Bye Bye Bin Laden, Again?

Bin Laden

Apparently Benazir Bhutto’s estimation years ago that Osama Bin Laden was dead was greatly exaggerated. Obama’s election campaign will now experience a mammoth boost. All hail the mighty terrorist killer! Mission accomplished!

Bin Laden was reportedly killed in a mansion outside Pakistan’s capital Islamabad last week.

Reports say he was killed along with 20 other people in a drone strike.

The 54-year-old Saudi has been the most wanted man in the world since 2001 when he helped orchestrate the September 11 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington.

Positive ID?

President Obama announced late tonight that bin Laden was killed during a U.S. military action. DNA from bin Laden’s body, compared with DNA samples on record from his dead sister, confirmed bin Laden’s identity. The body was recovered by the US military and is currently in its custody.

Will the US military commitment in Pakistan and Afghanistan be reduced accordingly, or merely transferred to some other arena?

UPDATE

The dead martyr, if it is indeed him, is apparently to be buried at sea. The conspiracy theorists will make hay over this convenient disposal of the evidence, regardless of the official explanation.

The decision to bury Bin Laden’s body at sea was part of a carefully-calibrated effort to avoid having a burial place that would turn into a shrine to the Qaeda leader, a place where his adherents could declare him a martyr.

There may be a ‘gruesome’ photo of the dead man.

Bin Laden was killed with a bullet by US Navy Seals. About 24 Seals got out of Chinook and Blackhawk helos and raided the compound. About 40 Seals total were involved.

There is a photo of his dead body. According to this official the picture is “gruesome.”

3 other males were killed in the raid including a man believed to be Bin Laden’s 24 year-old son.

“Lots of bullets were fired.” This official called the raid, “purely a U.S. operation.”

He was asked to surrender briefly before being shot.

These Seals have been practicing the operation for 1 week.

Dishonouring an enemy demonstrates fear. Was OBL the greatest threat to imperial power the US has ever fostered? terrorism kills very few people. Perhaps it was his words which the empire despised so much, yet ideas can’t be killed. Unfinished business?

‘Interestingly enough, according to the Encyclopedia of Death and the Human Experience, burial at sea was more a matter of necessity than choice. Sailors accepted it when far out to sea because there was no other option, but bodies were apparently buried ashore whenever possible. This could be because the changeable nature of the sea denies the living a sense of the permanence of death, a way to complete the ritual of separation that a burial in the earth represents. It also denies the living a single place to go to memorialize the dead. When memorialization was considered especially important (as in the case of Admiral Lord Nelson after Trafalgar), those in command went to extraordinary lengths to ensure the body would be buried ashore.’

Osama bin Laden buried in North Arabian sea from deck of aircraft carrier USS Carl-Vinson

“A military officer read prepared religious remarks which were translated into Arabic by a native speaker. After the words were complete, the body was place on a prepared flat board, tipped up, whereupon the deceased’s body eased into the sea,” the official said.

Burying Osama bin Laden’s body at sea has ensured that his final resting place does not become a shrine and a place of pilgrimage for his followers.

Saudi Arabia is reported to have refused to take the body for burial.

Islamic scholars criticize bin Laden’s sea burial

Although there appears to be some room for debate over the burial — as with many issues within the faith — a wide range of senior Islamic scholars interpreted it as a humiliating disregard for the standard Muslim practice of placing the body in a grave with the head pointed toward the holy city of Mecca.

Sea burials can be allowed, they said, but only in special cases where the death occurred aboard a ship.

Bin Laden’s burial at sea “runs contrary to the principles of Islamic laws, religious values and humanitarian customs,” said Sheik Ahmed al-Tayeb, the grand Imam of Cairo’s al-Azhar mosque, Sunni Islam’s highest seat of learning.

A radical cleric in Lebanon, Omar Bakri Mohammed, said, “The Americans want to humiliate Muslims through this burial, and I don’t think this is in the interest of the U.S. administration.”

But the Lebanese cleric Mohammed called it a “strategic mistake” that was bound to stoke rage.

In Washington, CIA director Leon Panetta warned that “terrorists almost certainly will attempt to avenge” the killing of the mastermind behind the Sept. 11 attacks.

“Bin Laden is dead,” Panetta wrote in a memo to CIA staff. “Al-Qaida is not.”

According to Islamic teachings, the highest honor to be bestowed on the dead is giving the deceased a swift burial, preferably before sunset. Those who die while traveling at sea can have their bodies committed to the bottom of the ocean if they are far off the coast, according to Islamic tradition.

“They can say they buried him at sea, but they cannot say they did it according to Islam,” Mohammed al-Qubaisi, Dubai’s grand mufti, said about bin Laden’s burial. “If the family does not want him, it’s really simple in Islam: You dig up a grave anywhere, even on a remote island, you say the prayers and that’s it.”

“Sea burials are permissible for Muslims in extraordinary circumstances,” he added. “This is not one of them.”

But Mohammed Qudah, a professor of Islamic law at the University of Jordan, said burying the Saudi-born bin Laden at sea was not forbidden if there was nobody to receive the body and provide a Muslim burial.

“The land and the sea belong to God, who is able to protect and raise the dead at the end of times for Judgment Day,” he said. “It’s neither true nor correct to claim that there was nobody in the Muslim world ready to receive bin Laden’s body.”

