Palestinians and foreign activists have torn down segments of Israel's separation wall in a demonstration marking the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.
In the town of Qalandiya in the occupied West Bank, a group of masked activists using a lorry pulled down a two-metre cement block before Israeli security forces confronted them with tear gas grenades.
Several of the estimated 50 demonstrators passed through the hole they had made, hoisting a Palestinian flag and setting ablaze tyres on the other side.
Protesters were wearing shirts with the text "Jerusalem we are coming", which was the slogan for the protest.
Abdullah Abu Rahma, leader of the People's Campaign to Fight the Wall, said: "Today we commemorate 20 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall.
"This is the beginning of the activities, which we do, to express our hold on our land, and our refusal to this wall - the wall of torture, the wall of humiliation."
Activists have vowed to hold a week of protests in the Palestinian territories and around the world, including a campaign calling for the release of all anti-wall activists currently imprisoned.
Last Friday, Palestinian youths almost toppled a segment of wall using a hydraulic car-jack in the West Bank village of Nilin
(More at link)Palestinians and foreign activists have torn down segments of Israel's separation wall... more
Jon Stewart's comedy news show The Daily Show is reportedly under fire from pro-Israeli groups for giving airtime to two pro-Palestinian figures on Wednesday night.
Stewart hosted Palestinian democracy activist Mustafa Barghouti and human rights activist Anna Baltzer, author of A Witness in Palestine, who explained the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from the perspective of the Palestinian side.
According to a letter reportedly written by Baltzer and circulated by blogger Eric Johnson, the show "was overwhelmed with angry emails and phone calls prior to the appearance, and up until the last minute it seemed like they might cancel."
"During the taping the show had its only heckler in 11 years," Baltzer wrote. "The entire staff were very nervous and may come to regret the monumental decision (and not make it again) as they will surely be inundated now that the show has aired."
At one point during the interview, Barghouti asserted: "We [Palestinians] are struggling for liberty, we are struggling for justice. It's Palestinians who have been subjected to the longest occupation in history and a system of segregation that is totally unjust."Jon Stewart's comedy news show The Daily Show is reportedly under fire from... more
Obama's ratings in Israel have plummetted because they think he's a secret Muslim and hates the Jews or something like that, so now apparently he's going to address a Jewish group. The NY Times doesn't mention which Jewish group, but more tahn likely it will be either American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) or the World Jewish Congress (WJC) or a combination of any of the numerous Zionist organizations clamoring for America to murder Iranians.
President Obama will deliver his first address to a Jewish organization since taking office when he speaks to UJC/The Jewish Federations of North America on Nov. 9 in Washington.
Mr. Obama’s approval ratings in Israel dropped into the single digits this summer as he increased pressure on the Israeli government to freeze settlements in the West Bank. Since then, amid immovable resistance from Israel, Mr. Obama has largely set aside that issue as a first step toward restarting Middle East peace talks, and is now instead pressing Palestinians and Israelis to negotiate all the difficult issues between them toward a final deal.Obama's ratings in Israel have plummetted because they think he's a secret Muslim and... more
“Canada is definitely an ally. Today it’s hard to point out our most loyal ally, but Canada is undoubtedly an exception, in the positive sense. Canada was the first to boycott the Durban II conference that was held in Switzerland. In Canada I met with the head of the opposition and of course with my colleague, the foreign minister.
I also had meetings with four other ministers, including the minister of finance and the minister entrusted with matters of international trade. It’s hard to find a country friendlier to Israel than Canada these days. Members both of the coalition and the opposition are loyal friends to us, both with regard to their worldview and their estimation of the situation in everything related to the Middle East, North Korea, Iran, Sudan and Somalia. No other country in the world has demonstrated such full understanding of us,” – Avigdor Lieberman, Radio Reka on June 25, 2009.
Recently, with the help of Zionists within Harper’s government – Jewish Lobby groups have achieved a number of PR results in the favor of the Zionist regime in the occupied Palestine – ranging from the banning of British MP George Galloway’s visit to Canada, choking freedom of information, Toronto International Film Festival, exhibition of the stolen Dead Sea Scrolls at the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM), ignoring the plight of Palestinian-Canadian citizens visiting Israel, denouncing Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez being an ‘anti-Semite’ for his close ties with Islamic Iran, to name a few.“Canada is definitely an ally. Today it’s hard to point out our most loyal ally,... more
On 7 October 2009, Tony Blair gave a lecture at a New York university. In responding to an unexpectedly direct student question, he publicly joined, for the first time, the US and Israeli Zionist consensus rejecting the Goldstone report.
