Boycotting Israeli Apartheid in Australia

BOYCOTT ISRAEL

The Boycott of Israeli goods is part of an international movement known as the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement. The movement was initiated in 2005 by over 170 Palestinian organisations and has gained momentum internationally as the brutality of Israel has time and again been exposed to the world.

The main goals of the movement are to:

– Expose the true nature of Israel’s occupation and apartheid practices

-Give real value to human rights by making Israel accountable for its crimes

– Reveal and highlight the complicity of the international community in supporting Israeli crimes that relentlessly violate human rights and international law

– End international law support for Israeli occupation and apartheid with the understanding that apartheid cannot be sustained without external assistance.

WHAT YOU CAN DO:

– Support the boycott of all Israeli companies

– Inform yourself about the history of Israel’s occupation of Palestine

– Spread the word (share on facebook, myspace or any social sites, ‘like’ this video or add to favorites)

– Join the Campaign

INFO:

http://www.bdsmovement.net/

http://www.afopa.com.au/

Also see Israeli Apartheid is Worse Than Apartheid Practised by White South Africa

Australians for Palestine

Today’s Palestinian / Israel Links

Ziolobby putting heavy pressure on Marrickville Council – resist Israeli apartheid ! stay firm & BDS Israel
Israel boycott sparks furor, death threats
Netanyahu is beginning to resemble his friend Mubarak
In sharp reversal, U.S. agrees to rebuke Israel in Security Council – not good enough, US
Deposing dictators is just the start of a Middle East transformation
The “Palestine Papers”: Grave Palestinian concessions met with utter Israeli rejectionism

Other Links

David Hicks relates the torture techniques and other outrages committed on him by imperial forces in Guantanamo.
The “Anti-Nationals” – repression and torture in India
Split in the royal family in Bahrain?
ABC reporter beaten in Bahrain
Live Blog – Bahrain
The Importance of Assimilation and Integration
Inside the Predator Drone Killing Machine
2011 Bahraini protests

The Hypocrisy of the US on Illegal Israeli Settlements

The US has signalled that it will be vetoing the resolution currently before the UN Security Council against Israeli settlement expansion, despite the resolution’s consistency with existing US policy and previous votes in the UN.

M J Rosenberg considers that this US veto “violates broader US interests”, is a function of US domestic policy and the power of the campaign finance from the ubiquitous Israel lobby is to blame:

This is from AFP’s report on what Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg told the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

“We have made very clear that we do not think the Security Council is the right place to engage on these issues,” Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg told the House of Representatives’ Foreign Affairs Committee.

“We have had some success, at least for the moment, in not having that arise there. And we will continue to employ the tools that we have to make sure that continues to not happen,” said Steinberg.

There is so much wrong with Steinberg’s statement that it is hard to know where to start.

First is the obvious. Opposition to Israeli settlements is perhaps the only issue on which the entire Arab and Muslim world is united. Iraqis and Afghanis, Syrians and Egyptians, Indonesians and Pakistanis don’t agree on much, but they do agree on that. They also agree that the US policy on settlements demonstrates flagrant disregard for human rights in the Muslim world (at least when Israel is the human rights violator).

Accordingly, a US decision to support the condemnation of settlements would send a clear message to the Arab and Muslim world that we understand what is happening in the Middle East and that we share at least some of its peoples’ concerns.

The settlement issue should be an easy one for the United States. Our official policy is the same as that of the Arab world. We oppose settlements. We consider them illegal. We have repeatedly demanded that the Israelis stop expanding them (although the Israeli government repeatedly ignores us). The administration feels so strongly about settlements that it recently offered Israel an extra $3.5bn in US aid to freeze settlements for 90 days.

It is impossible, then, for the United States to pretend that we do not agree with the resolution (especially when its language was carefully drafted to comport with the administration’s official position). So why will we veto a resolution that expresses our own views?

Steinberg says that “We do not think the Security Council is the right place to engage on these issues.”

Why not? It is the Security Council that passed all the major international resolutions (with US support) governing Israel’s role in the occupied territories since the first one, UN Resolution 242 in 1967.

He then adds, with clear pride that:

“We have had some success, at least for the moment, in not having that [the settlements issue] arise there.”

