- 1 mrt 2012
Hearing on Israel Bonds Lawsuit March 5, 2012
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZiLHKWuELc
On March 5, 2012, at 2:30 p.m., at the Ramsey County Courthouse, 15 W. Kellogg Ave., Room 1440, St. Paul, Judge Margaret Marrinan will hear arguments in a lawsuit filed by four public interest organizations and twenty-three individuals led by the Minnesota Break the Bonds Campaign (MN BBC) against the State Board of Investment (SBI). The lawsuit aims to stop Minnesota's investment in Israel's human rights and international law violations.
MN BBC, along with the 26 other co-plaintiffs, served the lawsuit on the SBI in November. The lawsuit alleges that the Board's investments in Israel Bonds violate Minnesota laws that restrict the SBI's investments in government bonds to US and Canadian bonds only and violate the SBI's fiduciary duty to invest state retirement monies prudently and lawfully. The lawsuit alleges that the SBI is violating its fiduciary obligations by investing millions of dollars in Israel Bonds with the knowledge that the money Israel earns from the sale of its sovereign bonds funds Israel's universally condemned illegal settlement activities in the Occupied Palestinian Territories and other human rights violations.
A complete copy of the Complaint and various legal briefs filed in the case can be found here.
The Complaint shines light on the many different faces of Israeli oppression through the stories of the co-plaintiffs. For example, the residents of the Village of Bil'in in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, who have non-violently protested against Israel's illegal settlement activities, have suffered expropriation of their farmland, military detention, injury and even death. Another co-plaintiff, a local retired nurse who is a beneficiary of an SBI-managed retirement plan, was arrested and deported from Israel to prevent her from participating in a fact-finding delegation.
Members of the Jewish-Israeli group Boycott from Within face prosecution under Israeli law for exercising their right of free speech in advocating for a boycott against Israel until Israel complies with International law, similar to the actions that helped end South African apartheid. Several other Minnesotan co-plaintiffs with ties to Palestine have suffered from racist laws and policies in the Israeli legal system.
The court hearing on March 5 is open to the public and media.
http://fwd4.me/0vdX
Lieberman: No withdrawal from Jordan Valley
NAZARETH, (PIC)-- The Israeli foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman has affirmed that his government would never relinquish control on the Jordan Valley.
Lieberman said, during a tour of the Jordan Valley and the Dead Sea in the company of ministers of his party Yisrael Beiteinu, that the Israeli presence there was “vital” to ensure Israel’s security especially in light of recent changes in the Arab world.
He also rejected the deployment of international forces in the area in light of the regional developments.
The minister described the Jordan Valley as the key to Tel Aviv’s security and one of the most important defense lines in face of any threat.
http://fwd4.me/0vbs 3 mar 2012, 11:51 , Respect -
Maria 2 mrt 2012
Classic Ron Paul - Truth & Sanity
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLX_6rgvbEU
With all of the traitors in the US Congress, it is hard to believe that a man of such honour exists within it. Ron Paul is the strongest voice for truth and sanity in America, he gives Americans a genuine reason to feel pride. Credit to the Ron Paul supporters who made this video, well done indeed. TJP
Occupy AIPAC to Protest Netanyahu’s US Visit
WASHINGTON, (WAFA) - Occupy AIPAC, which calls for a new American foreign policy in the Middle East, Thursday kicked off a week of actions to protest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to the Unites States and his push for war on Iran, according to a statement issued by the group.
Occupy AIPAC kicked off the actions in New York City when a member disrupted US President Barack Obama by shouting: “Use your leadership; no war on Iran.”
Obama replied, “No one’s announced a war, young lady. You’re jumping the gun a bit there.”
Iran will be a key topic of discussion when Obama meets with Netanyahu and when both leaders address the America Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) conference.
Occupy AIPAC will urge Obama to reject the Israeli push for war on Iran and insist on respect for Palestinian rights.
Events and protests will also draw attention to the role of AIPAC, the most powerful pro-Israel lobby group in Washington, in influencing US policy through its stranglehold over Congress.
“After 10 years of war, the American people need a foreign policy that focuses on diplomacy, but AIPAC takes us down the dangerous path of war with Iran,” Occupy AIPAC organizer Medea Benjamin said.
“We are gathering to demand that our leaders break with AIPAC’s disastrous path of attacking Iran, as well as supporting Israel’s human rights violations and illegal settlements in the West Bank,” said Benjamin.
http://english.wafa.ps/index.php?action=detail&id=19168
Israeli officials: Starve Iranians to stop nukes
West should adopt North Korean model vis-à-vis Tehran, hunger in Iran could prompt regime to 'consider whether nuclear adventure is worthwhile', Jerusalem official says.
Iran's citizens should be starved in order to curb Tehran's nuclear program, officials in Jerusalem said Wednesday ahead of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's upcoming trip to Washington.
"North Korea is halting its nuclear program in order to receive aid in food, and this is what should be done with Iran as well," one unnamed official said.
"Suffocating sanctions could lead to a grave economic situation in Iran and to a shortage of food," the source said. "This would force the regime to consider whether the nuclear adventure is worthwhile, while the Persian people have nothing to eat and may rise up as was the case in Syria, Tunisia and other Arab states."
"The Western world led by the United States must implement stifling sanctions at this time already, rather than wait or hesitate," the official said. "In order to suffocate Iran economically and diplomatically and lead the regime there to a hopeless situation, this must be done now, without delay."
'Iran has hidden capabilities'
Earlier Wednesday, North Korea said that it has agreed to suspend uranium enrichment and adopt a moratorium on nuclear and long-range missile tests.
US State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said Wednesday the North has also agreed to allow International Atomic Energy inspectors to verify and monitor the moratorium on uranium enrichment and confirm disablement of its nuclear reactor at Yongbyon.
On Tuesday, Iranian Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi said the Islamic Republic has yet to reveal all of its military capabilities, the semi-official Fars news agency reported.
"The Islamic Republic of Iran has many hidden capabilities which are kept for rainy days," Vahidi said, adding, "We have not yet revealed all our capabilities."
Addressing Israeli strike threats, the Iranian minister said Washington objects to statements on an Iran strike as the US is aware of Iran's power and realizes that anyone who becomes embroiled in a conflict with Tehran will be defeated.
http://fwd4.me/0vfn
The Israeli regime to test-fire advanced anti-missile system
Israel’s Arrow missile system
Israel will test-fire for the first time an advanced anti-missile system developed in cooperation with the United States to bring down ballistic missiles in space.
"The first test of the advanced Arrow 3 weapon system will be performed in the near future, confirming the interceptor missile's effectiveness," Itzhak Kaya, Head of Arrow Missile Program in Israel Aerospace Industries, announced in a statement on Thursday.
According to Kaya, Arrow 3 which is the improved model of the Arrow missile system upgraded by "Green Pine" radar system, “is more capable than ever to deal with future threats.”
“The preliminary test of the system which was conducted a few weeks ago was successful. The Arrow weapon system demonstrated improved identification of attacking missiles, ensuring successful target interception with high levels of certainty,” he said.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, an Israeli official said that during the test, a missile will be fired into space from Palmachim base south of Tel Aviv. The test will be conducted after Monday's meeting between US President Barak Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House.
The official confirmed that the test is aimed at limiting the risk of confrontation with Iran.
Israeli officials have recently ramped up their war rhetoric, threatening Iran with military strikes.
The United States, Israel and some of their allies accuse Tehran of pursuing military objectives in its nuclear energy program, using this pretext to impose sanctions against Iran and threaten the country with military attacks.
Iranian Defense Minister Brigadier General Ahmad Vahidi says Iran will teach Israel a good lesson if the entity tries to attack the Islamic Republic.
“The enemy must answer this question, if it attacks Iran, for how long a battle and losing how many of its warships and vessels has it prepared itself?”
“Why is the Zionist regime making threats (against Iran)? How many missiles have they prepared themselves for? 10,000? 20,000? 50,000? 100,000? 150,000 or more?" the Iranian defense minister has asked.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/229531.html 5 mar 2012, 13:00 , Respect -
Maria 5 mrt 2012
Israel calls for resignation of Syria's Assad: Report
Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Moshe Ya’alon has reportedly called for the resignation of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
According to Monday reports by Israeli media, Ya’alon said there was no doubt that Assad must step down.
The Israeli call for the resignation of the Syrian president comes as the United States and a number of other Western countries including the UK and France and countries such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey have supported measures against the Damascus government.
On February 4, the United Nations Security Council met to vote on a Western-backed draft resolution that supported an Arab League plan for the unrest in Syria. The draft initially called on Assad to resign and transfer power to a deputy.
However, Russia and China vetoed the draft resolution and rejected it as “unbalanced.”
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said Sunday that Ankara supports supplying arms to rebels in Syria fighting against the Assad government.
Saudi Arabia and Qatar have also voiced support for the rebels in Syria.
Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim Al Thani said on February 27 that the “international community” should provide arms to the Syrian rebels and that “Arab countries should take the lead in providing a safe haven for rebels inside Syria.”
The remarks by Ya’alon come as the Israeli foreign ministry spokesman claimed on Sunday that Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has ordered the head of the ministry’s international organizations branch to “offer the International Red Cross humanitarian aid to Syria.”
Syria has been experiencing unrest since mid-March 2011, with demonstrations being held both against and in favor of the Damascus government. Syrians have repeatedly expressed support for the president over the past weeks.
President Assad has endorsed a newly drafted constitution that was put to vote in a February 26 referendum and won the overwhelming support of Syrian voters.
The Syrian president said on February 20 that “some foreign countries” are fueling the year-long turmoil in Syria by supporting and funding “armed terrorist groups fighting against the government.”
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/230076.html
US event to polish Israel's face turns into protest against it
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (PIC)-- An Israeli student symposium was organized recently in a US university to improve Israel's tarnished image suddenly turned into a rally in support of the Palestinian people and the besieged Gaza Strip.
According to Jerusalem Post newspaper on Monday, a group of Jewish students dubbing itself as "stand with us" from Davis university in California invited two Zionist figures, an Israeli soldier and a Druze woman, to give speeches in support of Israel and its policies, but both of them were interrupted by the audience and more than 40 attendees started to leave the hall.
More than half of the audience chanted slogans against Israel and some of them waved Palestinian flags. Questions like "How many women have you raped?" and "How many children have you killed?" were loudly heard denoting Israel's crimes against the Palestinians.
The protestors also demanded an end to Gaza siege and to prosecute Israel's war criminals. The chants lasted for about 15 minutes.
The organizers of the symposium called in the police to stop these chants, but they refused to quell the protestors and decided to terminate the event.
http://fwd4.me/0vr8
"Why Don't We Dialogue?" SJP-UCLA's IDF Walkout
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWLk7vm2Zkk
On Tuesday, February 28th, 2012, SJP at UCLA organized a Gaza memorial as part of its annual Palestine Awareness Week. In response, Bruins for Israel and StandWithUs invited IDF soldiers to campus to present a whitewashed version of the IDF's actions in Operation Cast Lead, the 2008-2009 assault on the Gaza Strip which resulted in over 1,400 casualties and, to date, no accountability for documented war crimes and possible crimes against humanity.
SJP at UCLA and several campus allies organized a walkout in protest of the continuing lack of justice for the victims of the IDF during Cast Lead. Because it is not held to account for its violations of international law and human rights, the IDF is not welcome at UCLA.
We chose not to include footage of the man shouting at us, "You all look like terrorists!"
When all else fails, pull out the holocaust deniel card
Such campaigns won’t intimidate me. I will continue to stand up for the rights of Palestinians and I will continue to put my art at their service.
Nothing new under the sun – More lies spread by the #Israel lobby Inc.
By Carlos Latuff
In recent days, pro-Israel blogs have been published articles accusing me (guess what) of being a Holocaust denier. This happened because in 2006 I participated in the Holocaust Cartoon Contest that had been set up by the House of Cartoon in Tehran. This contest was a response to the Prophet Mohammed cartoons that had been published by the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten and was intended to test the Western limits of the freedom of speech. This new smear campaign was launched by Zionist bloggers due to some cartoons I had made for the activist group Code Pink for use in the Occupy AIPAC protests. It was intended to pressure the group into not using the artworks which were made by me, a so-called “Holocaust denier”.
They say, among other things, that I am a Holocaust denier, but fail to prove their point. In the article, reproduced ad nauseam by them, there is not one article, opinion or cartoon made by me where I deny the existence of the Nazi Holocaust. It’s because I have never made such cartoons. These bloggers are trying to apply the old “a lie repeated many times over becomes a truth” tactic.
Regarding the Holocaust Cartoon Contest, here are the three cartoons I submitted:
In the first two cartoons, I deal with the red lines of Western freedom of speech. Drawing derogative cartoons about Islam or the Prophet Mohammed is seen as freedom of speech, the same can’t be appplied when dealing with the Holocaust.
*
The third cartoon shows a Palestinian wearing a Nazi concentration camp uniform, surrounded by an Israeli “security fence”. Actually it has nothing to do with denial. On the contrary, this cartoon affirms the existence of the Holocaust and compares the treatment given to Palestinians by Israel with the treatment given to the Jews by Nazi Germany. I challenge anyone anywhere to show me a single cartoon, article or opinion by me that denies the Holocaust.
