Afghanistan

More than two weeks after Wikileaks began publishing US embassy cables, Fairfax is still printing “exclusives” from its treasure trove of leaks without linking to the source, subverting the process to which the honourable Guardian adhers by making its cables available for public scrutiny and interpretation. The Guardian blew the whistle on fake documents published last week by Pakistani dailies, so one might presume that if the Fairfax cables were not authentic, they too would be exposed. Crikey’s Bernard Keane has pointed out Fairfax’s ignominy. Asad Abukhalil is vouching for the authenticity of additional cables published by Al Akhbar. There are even more cables streaming from Indoleaks in Indonesia, according to the Jakarta Globe.

As far as I am aware, no Australian media is linking directly to Wikileaks cables, despite 1885 mirror sites in Australia and elsewhere. Since the Australian Attorney General has muttered that it may take the Australian Federal Police up to a year to locate a crime to fit the cables’ release, our gutless media may be hedging its bets.

In another article, Keane nails Mastercard, Paypal and Visa for providing service for donations to illegal Israeli settlement activities.

‘Visa, Mastercard and PayPal all enable donations to be made to US-registered groups funding illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank in defiance of international law.

It appears at least one of the major credit cards also enables donations to an extremist Jewish group that has placed a bounty on the lives of Palestinians.’

As I’ve previously revealed, an Australian Zionist organisation, the United Israel Appeal’s New South Wales branch, also offers online credit card facilities for tax deductible donations to its Women’s Division, 50% of whose funds are directed toward the consolidated revenue of Keren Hayesod which is involved in illegal Israeli ‘national’ heritage projects in the West Bank.

Currently, Australian Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd is in Israel causing waves with his demands for Israel to submit to IAEA inspections and renew the settlement freeze.

“Our view has been consistent for a long period of time, and that is that all states in the region should adhere to the NPT, and that includes Israel.”

But it is what he added next by referring to International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors that has caught Israeli officials by surprise: “And therefore their nuclear facility should be subject to IAEA inspection.”

He was speaking before reports that a WikiLeaks cable suggested Australia, along with the US, could be drawn into a nuclear war in the Middle East if Israel were to attack Iran in an attempt to disable its nuclear program.

Perhaps Rudd hasn’t noticed that Lieberman told the Russians in 2009 that Israel did not intend attacking Iran, nor that Israel has repeatedly, deliberately and tactically linked ‘peace’ with Palestinians with the US confronting Iran. That this fiction about an attack on Iran must be maintained when the IAEA inspectors have not found any evidence of wrongdoing is annoying. The Israelis can’t attack without US support. The US would prefer a non-confrontational dialogue with Iran. Senator Kerry made this perfectly clear in February, 2010. Thus, ‘peace’ with Palestinians is also a fiction.

“There’s nowt wrong wi’ owt what mitherin’ clutterbucks don’t barley grummit!”

Israeli officials were not surprised by Mr Rudd’s call for Israel to sign the NPT but were taken aback by his call for IAEA inspections. One high-ranking Israeli official said: “I don’t remember any Australian minister saying (Israel’s) facilities should be put under inspection.”

…

On settlements, which have been at the centre of the collapse of direct peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians, Mr Rudd said: “The position of the Australian government has long been clear. We do not support new settlement construction and the reason is that it undermines the prospects of the successful prosecution of peace negotiations.”

Mr Rudd said the Australian government fully understood Israel’s security concerns from Gaza, but that settlements were “a different matter”.

He expressed concern after comments by Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen, that if the peace talks achieved nothing he might dissolve the Palestinian Authority and hand over day-to-day running of the West Bank to Israel. “There is a second reality also, which is what security challenges Israel would face if the peace process entirely collapses, if the Palestinian Authority totally disengages or if Abu Mazen were to give effect to what he publicly implied in his recent statements about folding the authority, or if the moderate Arab states would begin to adopt a different posture against a protracted and non-successful peace negotiating process.”

Mr Rudd warned that there may be serious consequences if the peace process collapsed.

“All of us, if we are any students of the history of the last decade or so, have a grasp of what can go wrong, and what can go wrong big time if the Palestinian people don’t have a stake in a negotiated outcome,” he said.