Clerics in Iraq, where an offshoot of al-Qaida is blamed for the death of thousands of people since 2003, also criticized the U.S. action. One said it only benefited fish.

“If a man dies on a ship that is a long distance from land, then the dead man should be buried at the sea,” said Shiite cleric Ibrahim al-Jabari. “But if he dies on land, then he should be buried in the ground, not to be thrown into the sea. Otherwise, this would be only inviting fish to a banquet.”

Bin Laden was unarmed when SEALs stormed room

Osama bin Laden was unarmed when Navy SEALs burst into his room and shot him to death, the White House said Tuesday, a change in the official account that raised questions about whether the U.S. ever planned to capture the terrorist leader alive.

The Obama administration was still debating whether to release gruesome images of bin Laden’s corpse, balancing efforts to demonstrate to the world that he was dead against the risk that the images could provoke further anti-U.S. sentiment. But CIA Director Leon Panetta said a photograph would be released.

Panetta underscored on Tuesday that Obama had given permission to kill the terror leader: “The authority here was to kill bin Laden,” he said. “And obviously, under the rules of engagement, if he had in fact thrown up his hands, surrendered and didn’t appear to be representing any kind of threat, then they were to capture him. But they had full authority to kill him.

White House Changes Story Of How bin Laden Was Taken Down

Related Links

Western Moral Authority Died in Abbottabad
Statement of the Leadership Council of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan Regarding the Martyrdom – the Taliban affirm the counterproductivity of the US extrajudicial slaying.
Death of Osama Bin Laden ‘pretty irrelevant’: Robert Fisk
Killing of bin Laden: What are the consequences?
Killing Resolves Nothing
Bin Laden’s death: where are the photos Mr. President?
Bin Laden’s death makes the world safer, leaders say
Poll: Palestinians retained highest support of Osama bin Laden since 2003
The 2004 tape which contains bin Laden’s first public acknowledgment of al-Qaeda’s involvement in the attacks on the U.S., noting that he first thought about attacking the World Trade Center in 1982, after watching Israeli aircraft bomb Lebanon during the 1982 Invasion of Lebanon:

And as I looked at those demolished towers in Lebanon, it entered my mind that we should punish the oppressor in kind and that we should destroy towers in America in order that they taste some of what we tasted and so that they be deterred from killing our women and children.

And that day, it was confirmed to me that oppression and the intentional killing of innocent women and children is a deliberate American policy. Destruction is freedom and democracy, while resistance is terrorism and intolerance.

This means the oppressing and embargoing to death of millions as Bush Sr did in Iraq in the greatest mass slaughter of children mankind has ever known, and it means the throwing of millions of pounds of bombs and explosives at millions of children – also in Iraq – as Bush Jr did, in order to remove an old agent and replace him with a new puppet to assist in the pilfering of Iraq’s oil and other outrages.

So with these images and their like as their background, the events of September 11th came as a reply to those great wrongs, should a man be blamed for defending his sanctuary?

Is defending oneself and punishing the aggressor in kind, objectionable terrorism? If it is such, then it is unavoidable for us.

This is the message which I sought to communicate to you in word and deed, repeatedly, for years before September 11th.

And you can read this, if you wish, in my interview with Scott in Time Magazine in 1996, or with Peter Arnett on CNN in 1997, or my meeting with John Weiner in 1998.

You can observe it practically, if you wish, in Kenya and Tanzania and in Aden. And you can read it in my interview with Abdul Bari Atwan, as well as my interviews with Robert Fisk.


This is in addition to our having experience in using guerrilla warfare and the war of attrition to fight tyrannical superpowers, as we, alongside the mujahidin, bled Russia for 10 years, until it went bankrupt and was forced to withdraw in defeat.

All Praise is due to Allah.

So we are continuing this policy in bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy. Allah willing, and nothing is too great for Allah.

That being said, those who say that al-Qaida has won against the administration in the White House or that the administration has lost in this war have not been precise, because when one scrutinises the results, one cannot say that al-Qaida is the sole factor in achieving those spectacular gains.

Rather, the policy of the White House that demands the opening of war fronts to keep busy their various corporations – whether they be working in the field of arms or oil or reconstruction – has helped al-Qaida to achieve these enormous results.

“Injustice chases its people, and how unhealthy the bed of tyranny.”

(If Benazir Bhutto was correct, and Omar Sheikh assassinated OBL prior to his arrest in 2002, the above testimony is a fake.)
Hamas slams killing of ‘holy warrior’ Osama bin Laden
Muslim sea burials

‘623. * If a person dies on a ship and if there is no fear of the decay of the dead body and if there is no problem in retaining it for sometime on the ship, it should be kept on it and buried in the ground after reaching the land. Otherwise, after giving Ghusl, Hunut, Kafan and Namaz-e-Mayyit it should be lowered into the sea in a vessel of clay or with a weight tied to its feet. And as far as possible it should not be lowered at a point where it is eaten up immediately by the sea predators.

624. If it is feared that an enemy may dig up the grave and exhume the dead body and amputate its ears or nose or other limbs, it should be lowered into sea, if possible, as stated in the foregoing rule.