With this one I won 2nd place in the contest:
*
This incident is, in fact, another chapter in a long term campaign against me by the same groups and individuals siding with Israel and its criminal policies. They know the effectiveness of political cartooning in exposing Israel’s human rights violations against Palestinians. Since they can’t censor all the progressive blogs, websites, and social platforms, which reproduce my artworks freely, they try hard to attach labels such as “anti-Semite” and “Holocaust denier” in order to discredit and attempt to criminalize my views in the public eye.
*
Such campaigns won’t intimidate me. I will continue to stand up for the rights of Palestinians and I will continue to put my art at their service.
http://fwd4.me/0vqB
Palestinian Oppression: Official Israeli Policy
by Stephen Lendman
Born in blood, Israel's been drenched in it since. Its agenda reflects racist state terror ruthlessness.
"Can you hear the sound of injustice," asked Palestine Solidarity Campaign's Alexei Sayle, saying:
"To me the behavior of Israel and the uncritical support it gets from western governments is like" a destructive force harming bodily organs.
Its sound resonates "24 hours a day and poisons the whole world with its malignance." Palestinians bear the burden, besieged Gazans and thousands of political prisoners most of all. More below.
"Let's make 2012 the year that injustice ends," says Sayle. The world can't wait nor should it. Injustice to anyone harms everyone.
For Palestinians, it's a way of life. Daily oppression terrorizes them. The Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) publishes weekly reports documenting it.
Its latest March 1 one said dozens of Israeli security forces "attempt(ed to storm) the al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem while Palestinian worshippers were inside" praying.
Systematic terror attacks occur regularly. They include bombing and shelling Gaza, killing civilians, middle-of-the-night neighborhood incursions, attacking peaceful protesters, and daily arrests.
Thousands of political prisoners reflect them. Many resist heroically. Hunger striking is their weapon of choice. Khader Adnan preferred death to unjust detention. Hana Shalabi joined his struggle for justice.
On March 4, the Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association twittered: "Hana Shalabi enters day 18 of hunger strike as military judge prepares meeting to decide on confirming her administration detention."
On March 2, she expressed determination to refuse food to highlight Israeli injustice against all Palestinian prisoners, especially those held uncharged under administrative detention.
On March 1, Palestinian Prisoner Society (PPS) lawyer Fawwaz Ash-Shalloudy visited her. She explained her horrific ordeal, including extreme prison harshness to break her spirit and force her to ingest food.
She refuses. She's determined to persist. She wants her message delivered and heard. Her health's deteriorating as a result. Justice takes precedence.
On March 3, she extended greetings ahead of International Women's Day. On March 8, it's commemorated annually. Observed for over a century, global gender equality and peace advocacy rallies are held. They also stress ending violence and injustice against women and girls everywhere.
Shalabi told Palestinian Prisoner Society lawyer Sherine Iraqi she's hunger striking against Palestinian injustice and for all struggling women everywhere. She won't compromise her rights or dignity.
She'll persist until freed, adding Israel has "gone too far in humiliating and enslaving Palestinians in addition to practicing various types of insults and torture."
Released in last year's Shalit prisoner swap, she said re-arresting her reflects revenge and Israel's "racist policy that knows no mercy." She called allegations against her fabrications. She also saluted Palestinian women ahead of International Women's Day, saying they'll "always be the spearhead of resistance against the occupiers."
She's right. Despite decades of exceptional suffering, they display remarkable courage and endurance. Living under daily stress in poverty, their homes destroyed, lands razed or expropriated, children sick, husbands and family members imprisoned or killed, they plant seeds of hope, fulfill their social role, participate politically, and resist.
Since 1948, they've been denied basic human rights, security, free expression, movement, a safe and healthy environment, and education. They became refugees in their own land and abroad. They bear burdens beyond what most women can bear.
They struggle daily to endure, survive, and be spouses, mothers, caregivers, fighters, nurses, workers, and teachers.
One mother spoke for others, saying she "sleeps with her eyes wide open, and lives with her heart broken, expecting grief to be renewed at any moment." Few in Western societies can imagine what they and all Palestinians endure daily.
Khader Adnan and Hana reflect their spirit, no matter the personal cost.
On March 3, the Israeli Prison Administration prevented a medical team from visiting Hana. It includes Palestinians and international healthcare professionals.
They said they wanted to see her after Israeli authorities refused to have her examined or hospitalized if her deteriorated health worsens. Her father Yahya said she's lost considerable weight, is weak, and can barely stand.
The team holds Israel directly responsible for her welfare. It urged ICRC medical specialists to examine her.
This week, an Israeli military court will decide her fate. In private session, Hana's lawyers are excluded. At issue is administratively detaining her indefinitely uncharged. Palestinian Prisoner Society lawyer Jawad Boulos demanded Hana's immediate release.
He refuted allegations about planned "attacks against military targets." Prosecutors claim secret evidence shows it. "Secret evidence" is code language for none whatever. Verifiable evidence is freely presented. Thousands of Palestinians language in Israel's gulag based on nothing but baseless allegations. Though innocent, they endure horrific unjust treatment.
Solidarity Protests
On March 2, after Friday prayers, dozens of Palestinians marched in solidarity with Hana, Khader Adnan, and other Palestinian prisoners. Near Hana's Borqeen village, they held Palestinian flags, placards, and banners calling for their release.
Their march ended at Hana's home. Her elderly parents began hunger striking in solidarity. They're doing it publicly in a protest tent. Her father Yahya said they'll continue until she's freed. National/Islamic Factions representative Rajeh Qablawi said her example and "determination exposes the true and cruel face of the Israeli occupation, aggression and injustice."
The Al Mezan Center for Human Rights condemned Hana's detention. They hold indifferent world leaders responsible for what happens. They called for international solidarity campaigns to free her.
They paid "tribute to Palestinian prisoners' struggle against injustice and violation of human rights, and for freedom and dignity." They condemned Israel's abusive treatment. They said her case and others like it reflect Israel's denial of fundamental human rights.
They also expressed concern for Hana's life, safety and well-being. They urged international pressure to highlight what thousands of Palestinian prisoners endure. Hana's struggling against decades of Israeli injustice throughout Occupied Palestine. Her struggle is ours. We're all Hana Shalabi.
A Final Comment
On March 2, Amnesty International (AI) demanded Israel release Bassem Tamimi, saying:
"Palestinian human rights defender (Tamimi) is a prisoner of conscience, detained solely for his role in organizing peaceful protests against the encroachment onto Palestinian lands by Israeli settlers, and should be released immediately and unconditionally."
On March 24, 2011, he was lawlessly arrested and charged with "incitement and support of a hostile organization, organizing and participating in unauthorized processions, incitement to throwing objects against a person or property," and other alleged offenses.
Currently in Ofer prison, his trial continues. He repeatedly affirms nonviolent principles in resisting repression. On November 16, 2011 in court, he said:
“International law guarantees the right of occupied people to resist Occupation. In practicing my right, I have called for and organized peaceful popular demonstrations against the Occupation, settler attacks and the theft of more than half of the land of my village… I organized these peaceful demonstrations in order to defend our land and our people…."
"The military prosecutor accuses me of inciting the protesters to throw stones at the soldiers. This is not true. What incites protesters to throw stones is the sound of bullets, the Occupation’s bulldozers as they destroy the land, the smell of teargas and the smoke coming from burnt houses. I did not incite anyone to throw stones, but I am not responsible for the security of your soldiers who invade my village and attack my people with all the weapons of death and the equipment of terror.”
Beginning in December 2009, Tamimi organized weekly nonviolent protests against Israeli land theft and dispossessions in al-Nabi Saleh village near Ramallah. Israeli security forces confronted them violently.
On December 10, 2011, Mustafa Tamimi died from a high-velocity tear gas grenade fired directly at his head at close range. It was deliberate, cold-blooded murder.
On February 19, 2012, Bassem said:
“International law gives us the right to peaceful protest, to demonstrate our refusal of the policies that hurt us, our daily life and the future of our children… I do not know and do not care if they [the settlements] are permitted by your law, as it was enacted by an authority I do not recognize…True justice would not have me stand here before this court at all, let alone while I am imprisoned and shackled. This case is baseless and made up with the sole goal of putting me behind bars.”
In 1993, AI documented his torture in detention. As a result, he suffered a subdural hematoma and lay unconscious for six days during which he underwent life-saving surgery.
On December 6, 1993, he was released uncharged. His ordeal now continues. Support him, Hana, Khader, and thousands of others like them. Demand appalling Israeli injustice end and those responsible held accountable.
International law requires it, and that victims be justly compensated. Like America, Israel arrogantly refuses. It keeps inflicting horrific human rights violations. Justice is dismissively denied. For decades, Palestinians have suffered. Their liberating struggle continues.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen [at] sbcglobal.net.
Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.
http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.
http://sjlendman.blogspot.com
http://fwd4.me/0vpX 6 mar 2012, 19:17 , Respect -
Maria 6 mrt 2012
Palestinian defends Israel on South Africa campus
BETHLEHEM (Ma'an) -- Israel has sent a delegation of 100 students to represent it in the annual Apartheid Week in South Africa, an Israeli newspaper reported Tuesday.
The report in Maariv noted one unusual participant in this year's delegation -- a 25-year-old Muslim Bushra Khalilieh, a member of Israel's Arab minority in the Galilee.
The newspaper said Khalilieh was attending university in one of South Africa’s university campuses. Khalilieh, who wears a hijab, came to Israel's defense during activities on campus.
"We toured Johannesburg and Cape Town’s campuses and met local students," she said.
"We spoke with them about Israel and I told them about my personal issue as an Arab girl living in Israel. I feel Israel to be my hometown where there’s equality and I have all my rights.”
"When students hear us, they are surprised as there are some who do not even know there are Arabs living in Israel. I, as an Arab Israeli girl, love my country and believe that it seeks peace and respects all its citizens.”
Khalilieh, a masters student at Tel Aviv University, stressed that she represents herself and not the position of the Israeli government.
“I represent myself as a Muslim Arab who lives in Israel as a liberal and free girl unlike other Arab girls who live in Arab countries and do not have the human rights I have like freedom of expression and dignity.”
She added: "There are people who are calling to boycott us and say that there is apartheid in Israel, but I try to show Israel as a country that’s different from what they think."
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=465818
Israeli apartheid week kicks off in South Africa
CAPE TOWN, (PIC)-- The cultural week against the Israeli apartheid regime in occupied Palestine were launched in more than 13 South African cities in the context of global activities and events taking place in about 90 cities around the world.
These events include university seminars, lectures, documentaries movies, photo galleries and many other activities on the apartheid system pursued by Israel.
Many prominent international and local figures and Palestinians are participating in these anti-apartheid events throughout South Africa.
In a joint press release the Muslim Judicial Council and Al Quds Foundation announced their support for the Israeli Apartheid Week(IAW), an initiative of international education institutes who in conjunction with the call by the Palestinian Students’ Campaign has raised awareness for an Academic Boycott of Israel (PSCABI) and a BDS Campaign in Gaza. Since it was first launched in 2005, IAW has grown to become one of the most important global events in the Palestine solidarity calendar.
It includes lectures, film screenings, round- table discussions and workshops in response to the call of Palestinian civil society for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel.
The Muslim Judicial Council and the Al Quds Foundation will contribute towards the awareness campaign of the Israeli Apartheid policies by hosting one of the prisoners Dr Abdul Aziz
Umar, who was released last year as part of the prisoner exchange deal.
Dr Umar’s visit forms part of the Israeli Apartheid Week [IAW] that aims to raise awareness through educational campaigns about Israel's apartheid policies toward Palestinians and to gather support for the international boycott, divestment, and sanctions campaign, which was launched in 2005 by over 170 Palestinian civil society organisations.
Dr Umar will provide South African’s with the insight of how the Israeli Apartheid machine operates in prisons and will also raise an awareness of the similarities of treatment and torture endured by our liberation fighters in South African prisons during the Apartheid era.
During a visit to the Holy Land, Archbishop Desmond Tutu said in an interview to The Guardian “I’ve been very deeply distressed in my visit to the Holy Land; it reminded me so much of what happened to us black people in South Africa. […]”
http://fwd4.me/0vww
[b]Israelis perceive few bluffs in Netanyahu Iran speech[/b]
By Crispian Balmer
JERUSALEM (Reuters) -- Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's uncompromising speech to a pro-Israel lobby in Washington has persuaded the public back home that war with Iran is increasingly possible.
Netanyahu evoked the horrors of the Holocaust, quoting a 1944 letter where the United States rejected a request by Jewish leaders to bomb the Nazi death camp, Auschwitz. His message was clear: Israel cannot rely on others to defend its people.
"As prime minister of Israel, I will never let my people live in the shadow of annihilation," he told the influential pro-Israel lobby AIPAC on Monday after meeting US President Barak Obama. "We have waited for diplomacy to work, we have waited for sanctions to work. We cannot afford to wait much longer."
The words resonated in Israel, with analysts, commentators and former military officers seeing a distinct sharpening of tone towards Tehran, which itself has called for the destruction of the state of Israel.