Very impressive. The United States has had no success whatsoever in getting the Netanyahu government to stop expanding settlements — to stop evicting Palestinians from their homes in East Jerusalem to make way for ultra-Orthodox settlers — and no success in getting Israel to crack down on settler violence, but we have had “some success” in keeping the issue out of the United Nations.

The only way to resolve the settlements issue, according to Steinberg, “is through engagement through the parties, and that is our clear and consistent position”. Clear and consistent it may be. But it hasn’t worked. The bulldozers never stop.

Of course, it is not hard to explain the Obama administration’s decision to veto a resolution embodying positions that we support. It is the power of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which is lobbying furiously for a US veto (actually not so furiously; AIPAC doesn’t waste energy when it knows that its congressional acolytes — and Dennis Ross in the White House itself — will do its work for them).

The power of the lobby is the only reason we will veto the resolution. Try to come up with another one. After all, voting for the resolution (or, at least, abstaining on it) serves US interests in the Middle East at a critical moment and is consistent with US policy.

But it would enrage the lobby and its friends who will threaten retribution in the 2012 election.

Simply put, our Middle East policy is all about domestic politics. And not even the incredible events of the past month will change that.

That is why US standing in the Middle East will continue to deteriorate. We simply cannot deliver. After all, there is always another election on the horizon and that means that it is donors, not diplomats, who determine US policy.

Yet the power of campaign finance and political pressure from the Israel lobby cannot be separated from the skewed system which facilitates corruption of imperial power. Other interests wilfully operate against people’s welfare within and without the empire besides the Israel lobby – big tobacco, big pharma, big banks, big chemicals, big oil and big defence are also empowered disproportionately by the US campaign finance and lobbying system.

A fundamental overhaul of the plutocratic US political system which presently permits the rich to rule courtesy of campaign bribery and extortionist lobbying would assist greatly the reassertion of balanced US foreign and domestic policy.

UPDATE

It seems the US is attempting to head off the UNSC settlements resolution by supplanting a mealy-mouthed statement.

The U.S. informed Arab governments Tuesday that it will support a U.N. Security Council statement reaffirming that the 15-nation body “does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlement activity,” a move aimed at avoiding the prospect of having to veto a stronger Palestinian resolution calling the settlements illegal.

But the Palestinians rejected the American offer following a meeting late Wednesday of Arab representatives and said it is planning to press for a vote on its resolution on Friday, according to officials familar with the issue. The decision to reject the American offer raised the prospect that the Obama adminstration will cast its first ever veto in the U.N. Security Council.

Still, the U.S. offer signaled a renewed willingness to seek a way out of the current impasse, even if it requires breaking with Israel and joining others in the council in sending a strong message to its key ally to stop its construction of new settlements. The Palestinian delegation, along with Lebanon, the Security Council’s only Arab member state, have asked the council’s president this evening to schedule a meeting for Friday. But it remained unclear whether the Palestinian move today to reject the U.S. offer is simply a negotiating tactic aimed at extracting a better deal from Washington.

Susan E. Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, outlined the new U.S. offer in a closed door meeting on Tuesday with the Arab Group, a bloc of Arab countries from North Africa and the Middle East. In exchange for scuttling the Palestinian resolution, the United States would support the council statement, consider supporting a U.N. Security Council visit to the Middle East, the first since 1979, and commit to supporting strong language criticizing Israel’s settlement policies in a future statement by the Middle East Quartet.

. @PJCrowley for goodness sake, just support the UNSC resolution against Israeli settlements – mealy-mouthed statements aren’t sufficient! #

UPDATE 2

Obama calls Abbas in bid to prevent UN vote on settlements
Hey Conservatives! You’ll never guess who else rebuked Israel for its settlement policy at the UN. John Bolton
Reading beyond the headlines
Missing the resolution, not missing an opportunity to miss an opportunity

UPDATE 3

U.S. Blocks Security Council Censure of Israeli Settlements
Israel: US Veto on Settlements Undermines International Law

The guests: Rashid Khalidi, JPS editor and a professor of Modern Arab Studies at Columbia University; Clovis Maksoud, the director of the Center for the Global South; and Samer Shehata, a professor of Arab Studies at Georgetown University, and Seymour Hersh.

The interviewees are: Mehran Kamrava, the interim dean of Georgetown University, Qatar; and Bernard Haykel, a professor of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University.