625. * The expenses of lowering the dead body into the sea, or making the grave solid on the ground can be deducted from the estate of the deceased, if necessary. ‘

Israel / Palestine Links

ISRAEL IS AN APARTHEID STATE: A NOTE TO THE “VANGUARD LEADERSHIP GROUP”

A few examples give meaning to the ‘apartheid’ analogy–for example, at least 40% of the land in the West Bank is now inaccessible to Palestinians for residence, agriculture, transportation, or commerce; or the existence of entire road systems that are restricted to Israelis alone; the continuing ethnic cleansing of occupied East Jerusalem; and of course, there is the so-called ‘Separation Wall’, which is condemned by the International Court of Justice. This apartheid wall has divided the West Bank into isolated segments very similar to the Bantustans of South Africa in which Palestinians live isolated from their own families and communities.

Furthermore, the problem of apartheid extends beyond the Occupied Territories. Ninety-three percent of the land in Israel is managed by the Israel Lands Administration whose interests are in preventing the purchasing, leasing or renting of land to those who are not Jewish. Several cases of attempts by Israeli citizens to rent to Palestinian families have been brought before the Supreme Court because of government interference. The Israeli government, for instance, denies Palestinian citizens of Israel the right to marry and raise a family in Israel with someone from the Occupied Territories. We would point the VLG to the racially segregated school systems which exist within Israel itself, or the fact that hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, expelled from Palestine beginning in 1948, have never been granted the internationally recognized “right of return” to their homes of origin. And discussions have been underway in Israel that, while originating among the so-called right-wing fringes, have now shifted to the so-called mainstream circles proposing to remove Palestinian citizens of Israel entirely from the country and relocate them in either the Occupied Territories or some other Arab country.

Truth Matters: A response to the Vanguard Leadership Group

The VLG is an organization whose cryptic website reveals little about who is involved, who it represents, what it does, and what it believes in, though the website is peppered with references to the VLG’s participation in AIPAC conferences and tours to the Israeli Knesset.

BDS update: Breaking new barriers
Publishing Propaganda, Ignoring Facts : zionist hasbara on upcoming Gaza flotilla

Naturally, this suggestion ignores the fact that, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 61% of Gazans are “food insecure,” of which “65% are children under 18 years;” the level of anemia in infants is as high as 65.5%, about 70% of Gazans live on less than $1 a day, 75% rely on food aid, and 60% have no daily access to water. It also sidesteps the fact that, as Rebecca Sargent of the Peace and Collaborative Development Network has noted, “Much of the population remains unemployed and thus have no money to buy supplies for themselves. U.N. Resolution 1860 calls for the unfettered access of aid and commercial goods to Gaza, although it would appear this call has been mostly ignored by the Israeli government’s blockade.”

Israel’s West Bank policies render the two-state solution DOA
The legal tsunami is on its way

If the Palestinian government also decides to sign and ratify the international criminal court’s Rome Statute, the territories of the West Bank and Gaza will fall under the international tribunal’s authority to investigate and prosecute.

The ghost town between Palestine’s past and its future

Lifta is the last of the deserted Palestinian villages still standing in modern-day Israel. The several hundred other communities abandoned have either been built over, destroyed or resettled.

Disappearing Palestine and “typically Israeli” landscapes

For decades the quasi-governmental organization the Jewish National Fund has been planting non-indigenous forests on Palestinian land, often covering up the remains of destroyed villages, as part of the state’s quest to colonize more and more land.

Egypt urges US to back Palestinian state declaration Mr Araby says Egypt now fully supports the Palestinian plan, and has urged the US to do the same.
‘Israel secretly requested Mashaal’s visit to Ankara’

Abdüllatif ?ener, a former AK Party deputy who resigned and established his own Turkey Party (TP), told Today’s Zaman in an exclusive interview during an election rally in Sivas that the Hamas leader visited Turkey under an agreement between the Turkish and Israeli governments. “The official invitation was extended to Mashaal after a secret agreement was brokered between Turkey and Israel. I know for a fact that the visit was originally planned at the request of the Israelis,” he added.

Since Hamas “won a democratic election, from now on it must act in a democratic way,” he said. US and Israeli officials insist they will have nothing to do with the Hamas administration unless it renounces violence and recognizes Israel’s right to exist. ?ener further claimed that Erdo?an called Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni to silence the outspoken Israeli ambassador in Ankara who harshly criticized the visit. “In the company of some people, including me, the prime minister called the Israeli foreign minister and said: ‘We made an agreement with you before Mashaal came. Tell your ambassador [in Ankara] to stop making comments. This is enough,” ?ener recalled.

Hamas leader Meshaal in Cairo to sign unity deal
Report: Better to be a Holocaust Survivor Outside Israel
Fayyad urges international intervention over Israeli freeze on Palestinian taxes

Egypt Links

Report: Mubarak’s wealth came from Israel gas deal – Cairo’s new justice minister says ousted Egyptian president owes his vast fortune to corrupt arms deals, gas sales to Israel. Arms deals? – no mention on the ANI site which Ynet quotes.
Billionaire Mubarak made fortune in arms deals with Israel, minister says
Mubarak’s wealth came from gas exports to Israel, arms deals: Justice Minister
The difficulty of moving Hosni Mubarak to a prison hospital in Cairo shifted attention to the serious accusations levelled against the deposed president
Gulf Arab states don’t want Mubarak tried
West accused of double standards over Arabs
New direction : Egypt breaks with U.S. foreign policy
Hague in talks with Egypt’s leaders

Palestinians Talk About Unity

Responding to popular pressure from Palestinian civil society, including a growing youth movement, the two main rival Palestinian factions, Fateh and Hamas, have agreed to an Egyptian-brokered reconciliation deal after years of failed attempts at ending their divisions. Although details of the agreement have yet to be made public, it reportedly calls for an interim unity government and elections within a year. Join us as we examine the significance of this development, and the ramifications it might have on the overall political situation just a month before Israeli PM Netanyahu’s speech before the U.S. Congress.