"The pistol isn't only loaded, but the safety catch has been released," Uzi Dayan, a former general and national security adviser, told Israel Radio.
Israel is adamant it will not let Iran build an atomic bomb and has been pushing Washington to pile pressure on Tehran to force it to abandon its nuclear program. Israel is believed to be the only nuclear power in the region.
Iran says its program is for civilian purposes, but few in the West believe this, with the European Union and United States applying increasingly severe economic sanctions to force Tehran to halt its uranium enrichment drive and return to talks.
Israeli experts, including Dayan, say sanctions will only work if there is a credible military threat behind them. This has led skeptics to believe that the accompanying rhetoric is just for show, but the language has reached such a peak that Netanyahu will lose all credibility at home if it proves to be hot air. "Netanyahu sounds like a man whose mind is made up," editorialist David Horovitz wrote on his TimesOfIsrael website.
Different language
The US president has appealed for sanctions to be given more time and although Washington agrees with Israel that it is unacceptable for Iran to get a nuclear weapon, the terminology used by Obama and Netanyahu this week was different.
While Obama talked of preventing Iran from "obtaining" a bomb, Netanyahu spoke about preventing it from "developing" one.
Officials say this means Israel wants to see Iran deprived of the various jigsaw pieces needed when manufacturing a bomb. Washington, by contrast, would only move if it saw Tehran actively trying to put the pieces together.
"We want Iran to be stripped of the capability, to drop the military nuclear program altogether," said one Israeli security official, who declined to be named.
The Israeli position flows from the so-called "Begin Doctrine", enshrined by former Prime Minister Menachem Begin in 1981 after his airforce destroyed an Iraqi reactor that Israel believed would produce plutonium for warheads.
The raid, he said at the time, was proof his country would "under no circumstances allow the enemy to develop weapons of mass-destruction against our people".
Monday's speech represented Netanyahu's clearest endorsement of this doctrine since taking office in 2009, but critics said he still had to convince a skeptical public of the need for war.
"Today's Israel does not subscribe to this," said Uri Dromi, a spokesman for former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, adding that the war of words from both Israel and Iran reminded him of the build up to World War One, when Europe stumbled into mayhem.
"He is preparing us for war, but I am not sure we are ready for it. It is not a smart game. It is a gamble," he said.
An opinion poll published last week said just 19 percent of Israelis thought their nation should attack Iran, even if they did not first get the support of Washington.
Many Israelis fret the country is not prepared for conflict, with analysts predicting it could be hit with a barrage of missiles from Iran and its allies, such as Hizbollah in Lebanon.
Curiously, just hours after Netanyahu spoke, Israel's Civil Defense Minister Matan Vilnai issued a message via SMS.
"Israel has the operational capability of intercepting missiles coming at it from any place on earth... Today every citizen knows the requirement to be prepared for any emergency situation in the best possible way."
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=465733
Netanyahu's gift to Obama: tale of a Persian plot
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu handed President Barack Obama a gift on Monday that spoke volumes about Israel's tensions with Iran -- an ancient Hebrew tome about a Persian plot to annihilate Jews.
It's called the Scroll of Esther, a tale of palace intrigue featuring a Jewish beauty who charms a Persian king into foiling an evil adviser's genocidal plans for her people some 2,500 years ago.
"Then too, they wanted to wipe us out," Netanyahu told Obama, according to an Israeli official.
Jewish faithful gather in synagogues on Wednesday to read the parchment text, popularly known as the Megillah, on the eve of the Jewish costume holiday of Purim, a celebration of salvation and of turning the tables on one's foes.
"And the Jews smote all their enemies with the stroke of the sword, and with slaughter and destruction, and did what they would unto them that hated them," one of the verses says.
Netanyahu, who has called Iran's nuclear program a threat to the Jewish state's existence, made a point of telling reporters after his White House meeting with the president that he had given the Megillah to Obama.
The Israeli leader, in a frosty meeting with Obama last May, lectured the president on Jewish history and criticized his approach to resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Netanyahu has also invoked the lessons of the Nazi Holocaust, in which six million Jews were killed, in citing the dangers he says a nuclear-armed Iran -- the modern-day Persia -- would pose.
Obama appealed to Netanyahu at their White House meeting to give economic sanctions time to work, amid concern that Israel, widely believed to be the Middle East's only nuclear power, could strike Iranian atomic sites.
Iran says it is enriching uranium for peaceful purposes.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=465645 9 mar 2012, 08:23 , Respect -
Maria 9 mrt 2012
Vigil @ Israeli Embassy, to inform all of Israels current Massacres upon GAZANS
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8ht3r4DffM
Human right supporters hold a vigil outside the Israeli Embassy London, as Israel continues to massacre Gazans. March 10th 2012.
Israeli expert forced to cancel his lecture in Jordan
The University of Jordan, Amman campus
An Israeli expert’s lecture at a Jordanian university has been cancelled after hundreds of outraged Jordanian students protested his participation in a conference.
Hundreds of Jordanian students demonstrated outside the University of Jordan in Amman on Thursday to protest a scheduled lecture by an Israeli expert at a mental health conference.
The protesters demanded that Dr. Gideon Anholt's lecture be canceled and called on authorities to expel the Israeli ambassador to Jordan from the country.
Anholt's lecture at Ben-Gurion University in Israel on the same day was also cancelled, Jordanian university officials said.
"The protesters handed out fliers expressing outrage over the participation of Israeli occupiers in a Jordan conference. As things heated up security officers eventually had to take us out of the back door," said Anholt in an interview after returning to Israel.
"It was stressful. Leaving out the back is unpleasant," he added.
University of Jordan officials tried to distance themselves from the issue by claiming that they did not know an Israeli expert had been invited to the conference.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/230703.html 11 mar 2012, 11:15 , Respect -
Maria 11 mrt 2012
Activists hold anti-Israel demonstration in Ankara
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcIscQhqN18
Turkish activists have held a demonstration in the capital Ankara to condemn recent Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip, Press TV reports.
The Sunday demonstration was organized by the Turkish Organization of Human Rights and Solidarity for Oppressed People (Mazlumder) in front of a residential building belonging to the Israeli Embassy in Ankara.
Eighteen Palestinians, including a 12-year-old child, have been killed in Israeli airstrikes on the besieged Gaza Strip since Friday.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday the Tel Aviv regime will continue airstrikes against Gaza “as long as necessary.”
Turkish protesters in Ankara called on the international community not to remain silent in the face of Israeli aggression against Palestinians.
The activists also issued a statement during the demonstration and urged Israel to end “the massacre” of the Palestinians and its “unacceptable and inhumane” policies towards Gaza.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/231122.html
Israel attacks Gaza to test waters in Egypt: Analyst
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SB987nRoVME
The Israeli regime has conducted its recent wave of military attacks against the Gaza Strip partly in an attempt to gauge the reaction of post-revolution Egypt, a political analyst tells Press TV.
“I believe the Israelis are mainly testing waters. They are going with an airstrike on Gaza and they want to see the reaction mainly from the Arabs and from Egypt specifically,” said Bashar Zeedan, a Palestinian activist and journalist.
“They do not have a green card like in the days of [former Egyptian dictator Hosni] Mubarak and they want to see how far they can go,” he pointed out.
Since Egypt’s revolution in January 2011, which led to the ouster of Mubarak, anti-US and Israeli sentiments have intensified.
Egypt was the first Arab country to sign a peace treaty with Tel Aviv in 1979, but the situation has drastically changed since Egypt’s February 2011 revolution.
Zeedan also noted that Tel Aviv goes ahead with its airstrikes on the Gaza Strip in an attempt “to get those Palestinians to some sort of desperation level because the Gaza strip ironically is the only Palestinian land that was liberated by resistance.”
Over the past two days, the Tel Aviv regime has intensified its attacks on the Gaza Strip, killing at least 16 Palestinians and wounding 30 more.
Israeli Minister of Military Affairs Ehud Barak reiterated that Israeli troops will continue their attacks on the coastal strip.
The Israeli military frequently bombs the Gaza Strip, claiming the attacks are carried out as defensive measures.
However, disproportionate force is always employed by the Israeli regime against the impoverished Palestinian population in violation of the international law, as civilians are often indiscriminately killed or injured.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/231095.html
In wake of violence, Israel Police postpone right-wing rally outside home of Arab MK
Decision made due to escalation in Israel's south; extreme right-wing activist Baruch Marzel was expected to be among rally leaders.
A right-wing rally planned for today in front of the Nazareth home of Arab Knesset member Hanin Zuabi (Balad) will be postponed, Israel Police Commissioner Yohanan Danino announced on Saturday. The police chief took the step in light of the escalation in the security situation in the south and an increased police state of alert throughout the country.
Counter-demonstrators had planned to show up at the rally, and police expected to deploy 1,200 policemen at Zuabi's home to maintain order. A new date for the rally will be scheduled in coordination with the police and the right-wingers themselves.
Zuabi sparked particularly heated controversy in 2010 by sailing as a passenger on board the Mavi Marmara, one of the ships in a Turkish flotilla that was seeking to break the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip. Nine of the Mavi Marmara's passengers were killed in a confrontation with the Israel Navy.
Extreme right-wing activist Baruch Marzel was expected to be among those leading the rally at Zuabi's home. "Marzel doesn't intend to come alone," Zuabi told Haaretz on Saturday. She said he represents an "entire political culture that relates to the Palestinian as an enemy or foreigner." She said a message is being sent to the Israeli establishment, the right wing, and what she called the "silent left wing" that "full national and civic equality is the interest of all of us."
The Follow-Up Committee for the Arabs in Israel called on members of the Israeli Arab community to come out in strength to face what it called "members of the radical right." At a conference in Nazareth on Saturday of members of the Arab parties, Baruch Marzel and his colleagues were termed a challenge not only to Zuabi and her Balad party but to all of Israel's Arabs.
http://fwd4.me/0wDD 12 mar 2012, 16:23 , Respect -
Maria 12 mrt 2012
Israel TV celebrity, wife of vice PM demands bombing, "suffering" of Gaza civilians
Judy Nir Mozes Shalom
Israeli talk show personality and socialite wife of Vice Prime Minister Silvan Shalom has called for escalated bombing of Gaza and for the “passive residents” to be made to “suffer.”
Judy Nir Mozes Shalom, wrote on her Facebook page in Hebrew on Saturday:
I hope that at tomorrow’s cabinet meeting a decision will be accepted to enter Gaza and kill all those responsible for the nightmare that is happening in the south.
It’s time even for the passive residents of Gaza to suffer the way the residents of the south are suffering.
Since Friday, Israeli bombing has killed more than 20 people in Gaza and injured dozens more, following an Israeli extrajudicial execution on Friday that set off retaliatory rocket fire by Palestinian armed groups. No Israelis have been. Today, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called on “both sides – all sides – to make every effort to restore calm.”
Nir Mozes Shalom’s Facebook post is followed by dozens of other comments by users, many of which support her violent sentiments.
The celebrity also used her Twitter account to incite bombing and violence against civilians in Gaza, and when some people objected she responded,
@JudyMozes “I forgive those who hate themselves and respond against my tweet to attack Gaza. Keep sunbathing.
Perhaps if Gazans get hurt in their home they will eventually take action against the killers.”
But even that wasn’t enough for some of her followers. Inbal Shalit, for example, responded
@inbalshalit “We don’t need to attack Gaza, we need to spray and destroy Gaza!!!! The sooner the better.”
Shalit did not specify with what substance she wanted Gaza to be “sprayed.”
Judy Nir Mozes Shalom frequently takes part in hasbara efforts, including a recent meeting with a delegation from Zionist campaign group One Voice that included former Seinfeld star Jason Alexander.
http://fwd4.me/0wK5
"Mowing the lawn": On Israel’s latest massacre in Gaza and the lies behind it
A wounded Palestinian child is checked by doctors at a hospital in Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip, on March 11, 2012, following a fresh Israeli air raid, bringing the death toll from strikes since March 10 to 17 and dashing Hamas hopes of restoring a tacit truce.
By Sunday evening in Gaza, a weekend of relentless Israeli bombing has left 18 people dead and dozens wounded. Israeli propaganda insists that the attacks are about preventing “terrorism” and stopping “rockets.”
But in fact, Israel provoked this violence and according to some Israeli commentators its goals are to escalate pressure for war with Iran and to drag Hamas away from diplomacy and back into violence.
Sunday’s victims of the Israeli bombing included Ayoub Useila, 12, of Jabalya refugee camp, whose seven year-old cousin was injured, and Adel al-Issi, 52, a farmer near Gaza City. Others suffered horrifying injuries, as recounted by doctors at Gaza’s al-Shifa hospital.
On Monday, another 5 people were reported killed, and dozens more injured, bringing the reported total of dead to 23.
Israel launches attack on Friday
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gL1qgR3f84I
The Israeli assault began on Friday, when Israeli forces carried out the extrajudicial executions of Zuhair Al-Qaisi and Mahmoud Al-Hannani of the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC), whom Israel alleged were “masterminds” of an attack near Eilat last year.