On 27 June 2007, Blair left his job as UK prime minister under the cloud of the war on Iraq that he had concocted with former US President George W. Bush. Just hours later, he assumed his new position as the Special Envoy to the Mideast Quartet. He had long been a Zionist and a member of Labor Friends of Israel, and he received heartfelt farewells-and-hellos from Ehud Olmert ("A true friend of the State of Israel") and Tzipi Livni. Palestinians living under Israeli occupation did not find this a very a promising development.
Nicolas Kabat, a UB political science major, co-founder of UB Students for Justice in Palestine, and member of the Western New York Peace Center Palestine-Israel Committee, was one of the lucky contest winners because of the slow-pitch, painfully bland question he pre-submitted. But at the microphone, he asked a hard-edged question about Blair's response to the Goldstone report, why he thinks the basic principles of international law are irrelevant to the Middle East peace process, and why the continuing siege on Gaza isn't also harmful to that process.
Like Benjamin Netanyahu in his recent speech to the UN, Blair failed to note the report's forthright and detailed chronicle and condemnation of Palestinian rocket and mortar attacks, and its statement that they had all but ended during the lull of June-November 2008 (31-33, 71-82, 449-74). In fact, Hamas ceased all of its attacks and cracked down on firings by other groups, reducing them by 97 percent and Israeli casualties by 100 percent. This Hamas peace offensive was just too much for Israel to bear, so on 4 November 2008, a squad of Israeli commandos infiltrated Gaza and killed six Hamas soldiers, thus shattering the lull.On 7 October 2009, Tony Blair gave a lecture at a New York university. In responding... more
The Jewish organization continues to show their cozy relationship with white supremacist, neo-Nazi groups and the FBI.
***
The Anti-Defamation League hosts Tom Martinez, a former extremist and one-time member of the neo-Nazi group The Order, at 7 p.m. Oct. 17 at Atlantis Casino Resort Spa, 3800 S. Virginia St.
Martinez will talk about why he turned his back on such groups and became an FBI informant.
Tickets are on sale for $10 per person, students with ID are free. Reservations are required, but payment will be accepted at the door.
Details: ssmall@adl.org or 702-862-8600.The Jewish organization continues to show their cozy relationship with white... more
Tony Blair spoke at the University at Buffalo on Wednesday, October 7. As usual, the University prescreened and censored questions. But one questioner got through by submitting a fake question for review, then asking a real one. Blair looks even more like a liar than usual here. I’m told that University at Buffalo Vice President and Chief Censor Dennis Black nearly burst a vein when he heard the unapproved question being asked.Tony Blair spoke at the University at Buffalo on Wednesday, October 7. As usual, the... more
The same old Israeli duplicity is back but with a new twist. And, importantly, ably aided by a new commander-in-chief. As with the deception that induced the invasion of Iraq, war in Iran also requires weaving a web of consensus beliefs from threads of deceit.
This time there is less emphasis on fixed intelligence than on false impressions—albeit with the same goal: to advance an Israeli agenda. Though Tel Aviv’s goals for Iran are now within reach, the success of this latest operation is not yet assured.
So now comes a new twist on an old trick. First Barack Obama was persuaded by his advisers to lambast Iran for a covert nuclear site—days after it was revealed by Tehran. So already it looks to the public like yet another U.S. president is relying on flawed intelligence. When Iran promised cooperation with international inspectors, Tel Aviv quickly countered that Israel may well attack anyway. Why not? After all, the U.S. attacked Iraq. And clearly U.S. intelligence is no better now than then, right?The same old Israeli duplicity is back but with a new twist. And, importantly, ably... more
Nothing is ever said about Israel being an existential threat to contries in the Middle East.
Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Mohamed ElBaradei said Sunday that "Israel is number one threat to Middle East" with its nuclear arms, the official IRNA news agency reported.
At a joint press conference with Iran's Atomic Energy Organization chief Ali Akbar Salehi in Tehran, ElBaradei brought Israel under spotlight and said that the Tel Aviv regime has refused to allow inspections into its nuclear installations for 30years, the report said.
"Israel is the number one threat to the Middle East given the nuclear arms it possesses," ElBaradei was quoted as saying.