For Palestinians, there are serious consequences if the peace process continues, because the interminable peace process is and has always been a facade for more Israeli land theft. Netanyahu called the US bluff with his refusal to stop settlement building despite handsome US bribes and now further, insisting Jerusalem will not be shared. Unless there are concrete repercussions from the US and other nations, the Israel will continue to steal, murder and occupy in pursuit of its expansionist strategy and goal. Is Kevin a knowing participant in this ongoing villainous mythology? A brief examination of a map of the illegal West Bank settlements should be enough for him to realise the two state solution is a vexatious illusion and a de facto one state with discontinuous, unofficial bantustans is the present reality. Israel is an apartheid state to be engaged accordingly with a tangible justice process through boycotts, divestments and sanctions to shortcircuit the duplicitous ‘peace process’ charade.

Meanwhile, somewhere in a cavern in Mordor, US gollums are plotting a star chamber, associated pseudo-laws and an attempt to spirit Julian Assange, the bearer of inconvenient tidings, into their pocketses.

Today’s Wikilinks

Inside Story – WikiLeaks’ financial crisis
How to Support Julian Assange & Wikileaks
Wikileaks.org domain comes back online, helped by new DNS providers
Indoleaks Touts Revealing WikiLeaks Documents, But Technical Problems Persist | The Jakarta Globe
Julian Assange Boasted About ‘Asian Teengirl Stalkers’ In Online Dating Profile
Foreign Office memo shows 2002 plan to sell Iraq invasion to UK media
America, the Grim Truth
America’s Facile, Self-Congratulatory Response to Wikileaks
Julian Assange wined and dined at US Embassy
Call for action over death calls
China: A Nobel Peace Prize for Assange?
Sweden colluding with US to charge Assange with espionage
Wikileaks mum in UK mercy dash
Cablegate Reveals Government Requesting Access to Microsoft Data, Kill Switches
Danish Politiken mirrors Wikileaks on Amazon servers
Wikileaks Christmas Song 2010
Assange attorney: Grand jury meeting in Virginia on WikiLeaks
WikiLeaks Can Survive Swedish, U.S. Assange Probes, Lawyers Say
Another cable searcher
Assange lawyers say US preparing charges
Imperialist diplomacy exposed: Behind the witch-hunt of WikiLeaks and Julian Assange
There Is Something To See Here
Peter Ludlow on “The Political Philosophy of Julian Assange”
Vatican reaction to WikiLeaks claims (LOLOL)
WikiLeaks row: why Amazon’s desertion has ominous implications for democracy
Rumsfeld: Government documents in new memoir, but not like WikiLeaks
Of Wikileaks, Whistleblowers and Whipping Boys
US Poll: People Behind WikiLeaks Should be Prosecuted (how dumbed down are Americans!!)
The Swedish prosecutor denies political pressure from the United States. From Wikileaks published documents show the opposite.
Hilarious: ‘XXXXXXXXXXXX passed on the suggestion from his North Korean interlocutors that the USG arrange for Eric Clapton to perform a concert in Pyongyang. As Kim Jong-il’s second son, Kim Jong-chol, is reported to be a great fan, the performance …could be an opportunity to build good will.’
WikiLeaks founder Assange says Pentagon plans prosecution
Inside Story – WikiLeaks and the craft of journalism
Food for thought. Updated Sunday 12 December
WikiLeaks may make the powerful howl, but we are learning the truth
Rundle: timeline of Assange’s visit to Sweden and events that followed
Swedish Police Leak May Clear Assange
WikiRebels
WikiLeaks cyber war: pro-Assange Anonymous v US nationalists
The Ballad of Julian Assange
What makes Assange tick from somebody who should know
Leaks and Leakers : NO QUARTER
WikiLeaks: Tying Assange to Manning Won’t Be Easy
WikiLeaks release ‘deplorable’: Obama
Hyperdemocracy
PdF Presents: A Symposium on Wikileaks and Internet Freedom
Danish search engine for cables
Why did I back Julian Assange? It’s about justice and fairness
Wikileaks and arms sales | Jewbonics
Sodomy charges were a set-up