Except, as Max Blumenthal demonstrated, this is untrue, as even Israel previously acknowledged.
This weekend’s attacks have followed a typical pattern. Israel launches a lethal attack knowing full well that Palestinian resistance factions will respond. It then uses the response—dozens of rockets falling on Israel rarely causing injuries or damage—as the very pretext for continued bombing. Israel also claims to have shot down several dozen incoming missiles using its US-subsidized “Iron Dome” anti-missile system.
On Twitter, the Israeli military spokesperson even praised Israel for its “restraint” as if Israel hadn’t started the violence itself on a completely false pretext:
@IDFSpokesperson IDF #IDF Spox: No other country in the world would have allowed 130 rockets in 48 hours and shown such restraint. #IsraelUnderFire
Recall that after the Eilat attack last August, Israel launched a ferocious assault on Gaza, also on false pretexts, killing 14 people including a 2-year old child, a 13-year-old boy and a doctor.
Extrajudicial murder
Beyond the propaganda, informed Israeli commentators, even those supporting the action, acknowledge that Israel chose to initiate the current escalation of violence:
In the Jerusalem Post, Yaakov Katz wrote:
When the IDF decided on Friday afternoon to assassinate the leader of the Popular Resistance Committees in the Gaza Strip, it knew what it was getting itself into.
Assessments ahead of the decision to bomb the car carrying Zuhair Qaisi predicted that around 100 rockets could be fired into Israel during each day of the round of violence expected to erupt. This was a price the government felt it was capable of paying.
In other words, Israel was prepared to carry out an extrajudicial execution, a war crime, knowing that there would be retaliation. Israel’s routine policy of executing Palestinians in occupied territories without charge or trial, based on flimsy allegations made by the killers themselves, is a major violation of international humanitarian law and makes a mockery of Israel’s claim to be a “democracy” by any possible measure.
Even in China, Iran, and the United States, all prolific users of the death penalty where no doubt many innocent people have been put to death, authorities at least go through the formality of a trial. Not so in Israel, where in the past decade hundreds of Palestinians have been sentenced to death in secret and then executed in their beds, on the street, while riding in cars, or even when confined to wheelchairs, along with hundreds of bystanders.
Of course now, the Obama administration has openly adopted Israeli-style extrajudicial execution even of its own citizens—just another example of the “shared values” US and Israeli leaders are always eager to proclaim.
Israeli commentators cut through the official propaganda
In Haaretz, Gideon Levy undercut the official propaganda, that extrajudicial executions—“targeted killings”—are ever justified, let alone in this instance:
Who started it? The IDF and the Shin Bet security service did. The impression is that they carry out the targeted killings whenever they can, and not whenever it is necessary.
When are they necessary? Do you remember the debate on targeted killings sometime in the distant past? Then, it seemed the targets had to be “ticking time bombs” en route to carry out their attacks. In any event, such a vague standard no longer applies. In 2006, in his last court ruling handed down before his retirement, then Supreme Court President Aharon Barak barred such killings when they were meant to be “a deterrent or punishment.”
The latest target killed was Zuhair al-Qaissi, the secretary general of the Popular Resistance Committees in Gaza. IDF sources said he was responsible for the terrorist attack on the Egyptian border last August - which would make his killing an act of “deterrence or punishment.” But to be on the safe side, it was also noted that he had “led and directed plans to carry out a terror attack within Israel, which was in its final stages of preparation.”
This convoluted announcement by the IDF spokesman was enough to get the Israeli public to accept this latest regular dose of targeted killing with automatic understanding and sympathy. And who knows what the late al-Qaissi had planned? Only the Shin Bet does, so we accept his death sentence without unnecessary questions.
Also in Haaretz, Zvi Bar’el cast further doubt on the Israeli claim that the executed PRC men posed a threat that would justify the Israeli attack:
It is hard to understand what basis there is for the assertion that Israel is not striving to escalate the situation. One could assume that an armed response by the Popular Resistance Committees or Islamic Jihad to Israel’s targeted assassination was taken into account. But did anyone weigh the possibility that the violent reaction could lead to a greater number of Israeli casualties than any terrorist attack that Zuhair al-Qaisi, the secretary-general of the Popular Resistance Committees, could have carried out?
“Mowing the lawn”
Perhaps the most chilling explanation of why Israel was bombing Gaza came, again, from Yaakov Katz in The Jerusalem Post:
the IDF is using this as an opportunity to do some “maintenance work” in Gaza and to mow the lawn, so to speak, with regard to terrorism, with the main goal of boosting its deterrence and postponing the next round of violence for as long as possible.
So 12 year-old Ayoub Useila is not even an animal. He’s just part of a “lawn” of faceless nameless Palestinians, to be bombed into submission as routinely as an Israeli settler on stolen West Bank land maintains his suburban-style yard and swimming pool.
Hamas “completely uninvolved”
Katz continues:
This is essentially the situation in the Gaza Strip since Operation Cast Lead ended in January 2009.
Every few months, something happens, setting off a round of violence that usually lasts a few days until it suddenly ends just like it began. Once it is an antitank missile attack against an Israeli school bus and the next time a targeted killing of a top terrorist.
Either way, the scenario is pretty much played out the same way. The main difference today is that Hamas is completely uninvolved in the sense that its operatives are not firing rockets into Israel. On the other hand, Israel does believe that Hamas could be doing more to stop the fire into Israel.
Katz himself had already acknowledged that Israel set off the round of violence by its assassination of the PRC activists but then he goes on to admit that Hamas isn’t even involved. Hamas, the usual bogeyman and justification for Israel’s aggression on Gaza “is completely uninvolved in the sense that its operatives are not firing rockets into Israel.” That’s quite an admission.
Indeed it has been reported that leaders of Hamas and Islamic Jihad are completely uninterested in escalating violence with Israel and are committed to a “ceasefire.” That would be consistent with their long-term policies which are to retaliate against Israeli aggression but not to seek out confrontation.
“The escalation in Gaza is good for Israel”
So given all this, why has Israel decided to kill people in Gaza for no discernible reason? According to Bar’el in Haaretz it has everything to do with Israel’s effort to build support for an attack on Iran:
Advocates of a strike on Iran couldn’t have hoped for a more convincing performance than the current exchange of fire between Israel and Gaza. “A million Israelis under fire” is only a taste of what is expected when Iran’s nuclear project is completed. When that happens, seven million Israelis will be under the threat of fire and nuclear fallout.
This is what happens when “only” the Islamic Jihad fires Grad rockets, when Hamas stays out of the fight, and when the “miraculous system” that prevents missiles from falling on kindergartens still works. Under the threat of a nuclear Iran, miracles won’t help, and people in Tel Aviv will also be forced to hide in bomb shelters or escape to Eilat.
Here’s the proof: There is no alternative to striking Iran and there is no better time than the present, when the weather permits and world diplomacy is preoccupied with Syria. For Israelis, there is no better proof that no harm will come to them as a result of an attack on Iran than the performance of the Iron Dome anti-rocket system, which has demonstrated a 95% rate of effectiveness. The escalation in Gaza is good for Israel – that is, for that part of Israel that wants to strike Iran.
It is hard to understand what basis there is for the assertion that Israel is not striving to escalate the situation. One could assume that an armed response by the Popular Resistance Committees or Islamic Jihad to Israel’s targeted assassination was taken into account. But did anyone weigh the possibility that the violent reaction could lead to a greater number of Israeli casualties than any terrorist attack that Zuhair al-Qaisi, the secretary-general of the Popular Resistance Committees, could have carried out?
Bar’el sees at least one other compelling reason why Israel chose violence once again: the ‘threat’ from Hamas’ ever more determined turn to reliance on diplomacy over armed struggle—which Bar’el attributes in part to Hamas’ need to maintain good relations with Egypt:
This dependence on Egypt has managed in the past to produce extended ceasefires which have proven themselves in recent months, especially after the signing of the reconciliation agreement with Fatah, which produced Khaled Meshal’s declarations that Hamas would restrict itself to nonviolent forms of struggle against Israel.
However, it seems that the change in Hamas not only hasn’t convinced Israel, but even stands in the way of its “no partner” policy and could sabotage its efforts to head off the creation of a Palestinian unity government, which would lead to renewed efforts at the UN to secure an independent Palestinian state.
Thus, Hamas must be dragged toward military activity against Israel, and nothing is easier, at least in Israel’s estimation, than to launch a “unilateral” attack against a wanted non-Hamas man, to wait for the response to come, and hope that Hamas joins in.
So far, it hasn’t happened. Hamas still prefers the diplomatic channel and has carried on intensive diplomatic contacts over the past two days with Egypt’s Supreme Military Council. Israel apparently needs to wait for another opportunity.
What that “opportunity” will be no one yet knows, but what is sure is that innocent people will pay with their lives.
Facts behind Israel’s rocket propaganda
Whenever you hear Israel’s tired hasbara refrain about rockets, rockets, rockets, remember to ask the question Yousef Munayyer recently asked: Why don’t Israel’s spokespeople ever tell us how many rockets, missiles and bullets Israel has fired on Gaza?
Of course the answer is because it is by orders of magnitude greater in both number and explosive power than anything Palestinian armed groups have or ever could muster against Israel. There are some data, however.
In one 18-month period between September 2005 and May 2007 in which Palestinian armed groups fired 2,700 rockets toward Israel killing four people, Israel fired 14,617 heavy artillery shells into Gaza killing 59 people, including at least 17 children and 12 women. Hundreds more were injured and extensive damage caused.
This data comes from a 2007 Human Rights Watch reported titled Indiscriminate Fire, which states in addition that:
A subsequent artillery attack on November 8 [2006] killed or mortally wounded 23 and injured at least 40 Palestinians, all civilians.
The report adds:
Human Rights Watch has been unable to find any report or claim that those killed or injured by artillery fire included persons believed to be combatants, and the IDF has not responded to a Human Rights Watch request about whether any Palestinians killed or injured by artillery fire into the Gaza Strip were combatants or believed to be combatants. Israeli artillery strikes in 2006 also left many unexploded shells strewn on the ground that constitute a continuing hazard to lives and livelihoods.
That report dates from 2007, but in the years before and since, thousands more Palestinian civilians were killed and injured in Israeli attacks, by what must be tens of thousands of Israeli munitions. This included the 2008-2009 assault called “Operation Cast Lead” and Israeli fire has been an almost daily occurrence since its end claiming many innocent lives.
And Operation Cast Lead itself was launched on the false pretext—echoed ad nauseam by media—that Palestinians were firing unprovoked barrages of rockets into Israel leaving it no choice to attack in “self-defense.” That too was a lie as Israel’s own official figures showed at the time.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixrYv5pUzps
As Munayyer notes, citing UN statistics:
In 2011, the projectiles fired by the Israeli military into Gaza have been responsible for the death of 108 Palestinians, of which 15 where women or children and the injury of 468 Palestinians of which 143 where women or children.
The methods by which these causalities were inflicted by Israeli projectiles breaks down as follows: 57% or 310, were caused by Israeli Aircraft Missile fire, 28% or 150 were from Israeli live ammunition, 11% or 59 were from Israeli tank shells while another 3% or 18 were from Israeli mortar fire.
That is why Israeli official propaganda has to be so distorted and selective.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwMkwdvrHGw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9sjdb5iI6w
http://fwd4.me/0wHx
My story with Israeli propaganda
by Diana Alzeer
Today while I am starting to write this blog piece, I came across a breaking news headline on MaanNews website stating that 2 more were killed in Gaza including a child.
Anyhow my story starts here, yesterday and in the morning hours and on a page created for Palestinian journalists only Journalist Hamadah Ahmad from Gaza posted a photo of a little girl held by her father, the photo created a big fuss on the group since some of the journalist protested the bloody photos and stated such photos not to be posted since it may bother some of the –Not used to see blood journalists- And here where I saw the photo:
( click on pictures to enlarge) never the less on my return and being active on Twitte, I have decided to tweet the photo using (www.twitpic.com), and I did so.
Notice, although I thought it was from yesterday my post doesn’t mention a date!
During my work hours I got super busy with work related issues and forgot to check my twitter till later on during the day, to discover that @AviMayer an –Israel Lover- has followed me with several other Israelis calling me a liar and sending me links of the same photo being published on Palestinian –Israel hating- blogs like they called them.
Anyhow turns out that this photo is indeed old dating back to 2006. Lucky me (Sarcasm) this photo happened to be a unique one as it appears that Reuters photo Agency published it in 2006 stating that it’s a Palestinian child murdered by in Israeli attack on Gaza as it was taken in the same hospital casualties of the Israeli attack were being sent to. Later on Reuters retraced their claim with an apology and caption correction.
I on the other hand after finding out more about the photo retraced stating the following: “Warning/Apology: Photo I tweeted earlier which has been circulated over FB turns out to be old photo of Raja Abu Sha’ban killed in Gaza 2006”.
Following is the Israeli Army blog (IDFblog) blogs about this issue on this link (Please do read it to understand how the Israeli propaganda works):
Here is also a link to an American pro-Israel site that has Reuters Caption Correction:
I have to note here that I have done my research and I could not find the original caption correction on Reuters website, if someone would like to take the initiative to find it or contact Reuters for it, please pass it down to me, I would appreciate that.
