Tag: Israel

Saudis Grant Israel Air Corridor To Attack Iran?

Although according to a report by Israels Haaretz Service a member of the Saudi royal family – Saudi envoy to the U.K. Prince Mohammed bin Nawaf – has since issued a denial and reiterated Saudi Arabia’s rejection of any violation of its territories or airspace, the UK Times Online reported saturday quoting an unnamed U.S. defense source that “In the week that the UN Security Council imposed a new round of sanctions on Tehran, defence sources in the Gulf say that Riyadh has agreed to allow Israel to use a narrow corridor of its airspace in the north of the country to shorten the distance for a bombing run on Iran.”

“To ensure the Israeli bombers pass unmolested, Riyadh has carried out tests to make certain its own jets are not scrambled and missile defence systems not activated. Once the Israelis are through, the kingdom’s air defences will return to full alert.”, continues the Times article.

The Week in Editorial Cartoons – The Cheney/Halliburton Connection

Crossposted at Daily Kos

THE WEEK IN EDITORIAL CARTOONS

This weekly diary takes a look at the past week’s important news stories from the perspective of our leading editorial cartoonists (including a few foreign ones) with analysis and commentary added in by me.

When evaluating a cartoon, ask yourself these questions:

1. Does a cartoon add to my existing knowledge base and help crystallize my thinking about the issue depicted?

2. Does the cartoonist have any obvious biases that distort reality?

3. Is the cartoonist reflecting prevailing public opinion or trying to shape it?

The answers will help determine the effectiveness of the cartoonist’s message.

:: ::



Cheney Spews by Pat Bagley, Salt Lake Tribune, Buy this cartoon

Three nuclear subs and an Israeli Strangelove

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Three Israeli nuclear-armed submarines are headed for the Persian Gulf to be stationed there permanently and “potentially land Mossad agents in the region.”

Amid speculations about Israel’s hostile future policies against Iran, a report says Israel is to deploy three submarines equipped with nuclear cruise missiles in the Persian Gulf.

Snip –

The Sunday Times quoted a flotilla officer as saying that the vessels were sent to carry out intelligence gathering missions and potentially land Mossad agents in the region.

Talking about the prospect of a possible military attack against Iran, a navy officer said, “The 1,500 km range of the submarines’ cruise missiles can reach any target in Iran.”

The revelation came after earlier this week, Iranian naval forces detected a US nuclear-armed submarine in the Strait of Hormuz.

Not that they’d do anything crazy.

But it is an interesting development given this recently published paper by Harvard professor and Israeli Strangelove, Chuck Freilich.

Israel’s self-fulfilling bunker mentality.

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The Gaza-bound humanitarian flotilla was an overt political act aimed at breaking the siege of Gaza.  Bringing food, medicine, and supplies to humans suffering extreme privation in defiance of “the authorities” is an act far less theatrical or playful but conceptually tantamount to hippies stuffing flowers into rifle barrels as a form of protest so good-natured and free of overt threat as to be disarming and impossible for the world audience to find the least bit menacing, much less provoking a violent response.   Indeed, military responses to expressions of “flower power” are unthinkable, and would instantly discredit and delegitimize those bearing actual weapons in support of establishmentarian power.  While the analogy may be imperfect, it generally seems that Israel has done the unthinkable by shooting the flower children dead, including an American and some Turks, citizens of their most critical allies.

Ex Cathedra- On I/P

Yup, I speak for the site.

Selective Outrage



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It’s easy to be outraged at Israel’s outlandish, criminal and immoral behavior. Israel murdered a bunch of peace activists on the high seas with total disregard for international and maritime law. Israel runs the biggest prison camp in the world. Israel is an apartheid state. The current government of Israel is a global pariah.

What’s not to be outraged about?

But what I want to know is where is the outrage against the United States of America who makes Israel look like Utopia?

Obama: Israel should sign NPT

OMG.  Obama is an Iranian tool!

When Obama was pressed on the question of Israeli nukes at the nuclear summit, he first hemmed, hawed, and balked:

“Initially you were talking about US behavior, and then suddenly we’re talking about Israel. Let me talk about the United States,” the president said. “I do think that as part of the NPT, our obligation, as the largest nuclear power in the world, is to take steps to reducing our nuclear stockpile. And that’s what the START treaty was about, sending a message that we are going to meet our obligations…as far as Israel goes, I’m not going to comment on their program.”

Well, why not comment on their program that they don’t even have?

