior officers in the Iran Revolutionary Guards Corps including deputy chief of the ground forces Brigadier General Nour Ali Shushtari). Very soon we will catch the perpetrators of this terrorist action and punish them.”

The explosion took place in the city of Pisheen in the south eastern province of Sistan-Bluchestan near the border with Pakistan and at least 20 people were killed.

The strike took place when officers from the Guards were preparing to stage a meeting between local leaders of Shiite and Sunni communities.

Some local tribal heads and several senior officers of the Guards were among the slain.
“In this terrorist act, General Nur-Ali Shushtari, deputy commander of the Revolutionary Guards ground forces, General Mohammad-Zadeh, commander of the Revolutionary Guards in Sistan-Baluchestan province, the Guards’ commander for the town of Iranshahr and the commander of the Amir al-Momenin unit died,” the Fars news agency reported.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad vowed to strike back at the “criminals” behind a suicide bombing that targeted the Islamic Republic’s Revolutionary Guard, the official IRNA news agency reported.

“The criminals will soon get the response for their anti-human crimes,” IRNA quoted Ahmadinejad as saying. The Iranian leader also accused unspecified foreigners of involvement.

Parliamentary speaker Ali Larijani confirmed the officers’ death in an announcement to parliament which was broadcast on television.
Larijani said the United States was implicated in Sunday’s bomb attack.
“We consider the recent terrorist attack to be the result of US action. This is a sign of America’s animosity against our country,” Larijani said.
“Mr. Obama has said he will extend his hand towards Iran, but with this terrorist action he has burned his hand,” he added, referring to US President Barack Obama.

Iran has previously accused shadowy group Jundallah (Soldiers of God) of launching regular attacks in the province, which borders both Afghanistan and Pakistan.

US CONDEMNS BOMBING, DENIES INVOLVEMENT
Meanwhile, the United States condemned the suicide bombing that struck Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards, and denied any involvement in the attack.

“We condemn this act of terrorism and mourn the loss of innocent lives,” State Department Spokesman Ian Kelly said in a statement.

JUNDULLAH IS BEING FUNDED BY THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

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U.S. Berated for Shielding Israel on Gaza Killings

By Thalif Deen

October 15, 2009 – -UNITED NATIONS, Oct 14 (IPS) – A U.S. decision to stall Security Council action against Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas for war crimes during the 22-day conflict in Gaza last December has come under heavy fire both from inside and outside the United Nations.

Addressing the Security Council Wednesday, the chair of the 118-member Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) Ambassador Maged Abdelaziz of Egypt urged the powerful 15-member political body to “seriously consider and act upon the recommendations” of the U.N. Fact Finding Mission headed by Justice Richard Goldstone.

But the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama says the charges of war crimes in the Goldstone report, which was released last month, should be within the purview of the Geneva-based Human Rights Council, not the Security Council in New York.

Despite reservations by Western nations, the Council agreed to hold a special meeting Wednesday on the Middle East: a meeting which provided member states with an opportunity to discuss the Goldstone report and focus on the serious violations of international human rights during the Gaza conflict, both by Israel and Hamas.

“That President Obama is receiving the Noble Peace prize after his failure to speak out during the Gaza war, and after his administration’s protection of a state that has committed war crimes, is an abomination,” Michael Ratner, president of the New York-based Centre for Constitutional Rights, told IPS.

The number of Palestinians killed during the conflict is estimated at between 1,387 and 1,417, mostly civilians, compared with four Israeli fatal casualties in southern Israel and nine soldiers killed during fighting, four of whom died as a result of friendly fire.

Ratner said one would hope that the United States would not block the referral of both Israel and Hamas to the International Criminal Court (ICC) for an investigation of war crimes committed in Gaza.

“Sadly, its conduct at the Human Rights Council [in Geneva] where it called the Goldstone report deeply flawed shows that it will again do all in its power to try and bury any investigation of Israel for war crimes,” he added.

By doing so, Washington is giving Israel a green light to continue to commit atrocities, said Ratner, who heads the non-profit human rights litigation organisation.

The failure to refer the Gaza matter to the ICC undercuts any claim that the law is applied equally to Israel and the Palestinians, he noted.