As for the attacks the Israeli propaganda launched against me and @KhuloodBadawi and some other Palestinian tweets here are some examples of the Israeli Hate speech directed at us:
The last tweet to me @ManaraRam Translates to “your mother is garbage, you ugly ‘Arab-ushi’’.
That is said on the little girl photo, what remains is what have not been said or confessed by the Israeli media or the IDF spokesperson is the following:
1 Images of killed and injured kids in Gaza . On this issue I chose not to post new bloody images of children murdered or injured due to Israeli attacks on Gaza, just click on the hyperlink to view the original photos of children in Gaza during the war on Gaza AKA Cast Lead. And if you are still curious you can go ahead and do your own research on civilians, women, children killed during the Israeli operation/ war on Gaza.
2 Israeli media continues to operate within the Israeli Military occupation boundaries, please check this blog on Electronic Intifada by Ali AbuNimah on how Israeli media decides to cover the latest attacks on Gaza “Mowing the lawn”: On Israel’s latest massacre in Gaza and the lies behind it.
3 The IDFSpokesperson on twitter @AvitalLeibovich who decided today to share a video of rocket firing into Israel, here is the link she shared:
This link happened to be of a more than 3 months old video, uploaded again yesterday March 11, 2012.
Here is the old video uploaded 3 months ago on October 29, 2011:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tslm1734mMM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tslm1734mMM
And Just in case the video is taken offline or deleted, here is a photo:
This only makes me wonder if that youtube account is not fake? And she is supposedly the IDF official spokesperson like here account on twitter says “I am the official Israel Defense Forces Spokesperson to the international press”.
On the same Ahmad Nimer @ANimer a Palestinian blogger illustrated once more on his blog My Agenda . If Interested check hyperlinks for details.
Just before I end this long draining blog, I have to mention one missing element of how my day and the day of Palestine tweeps ended with the Israeli Propaganda ended, and of course the photo tells a thousand word:
About Diana Alzeer
A Palestinian- Bulgarian activist, journalist and a freelance film producer. Activism is a life style!
View all posts by Diana Alzeer -> http://manara1ram.blog.com/
http://fwd4.me/0wHc...Read more 15 mar 2012, 07:56 , Respect -
Maria 15 mrt 2012
Analysis: How Israel really treats Christians
By Fida Jiryis
In a recent op-ed in The Wall Street Journal, "Israel and the Plight of Mideast Christians," Ambassador Michael Oren presents Israel as a tolerant, dove-like, and peaceful democracy. This is belied by the facts.
I am one of those Palestinian Christians living inside Israel to whom Oren refers. At no time in my life have I ever felt the "respect and appreciation" of the Jewish state, which Oren so glowingly references.
Israel's Christian minority is marginalized in much the same manner as its Muslim one or, at best, quietly tolerated. We suffer the same discrimination when we try to find a job, when we go to hospitals, when we apply for bank loans, and when we get on the bus -- in the same way as Palestinian Muslims.
Israel's fundamental basis is as a racist state built for Jews only, and the majority of the Jewish population doesn't really care what religion we are if we're not Jewish. In my daily dealings with the State, all I have felt is rudeness and overt contempt.
Oren's statement that "The extinction of the Middle East's Christian communities is an injustice of historic magnitude" is outright shocking to anyone familiar with even the basic history of how Israel was founded.
I would like to remind Oren and others that this founding expelled thousands of Palestinian Christians from their homes in 1948 and displaced them, either forcing them to flee across the border or making them internal refugees. The ethnic cleansing of Palestinians that comprised the founding of Israel is, too, an injustice of historic magnitude. A man living in a glass house -- or a house stolen from Palestinians -- should think very carefully before tossing stones.
My cousin's husband, Maher, is from Iqrith, a village a few miles from mine in the Galilee. His family, and all of Iqrith's inhabitants, were expelled from their village in 1948 and Iqrith was razed to the ground by Israeli forces on Christmas eve, 1950, in a special "Christmas gift" to its people. The timing of this destruction leaves one to wonder at the intended message.
Maher was born years after his family took shelter in Rama, a village nearby in the Galilee. Today, he struggles with finding a place to build a house to live in with his wife and children. Israeli policies that severely restrict the building zones in Arab towns and villages result in land shortages impeding the population's natural expansion. Limiting land to residents of the same town or village means that internal Palestinian refugees face severe housing discrimination.
The return of people like Maher has been made impossible by Israel, which refuses to negotiate on the right of refugees to return to their homeland. If Oren is so concerned for Palestinian Christians, would he kindly give the green light for the return of Christian refugees from Iqrith, Birim, Tarshiha, Suhmata, Haifa, Jaffa, and tens of other Palestinian towns and villages that they were expelled from in 1948?
The answer, I assure you, is no. Many of these refugees are living in refugee camps in nearby countries, where Israel and Oren are happy to leave them.
The terrorists referred to in Oren's statement that "Israel, in spite of its need to safeguard its borders from terrorists, allows holiday access to Jerusalem's churches to Christians from both the West Bank and Gaza," are in fact Palestinian Christians living on the land that Israel has occupied -- in flagrant opposition to all human rights charters -- and from which it is refusing to withdraw its soldiers and illegal settlers.
To applaud Israel for giving people permits to travel across what by law is their own country is the height of hubris.
His claim that "In Jerusalem, the number of Arabs -- among them Christians -- has tripled since the city's reunification by Israel in 1967" fails to mention Israel's relentless policies of cracking down on Jerusalem: building unending settlements; building a separation wall that slices right through the city, severing its families, neighborhoods and businesses and hitting hard at its Arab economy; seizing Arab lands and expelling families that have lived on them for generations; and revoking the citizenship of any Palestinian resident who travels abroad for too long.
Imagine the outcry if an American citizen traveled abroad for two years and upon return discovered that his citizenship was revoked and that he had lost his American ID and passport.
Israeli officials don't care whether the Palestinians they discriminate against are Christian or Muslim. It is true that inter-religious strife is on the rise in a region long tormented by poor living conditions, for which the West bears significant responsibility having aided the region's many dictators.
Oren's faux tolerance and crocodile tears over the plight of Christians fool no one. Were he serious, I would urge him to have a close look at Israel's policies of occupation and racial discrimination.
As Jesus said in Matthew 7:3, "Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?"
Fida Jiryis is a Palestinian writer from the Arab village of Fassuta in the Galilee. She is the author of the forthcoming book, My Return to Galilee, which chronicles her return from the Diaspora to Israel.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=468381
Israel and the Plight of Mideast Christians
graffiti on church says: Death to Christianity
Just as Jews were once expelled from Arab lands, Christians are now being forced from countries they have long inhabited.
By MICHAEL OREN
The church in Bethlehem had survived more than 1,000 years, through wars and conquests, but its future now seemed in jeopardy. Spray-painted all over its ancient stone walls were the Arabic letters for Hamas. The year was 1994 and the city was about to pass from Israeli to Palestinian control. I was meeting with the church's clergy as an Israeli government adviser on inter-religious affairs. They were despondent but too frightened to file a complaint. The same Hamas thugs who had desecrated their sanctuary were liable to take their lives.
The trauma of those priests is now commonplace among Middle Eastern Christians. Their share of the region's population has plunged from 20% a century ago to less than 5% today and falling. In Egypt, 200,000 Coptic Christians fled their homes last year after beatings and massacres by Muslim extremist mobs. Since 2003, 70 Iraqi churches have been burned and nearly a thousand Christians killed in Baghdad alone, causing more than half of this million-member community to flee. Conversion to Christianity is a capital offense in Iran, where last month Pastor Yousef Nadarkhani was sentenced to death. Saudi Arabia outlaws private Christian prayer.
As 800,000 Jews were once expelled from Arab countries, so are Christians being forced from lands they've inhabited for centuries.
The only place in the Middle East where Christians aren't endangered but flourishing is Israel. Since Israel's founding in 1948, its Christian communities (including Russian and Greek Orthodox, Catholics, Armenians and Protestants) have expanded more than 1,000%.
Christians are prominent in all aspects of Israeli life, serving in the Knesset, the Foreign Ministry and on the Supreme Court. They are exempt from military service, but thousands have volunteered and been sworn in on special New Testaments printed in Hebrew. Israeli Arab Christians are on average more affluent than Israeli Jews and better-educated, even scoring higher on their SATs
This does not mean that Israeli Christians do not occasionally encounter intolerance. But in contrast to elsewhere in the Middle East where hatred of Christians is ignored or encouraged, Israel remains committed to its Declaration of Independence pledge to "ensure the complete equality of all its citizens irrespective of religion." It guarantees free access to all Christian holy places, which are under the exclusive aegis of Christian clergy. When Muslims tried to erect a mosque near the Basilica of the Annunciation in Nazareth, the Israeli government interceded to preserve the sanctity of the shrine.
Israel abounds with such sites (Capernaum, the Hill of the Beatitudes, the birth place of St. John the Baptist) but the state constitutes only part of the Holy Land. The rest, according to Jewish and Christian tradition, is in Gaza and the West Bank. Christians in those areas suffer the same plight as their co-religionists throughout the region.
Since the Hamas takeover of Gaza in 2007, half the Christian community has fled. Christmas decorations and public displays of crucifixes are forbidden. In a December 2010 broadcast, Hamas officials exhorted Muslims to slaughter their Christian neighbors. Rami Ayad, owner of Gaza's only Christian bookstore, was murdered, his store reduced to ash. This is the same Hamas with which the Palestinian Authority of the West Bank recently signed a unity pact.
Little wonder, then, that the West Bank is also hemorrhaging Christians. Once 15% of the population, they now make up less than 2%. Some have attributed the flight to Israeli policies that allegedly deny Christians economic opportunities, stunt demographic growth, and impede access to the holy sites of Jerusalem. In fact, most West Bank Christians live in cities such as Nablus, Jericho and Ramallah, which are under Palestinian Authority control. All those cities have experienced marked economic growth and sharp population increase—among Muslims.
Israel, in spite of its need to safeguard its borders from terrorists, allows holiday access to Jerusalem's churches to Christians from both the West Bank and Gaza. In Jerusalem, the number of Arabs—among them Christians—has tripled since the city's reunification by Israel in 1967.
There must be another reason, then, for the West Bank's Christian exodus. The answer lies in Bethlehem. Under Israeli auspices, the city's Christian population grew by 57%. But under the Palestinian Authority since 1995, those numbers have plummeted. Palestinian gunmen seized Christian homes—compelling Israel to build a protective barrier between them and Jewish neighborhoods—and then occupied the Church of the Nativity, looting it and using it as a latrine. Today, Christians comprise a mere one-fifth of their holy city's population.
The extinction of the Middle East's Christian communities is an injustice of historic magnitude. Yet Israel provides an example of how this trend can not only be prevented but reversed. With the respect and appreciation that they receive in the Jewish state, the Christians of Muslim countries could not only survive but thrive.
Mr. Oren is Israel's ambassador to the United States.
http://fwd4.me/0wXM
Malaysian FM: No relations with Israel
KUALA LUMPUR, (PIC)-- Malaysian foreign minister Hanifa Aman has affirmed that his country’s policy would not change regarding establishing diplomatic relations with Israel.
Aman told a parliament session on Wednesday that his government was greatly concerned about the Israeli aggression on Gaza and condemns this new attack on the Palestinian people and denounces the establishment of settlements in the West Bank.
He said that Malaysia would continue to support the Palestinian people politically, economically, and socially by extending help in development of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.
http://fwd4.me/0wWu
Israelis warned about potential ‘terror’ attacks in Turkey
Picture shows the aftermath of a March 1, 2012 bombing attack in Istanbul, Turkey
The Israeli regime has issued a warning, advising Israelis not to travel to Turkey, citing alleged potential of attacks against them in the country.
“Terror groups are planning to carry out attacks against Jewish and Israeli sites inside Turkey in the coming days,’’ read the announcement made on Tuesday.
Diplomatic relations between Turkey and Israel have tarnished since May 2010 when Israeli forces attacked an Ankara-backed Gaza Strip-bound aid flotilla in international waters in the Mediterranean Sea, killing nine Turkish activists and injuring about 50 others.
Tel Aviv has so far refused to either apologize for the attack or compensate the families of the victims.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/231755.html 18 mar 2012, 10:25 , Respect -
Maria 17 mrt 2012
Jewish hypocrisy: vociferous on Sudan, but silent on Israel
By Khalid Amayreh
Zionist-Jewish leaders everywhere are quite versed in the art of hypocrisy and dishonesty. Their moral inconsistency cries out to the seventh heaven.
This week, Jewish leaders in Washington , D.C. , demonstrated outside the Sudanese embassy, protesting the al-Bashir regime's excesses against rebel areas in southern Kurdufan.
The protestors accused the Sudanese government of provoking a humanitarian crisis and blocking humanitarian aid from reaching people in need.
One rabbi, wore a T-shirt saying :" Stop genocide in Darfur ."
There is nothing wrong in holding protests against government repression and human rights violation anywhere in the world.