Palestine / Israel Links

UN eyes vote on resolution against Israel
The Eleventh Annual Herzliya Conference: The Balance of Israel’s National Security
A House Surrounded on all Sides
Ashton urges FM to come up with proposals
The New York Times Shows Its Poor Journalistic Standards
Illegal for Israelis to support BDS?
Im Tirzu’s Iranian Connection
Israeli Academics Call Poland to Boycott Israeli-Made Weapons
Education Minister proposes student trip to Hebron holy site
How Israel lost its soul during Gaza, and how Egypt has restored a vital principle of resistance
The Imperialistic Israeli Economy
Empire – Pax Americana
120 New Settlement Homes Approved In East Jerusalem
Overcoming Israel’s attempts to discredit protest
Ashton urges FM to come up with proposals
Thomas Friedman’s latest column drove the Israeli media into a frenzy
From Tunis to Cairo to Riyadh?

While a radical regime in Egypt would threaten Israel directly but not America, a radical anti-Western regime in Saudi Arabia—which produces one of every four barrels of oil world-wide—clearly would endanger America as leader of the world economy.

Escape from Gaza
Israeli anti-boycott bill approved for vote by Knesset plenary
Ilan Pappé Interview: There is no end to the dispossession
Serious doubt cast on FBI’s anthrax case against Bruce Ivins
Flashback to 2002: While Media Spotlights One Anthrax Suspect, Another Is Too Hot to Touch

‘Soon after the 9/11 attack, a long, typed anonymous letter was sent to Quantico Marine Base accusing the long-suffering Assaad, Zack’s victim in 1991, of plotting terrori…sm. This letter was received before the anthrax letters or disease were reported. The timing of the note makes its author a serious suspect in the anthrax attacks. The sender also displayed considerable knowledge of Dr. Assaad, his work, his personal life and a remarkable premonition of the upcoming bioterrorism attack.

After interviewing Assaad on Oct. 2, 2001, the FBI decided the letter was a hoax. While major newspapers noted that an anonymous letter had accused Dr. Assaad of bioterrorism, none followed up on it after his innocence was established. Zack’s name never surfaced again as one of the 30 suspects.

When the Washington Report asked Barbara Hatch Rosenberg, Ph.D., a biological arms control expert at the State University of New York, if the allegations regarding Dr. David Hatfill now took the heat off Lt. Col. Philip Zack, she replied, “Zack has NEVER been under suspicion as perpetrator of the anthrax attack.”

It is hard to believe that, with his connection to Fort Detrick, Dr. Zack is not one of the 20 to 50 scientists under intense investigation.

When asked if Hatfill was part of the group that ganged up on Dr. Ayaad Assaad, Dr. Rosenberg answered, “Hatfill was NOT one of the persecutors of Assaad.”

She is convinced that the FBI knows who sent the anthrax letters but isn’t arresting him because he knows too much about U.S. secret biological weapons research and production. But she isn’t naming names. Neither is Dr. Assaad, who did not return calls from the Washington Report.’

Egypt Links

Restoring Egypt’s regional role

Egypt will almost certainly return to its Arab base, liberate its foreign policy and restore its leadership role. That means a liberated Arab League and a constructive restoration of the Arab political structures that have deteriorated for the last four decades to the point of irrelevance.

The new Egypt will be a much-needed catalyst for change.

Alarming as it may sound for Israel and its Western backers (those who keep lecturing us about democracy but are the first to resist our struggle to achieve it), it actually is the right, peaceful and accurate course for stability and better relations of cooperation within and beyond the region.

Democracies in Tunisia and Egypt – and perhaps elsewhere – would be more likely to build relations with the US and the rest of the world on the basis of mutual respect and equality, not hegemony and exploitation in favour of Israel.

Israel would never choose to enter into serious negotiations with its Arab neighbours while they are weak, disunited and powerless. If we are at the beginning of a process that will reverse the situation that has existed until now, we have every reason to be optimistic about the region’s future.