He went on:

“What I’m going to point to is the fact that consistently we have urged all countries to become members of the NPT. So there’s no contradiction there,” he said. “And so whether we’re talking about Israel or any other country, we think that becoming part of the NPT is important.  And that, by the way, is not a new position. That’s been a consistent position of the United States government, even prior to my administration.”

Kudos to the president.  Wingnut heads will explode.

Update: Israel responds.

“The policy of ambiguity is the foundation of Israel’s security; it has always been and will continue to be. President Obama did not ask to change it in the current period,” Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon told public radio.

Nukes?  What nukes?  Israel who?

Greens: US must press Israel to end settlements; divestment urged as Israeli outrages continue

Greens: President Obama must press Israel to end East Jerusalem settlements

• Green Party urges divestment as Israeli outrages mount

WASHINGTON, DC — President Obama must put pressure on Israel immediately to stop the construction of settlements and displacement of Palestinians in East Jerusalem, Green Party leaders and candidates said today.

“President Obama should send Prime Minister Netanyahu a message: enough is enough. If Israel continues to violate Palestinian human rights, the US must cancel the $30 billion military aid package pledged to Israel for 2009-2018. The plan to build 1,600 housing units for Israeli Jews in East Jerusalem is the latest outrage. Although a rumored US abstension from a possible UN Security Council resolution against the settlements would be an improvement over its usual veto on Israel’s behalf, this would still be an act of moral cowardice,” said Sanda Everette, co-chair of the Green Party of the United States. (News story on the possible UN resolution: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/middle_east/8591714.stm)

“The White House’s angry response to the East Jerusalem settlement announcement was a necessary first step, but it needs to be followed by concrete action, like support for a UN resolution against the settlements or actually withdrawing military aid. President Obama should show the kind of leadership that led Eisenhower to demand that Israel leave Sinai in 1955,” said Ms. Everette.

The Green Party has demanded that the US end military assistance to Israel, which has used such aid to displace Palestinians from their homes and farm lands, hold them in concentration camp conditions, maintain Bantustans in the style of apartheid-era South Africa, and launch illegal military assaults such as last year’s bloody invasion of Gaza.

“While the international community has been unable to deal with Israel’s violations after decades of UN resolutions, civil society has increasingly endorsed BDS (boycott, divestment, sanctions) as a powerful nonviolent strategy to pressure Israel into ending the Palestinian occupation and guaranteeing equality for all in Israel-Palestine. In 2005, the Green Party endorsed a BDS resolution (http://www.gp.org/press/pr_2005_11_28.shtml) comparable to the one passed by the Senate of the Associated Students of UC Berkeley in March,” said Derek Grigsby, Green candidate for State Representative in Michigan, District 7 ([email protected]).

The Berkeley students’ bill calls on the university to divest its assets from two General Electric and United Technologies for “materially and militarily supporting the Israeli government’s occupation of the Palestinian territories” and to advocate that the UC, with about $135 million invested in companies that profit from Israel’s illegal actions in the Occupied Territories (http://blogs.asuc.org/2010/03/18/announcements/sb-118-amended-passed).

Greens have urged the White House and Congress to reject the influence of AIPAC and to establish Middle East policy based on recognition that the rights of Palestinians must be equal to the rights of Israelis, on peaceful negotiation to resolve the conflict, and complete regional nuclear disarmament. Greens have noted the hypocrisy of applying sanctions against Iran for its alleged nuclear ambitions without insisting that Israel get rid of its nuclear weapons — especially since Israel, unlike Iran, has launched military attacks on other countries. (See “Arab Leaders Call for Middle East Free of Nuclear Weapons” Earth Times March 28, 2010, http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/316159,arab-leaders-call-for-middle-east-free-of-nuclear-weapons.html#ixzz0jUbcWzVi)

“We encourage Israeli and Palestinian leaders — and President Obama — to follow the lead of human rights activists like Dr. Mazin Qumsiyeh, organizer of the Wheels of Justice tour (http://justicewheels.org). In his embrace of nonviolent resistance as a tactic for justice, Dr. Qumsiyeh continues an often unrecognized history of Palestinian non-violent resistance and keeps alive the tradition of Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King. In response, the Israeli army has targeted him for arrest,” said Tony Affigne, Rhode Island Green and member of the party’s International Committee (http://www.gp.org/committees/intl).