“That the United States attacked the report, authored by Judge Goldstone, one of the pre-eminent jurists in the world, demonstrates that it is willing to debase both the law and a respected jurist in its effort to protect a client state, despite its crimes,” Ratner declared.

The Goldstone report has recommended that the Security Council require Israel to report to it, within the next six months, on investigations and prosecutions it should carry out with regard to the violations cited in the report.

During the ruthless military operation, codenamed ‘Operation Cast Lead’, the Israelis destroyed houses, factories, wells, schools, hospitals, police stations and other public buildings.

The report also recommended that the Security Council should set up its own body of independent experts to report to it on the progress of the Israeli investigations and prosecutions.

“If the expert’s reports do not indicate within six months that good faith, independent proceedings are taking place, the Security Council should refer the situation in Gaza to the Prosecutor in the International Criminal Court (ICC),” the report recommended.

The report also recommended that the same expert body report to the Security Council on proceedings undertaken by the relevant Gaza authorities with regard to the crimes committed by the Palestinian side.

But the report’s strongest indictment is not against Hamas but against the state of Israel, which is accused of imposing a blockade on Gaza “amounting to collective punishment” carried out as part of a “systematic policy of progressive isolation and deprivation of the Gaza Strip”.

Stephen Zunes, professor of politics and international studies at the University of San Francisco, told IPS the Obama administration and Congressional leaders of both parties appear to be continuing the policy of the administration of former U.S. President George W. Bush in ignoring and denouncing those who have the temerity to report violations of international humanitarian law by the United States or its allies.

“They are particularly concerned about the matter going before the International Criminal Court where those Palestinians and Israelis guilty of war crimes might actually face justice,” he said.

The Obama administration appears determined that such war criminals be granted impunity, said Zunes, who is also chair of the Middle Eastern Studies Programme, and who has written extensively on the Security Council.

He said that although U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice had argued just a few months earlier during a U.N. debate on Darfur, Sudan that war crimes charges should never be sacrificed for political reasons, she is now claiming that similar action on the Gaza conflict could be an impediment to the peace process.

“It’s ironic that the Obama administration is insisting that the issue stay confined to the U.N.’s Human Rights Council, which they have repeatedly labeled as anti-Israel,” Zunes said.

U.S. officials recognise, however, that if the matter is taken to the Security Council, as the Goldstone Commission recommended, it would place debate on violations of international humanitarian law by a key U.S. ally before a body that, unlike the Human Rights Council, has an enforcement mechanism.

“It would also allow far greater media exposure of Israeli war crimes, the bulk of which were implemented using U.S. weapons systems and ordnance,” he noted.

Yvonne Terlingen, Amnesty International representative at the United Nations, called for the prompt establishment of an independent committee of experts in international humanitarian law and human rights law to monitor and report.

Such a report, she said, should be within a strict time frame, to the Security Council and other U.N. bodies, on domestic legal and other measures taken by Israel and the authorities in Gaza to address accountability for violations of international humanitarian and human rights law during the Gaza conflict.

Last week, the Human Rights Council, prompted by the Palestinians, decided to defer a draft resolution that would have endorsed the recommendations in the Goldstone report.

That proposed draft resolution was expected to be taken up during the Council’s next session in March 2010.

But the deferment created such a political uproar that it forced the Palestinians to do a dramatic turnaround: to support a meeting of the Security Council Wednesday and also a special session of the Human Rights Council on Thursday to discuss the Goldstone report.

Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch, said the failure of the U.S. and European states to endorse the Goldstone report at the Human Rights Council meeting in Geneva “sent a terrible message that serious laws-of-war violations by allied states would be tolerated”.

Addressing the Security Council Wednesday, U.S. Ambassador Alejandro Wolff made a predictable statement that the United States continues to “have serious concerns about the [Goldstone] report, its unbalanced focus on Israel, the overly broad scope of its recommendations, and its sweeping conclusions of law.”

Nevertheless, he said, “We take the allegations in the report seriously.”

“Israel has the institutions and the ability to carry out serious investigations of these allegations and we encourage it to do so,” Wolff said.

He also said that Hamas “is a terrorist organisation and has neither the ability nor the willingness to examine its violations of human rights”.

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