Rashid Khalidi, Prof. of Modern Arab Studies, Columbia University, and Michael Vlahos, Prof. of Strategy, U.S. Naval War College, discuss the spread of Mideast protests from Egypt to Iran, Bahrain, Yemen and Algiers
Mubarak has given up and wants to die, says Saudi official
The influence of German intel on the Egyptian military – two links, here and here.
Revolutionary Prospects After Mubarak : Richard Falk
Robert Fisk: Three weeks in Egypt show the power of brutality – and its limits
The promise of real democracy in Egypt by Rashid Khalidi

In effect, the Obama administration was seeking to keep Mubarak in office as long as possible, and to keep his police state alive thereafter. For all the recent talk about supporting Egyptian democracy, what is ultimately vital to American policymakers is Egypt’s geopolitical alignment with the United States and its acquiescence in Israel’s regional hegemony — a policy Mubarak, and under him Suleiman, have long facilitated. These core interests could well be affected by a fully democratic Egypt that sought to play a role commensurate with its size and history in regional politics and that represented faithfully the wishes of its people (as the current democratic Turkish government does).

A democratic Egypt might challenge American support of Israel’s Middle Eastern nuclear monopoly, refuse to collude in Israel’s illegal and immoral siege of Gaza, actively back a genuine inter-Palestinian reconciliation, or otherwise assert its independence from American and Israeli policies. It might do so even while respecting the letter of the (highly unequal) peace treaty with Israel and existing accords with the U.S. Given the blinders worn by American policymakers, such an Egypt would be a policy headache in Washington on the level of that caused by all three major regional powers, Israel, Turkey and Iran.

Why Egypt’s Military Cares About Home Appliances
What not to say about Lara Logan
Egypt labor not resting after Mubarak’s ouster

Wikileaks Links

Washington loathes Wikileaks; Arabs love it
Is anybody in Australia being targeted for backing Wikileaks?

Other Links

Bin-Ali and Mubarak Are Waiting For You (on the King of Jordan)
Bahrain in turmoil as second protester is killed
DN! EXCLUSIVE: Authorities Search and Copy U.S. Journalist’s Notes, Computer and Cameras After Returning from Haiti
Young Iranians are looking for a new revolution?
Bahrain: Stop using excessive force against public demonstrations and respect the rule of law, says Pillay
Bahrain Rising
Cameron’s scapegoating will have a chilling, toxic impact
Exclusive: New National Intelligence Estimate on Iran complete

Innoculate : New Hasbaroid Epidemic Imminent

Prepare the disinfectant and scrubbing brush. Richard Silverstein alerts us to the impending arrival of a new wave of hasbaroids, targeting major news sites, and emanating from Hasbara Central at the Israeli Foreign Ministry.

Silverstein’s friend responded to an email solicitation and

received this official communique from the ministry with talking points about Operation Cast Lead which s/he was to use in her/his propaganda efforts. Among the links was a Peter Beaumont Cif piece. The following were identified as “target sites”: the Times, the Guardian, Sky News, BBC, Yahoo!News, Huffington Post, and the Dutch Telegraaf. Also targeted were other media sites in Dutch, Spanish, German and French considered critical of the invasion.

The Israeli marketing strategy is to blindside the world with glowing information. This is in line with current theory about positive messaging, exemplified in this Economist article – ‘Denial is useless. Spread happy truths instead.’

How to counteract this pernicious propaganda? spread the truth and expose the perfidy of the hasbara strategy itself. Refer to this latest infamy and plans at Israel’s strategic hasbara stinktank, the Reut Institute. Ensure your facts are presented in complete and unassailable terms – accounts which support human rights, freedom and justice are far more happy truths than tendentious sickly icing on a poisonous cake of Israel manifest destiny, technological superiority, privilege and oppression.

Related Resources to Use to Combat Israeli Propaganda

Read the Palestine Papers which show Israel has never been serious about peace.
Download the Veritas Handbook, an excellent resource for activists for Palestine.
Download the Goldstone Report and familiarise yourself with it.
Read the UNHRC investigation into Israel’s murderous attack on the Gaza Flotilla.
Search the Electronic Intifada site to find other information to support your arguments and follow @intifada on Twitter
Read Ilan Pappe’s “The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine”.
Read Ali Abunimah’s One Country, A Bold Proposal To End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse and follow @avinunu on Twitter
Read the main sources which define Israeli apartheid.
Familiarise yourself with the latest statistics about Palestinians’ real wishes. Also see here.
Participate in the Palestinian boycott of Israel – the cure for apartheid is BDS, BDS and more BDS
The anti-semitism inherent in the anti-boycott movement.
Join Facebook groups which support Palestinian rights and the boycott of apartheid Israel.