Israel is widely assumed to have nuclear capabilities, although it refuses to confirm or deny the allegation.
"This (possession of nuclear arms) was the cause for some proper measures to gain access to its (Israel's) power plants ... and the U.S. president has done some positive measures for the inspections to happen," said ElBaradei.Nothing is ever said about Israel being an existential threat to contries in the... more
I think this article is just black propaganda meant to corral and con American Jews who don't want war and conflict into supporting more mass murder on behalf of Zionist Israel. I think that there are hasbarats, (like the ones here on Current) that think war in Iran is cute and funny, but I'm quite sure they are a very fringe minority who are just barking loud and saying nothing intelligent or relevant.
***
"One day ahead of talks in Geneva between Iran and six major powers - the United States, Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany - on Tehran's controversial nuclear program, a national poll finds that 56 percent of American Jews support a U.S. military strike against Iran.
The annual Survey of American Jewish Opinion, commissioned by the American Jewish Committee, revealed a 14 percent rise in the number of U.S. Jews in support of such a military strike, whose aim would be to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. 36 percent of those polled - self-described adult Jews were against such an attack."I think this article is just black propaganda meant to corral and con American Jews... more
If you have ever visited a blog or on-line discussion group on the Middle East you have doubtless had the misfortune to run into them.
They are known by the language they use: depraved sexual insults, bile, bigotry, threats, disinformation and character assassination. That’s right: I’m talking about “hasbarats,” zionist trolls who infect the Internet with hasbara, pro-Israel propaganda. Of course, mainstream media hasbarats have been around for decades, as have “hasbaratchiks,” fifth-columns in foreign governments who subvert national policies to serve Israel. The Internet, though, is the latest, some might say the greatest, propaganda playground, and Israel cannot cope with factual, passionate, well-documented stories that expose its war crimes and unrepentant criminality.
If you’ve come across a hasbarat, on-line or otherwise, you have learned that no amount of reasoned argument or intellectual maturity has any effect. That’s because hasbarats don’t care if they come across as ignorant, obnoxious, nasty or inane. All that matters for them is sabotaging criticism of Israel and support for Muslims. They're like anti-intellectual stink bombs: designed to cause maximum discomfort but have little if any real power.If you have ever visited a blog or on-line discussion group on the Middle East you... more
The head of MI6 discussed the issue in London with Mossad chief Meir Dagan and Saudi officials after British intelligence officers helped to uncover the plant, in the side of a mountain near the ancient city of Qom.
The site is seen as a major threat by Tel Aviv and Riyadh. Details of the talks emerged after John Bolton, America’s former UN ambassador, told a meeting of intelligence analysts that “Riyadh certainly approves” of Israel’s use of Saudi airspace.The head of MI6 discussed the issue in London with Mossad chief Meir Dagan and Saudi... more
Now that it looks like we are heading into a war with Iran, I think it is important to look back at what events led us into the quagmire that is Iraq.
"War By Way of Deception" is a video with research based on Ryan Dawson's "Welcome To The USSA" which details the Neocon cabal with its roots in ISRAEL created a false flag attack, a cover up of the anthrax attacks and 911 van bombs, followed by war propaganda, known forgeries, pre-written lies about WMDs, etc which led to a war in Iraq that has now killed over a million people.
Research and narration by Ryan Dawson of Rys2sense.Now that it looks like we are heading into a war with Iran, I think it is important to... more
Barack Obama’s recent conduct at the U.N. removed all remaining doubt as to Israeli influence inside this latest U.S. presidency. When he uttered the phrase “the Jewish state of Israel,” he provided precisely the provocation required to ensure that peace in the Middle East will continue to be deferred.
When, in May 1948, Christian-Zionist Harry Truman agreed to recognize an enclave of Jewish-Zionist extremists as a nation state, he struck out “Jewish state” and wrote the “state of Israel.” Despite assurances from Zionist lobbyist Chaim Weizmann that Israel would be a democracy, Truman feared the Zionist state might become what it became: a racist theocracy committed to an expansionist agenda that endangers U.S. interests in the region.Barack Obama’s recent conduct at the U.N. removed all remaining doubt as to Israeli... more
Which country jailed its whistleblower in solitary confinement for 11 years?
