Tensions high at Israeli-Lebanese border
A new report said that Hezbollah has tightened security measures along the border with Israel as Tel Aviv beefs up its forces along the northern frontier. Citing Lebanese sources, the London-based A-Sharq al-Awsat newspaper reported Friday that Israeli troops were called up to the northern borders to carry out “military maneuvers.” According to the report, the resistance movement put its forces on high alert to retaliate in the event of “surprise attack” by Israel. Read More… | 2 |
U.S.-China military tensions grow
Even though the U.S. military budget is almost ten times that of China’s (with a population more than four times as large) and Washington plans a record $708 billion defense budget for next year compared to Russia spending less than $40 billion last year for the same, China and Russia are portrayed as threats to the U.S. and its allies. China has no troops outside its borders; Russia has a small handful in its former territories in Abkhazia, Armenia, South Ossetia and Transdniester. The U.S. has hundreds of thousands of troops stationed in six continents. Read More…
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Netanyahu demands permanent Israeli military presence in the West Bank
Israeli forces would control border between Jordan, future Palestinian state
In a move that seems certain to torpedo what little hope remains of a peace deal in the near term, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has demanded that Israel be allowed to maintain a permanent military presence in the Jordan Valley.
This means in practice that even if Israel agrees to the creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank, it would insist on maintaining military control over the border between that state and Jordan, and would continue to have troops inside the “demilitarized” future nation. Read More…
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Hariri warns of another Israeli attack on Lebanon
Lebanon’s Prime Minister Saad Hariri has expressed concerns over a possible Israeli attack on the country, citing an escalated violation of Lebanese airspace by Israeli aircraft.
Hariri, who arrived in France on Thursday on his first official visit to a Western country since forming his government in 2009, made the remarks in an interview with the French newspaper Le Monde.
He said that Israeli aircraft violated the Lebanese airspace 25 times in one single day last week.
“I also mentioned the necessity to end the daily Israeli violations of this resolution (United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701), the escalation of the Israeli threats against Lebanon and its government,” Hariri said. Read More…
Chavez: US weapon test caused Haiti earthquake
Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez has once again accused the United States of playing God. But this time it’s Haiti’s disastrous earthquake that he thinks the U.S. was behind. Spanish newspaper ABC quotes Chavez as saying that the U.S. navy launched a weapon capable of inducing a powerful earthquake off the shore of Haiti. He adds that this time it was only a drill and the final target is … destroying and taking over Iran. Read More…
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Israel finds a new way to play the victim
A report released by the United Nations last year says that Israeli settlers, angered over the destruction of Jewish outposts, could exact revenge on up to a quarter million Palestinians in the West Bank.
The UN report stresses that the IDF is hardly the good guy here: “The main concern is the frequent failure of the Israeli security forces to intervene and stop settler attacks in real time, including the failure to arrest suspected settlers on the spot. … Among the main reasons behind this failure is the ambiguous message delivered by the government of Israel and the IDF top officials to the security forces in the field regarding their authority and responsibility to enforce the law on Israeli settlers.”
“Ambiguous” means that the IDF officially tells its soldiers to enforce the law, even when it means safeguarding Palestinian life. But when Israeli soldiers ignore that instruction, letting Palestinians suffer, the guilty Israelis virtually never suffer any consequences themselves. It’s the Israeli version of “Don’t ask, don’t tell.”
The Israelis have other worries on their minds. Right now, the hot new source of anxiety in Israel is an imagined worldwide conspiracy of anti-Semites bent on “delegitimization” – attacking the right of the Jewish state to exist. Soon they may be on full-scale alert, mobilizing their nation and its supporters to name this threat their “new battlefield,” make it a top priority, and fight back hard. Read More…
Sanctioning Iran
World powers are struggling to reach an agreement on how to deal with the Iranian nuclear issue. Are sanctions the only way to go against Tehran?
MTW comment: Kenneth Katzman says, “The reason why Iran’s case was referred to Security Council is because it was building a nuclear infrastructure and not declaring it, not being transparent as to what it was doing.”
Here you have an echo of the familiar deception often used by Israel and its lobby. Did Israel declare its nuclear facility and was Israel transparent about its own production of nuclear weapons?
Why Iran cannot be allowed to do what Israel is doing? Or, even better, why Israel is not being dealt with the same way Iran is?
Mr. Katzman, your arguments don’t hold not because of your inadequacy but because the case you are trying to defend is indefensible. This is why you, and people like you, have to resort to hypocrisy. What a pity.
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A closer look at Israel’s role in terrorism
Game theory war-planners rely on mathematical models to anticipate and shape outcomes with staged provocations. For the agent provocateur, the reactions to a provocation—as well as the reactions to those reactions—thereby become predictable within an acceptable range of probabilities.
With ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan poised to expand to Iran and Pakistan, it is time to take a closer look at how conflicts are catalyzed—by way of deception. Read More…
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Anthony Lawson/Jeff Gates- A Closer Look at Israel’s Role in Terrorism
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Note – The video is based on an article by Jeff Gates, who is a widely acclaimed author, attorney, merchant banker, educator and consultant to governments worldwide, who served for seven years as counsel to the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance. He is the author of Guilt by Association, Democracy At Risk and The Ownership Solution. See his website http://criminalstate.com. [Source]
Amnesty International: Suffocating the Gaza Strip under Israeli Blockade
More than 1.4 million Palestinian men, women and children are trapped in the Gaza Strip. Their daily lives are marked with power shortages, little or no running water and deteriorating health care. Mass unemployment, poverty and food insecurity exacerbate the impact of the Israeli blockade which was brought into force in June 2007.