Israeli land theft in the West BankUse Maps to Explain the Outrageous Extent of Israeli Land Theft

Peace Now West Bank map January 2011PDF full size map

Also note the graph on the left which shows clearly that colonization peaked during the so-called “Oslo Peace Process,” and again during the Camp David Peace charade hosted by US president Bill Clinton.

This provides a fresh evidence, if it were needed, that as far as Israel is concerned the negotiations were an exercise in deception and fraud.

Adalah interactive map and database, with histories of the various settlements.
Peace Now map
Pictorial representation.
Jordan Valley Access and Closure Map (OCHA)
ATLAS OF THE CONFLICT : Israel – Palestine
Map and Grab: The Foreign Quest for Palestinian Land Dr.Salman Abu Sitta Palestine, Britain and Empire c. 1841-1948

Please feel free to add counter-strategy suggestions in the comments of this post.

Palestine / Israel Links

Palestinian elections: Recent polls show mixed signals
Peter Beinart says what we all know
The zio-dominated Knesset is poised to pass laws criminalising boycotts against apartheid Israel, ironically likely to implode on all Israeli citizens.
Friedman the imperialist: White House disgusted with Israel
Israelis call on int’l artists to boycott Eilat festival
Gaza celebrates fall of Mubarak
Palestinians to wind up peace talks unit after leaks
Silwan’s Captive Children
Israel closes embassies over terror fears
Action Alert for the Children of Palestine | Continuous Updates of News About Violations of Children
A Palestinian boy’s Kafkaesque trial in Israel’s military court
Stop the Irvine 11 Prosecutions

Egypt Links

Striving for political and economic freedom
Helen Thomas: Egyptians Understand Their Power
Egypt asks U.S. to freeze officials’ assets: U.S. official – No mention of Mubarak’s Rodeo Drive and Manhattan properties
Mubarak and Co assets – please add verifiable information
A Warning for Egyptian Revolutionaries: Courtesy of People-Power in the Philippines
Dangerous Victims: Egyptian Revolution in Israeli Eyes
Arab democratization and the future of ‘the only democracy’

Wikileaks Links

Spy games: Inside the convoluted plot to bring down WikiLeaks
And in today’s bizarro world : Wikileaks Hires Alan Dershowitz
WIKILEAKS PRESS RELEASE Mon Feb 14 18:28:37 2011 GMT

Mr Assange will not himself be intervening in the action against Twitter because as an Australian who has committed no criminal act on US territory, he claims that the American courts have no jurisdiction over him. The head of his UK legal team, Geoffrey Robertson QC, has brought in Alan Dershowitz, the distinguished Harvard Law Professor, as part of the team to advise on the US Attorney General’s actions.

THE DERSHOWITZ HOAX
Alan Dershowitz joins Julian Assange defense team

“Assange is a journalist. He’s a new kind of journalist. He represents the newest wave of journalism,” Dershowitz said. “I’m currently in this case because I believe that to protect the First Amendment we need to protect new electronic media vigorously.”

WikiLeaks cables: The Middle East fallout could be grave – Dershowitz:

But secretary of state Hillary Clinton is surely correct when she warns that WikiLeaks poses a danger not only to the US but to international diplomacy, while at the same time trying to minimize the actual harm done by these particular disclosures.

Alan Dershowitz: Should we fight terror with torture?
I’m sure that a torture supporter will do a lot to legitimate Wikileaks…not.
Dershowitz: Torture could be justified
Dershowitz Joins Legal Team for Wikileaks
@DjinninOz: @Wikileaks yep Wiki wont be getting anymore $ from me while there’s a chance of ANY of it ending up in that racist shits pocket #
@hemara: @wikileaks I can no longer support wikileaks as long as Dershowitz is on board: he’s a liar, racist and bigot – & most troubling of all.. #
@hemara: @wikileaks ..is pro-torture & justifies killing of civilians by radically expanding definition of “combatants”. In short, an apologist.. #
@hemara: @wikileaks ..for the worst excesses of American empire. This association will fatally damage your credibility. #
@hemara: Why I declare #wikileaks can go to hell: RT @wikileaks: Dershowitz Joins Legal Team for WL http://bit.ly/fSXoXs || #Palestine #