Dr. Qumsiyeh (http://qumsiyeh.org), former associate professor of genetics at the Yale University School of Medicine and a member of the Green Party of Connecticut before he moved back to Palestine, wrote about his experiences in a New Haven Register op-ed published on March 9, 2010 (“Peaceful protest in Israel can lead to arrest,” http://www.nhregister.com/articles/2010/03/09/opinion/doc4b95ab40a3642160727871.txt).

“The US’s uncritical support for Israel and flow of military and financial aid endanger US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and threaten US security and global stability. Even Gen. Petraeus and VP Biden have admitted this,” said Rodger Jennings, Green candidate for US Congress in Illinois, District 12 (http://www.rodgerjennings.org). (See “The Petraeus briefing: Biden’s embarrassment is not the whole story,” Foreign Policy, March 13, 2010, http://mideast.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/03/14/the_petraeus_briefing_biden_s_embarrassment_is_not_the_whole_story). “The Gaza assault, which couldn’t have happened without US weapons, was a major turning point for people worldwide, including many American Jews. Like the misery that continues for Gazans, the memory of that horrific assault lingers.”

Greens note that, until recently, a campaign to silence critics of Israeli policies and actions helped maintain unilateral support for Israel, especially in the US, and that censorship of such criticism has sustained the conflict. Many US Greens expressed alarm when the Heinrich Boell Foundation (http://www.boell.de), a legally independent political foundation affiliated with the German Green Party, canceled February speaking engagements in Germany by Dr. Norman Finkelstein, an American Jewish scholar, child of Holocaust survivors, and author of books on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the politics of the Holocaust (http://www.normanfinkelstein.com).

“There is increasing recognition that the two-state solution is not viable. Israel-Palestine is already a de facto single state, mainly because of Israel’s illegal settlement policies, with over 500,000 Israeli Jews living in the Palestinian Occupied Territories. It’s time to consider the one-state solution — one homeland for both peoples — with a secular democracy that ensures full and equal rights regardless of religion or ethnicity, ” said Farheen Hakeem, co-chair of the Green Party of the United States. (See “Palestinians Increasingly Back 1-State,” Jerusalem Post, March 22, 2010, http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=171559 and “Who’s Afraid of a One-State Solution?” by Dmitry Reider, Foreign Policy, March 31, http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/03/31/whos_afraid_of_a_one_state_solution)

MORE INFORMATION

Green Party of the United States http://www.gp.org

“Ensure Israel arms curbs, say MPs”
BBC News, March 30, 2010
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/8594402.stm

“Open Letter to Berkeley Students on their Historic Israeli Divestment Bill”
By Naomi Klein, Common Dreams, March 31, 2010
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/03/31-9

“Palestinians increasingly back 1-state”
Jerusalem Post, March 22, 2010
http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=171559

“US Can’t Afford Military Aid to Israel”
Josh Ruebner, The Huffington Post, February 26, 2010
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/josh-ruebner/us-cant-afford-military-a_b_478104.html

“Evidence of misuse of US weapons in Gaza”
Amnesty International, February 23, 2009
http://www.amnesty.org.au/news/comments/20277

US Campaign to End the Occupation
http://www.endtheoccupation.org

Green Pages: The official publication of record of the Green Party of the United States
Winter 2010 issue now online
http://gp.org/greenpages-blog

• Green Party Speakers Bureau: Greens available to speak on foreign policy http://www.gp.org/speakers/speakers-foreign-policy.php

Rachel Corrie 1979 – 2003

March 16th 2003

Her parents were living here in Charlotte at the time of her killing, her father is a brother ‘Nam Vet, working with many as the drums of war were beating louder and louder. There was a very moving memorial for her before they moved back to their original home and while we knew some about her the memorial showed who this young lady was and what she had started shaping herself to be from a very young age till her death, A very remarkable young woman!

2 Murder Suspects of Hamas in Dubai Came to US after Killing

There are 27 suspects in the January 20th murder of Hamas top military operative Mahmoud Al- Mabhouh , all of whom travelled to Dubai, United Arab Emirates, on faked foreign passports.   Ironically, Mabhouh was also in the UAE on a false passport.

Two of murder suspects subsequently entered the United States, one on an Irish passport as “Evan Dennings” January 21st, and another on a British passport Feb 14th “Roy Allan Cannon.”   (Both real life persons, one British- Israeli, are currently believed to be the victims of identity fraud. )

It is not known if the alleged murderers using the passports are still in this country.  


http://online.wsj.com/article/…

There aren’t records of either man leaving the U.S., though investigators can’t be sure the two are still in the country, according to this person. Since the two were traveling with what investigators believe to be fraudulently issued passports, they may have traveled back out of the U.S. with different, bogus travel documents.