However, when championing the cause of human rights is motivated by short-sighted political expedience, highly-selective, moral confusion and moral impurity blur the picture.
I am not suggesting or demanding that at a single demonstration one would have to protest all human rights violations on earth, although this would be a good thing to do.
However, when human rights breaches and even more scandalous policies in places such as Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories are deliberately ignored, a serious question-mark is drawn over the real motives behind such demonstrations.
I am one of those people who don't trust most of the Zionist rabbis who adopt a blind attitude toward the Apartheid state of Israel.
The hypocrisy of these gurus of racism and mendacity becomes really stark when we see them refrain from voicing even a gesture of dissatisfaction with real atrocities, some of which are quite comparable to Nazi crimes against Jews during WWII, on no ground other than the fact that the villains happen to be Jews and the victims are non-Jews.
I would want to know how many times have these so-called rabbis taken part in protests against Israel's Naz-like policies in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, East Jerusalem and Israel proper?
How many times have these important figures protested the demolition of Arab homes, the vandalism of Arab orchards, the torching of Arab fields, the open-ended detention of innocent Arabs without charge or trial, the desecration of Muslim and Christian holy places at the hands of government-backed Jewish thugs and terrorists as well as the recurrent murderous air-raids on helpless Gazans which kill, maim and incinerates thousands?
The five-year ongoing blockade of the Gaza Strip have caused a virtual starvation throughout the coastal enclave, but most Jewish leaders, rabbis and otherwise, have remained silent, as if this was happening on another plant.
I know the answer too well. These rabbis' consciences are alive only when Jewish lives and Jewish rights and interests are in question.
However, when Gentile lives, rights and interests are the issue, we see these rabbis succumb to apathy and disinterest.
In fact a good many of these people don't content themselves with silence and apathy, they actually morph themselves into hysterical mouthpieces for the Israeli government and genocidal settlers by strongly defending every atrocity and every massacre perpetrated in cold blood by their brethren.
Didn't holocaust survivor Eli Wiesel declare that " I support Israel right or wrong" and "I really can't bring myself to criticizing Israeli crimes?"
A few years ago, Israel launched a blitzkrieg against the nearly helpless and virtually unprotected, and thoroughly blockaded Gaza Strip, using state-of-the art of the American technology of death.
The infernal barbarian rampage, which lasted for more than three weeks, killed over a thousand innocent civilians, including more than 350 children, murdered knowingly and deliberately "in order to break the Palestinians’ will for resistance and freedom."
As mentioned above, this nefarious aggression came on the heel of a hermetic blockade which put about two million people on the verge of starvation.
Unfortunately, not a single word of protest was uttered by people like Wiesel and his elk against the mini-genocide in Gaza. Far from that, the pseudo-moralist did every thing he could to defend Israel's shameful act, and he did it in the name of the holocaust and its survivors!!!
Why do many Jews adopt such distinctively duplicitous, manifestly unethical stances and scandalously inconsistent attitudes when relating to crimes committed by Jews and crimes committed against Jews?
Do these rabbis and self-centered thinkers really believe their ancient myths that non-Jews are beasts of burden created by the Almighty so that they may serve Jews, as the spiritual mentor of Shas, Ovadia Yosef, said last year?
Do they think, as many within the Chabad cult, that the lives of non-Jews have no sanctity and can be expended without the slightest compunction? One rabbi from this particularly evil cult was quoted as saying that a Jew may murder a Gentile in order to extricate the victim's organ if the Jew needed one?
I am not interested in vilifying and demonizing anyone, including Jews. I know well that there are many conscientious and humane Jews out there. But, unfortunately, the damage and ill-will caused by villainous Jews exceed by far any amount of good will generated by good Jews.
The Jews are an influential people in our world today. They control power nations and governments, including the only remaining super-power in the world, the United States .
Instead of gearing American policies toward embracing and supporting apartheid and oppression in Palestine (because the oppressors and practitioners of apartheid happen to be Jews), Jews can steer American policy toward promoting a moral world based on justice and morality, not on power politics.
We have experienced "power politics" since the beginning of time, and it proved utterly disastrous if not suicidal.
http://fwd4.me/0wdr 18 mar 2012, 23:00 , Respect -
Maria 18 mrt 2012
Mossad, CIA agree Iran not after nuclear weapon
Despite recent US and Israeli war rhetoric against Iran’s nuclear energy program, a US intelligence official has announced the consensus of Washington and Tel Aviv over the peaceful nature of Tehran’s nuclear energy program.
“There is not a lot of dispute between the US and Israeli intelligence communities on the facts” that Iran has not deviated from its peaceful nuclear program, The New York Times quoted the unnamed former top US intelligence official as saying on Sunday.
The former US official added that Israel’s intelligence agency “Mossad does not disagree with the US” that Iran does not pursue military objectives in its nuclear energy program.
Earlier on February 23, the Los Angeles Times reported of the agreement between 16 US intelligence agencies that Tehran was not seeking to build nuclear weapons.
The “highly classified” intelligence assessment was reportedly circulated among US policymakers early last year.
Iran is a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). So, it is entitled to use nuclear technology for peaceful use.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/232303.html
Israeli threats against Iran illegal: Japan envoy to Tehran
Japanese Ambassador to Iran Kinichi Kumano
Japanese Ambassador to Iran Kinichi Kumano has lashed out at the Israeli regime's warmongering rhetoric against the Islamic Republic, dismissing Tel Aviv's escalating threats as “illegal.”
Such threats are “illegal,” but this regime (Israel) is notorious for issuing these kinds of threats and is very “dangerous,” ISNA quoted Kumano as saying on Sunday.
Commenting on the upcoming negotiations between Iran and the 5+1 group - Russia, China, Britain, France, the United States, and Germany - Kumano said the two sides should demonstrate flexibility in the talks to achieve the desired results.
He referred to Iran’s great achievements in various scientific fields, including nanotechnology and biotechnology, and said some foreign governments despise the progress of the Iranian nation.
The US and Israel, and some of their allies accuse Iran of pursuing military objectives in its nuclear energy program.
Tehran refutes the claims, insisting that as a member of International Atomic Energy Agency and a signatory to Non-Proliferation Treaty, it has every right to pursue the peaceful uses of nuclear energy.
Earlier on Thursday, Iran's Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said that despite Tel Aviv’s growing war rhetoric against Iran, the Israeli regime is too tiny to survive even one week of a real war.
“We take every little threat serious even if it comes from the weakest country in the world,” he said in an interview with Danish television channel TV2. He added, however, that Iran does not consider the Israeli war rhetoric as real threats.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/232265.html
US, Israel symbolize global terrorism: Iran’s Velayati
Secretary General of the International Islamic Awakening Conference Ali Akbar Velayati
The secretary general of the International Islamic Awakening Conference has lashed out at Washington and Tel Aviv for waging psychological warfare on Iran, describing the two anti-Iran collaborators as the epitome of international terrorism.
“The US and Israel are the true symbols of international terrorism,” said Ali Akbar Velayati on Saturday in Tehran on the sidelines of the welcoming ceremony to the Asian convoy of more than one hundred pro-Palestinian activists who are en route to East al-Quds (Jerusalem).
The convoy is expected to be joined by thousands of other peace activists from around the world in East al-Quds to mark the 36th anniversary of the Palestinian Land Day on March 30.
“The Zionist regime (Israel) and the US have embarked on a blame game in an attempt to intensify their psychological war on Iran,” Velayati added.
He pointed to Tel Aviv’s allegations regarding Iran’s involvement in the recent purported terrorist operations against Israeli targets in a number of countries, emphasizing that Iran has always denounced terrorism and is itself a major victim of terrorism.
The US and Israel accuse all their opponents of terrorism; however, Washington and Tel Aviv are the real terrorists because, as they have proved, they eliminate their adversaries by means of assassination, the top Iranian official pointed out.
In the latest string of US assassination bids, a number of US presidential candidates openly called for carrying out covert operations to assassinate Iranian nuclear scientists during their campaign rallies and media engagements in November 2011.
Velayati also referred to the unrest in Syria and the West’s pressures against Damascus, warning that the West has no intention of supporting the Syrian people and in fact seeks to eradicate the resistance front against the Israeli regime.
Several marches that began in various locations across the globe are heading toward the countries that neighbor Palestine, namely Jordan, Egypt, Syria, and Lebanon, in order to get as close as possible to East al-Quds.
On March 30, 1976, Israeli troops killed six Palestinians during a protest against the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories. The Palestinian Land Day commemorates this event.
Since the occupation of East al-Quds, Israel has been trying to alter the identity of the city through measures such as the construction of illegal housing units for Israelis, the eviction of Palestinians, and the demolition of their houses.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/232259.html
Zionist regime is an insult to independent nations: Ahmadinejad
Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says the occupation of Palestine is a historical problem and the existence of the Zionist regime is an insult to freedom, justice and all independent nations.
“The Europe and the US spend tens of billions of their wealth on the Zionists each year to help a criminal regime…continue its occupation [of Palestinian lands],” he said, addressing a convoy of pro-Palestinian activists in Tehran who are heading to al-Quds (Jerusalem) on Sunday.
He also slammed the Western states for showing no tolerance towards questioning the existence of Israel.
“Despite all liberal claims of the Western states, nobody is ever allowed to ask a question or conduct a research on how the Zionist regime was established,” the president said.
“The issue of Palestine is not an argument between one person and another or a conflict created between the followers of one prophet and another …but the dispute over Palestine is a dispute over dominating and managing the world,” Ahmadinejad added.
The Iranian chief executive further stated that the Zionists try to pitch states and nations against each other and create a rift between governments and their people and spearhead international terrorism.
“The hegemonic current aims to establish this regime in Palestine as the focal point of the Middle East which is also the center of the world’ resources and energy, in order to continue the historical trend of hegemony,” he said.
The convoy of pro-Palestinian activists arrived in Tehran on Saturday. They plan to continue their way to al-Quds, where they are expected to be joined by thousands of more peace activists from around the world to mark the 36th anniversary of Palestinian Land Day, which is March 30.
Several marches that began in various locations across the globe are heading toward the countries that neighbor Palestine, namely Jordan, Egypt, Syria, and Lebanon, in order to get as close as possible to East al-Quds.
The global march to al-Quds initiative will also include demonstrations in front of Israeli embassies in the capitals of various countries as well as demonstrations in the main public squares of major cities around the world.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/232340.html 20 mar 2012, 07:12 , Respect -
Maria 19 mrt 2012
At Least Three Killed in Shooting at Jewish School in France
At least three people were killed and five others wounded in a shooting at a Jewish high school in the southern French city of Toulouse, French media reported on Monday.
According to reports, a man riding a motorcycle opened fire on the Ozar Hatorah school at around 8:00 A.M when the children were preparing to enter the school.
The gunman then abandoned the motorcycle, entered the school and began shooting at the students and faculty, killing at least two students and one adult, and wounding five other students. The slain adult killed was reported to be a Jewish studies teacher at the school.
French police said that the man opened fire with an automatic pistol of the same kind that was seen at two previous attacks on soldiers in Toulouse and the nearby town of Montauban, the report said.Three soldiers died in those two incidents, and one was seriously wounded.
Police closed off the street on which the school is located, and deployed large forces the scene. Some 50 French police officers were drafted into the investigation including anti-terrorist officers, French media reported.
The Ministry of Interior has requested increased vigilance and surveillance in all of south-west France, particularly in the Jewish districts.
Ozar Hatorah is a religious school that, according to its website, aims to provide its students with a balanced education that willl enable them to integrate fully into civil society, to "form the French citizens of tomorrow, in harmony with their Judaism."
According to a member of the community, the Jews in Toulouse see the Ozar Hatorah school as the center of their community. Toulouse is home to a community of 25,000 Jews.
http://fwd4.me/0wkd
Netanyahu: Israel's mouthpiece of lie
By Khalid Amayreh
In his reaction to the tragic shooting incident outside a Jewish school in France Monday, Israeli Prime Minister invoked "Palestinian terror."
"I haven't heard any condemnation from the UN, but one of its bodies, the human rights council, invited representatives of Hamas who condemned the US for killing Osama bin Laden and kills Jewish men, women and children. This is who UNHRC invites today. I have one thing to say to the UNHRC: What do you have to do with human rights? You should be ashamed of yourself."
Netanyahu is elaborate about the death of a few Jews in occupied Palestine, for which nefarious Zionism is solely responsible (responsible because Zionism brought these Jews into Palestine from their original homelands in Eastern Europe elsewhere to live on a land that belongs to another people), but quite dismissive or completely silent about the pornographic killings of non-Jews at the hands of the "holy tribe" or "Master race."
In fact, as the pathological liar was speaking about the regrettable incident in France, his dirty hands were being stained with the innocent blood of Palestinian children.
Netanyahu and other Israeli political and military leaders got accustomed to giving Israeli Jews a "present" on major Jewish holidays in the form of killing Arab civilians, particularly children, in cold blood.
This happened last week in Gaza when Israel's war machine wreaked havoc on Palestinian homes throughout the coastal enclave, killing farmers, workers, school children and women.