Mordechai Vanunu spent 18 years in prison, including more than 11 years in solitary confinement. Vanunu was released from prison in 2004, subject to a broad array of restrictions on his speech and movement. Since then he has been briefly arrested several times for violations of those restrictions, including giving various interviews to foreign journalists and attempting to leave Israel. He says he has been persecuted by the authorities in Israel because of his conversion to Christianity,[3] saying "I want to tell those who say I am a traitor, I suffered here 18 years because I am a Christian."
Israel declared over the weekend that it is cutting off ties with the BBC to protest a repeat broadcast of a documentary about non-conventional weapons said to be in Israel. The program was broadcast for the first time in March in Britain, and was rerun Saturday on a BBC channel that is aired all over the world. The boycott decision was made by Israel's public relations forum, made up of representatives from the Prime Minister's Office, the Foreign Ministry and the Government Press Office. It was decided that government offices won't assist BBC producers and reporters, that Israeli officials will not give interviews to the British network, and that the Government Press Office will make it difficult for BBC employees to get press cards and work visas in Israel. Before the broadcast Saturday, Israeli officials tried to pressure the BBC to cancel the broadcast, saying that the program was biased and presented Israel as an evil dictatorshipWhich country jailed its whistleblower in solitary confinement for 11 years?... more
I am continuing to work for a Middle East free of NWs [nuclear weapons], especially in Israel.
My act was very important because it was dealing with the phenomena that Israel introduced of cheating, lying, spreading NWs in secret.
My mission and target is to make all the world free from NWs, to ban NWs production and possession, in all the world, including by the super powers.
The threat of NWs lost its justification since the cold war. They were created for fighting communism, but now, against whom would they want to use NWs?
So we can demand to free all the world from all kinds of NWs.
-Mordechai Vanunu, August 2 2005ABOUT ISRAEL'S NUCLEAR WEAPONS
I am continuing to work for a Middle East free of... more
As everyone knows, anyone who criticizes Israeli actions is either an "anti-semite" or a "self-hating Jew."
It's easy to figure out who's who. If you thought Israel's onslaught against Gaza was an abomination, and you are not a Jew, you are an anti-semite.
Or if you agree with the United Nations' investigator, Richard Goldstone, that Israel committed war crimes in Gaza, and you are a Jew, voila, you are a self-hating Jew.
Goldstone, a Jew, is of course a self-hater.
Read this piece by Dan Fleshler. He did the math Goldstone has already been refered to as a SHJ 5,000 times.
I'll fess up. I'm an SHJ. I thought the Gaza war was everything Goldstone said it was and more. It's hard to call it a war actually because the casualty numbers were so unbalanced.
1387 Palestinians killed of whom 320 were children
(773 were not fighting at all)
10 Israeli soldiers killed (3 by friendly fire).
Here is notorious SHJ, Matt Yglesias, on the Goldstone report.As everyone knows, anyone who criticizes Israeli actions is either an "anti-semite" or... more
Here is a fascinating review review by well known Israeli writer Tom Segev of a book titled, "When and How Was the Jewish People Invented?" (published by Resling in Hebrew). It is authored by Israeli historian Shlomo Zand. Prof. Zand teaches at Tel Aviv University. Segev writes "..in one of the most fascinating and challenging books published here in a long time. There never was a Jewish people, only a Jewish religion, and the exile also never happened - hence there was no return. Zand rejects most of the stories of national-identity formation in the Bible, including the exodus from Egypt and, most satisfactorily, the horrors of the conquest under Joshua. It's all fiction and myth that served as an excuse for the establishment of the State of Israel, he asserts."
I should add that this information and arguments have been around for a long time but it is nice to see it published in one of Israel's leading daily newspapers and presented in a book written by an Israeli historian.
Ed Corrigan
Israel's Declaration of Independence states that the Jewish people arose in the Land of Israel and was exiled from its homeland. Every Israeli schoolchild is taught that this happened during the period of Roman rule, in 70 CE. The nation remained loyal to its land, to which it began to return after two millennia of exile. Wrong, says the historian Shlomo Zand, in one of the most fascinating and challenging books published here in a long time. There never was a Jewish people, only a Jewish religion, and the exile also never happened - hence there was no return. Zand rejects most of the stories of national-identity formation in the Bible, including the exodus from Egypt and, most satisfactorily, the horrors of the conquest under Joshua. It's all fiction and myth that served as an excuse for the establishment of the State of Israel, he asserts.