The suspected U.S. travel broadens to American shores the international manhunt triggered by Dubai’s investigation into the death of Mr. Mabhouh. Dubai police have already identified two U.S. financial companies they believe issued and distributed several credit cards used by 14 of the suspects in the alleged killing.

A U.S. State Department spokesman declined to comment.

A spokesman for Interpol, which is also investigating the murder, declined to comment.

Israeli officials have neither confirmed nor denied any involvement, a longstanding practice. Last week, Israel’s foreign minister said there was no proof implicating Israel.


http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/…

Twelve of the suspects used British passports, police said. Six suspects used Irish passports, four used French passports, three used Australian passports and one used a German passport.

Already the story is changing again, as a “national security source in the United States” is saying that the 2 suspects who might have entered the US after the murder, did not, even as the list of suspects went from 26 to 27, according to CNN and newsrunner.com.

http://www.newsrunner.com/disp…

The only Israeli in government who has commented so far is Tzipi Livni, the current Kadima Party opposition leader and the former foreign minister.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…

A CNN reporter, Christiane Amanpour, asked the Israeli Minister of Defense on Saturday to comment.  Ehud Barak wouldn’t comment, either.

The Chief of Police of Dubai, Dahi Khalfan, is “100% positive” that Mossad is involved.  During a Feb 28th news conference, Khalfan said that he was sure that all the suspects were now in Israel, and as long as they stayed there, they wouldn’t be arrested.   The UAE is now blocking people traveling on Israeli dual nationality passports from entering the country.

Information released yesterday says the autopsy showed Mabhouh was injected with the muscle relaxant succinylcholine, typically used in endotracheal intubation,  and then suffocated to death.  

wikipedia


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S…

it is perennially popular in emergency medicine because it arguably has the fastest onset and shortest duration of action of all muscle relaxants.

Suxamethonium does not produce unconsciousness or anesthesia, and its effects may cause considerable psychological distress while simultaneously making it impossible for a patient to communicate. For these reasons, administration of the drug to a conscious patient is strongly contraindicated, except in necessary emergency situations.

The use and abuse of foreign passports and identities by the hit squad involved in the murder, has upset many countries.  

“Why They Hate Us” Reason #5847293


In the interview, Hiss described how his doctors would mask the removal of corneas from bodies. “We’d glue the eyelid shut,” he said. “We wouldn’t take corneas from families we knew would open the eyelids.”,

I’m not one of those who buys into the “blowback” theories about terrorism, especially of the sophisticated Psyops events like 9/11.  

However, people all around the world, especially in the Arab world, hate us, and they hate us for a lot of good reasons.

One of the biggest reasons they hate us is for our unequivocal support of the war criminal state of Israel.   It doesn’t matter how atrocious the atrocities committed, the U.S. goes out of its way to support anything Israel does.    That last attack in Gaza was particularly criminal and brazen, and our “esteemed” low-lives in our U.S. Congress decided to actually pass a resolution praising Israel’s crimes then.     The vote was 390 to 5.  

But that’s just politics, right?   That’s just your basic warfare stuff, happens all the time, there will always be wars and rumors of war like the bible says, right?   Okay, sure.   You can set all that aside and just take a look at this:

Israel admits harvesting Palestinian organs

For the first time, Israel has tacitly admitted stealing Palestinian body parts for transplant in Jewish patients, vindicating accusations leveled by Palestinians and rights groups over the past years.”We started to harvest corneas…whatever was done was highly informal. No permission was asked from the family,” pathologist Yehuda Hiss, the former head of the Abu Akbar  Center, also known as the L. Greenberg Institute for Forensic Medicine, told Nancy Sheppard-Hughes, now a professor of Anthropology at the University of California-Berkeley, in a documentary aired by the Israeli Channel Two.

The documentary revealed that in the 1990s, forensic specialists harvested corneas, heart valves and bones from the bodies of Israeli soldiers, Israeli citizens, Palestinians and foreign workers, often without permission from relatives.

Israel has also been accused of deliberately killing Palestinians in order to harvest their organs.


Other body parts believed to have been harvested from deceased Palestinians and others included heart arteries, bones and corneal tissues.