GUESTS:

Ali Abunimah is an analyst & media commentator, as well as the author of One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse.

Lina Al-Sharif lives in Gaza where she is a senior English Literature student at the Islamic University in Gaza as well as an active blogger and writer.

Fadi Quran lives in the West Bank and is a coordinator within various youth movements as well as the founder of an alternative energy startup. A graduate of Standford University, Quran is currently pursuing a Masters degree in Human Rights and Constitutional Law.

Yousef Munayyer (Guest Moderator) is the Executive Director of the Jerusalem Fund and the Palestine Center in Washington D.C.

Unity is an illusion unless it is representative of the call of Palestinian civil society themselves, as Ali says, for the end of occupation and apartheid, for equal rights for Palestinians in Israel and recognition of right of Palestinians to return to their lands. The unity the unelected ‘leaders’ can offer is worthless if it isn’t steadfast to the people’s vision.

Related Links

Occupation remains the problem to Palestinian unity

The agreement signed last night between Fatah and Hamas does not represent unity. The reconciliation agreement represents a move to appease growing popular movements on the streets of Gaza and the West Bank which are demanding real unity, one that might not even involve the PA and Hamas, in order to combat Israeli occupation.

Declaring an Independent Bantustan

The drive for recognition is led by Salam Fayyad, the appointed Prime Minister of the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority (PA). It is based on the decision made during the 1970s by the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) to adopt the more flexible program of a “two-state solution.” This program maintains that the Palestinian question, the essence of the Arab-Israeli conflict, can be resolved with the establishment of an “independent state” in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, with East Jerusalem as its capital. In this program Palestinian refugees would return to the state of “Palestine” but not to their homes in Israel, which defines itself as “the state of Jews.” Yet “independence” does not deal with this issue, neither does it heed calls made by the 1.2 million Palestinian citizens of Israel to transform the struggle into an anti-apartheid movement since they are treated as third-class citizens.

Israeli leaders reject Palestinian unity deal

Khaleda Jarrar, a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, told Al Jazeera that the latest development represented an opportunity for Palestinians.

“I think it is a good opportunity for reconciliation, especially with the Arab revolutions around and the Palestinian youth movement which has started to pressure both Fatah and Hamas to really put an end to the divisions.

“This time we hope that it will be a real reconciliation, it will work because of the changes [in the region] and the internal pressure from the Palestinian people,” she said.

But Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, stressed he would retain control over foreign policy.

He added that he remained ready to talk peace with Netanyahu if Israel halted its settlement construction on occupied lands and said the caretaker government would not include Hamas activists.

“The people will be independents, technocrats, not affiliated with any factions,” Abbas told a group of Israeli businessmen and retired security chiefs.

He said the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), which he heads and to which Hamas does not belong, would still be responsible for “handling politics, negotiations”.

“Dislike, agree or disagree (with Hamas) — they’re our people. You, Mr Netanyahu (are) our partner,” Abbas, speaking in English, told his Israeli audience.

Palestinian Unity: Dividends and Discontents

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reacted swiftly and furiously to reports of Palestinian reconciliation by reiterating what he had said a month ago: that Abbas could not have peace with both Israel and Hamas.

If Bibi meant this as a threat, it seems an odd one, since he has steadfastly refused all moves toward peace. His tactic has been to ensure that settlement construction continues, thus making it politically impossible for Abbas, in the wake of Obama’s determination to obtain a freeze on settlements, to return to talks and then shedding crocodile tears for the Palestinians “refusal” to come and talk to him.

This tactic has killed a peace process that, after twenty years of settlement expansion and massive tightening of the occupation, was already on life support. So, Bibi essentially gave Abbas a choice between peace with Hamas and no peace at all. Abbas, then, made the only call he could.

Erekat on unity: respect our democracy

“I have met Netanyahu in Washington and in Jerusalem, and it led to nothing,” Abbas said. “All he wants to talk about is security. I understand the Israeli concern, but I won’t have Israeli forces in the Palestinian state. Netanyahu wanted an Israeli army in the West Bank for another forty years. That means the occupation continues.”

Among other Palestinian officials present were former head of security Jibril Rajoub, who was rarely seen together with Abu Mazen in recent years, and former chief negotiator, Saeb Erekat, who added his own comment to questions from the Israeli media regarding the reconciliation agreement. “This is about peace, but also about democracy,” he said. “We respect the democratic choices of the Israeli people. We ask Israel to respect ours.”

Among those present on the Israeli side were former head of Mossad, Danny Yatom, former Labor Minister Moshe Shahal, buisness tycon Idan Ofer and Adina Bar Shalom daughter of Shas leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef.

“I’m glad I came to Ramallah today,” said Bar Shalom. “I feel that we have a partner.”