According to Zand, the Romans did not generally exile whole nations, and most of the Jews were permitted to remain in the country. The number of those exiled was at most tens of thousands. When the country was conquered by the Arabs, many of the Jews converted to Islam and were assimilated among the conquerors. It follows that the progenitors of the Palestinian Arabs were Jews. Zand did not invent this thesis; 30 years before the Declaration of Independence, it was espoused by David Ben-Gurion, Yitzhak Ben-Zvi and others.
If the majority of the Jews were not exiled, how is it that so many of them reached almost every country on earth? Zand says they emigrated of their own volition or, if they were among those exiled to Babylon, remained there because they chose to. Contrary to conventional belief, the Jewish religion tried to induce members of other faiths to become Jews, which explains how there came to be millions of Jews in the world. As the Book of Esther, for example, notes, "And many of the people of the land became Jews; for the fear of the Jews fell upon them."
Zand quotes from many existing studies, some of which were written in Israel but shunted out of the central discourse. He also describes at length the Jewish kingdom of Himyar in the southern Arabian Peninsula and the Jewish Berbers in North Africa. The community of Jews in Spain sprang from Arabs who became Jews and arrived with the forces that captured Spain from the Christians, and from European-born individuals who had also become Jews.
-------------more at the link
This book has been written in Hebrew and is becoming available in hundreds of languages. It's up to you, the reader to decide what you believe. I'm sure its going cause another commotion in Israel since it already has caused a considerable uproar. Now that the book is going into re-print, its going to rekindle the same.Here is a fascinating review review by well known Israeli writer Tom Segev of a book... more
The Israeli government has officially said that it “deplores” the vote by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) member states to call on Israel to join the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and submit their nuclear facilities to the same oversight as the rest of the world does.
The vote narrowly passed, 49-45, and was generally opposed by Western nations while being supported by UN Security Council permanent members Russia and China, as well as most of the nations in the Middle East.
The United States ambassador Glyn Davies publicly rejected the resolution, calling it “redundant” and claiming that calling on Israel to join the NPT as every other nation in the Middle East has unfairly singled them out.The Israeli government has officially said that it “deplores” the vote by the... more
Here are excerpts from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's interview Tuesday with The Associated Press:
On the Holocaust, and specifically what he would say in New York, the city with the world's largest Jewish population, to Jews for whom the Holocaust is a personal memory:
"Of course I care about the people of New York, and American people in general. With regards to the question of Jewish people and their sentiments I have to say that in our opinion their issue is different than the issue of Zionism. Zionism is a political party. But the Jewish people, like many other people, follow a divine prophet. I fundamentally raise two questions regarding the Holocaust, and I can ask them here again from you. I think that if you attempt to answer my question we might move a step forward in answering the question. The first question is that assuming the Holocaust did happen, where did it exactly happen and who were the perpetrators? The second question is how exactly does that connect to the Palestinian issue?"
When told the Holocaust was perpetrated in Europe by Adolf Hitler and a group of his compatriots:
"So I would like to know how then does that this relate to the Palestinians, and the Palestinian issue. If this indeed happened in Europe by the hands of European governments, why exactly should the Palestinian people pay for it?"
When asked if he agrees the Holocaust occurred:
"In my opinion it is not the first part of the question that matters but really the result of that question. The first half relates to history. The second part relates to contemporary world affairs. ... In your opinion if something has occurred in Europe by the hands of European governments can we seek remedy for it in other lands and territories? Is it the Palestinian people that should be compensating for the act through becoming displaced and why? Or through the occupation of their lands, and why? Or through the mass murder of these people, and why? Through genocide of these people, and why? These are some clear-cut questions that we have too.
"We are opposed to the killing of people wherever. As a fundamental rule we are opposed to the killings that occurred during World War II, wherever. We know that over 60 million people were killed in the course of the Second World War. Each and every one of them were human beings. And their lives were, are respectful, no matter whether they are Muslims or Jews or Christians. Really, it doesn't make a difference..."
"...From where I stand, I wasn't there 60 years ago, we weren't there, but we are here now and we can do something about it. We are alive now. And what we see are Palestinians being killed. So I think today it is our task to stop that. ... If the Holocaust is being used as a pretext to kill the Palestinian people, then inevitably it's also necessary to discuss the Holocaust...."Here are excerpts from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's interview Tuesday with... more