Other Links

Clinton argues for internet freedom but fails to mention the latest French moves.
More facts emerge about the leaked smear campaigns : Glenn Greenwald
Iranian protesters persist in streets of major cities
The Un-Victim : Amitava Kumar interviews Arundhati Roy
PKB of the day : US State Secretary Clinton calls Iranian regime ‘hypocritical,’ backs anti-government protests
“Austerity” Comes to America
Defector admits to WMD lies that triggered Iraq war : Curveball comes out

Ultraracism == Ultrazionism

Palestine / Israel Links

Louis Theroux’s “Ultra-Zionists”: A chance to see what we’re up against

Bottom line – it’s a great watch, maybe even important. Particularly for viewers abroad. Because these nutters, who are a handful of extremists, are calling the shots in the West Bank today. And they can do whatever they want because government after government in Israel allows them to. And guess who allows those Israeli governments to do that? American president after American president.

This whole thing is worth watching, if only to get to the last minute of it. It’s when Louis interviews for the final time Daniel Luria, of the right wing movement Ateret Cohanim, which settles Jews in East Jerusalem. “There’s Jewish life in united Jerusalem”, he says to Louis as he looks him in the eye, “and there’s nothing – nothing – that you or the world can do about it. Nothing”.

That’s it in a nutshell. But if I may slightly correct Luria’s observation: the world has never tried to do anything about it to begin with. They’re enablers.

Hopefully, some viewers abroad will finally take responsibility and try to change that.

Israel Bombs Medical Supply Building — Ken O’Keefe in Gaza, Feb. 8, 2011
‘Rawabi developer says he will uproot JNF donated trees’
Rejoinder to Open Letter to JNF Leadership
Jewish Voice for Peace chief threatened over pro-Palestinian campaign
Rawabi: A national project that defeats its purpose
11 Palestinians wounded by Israeli attacks on Gaza Strip

Gaza, Feb. 9 (BNA) Eleven Palestinians were wounded in Israeli fighter jets attacks, the F 16 attacked several targets in Gaza Strip earlier today.
According to the Palestinian News Agency (WAFA) nine citizens including two women and four children were taken to Kamal Adwan Hospital after the missile attack on a workshop in north-east of Gaza. The bombing caused severe damage on a carpentry store leading it to burst into fire, as well as a pharmaceutical storehouse that belonged to the Health Ministry. The fighter jets targeted several other locations of Gaza, including a farming land east of Al-Zaytoun neighborhood, fishermen and west of Khan Younis. MYZ/E M.

Friends of Israel should thank Ronald Reagan
U.K. urges Israel to tone down ‘belligerent’ rhetoric amid Mideast uprisings – Hague refers to the fake peace process? what a joke.
BDS promises a just peace, unlike current US strategy
West Bank Streets Quiet as Palestinian Authority Suppresses Protests
Palestinian negotiator backtracks on CIA charge
Red Cross tents demolished in village
Partner of gay shooting victim to be deported

Egypt Links

Why Egypt will never be an Islamic state
Lazarus the Computer Riseth (with photos)!
Omar Suleiman, “Egypt’s Torturer-in-Chief,” Tied to False Iraq WMD Tortured “Intel”
Hasty’ reforms will lead to chaos: Egypt
Mubarak’s Fate in Military Hands
Egyptians remain stalwart in defiance
Allies Press U.S. to Go Slow on Egypt
Egypt VP: Protests must end soon
Obama’s man in Cairo
Why Egypt will never be an Islamic state
U.S. lawmakers now back Egypt aid

Influential U.S. lawmakers have eased their threats to cut aid to Egypt, reflecting a growing consensus in Washington for preserving U.S. leverage with Egypt’s powerful military amid the country’s civil upheaval.

The shift comes as Obama administration officials, the Pentagon and powerful pro-Israel groups in Washington urge continued aid to Egypt, about $1.5 billion a year, mostly in military assistance.

Although protesters in Cairo are demanding that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak resign immediately, the Obama administration is urging a more gradual reform process, headed by Vice President Omar Suleiman, that would allow Mubarak to remain in office for now.

U.S. officials believe the military should play a crucial role in that process and deserves continued support. Pro-Israel groups fear that a loss of aid could jeopardize Israel’s security.

Just last week, a chorus of lawmakers backed protesters’ demands for Mubarak’s resignation, and some called for an aid freeze to force changes.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) had earlier said “all options are on the table,” including aid cuts. But in an interview Tuesday, he said that now “is just not the right time to threaten that.”