In this campaign digest Amnesty International calls on the Israeli government to immediately lift the blockade; return all arable land inside Gaza; agree a fair fishing zone and ensure that Israeli security forces use force only when necessary to counter genuine threats.
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The Origin of the Palestine – Israel Conflict
By: Jews for Justice in the Middle East
As the periodic bloodshed continues in the Middle East, the search for an equitable solution must come to grips with the root cause of the conflict. The conventional wisdom is that, even if both sides are at fault, the Palestinians are irrational “terrorists” who have no point of view worth listening to. Our position, however, is that the Palestinians have a real grievance: their homeland for over a thousand years was taken, without their consent and mostly by force, during the creation of the state of Israel. And all subsequent crimes—on both sides—inevitably follow from this original injustice.
This paper outlines the history of Palestine to show how this process occurred and what a moral solution to the region’s problems should consist of. If you care about the people of the Middle East, Jewish and Arab, you owe it to yourself to read this account of the other side of the historical record.
PDF Versions: | Double-sided booklet | Single sided text |
Source: http://www.cactus48.com
The militarization of emergency aid to Haiti: Is it a humanitarian operation or an invasion?
(Global Research) — The military component of the US relief mission in Haiti tends to overshadow the civilian functions of rescuing a desperate and impoverished population. The overall humanitarian operation is not being led by civilian governmental agencies such as FEMA or USAID, but by the Pentagon. The dominant decision making role has been entrusted to US Southern Command (SOUTHCOM).
The unspoken mission of US Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) with headquarters in Miami and US military installations throughout Latin America is to ensure the maintenance of subservient national regimes, namely US proxy governments, committed to the Washington Consensus and the neoliberal policy agenda. While US military personnel will at the outset be actively involved in emergency and disaster relief, this renewed US military presence in Haiti will be used to establish a foothold in the country as well pursue America’s strategic and geopolitical objectives in the Caribbean basin, which are largely directed against Cuba and Venezuela.
The objective is not to work towards the rehabilitation of the national government, the presidency, the parliament, all of which has been decimated by the earthquake. Since the fall of the Duvalier dictatorship, America’s design has been to gradually dismantle the Haitian State, restore colonial patterns and obstruct the functioning of a democratic government. In the present context, the objective is not only to do away with the government but also to revamp the mandate of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), of which the headquarters have been destroyed.
Prior to the earthquake, there were, according to US military sources, some 60 US military personnel in Haiti. From one day to the next, an outright military surge has occurred: 10,000 troops, marines, special forces, intelligence operatives, etc., not to mention private mercenary forces on contract to the Pentagon.
In all likelihood the humanitarian operation will be used as a pretext and justification to establish a more permanent US military presence in Haiti. We are dealing with a massive deployment, a “surge” of military personnel assigned to emergency relief.
The first mission of SOUTHCOM will be to take control of what remains of the country’s communications, transport and energy infrastructure. Already, the airport is under de facto US control. In all likelihood, the activities of MINUSTAH which from the outset in 2004 have served US foreign policy interests, will be coordinated with those of SOUTHCOM, namely the UN mission will be put under de facto control of the US military. Read More…
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Barghouti: Palestinian division is a crime
Mustafa Barghouti, secretary general of the Palestinian National Initiative, said on Saturday that ongoing division between Palestinian factions is detrimental to Palestinians.
“Continued division on the Palestinian arena is a crime against the Palestinians and their future,” he said.
“Israel is eliminating the elements of the Palestinian cause by changing the features of Jerusalem, with settlements, enforcing an apartheid regime, changing the features of the Jordan Valley and confiscating Palestinian sources of water and imposing the siege on Gaza.”
Under such circumstances, he said, “it is a crime to continue with this state of division … every effort should be made to restore national unity.”
Barghouti called for expanding and applying the popular resistance by reviving the boycott campaign, imposing international sanctions on Israel “to stop its crimes in the Palestinian territories.” Read More…
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Iran Six decides against new sanctions on Tehran
Iran Six participants holding a meeting in New York on Saturday decided against new sanctions on Tehran and will study new political methods to solve the issues, a Russian Foreign Ministry deputy said. The Iran Six consists Russia, the U.S., China, Britain, France, and Germany. Read More… | 2 | 3 | 4 |
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EU delegation urges trial of Israeli war criminals
A high ranking European parliamentary delegation in the Gaza Strip has called for the prosecution of Israeli officials over war crimes in the territory.
The high ranking delegation which includes 60 parliament members of 12 European countries, crossed into the strip on Friday afternoon through Rafah border crossing.
Speaking at a press conference at the crossing, British Labor Party legislator, Sir Gerald Kauffim who is also the head of the delegation described the visit as “a message of solidarity with Gaza to end the Israeli siege.” Read More…
Related:
- EU delegation to assess Gaza damage | 2 |
- Turkish ambassador to Israel returns to Ankara
- Turkish human rights group seeks to prosecute Barak for alleged Gaza war crimes
- Unilateral Israeli measures threaten peace efforts: Jordanian FM
- Netanyahu to travel to Germany for joint German-Israeli cabinet meeting
- Peres to address German parliament on Holocaust Remembrance Day
- In a letter to UN, Gaza children demand justice
- Israeli democracy or hypocrisy
- Turkey warns Lebanon that Israel may be planning attack
- US offers support for anti-Palestinian steel walls