“The skins were taken from the bodies and transmitted to Hadasah hospital in West Jerusalem on the request of the Israeli army to be transplanted to wounded soldiers and in case of disaster,” said Hiss.

Hiss revealed that in the early 1990s, military surgeons began removing a thin layer of skin from bodies to treat burn victims, which he said was done without family consent.

Hughes reportedly decided to publish the interview, recorded in 2000 as part of her studies at the Israeli forensic institute, after a leading Swedish daily reported in August that Israeli soldiers killed Palestinians to trade in their organs.

A Swedish journalist revealed earlier this year that Israeli doctors at the Abu Akbar forensic institute had been harvesting organs from Palestinians killed by the Israeli army.

And this isn’t like a one-time thing.  Check this out:

40 years after Israel’s first transplant, donor’s family says his heart was stolen


When Avraham’s brother asked to see the body, the hospital refused. However, he insisted and the doctors finally gave in. The body was completely covered in bandages, “which didn’t jive with a stroke, so he unwrapped the bandages, and was shocked to see the upper body empty: Instead of internal organs, there were bandages that had been stuffed inside to fill the space,” Ofra said.

“They treated him like an alley cat,” she said tearfully. “From the moment he entered the hospital, they apparently saw him only as a potential source of organs and not as a man in need of treatment. They only thought about how to do the deed without us knowing.”

It took a few hours before the family connected the state of the body with the historic transplant. Then, they began asking questions – but the hospital insisted that Sadegat’s heart had not been used.

The family then applied to three cabinet ministers, demanding to know why the heart had been taken without their consent. They did not ask for compensation; they simply wanted to know the truth.

The affair aroused a media storm, but the hospital continued to stick to its denial. Only weeks later did it finally give in and admit that Sadegat’s heart had been used. But it made this admission only after the family signed a document promising not to sue.

And then, of course, there are little things like this:

House of Representatives SHAMES itself UPDATED

House Shames Itself on Goldstone Report

Do you even know what the Goldstone Report is?    Ring any bells?   Have you heard the Corporate Media even mention it in the last few days?   Maybe?   Barely?   Sorta?  

Gotta love how this story is already down the Memory Hole, after barely any mention in the press WHATSOEVER.

Our beloved House of Representatives passed a resolution by a nearly 10-1 margin denouncing The Goldstone Report, which was issued by the United Nations and basically charged the state of Israel with WAR CRIMES in its brutal and inhuman attack on the Gaza Strip last year.


Shame on the House of Representatives, and on the Democratic leadership of the House, for pushing through a resolution once again blindly taking the side of Israeli aggression.

I’m referring to the vote on Tuesday, by a lopsided 344-to-36 margin*, to condemn the Goldstone report on Gaza.

That report, by South African jurist Richard Goldstone for the UN, showed that both Israel and Hamas had committed war crimes in the lead-up to and during Israel’s invasion of Gaza almost a year ago. (To read the executive summary, click here)

It noted that Israel deliberately attacked civilian targets, and did not take sufficient action to minimize civilian loss of life. For instance, it found that Israel even refused to allow the evacuation of the injured by ambulance.

The report also condemned Hamas for its rocket attacks into Israel, which the report said were designed to create terror.

Even as the U.N. was about to consider the report, the House measure called it “irredeemably biased and unworthy of further consideration or legitimacy.” And it urged the Obama Administration to “strongly and unequivocally oppose” any discussion of it at the UN.

This reflexive attitude that Israel can do no wrong is morally bankrupt and exceedingly unhelpful in resolving, in a just manner, the conflict between Israel and Palestinians.

If you were paying any attention whatsoever, it is quite clear that Israel did, in fact, commit war crimes, and in no way can what they did be construed as “defending themselves.”

Yet our House of Representatives blindly sides with this tiny, belligerent, racist war-criminal state.  

Why?  

I’ve been trying to figure out for a while now why the United States blindly supports the most fascist and peace-threatening regime in the Western World, the state of Israel.   What does the United States get out of the deal?   It sure as hell isn’t about “Democracy”.   The United States doesn’t give a rats ass about Democracy in any other country, no in any way shape or form.   Just look at our support of the totalitarian, boiling-people-alive country of Uzbekistan for one despicable instance.

It might be about sharing intelligence and resources for covert activities and blackops, but the U.S. does that with other countries as well, such as Turkey, without such a blatant in-your-face disregard for human rights.    

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