McCain said he was concerned that a reduction in aid might affect Egypt’s willingness to cooperate with Israel.

Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), chairman of the Senate subcommittee that oversees foreign aid, declared last week that he would not vote for aid to Egypt, adding that he knew no lawmaker who would.

This week, however, Leahy appeared to soften his position, saying through a spokesman that he would oppose any new aid “until the situation is resolved.”

White House officials said earlier in the crisis that they would review the aid if the Mubarak government didn’t move promptly toward political reform. But within a few days, officials clarified that they weren’t considering cuts to aid.

Administration officials are trying to preserve their relationship with the military, which they see as vital for carrying out political reforms.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates praised the Egyptian military Tuesday for its restraint and emphasized the need for the Egyptian government to move at a “steady pace” to enact promised reforms.

The Arab Nationalist Reawakening in Egypt and Beyond
Live blog Feb 9 – Egypt protests

Omar Suleiman, Egypt’s vice president, tells ABC news that Egypt currently lacks the necessary “culture of democracy” for the changes demanded by protesters.

The White House press secretary Robert Gibbs has called his comments “particularly unhelpful”.

Suleiman also blamed the protests for paralysing the Egyptian economy. “The big presence in Tahrir Square and some of the satellite stations which insult Egypt … make citizens hesitant to go to work,” he said.

Suleiman added: “We cannot bear this situation for a long time and we must end this crisis as soon as possible”.

The western companies propping up Mubarak’s Egypt regime
The Egyptian revolution establishes a new social contract and values by Nawal El Saadawi –

“This is such a gala for all of us, for all of us, the festival of freedom, dignity, justice, creativity and rebellion.” “A young man named Ahmed Galal said, “We are a popular revolt that establishes a new social contract, not just demands, and our slogan of this revolution is ‘equality of freedom of social justice.’ The people who made this revolution are the ones who should put the rules for the new governance, choose the transitional government, select a National Committee to change the constitution, the committee of wise men of the revolution, so as not to allow opportunists (the owners of wealth and power) to impose on us committees of wise men who did not participate with us in this revolt.”

Robert Fisk: Week 3, day 16, and with every passing hour, the regime digs in deeper
Activist’s tears may be game changer in Egypt
Egypt: Kareem Amer latest to go missing
Wael Ghonim – a new face of Egypt’s revolution
The Muslim Brotherhood uncovered
Anzalone: The Muslim Brotherhood Myth
Egypt: New accreditation rules; military obstructs media
The Egyptian Army: also known as the surrenderers
WikiLeaks: Israel’s secret hotline to the man tipped to replace Mubarak

Mr Suleiman, who is widely tipped to take over from Hosni Mubarak as president, was named as Israel’s preferred candidate for the job after discussions with American officials in 2008.

As a key figure working for Middle East peace, he once suggested that Israeli troops would be “welcome” to invade Egypt to stop weapons being smuggled to Hamas terrorists in neighbouring Gaza.

What will become of Israel if Mubarak falls? – Israeli hasbara
Israel and the Palestine Papers: An Exercise in Etymology

The Palestine papers are groundbreaking documents in more than one way. They show that Palestinian negotiators approached the negotiations with a set of serious propositions. But they not only demonstrate that Israel in fact has a partner for peace talks—they also present Israel with a choice. Indeed, Israel can either reclaim its democratic values and drop the transfer plan, or it can drop the pretenses and assert its position as the regional peace refuser.

A Friendship of Values, Not Convenience – hasbara drivel

Wikileaks Links

US air force backtracks over WikiLeaks ban

Other Links

“What Does the Future Hold for Syria?” By George Saghir
AP IMPACT: At CIA, grave mistakes, then promotions – As the empire exculpates its crooks at the top, so does it protect (and promote!) its flunkeys.
Tunisian regime seeks emergency powers against mass protests
Gillard delivers indigenous report card
US House defeats anti-terrorism powers extension
Phone hacking victim tells her story – how Murdoch ruined the life of an ordinary Australian
Statement on Aboriginal rights by leading Australians
Australian PM tells Aboriginals to help themselves
Commemorating the indigenous resistance to invasion – Tunnerminnerwait and Mauboyheenner