Alistair Crooke looks behind Israel’s ‘security’ hasbara and tilt against a Palestinian state:

If a Palestinian state threatens to undermine Zionism in these ways, it is not surprising that it is not on offer. It is simply implausible to expect it come about through Palestinians negotiating with no bargaining power — because to create a sovereign and legitimate state would require that the Palestinians force Israel to give something which many see not to be in their interest to concede: The abandonment of Zionism. Any concession in this area (of Zionism) inevitably opens a can of worms and the risk of igniting civil war between the various strands of Zionism. It suits Israel better to have a Palestinian “state” without borders, so they can keep negotiating about borders and count on the induced uncertainty to maintain Palestinian and international quiescence.

Fatah and Hamas: Tectonic plates start to shift : A future environment composed of free Egyptians, Jordanians and even possibly Syrians could well fashion Israel’s borders
It’s my fault that Hamas is now working with Fatah?
Netanyahu presses for U.S. action over Fatah-Hamas deal Nutanyahoo using desperate rhetoric:

“Israel would not recognize any government in the world that included members from Al-Qaida,” Netanyahu said.

Israel can redeem itself by recognizing a Palestinian state

Palestine / Israel Links

Egyptian youth call for million-man marches to support Palestinians
Egypt FM: Gaza border crossing to be permanently opened
Palestinian………….. I was born
14.2% of the Palestinian work force was employed in settlements in 2010.
Sign the petition to end tax deductible ‘charity’ contributions to illegal Israeli settlements
World Federation of Trade Unions statement on May Day, 2011
New Israeli plan to build 386 settlement units in Sheikh Jarrah revealed
Israel’s mythological backbone unmasked: ‘The Invention of the Jewish People’ by Shlomo Sand
Israeli rabbi calls for Israel’s Palestinian citizens to be “encouraged” to move to Saudi Arabia and Libya
Hasbaroid Kantor: “No other nation faces calls for its destruction or dismantlement, justifies the killing of its citizens or faces a boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign. These people clearly single out the only Jewish State in the world and this is intolerable.”
#BDS Victory: Swedish Pension Funds call on Motorola to stop profiting from Israel’s occupation
#BDS: Appel BDS Maroc
Campus BDS Heating Up This Spring!
Israeli forces fired on an area east of Al-Bureij camp in central Gaza Thursday evening, injuring four, including a woman and two children
Oh how lovely zionism is – Israel demolishes home of Palestinian-Israeli, then bills him $150,000 for the cost of demolition.

Syria Links

Syria: “The Revolution is Continuing in Daraa; Are You With Us?”
Hundreds quit ruling party in protest over crackdown
The Man behind “Syria Revolution 2011? Facebook-Page Speaks Out

Libya Links

GOODIES AND BADDIES

The idea of “humanitarian intervention” which is behind the decision to attack in Libya is one of the central beliefs of our age.

It divides people. Some see it as a noble, disinterested use of Western power. Others see it as a smokescreen for a latter-day liberal imperialism.

Shahin and Juan Cole, The Women’s Movement in the Middle East

Other Links

You People Engaging article on Pakistan and identity by Robin Yassin-Kassab
Long live the Queen?

Noam Chomsky, professor of linguistics

I recommend the views of a philosopher friend, Peter Slezak, in Australia. A few years ago he surprised his left-liberal friends by voicing support for keeping the Queen. Royalty serves a useful purpose, he said: the pomp and ceremony helps undermine respect for state authority.

Superman now ashamed to speak up for America
“The former head of an agency accused of torture and human rights abuses is expected to be a guest at Friday’s royal wedding, the Guardian has learned.
Sheikh Khalifa Bin Ali al-Khalifa is a former head of Bahrain’s National Security Agency (NSA) and will attend the wedding in his role as the current Bahraini ambassador to London.”
“Royal Wedding” Showcard Cartoon
Fascism in the US : Bradley Manning Protest video stirs up White House
UK fascism with a feudal flavour RT @alexlobov: Thoughtcrime! RT @brownisthecolor Police arrest activists across UK ahead of #RoyalWedding for THINKING abt protesting
We cannot have a divide between Aboriginal people being created by the media in the interests of Government. Two Aboriginal people are not the embodiment of Aboriginal people, they are two Aboriginal people. People, who due to their profiles, are having what should be a personal issue dragged out in the public eye.

The Palestinian State at the End of the Rainbow

Some of the Middle East elephant’s mandarins are signalling a major land grab if Palestinians request recognition of a Palestinian state in the UN in September.

Danon favors responding to a Palestinian declaration of statehood by annexing all of Area C, which includes all the West Bank’s Jewish settlements and empty land. He said Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu should follow the example of his predecessors Levi Eshkol, who annexed eastern Jerusalem, and Menachem Begin, who annexed the Golan Heights.

Contra criminal and neoziocon Elliott Abrams has a devious plan:

‘Israel should head off the U.N. vote at the pass, he says, by having Bibi proclaim to Congress that Israel accepts Palestinian statehood. But that would leave half a million Israelis in Palestinian hands without Palestine being able to protect them. This would require Israel to maintain all the present security measures until Israel and Palestine have fully agreed on peace. Sure, this is a ploy, but not a bad one for Israel because it might avoid an international blessing for a Palestinian state.’