The Palestinians are mostly helpless and defenseless people, and ganging up on them using state-of-the-art of the American technology of death is analogical to the Third Reich embarking on the extermination of Jews during WWII.
It is also an expression of ultimate cowardice to attack people, especially innocent people, who don't have the means to defend themselves and protect their children.
During its genocidal onslaught against the people of Gaza four years ago, Israel massacred, maimed and incinerated thousands of innocent Palestinians. The mini-holocaust killed hundreds of children and babies and destroyed thousands of homes, mosques, hospitals, and other public buildings. Children and women fleeing the Dresden-like fire storms over their neighborhoods were mercilessly killed by sadistic Israeli soldiers who were told by their rabbis that non-Jews were actually animals and that one didn't have to harbor a guilty feeling upon killing a "goy"
The United Nations put the number of Palestinian children killed during that genocidal blitz, knowingly and deliberately, at more than 360.
Just imagine 360 Jewish children getting killed in 21 days and how vociferous and hysterical the shipyard dogs of Zionism would be.
Hamas has killed Israelis, including civilians, but it did this in the context of a national liberation struggle against a Nazi-like colonialist occupation that seeks the annihilation of the very existence of the Palestinian people.
Throughout human history People didn't throw roses and chocolates at invaders and foreign occupiers. They threw hand-grenades and petrol bombs, they fought them with all the means at their disposal. Didn't the Russians lose 20 million people defending their country against the invading Nazi armies in the course of the Second World War? Didn't the French do the same to liberate their country? Didn't Patrick Henry say "give me freedom or give me death?"
Besides, Hamas has not gone to UNHRC in order to wage a crusade against Jews or anyone else. The truth of the matter is that a small Hamas delegation went there in Switzerland in order to brief the world community on the pornographic oppression being meted out by Israel to the Palestinian people, including the open-ended detention of Palestinian citizens for years without charge or trial.
Let me ask Netanyahu the following question: where in the world, especially in a democratic country worthy of the name, a university professor, a medical doctor or an elected lawmaker is napped from his home and family at the middle of the night and dumped in detention camps and dungeons for 10 or 12 years without charge or trial? As far as I know, this happens only in Israel, the nation that calls itself a light upon the nations!!!
Netanyahu calls Palestinians terrorists for resisting their tormentors and children's killers. But he ignores the fact that the Jewish wehrmacht, the Jewish SS, and the Jewish Gestapo have murdered and maimed hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, Lebanese and other Arabs that whatever the Palestinians have done seems absolutely negligible in comparison to the slow-motion holocaust Zionist Jews have been carrying out against the native people of Palestine .
Mr. Netanyahu, you have stolen the Palestinians' homeland, you have destroyed their homes and towns and villages, you have expelled the bulk of their people to the four winds; and now you have the chutzpah to call them terrorists?
We don't know the identity of the attackers in Toulouse , but regardless of this, the attack is outrageous and must be condemned in the strongest terms.
But having said that, it should be made clear to all and sundry that Israel 's murderous behaviors make such attacks on Jews, probably by some fanatical groups, inevitable.
I say inevitable, not justified.
Just imagine someone whose entire family has been exterminated by Israelis, how he or she would behave when seizing the chance for revenge? Did Jews behave like angels would vis-à-vis the Nazis following the downfall of the Third Reich? Haven't Jews been scouring the entire world ever since, hunting for Nazi killers?
Whether you like it or not, Israel is the Palestinian people's Nazi Germany. Yes, Zionists control much of the western media, control the American government and congress, and are quite influential in today's world order. But this doesn't mean that they are clean or kosher. In the final analysis, when Jews think, behave and act like Nazi Germany thought, behaved and acted, they become full-fledged Nazis even if they carry Jewish names and don kippas on their heads.
http://fwd4.me/0wke
Jewish cemetery in Poland attacked by vandals
Vandals defile Jewish cemetary in Poland with swastikas and anti-Smetic slogans reading 'this is Poland, not Israel'.
Vandals have desecrated a Jewish cemetery in Poland with swastikas and anti-Semitic slogans sprayed on tombstones and memorial plaques.
The Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage in Poland says the desecration occurred Sunday night in Wysokie Mazowieckie, a town in eastern Poland.
The vandals also wrote "This is Poland, not Israel" on one sign.
The foundation's director, Monika Krawczyk, said police are investigating the case, which is the worst such act of vandalism this year so far.
Similar cases of anti-Semitic desecration occurs from time to time in Poland, a country that was home to Europe's largest Jewish community in Europe before it was nearly wiped out by Nazi Germany in the Holocaust. Today the Jewish community in Poland is tiny.
http://fwd4.me/0wkq 20 mar 2012, 08:09 , Respect -
Maria 20 mrt 2012
Anatomy of a Slander: EU Official Compares Toulouse to Gaza
Toulouse
The after shocks of the terrorist attack at a Jewish school in Toulouse are still being felt as French authorities seek the person or persons responsible for the murder of three children and a teacher. But for the European Union’s foreign policy chief, this anti-Semitic atrocity was just grist for the rhetorical mill in her ongoing campaign against the state of Israel. Baroness Catherine Ashton used the occasion of a speech to a Palestinian group in Brussels to compare the deliberate targeting of Jewish children to recent events in Gaza.
The idea that there is any moral equivalence between a person stalking and killing kids in cold blood at a school house door and casualties that were incurred when the Israel Defense Force http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixrYv5pUzps on other Jewish children in Southern Israel is an outrageous slander. It reflects the view of European elites that while the killing of Jews may be regrettable, the spectacle of other Jews defending themselves is inadmissible.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-K8caHPpInE
Ashton is now claiming she was misunderstood but even when you read her remarks in context they are damning:
When we remember young people who have been killed in all sorts of terrible circumstances — the Belgian children having lost their lives in a terrible tragedy, and when we think of what happened in Toulouse today, when we remember what happened in Norway a year ago, when we know what is happening in Syria, when we see what is happening in Gaza and in different parts of the world — we remember young people and children who lose their lives.
Of course, the loss of all life is regrettable. One can certainly draw some sort of parallel between the Toulouse crime and the mass murder in Norway as well as the slaughter of civilians by the brutal Assad regime in Syria. But what has happened in Gaza is nothing like that.
The conflict in Gaza is the result of Israel’s total withdrawal from the territory in the hope of peace which led to the takeover of the strip by the Hamas terrorist group which, along with its Islamist competitors, now uses that area as a launching pad for missile attacks on Israeli territory.
The Israeli army is forced to shoot back at the terrorists in order to suppress the fire and sometimes civilians are hurt since Hamas and the other groups use the people of Gaza as human shields. (also see)
seven-year old boy called Baraka Al-Maghribi
However, it should be noted that while 25 Palestinians were killed in the aftermath of the 200-missile barrage on Israel last week, virtually all were part of the terrorist groups launching the missiles.
While the Palestinians claimed that the Israelis also killed a child, it turned out that the fatality was the result of Palestinian gunfire at a funeral for one of the terrorists.
Ayoub Assaleya 12
During her tenure as the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Ashton, a Labor Party politician, has been both a relentless critic of Israel while sparring the Palestinians and expressing neutrality about the prospect of Hamas joining the Palestinian Authority.
No matter which group carried out the Toulouse attack, it must be understood that the crime happened in an atmosphere in which the delegitimization of Israel by European elites has given some sanction for a new wave of anti-Semitism. Those who cannot condemn this crime without also attempting to draw a false analogy with Israeli actions are part of the problem, not the solution. Such canards are nothing less than a modern version of the medieval blood libel aimed at Jews.
http://fwd4.me/0wml
FlotillaHyves It is terrible that children die by bullets, bombs, rockets, etc. It is also terrible to ignore or deny killed children. This is what Israel does, again and again. Like in this post, again they ignore the pain of parents who lost their child in Palestine by zionist hands.
Melanie Phillips on Israel TV
(small piece in Hebrew then English)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOCjtHagaTw
FM: Ashton's Toulouse-Gaza comparison inappropriate
Lieberman blasts EU's foreign affairs commissioner's remarks equating attack on Jewish schoolchildren in France to IAF operations in Gaza; says she should 'worry about Israeli children who live under constant fear of Gaza rockets'
Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman leveled harsh criticism Tuesday against EU Foreign Affairs Commissioner Catherine Ashton over her comparison of the terror attack on a Jewish school in Toulouse, France, to the situation in Gaza, calling them "inappropriate."
Speaking on the sidelines of a meeting of Palestinian youths in Brussels on Monday, Ashton said: "When we think about what happened today in Toulouse, we remember what happened in Norway last year, we know what is happening in Syria, and we see what is happening in Gaza and other places."
Lieberman, who is on official visit to China, said he "hopes Ashton will retract her statement."
"Israel is the most moral country in the world and despite the fact that it has to fight terrorist who operate from within civilian population, the IDF makes every effort possible not to harm that population, despite their defense of the terrorists.
"No army is as ethical as the Israeli army," he continued. "The IDF risks its soldiers' lives in order to minimize risk to civilian population. The children Ashton should be worried about are those living in southern Israel, who are in constant fear of Gaza rocket fire."
The attack on Ozar Hatorah School, which is believed to be the work of neo-Nazis, claimed the lives of Rabbi Jonathan Sandler, 30, his 3-year-old and 6-year-old sons Gabriel and Arieh and 8-year-old Miriam Monsonego, daughter of school headmaster Rabbi Yaacov Monsonego.
http://fwd4.me/0wkm
EU's Ashton compares children's murder in Toulouse with Syria, Gaza
The European Union Foreign Policy Chief Catherine Ashton called to notice the similarities between the shooting attack on a Jewish school in Toulouse, France on Monday and the loss of children's lives in the Gaza Strip and Syria.
Ashton further compared the loss of lives in the shooting attack in Toulouse to the terror attack in Norway which occurred one year ago.
http://fwd4.me/0wkh 22 mar 2012, 08:25 , Respect -
Maria 21 mrt 2012
Fayyad: Stop using Palestinians to justify terror
RAMALLAH (Ma’an) -- PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad on Wednesday condemned the killing of three children and a rabbi at a Jewish school in France, rejecting the suspected gunman's motive of avenging Palestinian children killed by Israel.
"This terrorist crime is condemned in the strongest terms by the Palestinian people and our children ... No Palestinian child can accept crimes against innocent people," Fayyad said in a statement.
The suspect Mohamed Merah, 24, claimed to belong to al-Qaida, and to want revenge for Palestinian children and French military involvement abroad, according to France's Interior Minister Claude Gueant.
He is also suspected by authorities of killing three soldiers of North African origin last week.
After an hours-long siege in a Toulouse neighborhood in southwestern France on Wednesday -- in which he wounded three officers -- Merah said he would hand himself over to police in the afternoon.
Fayyad slammed the shootings as an "attack on innocent lives ... a cowardly terrorist act," and he denounced the attempt to link the crime to solidarity with Palestinians.
"It is time for these criminals to stop exploiting the name of Palestine through their terrorist actions, and to stop pretending to stand up for Palestinian children, who only seek a decent life for themselves and for all children of the world," he added.
The PLO's diplomatic mission to Paris also denounced the attack. Palestinians "condemn in the strongest possible terms the hateful attack carried out in Toulouse," a joint statement of the missions to France and UNESCO said.
Noting the prior attack had targeted Muslim soldiers, the diplomats said the reported links between the shootings suggest "the murderer is driven by a multi-faceted racist hatred."
"We warn against any political exploitation of these events, and wish to assure the families and relatives of victims of our solidarity, and we join them in their pain and their grief," it added.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=469956
Israel asks to 'clear Cairo embassy contents'
Protesters flee from tear gas during clashes in front of the Israeli embassy in Cairo September 10, 2011.
CAIRO (Reuters) -- Israel has asked Egypt for permission to send planes to remove the contents of its Cairo embassy, Egyptian foreign ministry and airport sources said on Tuesday, highlighting deteriorating ties between the two states since Hosni Mubarak was ousted last year.
It was not immediately clear what prompted the request but a parliamentary committee issued a statement last week in the wake of Israeli raids on Gaza demanding the Israeli envoy be expelled from Cairo and for a review of ties with Israel
It was not clear whether or not the move would also involve evacuating staff. Israeli diplomats in Cairo could not be reached and Israel's Foreign Ministry had no immediate comment.
The Israel's ambassador was evacuated from Cairo in September last year after demonstrators stormed the embassy in protest at a deadly border shooting incident in August.
The ambassador, Yitzhak Levanon, briefly returned in November for farewell assignments at the end of his tour. A new Israeli ambassador, Yaacov Amitai, took office in February.
"The Israeli embassy contacted us (on Tuesday) requesting permission for two planes to land in Cairo to transport the contents of the embassy," a ministry official told Reuters.
The official said approval was needed from the military, which has ruled Egypt since Mubarak was ousted in February last year. He said a decision on the request was expected on Wednesday.
An airport source also said a request to send two planes had been submitted, and that the airport had already received approval for the planes to land.
Many in Israel have worried that ties with Egypt, which in 1979 became the first Arab state to sign a peace treaty with the country, could be jeopardized after Mubarak's overthrow in a popular uprising last year and the rise of Islamists.