There is little chance that Nutanyahoo will offer a viable sovereign Palestinian state. His proposals to date have prescribed formalisation of the existing bantustans with Israel retaining control of borders and the Jordan Valley.

Netanyahu has already begun staking out Israel’s redlines. Speaking to reporters on March 9, Netanyahu said,

“Our security border is here on the Jordan and our defense line begins here. If that line is breached they will be able to infiltrate terrorists, rockets and missiles all the way to Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Haifa, and Be’er Sheva and throughout the country. There is no alternative to the IDF’s line of defense. Therefore, in any future situation, and I say in any future arrangement as well, the IDF must stay here, i.e. along the Jordan River. This is the State of Israel’s insurance policy. If this was true before the major unrest now shaking the Middle East and the entire region, it is doubly true today. The IDF must remain along the Jordan River.

Yet Nutanyahoo doesn’t have the political capital in the Knesset to take on the fanatical illegal settlers. Israel covets the land and resources of the West Bank, particularly the water, and did I mention the land? While the US supports Israeli intransigence there is no chance that a Palestinian state would be formed in anything other than name. Nutanyahoo’s, and indeed any other Israeli leader’s strategy will be for the status quo – unctuous bleatings of negotiated outcomes and fake peace processes, while daily, illegal Israeli settlers supported by the IOF nibble away at the West Bank, continuing Israel’s criminal colonisation and slow, disgusting genocide.

Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Moshe Ya’alon outlined the status quo position in a March 3 interview in the magazine Besheva:

“Our intention is to leave the situation as it is: autonomous management of civil affairs, and if they want to call it a state, let them call it that. If they want to call it an empire, by all means. We intend to keep what exists now and let them call it whatever they want. . . . Our approach is steadfastness, development, construction, strengthening and so on. This is our approach and this is what we do as a government.”

While the US State Department argues for ongoing direct negotiations between the two (unequal) parties (and further, signals illegitimacy of the mooted Fatah/Hamas caretaker government on the grounds of Hamas’ ‘terrorism’) and thus by default bolsters the Israeli preferred indefinite extension of the status quo, US strategic regional interests are affected. General James Mattis, Commander, U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), in testimony before the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee, March 1, 2011 said:

This is a defining moment for the people of the region and, by extension, a critical moment for Central Command to remain engaged with our partners and to clear away obstacles to peace and prosperity. On that note, while Israel and the Palestinian territories are not in my assigned theater, lack of progress toward a comprehensive Middle East peace affects U.S. and CENTCOM security interests in the region.

I believe the only reliable path to lasting peace in this region is a viable two-state solution between Israel and Palestine. This issue is one of many that is exploited by our adversaries in the region, and it is used as a recruiting tool for extremist groups. The lack of progress also creates friction with regional partners and creates political challenges for advancing our interests by marginalizing moderate voices in the region. By contrast, substantive progress on the peace process would improve CENTCOM’s opportunity to work with our regional partners and to support multilateral security efforts.

As Obama prepares for the next election, it’s unlikely he will apply adequate pressure to Nutanyahoo for a viable Palestinian state and risk his domestic political capital before a hostile Israel lobby, despite the forebodings of his defence advisors. The rainbow’s end is an illusion.

Related Links

The Wrath of Abbas
Israel denies report on Netanyahu’s proposed peace initiative
Fatah and Hamas agree to historic Palestinian reconciliation deal
Questions about “Hamas-Fatah reconciliation” Ali Abunimah:

More broadly, the goal for Palestinians should not be “unity” among factions, but unity of goals for the Palestinian people. What is the purpose and platform of the planned “transitional government” other than merely to exist? A real Palestinian strategy that unites all segments of the Palestinian people has been articulated by the BDS movement:

(a) an end to occupation and colonization of the 1967 territories; (b) full equality and an end to all forms of discrimination against Palestinians in the 1948 areas (“Israel”); and (c) full respect and implementation of the rights of Palestinian refugees.

Notably neither Fatah Abbas nor Hamas have endorsed this campaign, and neither has articulated a realistic strategy aimed at restoring the rights of all Palestinians.

White House seeks info on Palestinian agreement

“The United States supports Palestinian reconciliation on terms which promote the cause of peace. Hamas, however, is a terrorist organization which targets civilians,” White House spokesman Tommy Vietor said in a statement.

“To play a constructive role in achieving peace, any Palestinian government must accept the Quartet principles and renounce violence, abide by past agreements, and recognize Israel’s right to exist,” he said.

Palestinian reconciliation could work to Israel’s advantage

: Avi Issacharoff and Amos Harel believe Netanyahu will be able to use the newly signed unity deal as proof that Abbas doesn’t really want peace.

Renewed relations between Hamas and Fatah, however limited, could shed a different light on Abbas’ intentions, and Netanyahu, who is due to speak before both houses of Congress next month, will be able to present the agreement as proof that Abbas doesn’t really want peace.

Hamas Fatah Reconciliation – what does it mean?
A separate peace
Lieberman: Palestinian unity will lead to Hamas West Bank takeover
The Palestinian Facebook Movement: Can it take up the baton of revolution?


More at The Real News

Israel / Palestine Links

Israel needs a real left wing, not a repackaged right
Egypt gas pipeline to Israel and Jordan explodes
U.S.: Peace with Israel essential to future of Egyptian people

Over half of the Egpytian public want to scrap the existing peace deal with Israel, according to a new survey undertaken by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. The poll measured attitudes in Egypt three months after the start of the uprising in Cairo. The U.S. State Department said in response to the survey that “the Egyptian army has pledged to uphold international agreements forged by Egypt, including the 1979 peace agreement with Israel.”

The survey said that 54 percent of Egyptians supported the annulment of the peace agreement with Jerusalem, and that just 36 percent wanted to maintain the peace agreement with Israel.

The annulment figure rose to six out of ten Egyptians when people in lower income brackets were asked. Further, 59 percent of respondents in lower educational brackets also supported negating the agreement. Among wealthy and well-educated Egyptians, the figures for those in favor of annulling peace relations with Israel are 45 percent and 40 percent.

Regarding the United States, only 22 percent of Egyptians think that the US played a positive role in the uprising, in contrast to 39 percent who think that the Americans exerted a negative influence; 35 percent think that the US had no influence.

President Barack Obama, it turns out, has an image problem in the Middle East and not just in Israel: Almost two-thirds of Egyptians (64 percent ) report that they do not trust Obama’s global policy. Further, 52 percent of respondents did not like President Obama’s responses to changes in the Middle East. Less than half (45 percent ) of Egyptians are happy with the U.S. President’s performance in the region.

Four out of ten Egyptians want to maintain close relations with the U.S., yet a similar number want their country to move away from the Americans. Only 15 percent of Egyptians want to strengthen relations between their country and the U.S. in years ahead.

Leichhardt sits on fence in Israeli boycott
‘A deep-rooted hatred of the British’: How Israelis ‘armed junta’ in Falklands conflict
With Bookings on The Rise, Israel’s Concert Industry Breathes a Sigh of Relief

You could blame Facebook. What typically happens when an artist — of any genre or stature — announces a show in Israel, the act’s Facebook page or website is bombarded with posts calling on said artist to cancel the show out of protest and/or boycott the country entirely.

When Montgomery comes to Nabi Saleh

The detention of Tamimi is not a formality: under Israeli military decree 101 he is being charged with attempting “verbally or otherwise, to influence public opinion in the Area in a way that may disturb the public peace or public order.” As in Syria, this is an “emergency decree” disguised as protecting public security. It carries a sentence of 10 years.

Young Mizrahi Israelis’ open letter to Arab peers
Facebook Campaign Launched Asking Moby to Cancel Gig With Pic.Nic in Apartheid Israel
Norman Finkelstein refutes Palestinian war crimes
Mike Marqusee on Mahmoud Darwish, the poet of the Palestinian people
Fascist Israeli police throw a tear gas canister inside poetry tent at Palfest, Silwan.
Medical missions at the rate of one per week are facilitated by the PCRF headquarters. Last year, the PCRF organised 60 medical missions to Palestine and helped save the lives of hundreds of children.
Modes of Control: Easter at Qalandiya

Other Links

Is This What Makes America Exceptional?
One Surprising Reason People May Believe Bizarre Conspiracy Theories

Norman Finkelstein: “The Coming Breakup of American Zionism”

Finkelstein speaks to his forthcoming book “A Farewell to Israel : The Coming Breakup of American Zionism”

Nathan Glazer, 1957: “Israel has had remarkedly slight effects on the inner life of American jewry.”
Mr. Wiesel before 1967 war was asked by Haaretz what can we do to win over jews to their jewishness because there was a fear back then of rampant assimiliation: “The jewishness of jewish youth can still be reached but not through Israel. Perhaps through the problems of jews in Russia, perhaps through questions about the Holocaust, but not through Israel.”

Finkelstein: “Israel became a strategic asset of the US. If you were pro-Israel, you were actually super-loyal to the United States, because there was Israel on the frontline protecting American interests from Arab hordes… Israel was winning, while practising ‘purity of arms’. … Zionism as an idea arises from the idea that jews cannot assimilate. Zionism’s main product is the state of Israel. Paradoxically by swearing allegiance to Israel, Americans can thus assimilate fully into American life, defending Judaeo Christian culture against Arab hordes. The more pro-Israel one is, the more pro-American one becomes.”

“Israel is seen as a besieged beacon of enlightenment values in the Middle East, so for American jews Israel becomes a source of pride… Israel is the Alamo all over again.”

Related Links

Semites and anti-Semites, that is the question

The history of European Orientalism is one that is fully complicit with anti-Semitism from which it derives many of its representations of ancient and modern Arabs and of ancient Hebrews and modern Jews. As Edward Said demonstrated a quarter of a century ago in his classic Orientalism, “what has not been sufficiently stressed in histories of modern anti-Semitism has been the legitimation of such atavistic designations by Orientalism, and… the way this academic and intellectual legitimation has persisted right through the modern age in discussions of Islam, the Arabs, or the Near Orient.” Said added: “The transference of popular anti-Semitic animus from a Jewish to an Arab target was made smoothly, since the figure was essentially the same.” In the context of the 1973 War, Said commented that Arabs came to be represented in the West as having “clearly ‘Semitic’ features: sharply hooked noses, the evil moustachioed leer on their faces, were obvious reminders (to a largely non- Semitic population) that ‘Semites’ were at the bottom of all ‘our’ troubles.”