Anti-Israeli sentiment in Egypt was muted before Mubarak, a US ally, was toppled but have since become more vocal. The Muslim Brotherhood's political party and others have said they are committed to Egypt's international treaties and agreements.
The storming of the embassy in Cairo in September followed the killing in August of five Egyptian security guards by Israeli soldiers pursuing militants who had ambushed and killed eight Israelis along the Israeli-Egyptian border.
Egypt brokered a truce between Israel and militant groups in Gaza this month after four days of violence in which 26 Palestinians were killed and 200 rockets were fired at Israel.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=469850
Victims of France shooting buried in Jerusalem
Volunteers carry one of the coffins bearing a slain victim into a van from the Ozar Hatorah Jewish school two days after a shooting in Toulouse, southwestern France, after it was unloaded from an airplane in Ben Gurion airport in Lod near Tel Aviv, March 21, 2012
JERUSALEM (Reuters) -- Three Jewish children and a rabbi shot dead at a Jewish school in France were buried in Jerusalem on Wednesday in a funeral where one Israeli official said the attack was inspired by "wild animals made crazy by their hatred."
Their bodies were wrapped in burial shrouds in accordance with orthodox tradition after being flown overnight from France.
The funeral took place in a hill-top cemetery at the entrance to Jerusalem as police in the French city of Toulouse lay siege to a house where the suspected shooter, who claimed to be a member of al-Qaida, was holed up.
"The Jewish people face wild and insatiable animals, wild animals made crazy by their hatred," the speaker of parliament, Reuben Rivlin, said in a eulogy at the burial site.
The victims were 30-year-old Rabbi Jonathan Sandler, his children Gabriel, 4, and Arieh, 5, and the daughter of the school's principal, seven-year-old Miriam Monsonego. They were killed by the gunman who attacked the Jewish school on Monday.
"The entire house of Israel weeps over these murders," Rivlin said.
French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe, who flew to Israel to attend the funeral, said at an earlier meeting with Israeli President Shimon Peres that he had come to express "the solidarity of the French people with the Israeli nation" in its time of sorrow.
"The blood of both our peoples was spilled in this murder," he said.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=469900
Besieged France gunman moved by 'al-Qaida, Palestinian children'
Toulouse
TOULOUSE, France (Reuters) -- A gunman, suspected of killing three children and a rabbi at a Jewish school in the name of al-Qaida, said on Wednesday he would hand himself over to police after an hours-long siege in which he wounded three officers.
About 300 police, some in bullet-proof body armour, cordoned off an area surrounding an apartment in a Toulouse neighbourhood in southwestern France, where the 24-year-old Muslim man was holed up. Shots were heard in the early hours of the morning, and police said three officers had been slightly wounded.
Interior Minister Claude Gueant said the gunman was a French citizen of Algerian origin who had been to Pakistan and Afghanistan and had shot dead the four in revenge for French military involvement abroad. He is also suspected by authorities of killing three soldiers of North African origin last week.
"He said ... he will turn himself in this afternoon," Gueant told BFM television, adding the man had thrown a Colt 45 pistol from the house in exchange for a "communication device".
He still has an Uzi machine gun, a Kalashnikov assault rifle and other weapons, the minister said.
President Nicolas Sarkozy, campaigning for re-election in a presidential poll in five weeks time, has blamed racism for Monday's school attack. His handling of the crisis could be a decisive factor in determining how the French people vote.
"He claims to be a mujahideen and to belong to al-Qaida," Gueant told journalists in Toulouse, referring to the gunman.
"He wanted revenge for the Palestinian children and he also wanted to attack the French army because of its foreign intervention."
France has troops in Afghanistan as part of NATO forces.
Gueant did not say how they had tracked the man down, but that police were talking to his brother at a separate location in connection to the killings.
His mother had also been brought to the scene to help negotiate with the man, who is holed up in a small apartment building in the leafy neighborhood.
Heavily armed police in bullet-proof vests and helmets cordoned off the area where the raid was taking place, in a suburb a few kilometers from the Ozar Hatorah Jewish school where Monday's shootings took place.
A police source said the police could launch an assault if the standoff lasted for some time. "There are more and more people around, so this creates a dangerous situation."
Gueant said Sarkozy had been informed of the raid which began at 3:00 a.m. (0200 GMT). When he was the mayor of a upmarket Paris suburb, Sarkozy helped negotiate the end of a hostage crisis involving several children. It has been credited with boosting his political career.
Immigrants and Islam have been major themes of the campaign as Sarkozy tried to win over the voters of far-right leader Marine Le Pen. Analysts say the shootings could transform the election debate and possibly tone down the populist rhetoric.
Jean Marc, a 56-year-old restaurant owner in the city who declined to give his last name, said he believed the crisis would benefit the far right or Sarkozy in the election.
"The Socialists don't talk about this stuff and it shows they don't know what they are doing," he said. "They (the police) need to get this guy."
Earlier on Wednesday, police sources told Reuters that a man had been arrested at a separate location in connection with the killings.
Authorities believe that the gunman in the school shooting was the same person responsible for killing three soldiers of North African origin in two shootings last week in Toulouse and the nearby town of Montauban.
The same Colt 45 handgun was used in all three attacks and in each case the gunman arrived on a Yamaha scooter with his face hidden by a motorcycle helmet.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=469828 22 mar 2012, 15:13 , Respect -
Maria 22 mrt 2012
Minister: French gunman dead after jumping from window
TOULOUSE, France (Reuters) -- An al Qaeda-inspired gunman who killed seven people in France died on Thursday after jumping out of a window of his apartment, where he had been holed up for some 30 hours in a standoff with police, Interior Minister Claude Gueant said.
Mohamed Merah, a 23-year-old Frenchman of Algerian origin, had been silent for hours but opened fire on special forces who stormed the building and was killed in the ensuing gun battle.
"At the moment when a video probe was sent into the bathroom, the killer came out of the bathroom, firing with extreme violence," Gueant told reporters at the scene, adding that Merah was firing several guns at once.
"In the end, Mohamed Merah jumped from the window with his gun in his hand, continuing to fire. He was found dead on the ground," he said.
Two police commandos were injured in the operation.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=470233 23 mar 2012, 12:55 , Respect -
Maria 23 mrt 2012
Israel refuses to cooperate with UN probe into Jewish settlements
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyQqgds8TY8
NAZARETH, (PIC)-- Israel announced that it refuses to cooperate with an independent international fact-finding mission which is due to “investigate the implications of the Israeli settlements on the civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights of the Palestinian people.”
Israeli sources quoted an Israeli official as saying: “Israel will not cooperate with the fact finding mission,” describing the performance of the UN Human Rights Council as "preposterous".
The Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu denounced the move and described the Council as hypocritical, “This is a hypocritical council with an automatic majority against Israel,” he said.
The UN Human Rights Council on Thursday adopted a resolution to set up an independent probe into the effects of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem on the Palestinians. The resolution was passed by 36 votes for, US against and ten abstentions.
http://fwd4.me/0x0S
History Of The Zionist State Of Israel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=seA-ubx7QhM
Israel refuses to cooperate with UN probe into Jewish settlements
NAZARETH, (PIC)-- Israel announced that it refuses to cooperate with an independent international fact-finding mission which is due to “investigate the implications of the Israeli settlements on the civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights of the Palestinian people.”
Israeli sources quoted an Israeli official as saying: “Israel will not cooperate with the fact finding mission,” describing the performance of the UN Human Rights Council as "preposterous".
The Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu denounced the move and described the Council as hypocritical, “This is a hypocritical council with an automatic majority against Israel,” he said.
The UN Human Rights Council on Thursday adopted a resolution to set up an independent probe into the effects of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem on the Palestinians. The resolution was passed by 36 votes for, US against and ten abstentions.
http://fwd4.me/0x0S
Death in Gaza , death in Toulouse
By Khalid Amayreh
Is there a connection between the al-Qaida attack on a Jewish school in Toulouse in southern France and the recurrent murder of Palestinian civilians by Israel in the occupied territories?
This is a question that Israeli officials and propagandists hate to hear. In fact, upon hearing the question, Zionists get convulsive, irate and defensive.
I am in no way suggesting that the attack on the Toulouse school was justified, and I am not one of those who are convinced that Israel's occupation of Palestine and oppression of Palestinians, evil and barbaric as it is, makes every Jew under the sun guilty, let alone a legitimate target for revenge.
However, attacks against Zionist Jews, even abroad, must not be all that surprising in light of what Israel has been doing to the Palestinians and other Muslims for the past 64 years. It would be utterly naïve to pretend that Toulouse is located on a different planet.
Some Palestinian advocates would have a perfectly legitimate right to paraphrase Golda Meir's infamous quote that "we may forgive Palestinians for killing our children, but we can't forgive them for forcing us to kill their children."
So, if the killing of Jewish civilians is an acceptable justification and explanation for making Israel murder Palestinian children, then by the same token, killing Palestinian (and Lebanese) children should be a "legitimate" justification for the killing of Jewish civilians by aggrieved Arabs and Muslims.
In fact, I have no intention to create a moral symmetry between the two cases, as there is none in fact since Israel is the Palestinian people's ultimate tormentor and grave-digger.
Unlike Palestinian children, who are murdered by Israel in order to break the Palestinian people's will for survival and resistance, Israeli civilians are occasionally killed by Palestinians in the context of confronting a colonialist enterprise in Palestine that is aimed at effecting the annihilation of the Palestinian national existence.
The unrelenting narrowing of Palestinian horizons by a fascist-minded Israeli establishment, that is backed almost completely and without reservations by a wantonly obsequious American government that is at Israel's beck and call provokes and invites defensive reactions on the part of the victims.
The American-English poet Auden said:
I and the public know,
What all school children learn,
Those to whom evil is done,
Do evil in return.
Besides, Israel is telling the Palestinian that "you have three choices: Either enslavement as water carriers or wood hewers, or deportation to the desert, or physical extermination."
Israeli officials who are PR-sophisticated probably wouldn't use the same words, but settler and religious leaders who seem to reflect more accurately the collective spirit and mindset of Zionist Jews would not hesitate even for one second to say it as it is. This is religion for them, not a merely changeable political discourse.
The problem doesn't stop at incendiary words and declarations, such as Daniela Weiss's who told a group of settlers a few years ago that the way to deal with the Palestinians was "Joshua's way." In other words, massacres, more massacres and still more massacres.
As we all know, Israel has been quite liberal in using Joshua's sword against Palestinian Civilians. Not a month passes without several Palestinian children killed knowingly and deliberately by Israel. Indeed, as Israel is trying to reap maximum political and propaganda capital from the tragic incident in Toulouse, several Palestinian families are mourning the murderous deaths of their children at Israel's murderous hands.
During Israel's blitz on Gaza four years ago, more than 360 Palestinian children were killed by the "most moral army in the world." Hundreds others were maimed and incinerated white Phosphorus.
The killer of the four Jews in Toulouse has paid with his life for his sinful act, but tens of thousands of Israeli killers, including child killers, are celebrated as heroes throughout their society. They probably will never be prosecuted for their murderous crimes.
Similarly, the innocent Palestinian, Lebanese and other Muslim victims around the world will go unwept by a morally duplicitous world media that views Jewish blood as purer as and redder than Muslim blood, whereas the morally right thing to do is not to differentiate between blood and blood, including Jewish blood and Muslim blood.
But the tragic truth is that the differentiation and discrimination is deep-rooted in the Jewish-Zionist mindset, including Talmudic circles which distorted the Commandment Thou shall not murder to mean "don't murder a Jew" but you may very well murder a goy, even if he is totally innocent.
The killing of innocent people, whether Muslims or Jews or Christians or others, as a retaliation, is wrong and unethical. But wrong and unethical don't mean "inevitable." I believe the Toulouse killing was inevitable and Israel must bear at least a big share of responsibility for the incident.
This is unless Israelis and their leaders are a carbon copy of that Jewish mother in Russia whose son has been called up to serve the Czar in the war against Turkey. The story was related by the Israeli writer Uri Avery a few years ago. “Don’t overexert yourself’” she implores him, “Kill a Turk and rest. Kill another Turk and rest again…”
“But mother,” the son interrupts, “What if the Turk kills me?”
“You?” exclaims the mother, “But why? What have you done to him?”
I lost my three innocent paternal uncles to Israeli bullets a few decades ago. And up to this moment, I have never received a word of apology, or mea culpa from Israel, let alone compensation and damages for the horrendous crime.
Why does Israel behave in this manner? Do Jews really think that their lives have sanctity while ours don't? Do Jews think that the Chosen People complex allows them to belittle the worth and value of non-Jewish lives as is clear from Israel's words and deeds? Aren't all humans humanly equal?
I hope and pray that the Toulouse 's murder won't be repeated. But I know too well that this won't happen as long as Israel continues to murder Palestinians, torment them, steal their land, and narrow their horizons.
One of the messages that keeps repeating itself throughout the Torah is "don't oppress the aliens, for you yourselves were oppressed in the land of Egypt ." Had Jews paid real attention to these timeless words, the Toulouse incident probably wouldn't have occurred.
http://fwd4.me/0x0P