While holocaust denial in the West is indeed one of the strongest manifestations of anti-Semitism, most Arabs who deny the holocaust deny it for political not racist reasons. This point is even conceded by the anti-Arab and anti-Muslim Orientalist Bernard Lewis. Their denial is based on the false Zionist claim that the holocaust justifies Zionist colonialism. The Zionist claim is as follows: Since Jews were the victims of the holocaust, then they have the right to colonise Palestine and establish a Jewish colonial-settler state there. Those Arabs who deny the holocaust accept the Zionist logic as correct. Since these deniers reject the right of Zionists to colonise Palestine, the only argument left to them is to deny that the holocaust ever took place, which, to their thinking, robs Zionism of its allegedly “moral” argument. But the fact that Jews were massacred does not give Zionists the right to steal someone else’s homeland and to massacre the Palestinian people. The oppression of a people does not endow it with rights to oppress others. If those Arab deniers refuse to accept the criminal Zionist logic that justifies the murder and oppression of the Palestinians by appealing to the holocaust, then these deniers would no longer need to make such spurious arguments. All those in the Arab world who deny the Jewish holocaust are in my opinion Zionists.

Today we live in a world where anti-Arab and anti-Muslim hatred, derived from anti-Semitism, is everywhere in evidence. It is not Jews who are being murdered by the thousands by Arab anti- Semitism, but rather Arabs and Muslims who are being murdered by the tens of thousands by Euro- American Christian anti-Semitism and by Israeli Jewish anti-Semitism. If anti-Semites posited Jews as the purveyors of corruption, as financier bankers who control the world, as violent communist subversives, and as poisoners of Christian wells, the Arab and the Muslim today are seen as in control of the oil market and therefore of the global financial market, the purveyors of hatred and corruption of civilised Christian and Jewish societies, as violent terrorists, and as possible mass murderers, not with some Semitic Jewish poison but with Semitic Arab nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons (which are nowhere to be found). Thus Michael Moore feels vindicated in telling us in his recent film, Fahrenheit 9/11, about the portion of the American economy controlled by Saudi money while neglecting to mention the much, much larger American share of the Saudi economy. Anti- Semitism is alive and well today worldwide and its major victims are Arabs and Muslims and no longer Jews. The fight should indeed be against all anti-Semitism no matter who the object of its oppression is, Arab or Jew.

Israel / Palestine Links

Donor to Ben Gurion University wants condemnation of leftist statements : Neve Gordon –

“I’m not sure it’s the role of academics to change society. People should speak out in support of democracy and criticize undemocratic elements, but not necessarily through academia. Civil society movements should lead… academics are not only academics, they are also something else, they are also members of civil society. And as members of civil society, academics need to struggle for social justice, locally and nationally.”

Perhaps the donor is worried about someone else on this haet lsit though?

The Scottish Trade Union Congress (STUC) condemns the Histadrut and declares its continued commitment to the campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against the state of Israel

Breaking the Silence database
PLO official says PA prefers negotiations to unilateral declaration of Palestinian state

The Palestinian Authority will defer its attempts to unilaterally declare a Palestinian state at the United Nations if “real and serious” negotiations with Israel begin, an official was quoted saying Monday.

Secretary General of the Palestine Liberation Organization Yasser Abed Rabbo told London-based Al-Hayat newspaper on Monday that the basis of any negotiated agreement must be according to “the 1967 borders, very limited exchange of land and no exchanges of populations.”

BBC Trust clears Panorama documentary on Mavi Marmara over majority of complaints, but upholds three out of 51 points
Israel: UN recognition of a Palestinian state will turn us into ‘colonialists’ – zionists bleat about what already exists – their colonialism.
Stolen Youth: The Politics of Israel’s Detention of Palestinian Children free download of ebook
“For as long as I can, I will continue”: Hajo Meyer interviewed

The Zionists in contrast are automatons. Wherever I speak they do always the same. They come to the audience without any arguments or just shout “lies!” … They are brainwashed to nothing.

It is a lesson I learned in Auschwitz. When a dominant group tries to dehumanize a certain distinguishable group, it is necessary that the members of the dominant group have been brainwashed beforehand. A normal human being cannot see another human being suffering, let alone inflict suffering. His or her inborn empathy needs to be reduced to be able to inflict suffering on a human being. My hope is that, eventually, a society composed of a majority that lost empathy by brainwashing right from the kindergarten until the army, like the Zionists, kills itself from within by too much aggression.

Other Links

A book to buy : The Face of Imperialism by Michael Parenti

Those who think BDS is the wrong way to go to achieve justice and rights for Palestinian people aren’t listening to Palestinian civil society, but to the colonial voice in their head. Jin, April 2011.

Napoleon called it Palestine too

Some offerings for this chocolate fertility cult season.

Napoleons Campaign in Egypt 1798

Israel / Palestine Links

Medics: 3 injured as Israeli tanks shell Gaza
PROFILES FROM BEN-GURION UNIVERSITY: – Israeli academic heroes backing BDS
The slanderer as historian 20Apr11 April 22, 2011
Palestinians ask Subaru to act against spoof ad 21Apr11
Palestinian leader Ashrawi: “What we need from the Quartet is for it to uphold international law”, Netanyahu proposal “manipulation”

Other Links

My Absence on the Central Committee : Fidel Castro