by James Petras / February 25th, 2008

The Israeli Agenda openly defended, publicly practiced and aggressively pursued by the Zionist power configuration (ZPC) has greatly influenced the US Presidential elections and the likely future course of Washington’s Middle East policy. The strategy of the Jewish state is the complete Zionization of Palestine, the takeover of land, water, offshore gas (estimated to be worth $4 billion dollars) and other economic resources and the total dispossession of the Palestinian people. Tel Aviv’s tactics have included daily military assaults, giant walls ghettoizing entire Palestinian towns, military outposts and controls undermining commerce and production to force bankruptcy, poverty, severe deprivation and population flight. The second priority of the Israeli colonial state is to bolster the Jewish state’s political and military supremacy in the Middle East, using preposterous arguments of ‘survival’ and ‘existential threats’.            More..........

by Rosemarie Jackowski / February 26th, 2008

Democrats are once again experiencing Nader angst. In fact, many of them are suffering so much anxiety that they not only attack Nader, but also Nader supporters. The Democratic Party needs to be reminded that it is an election, not a coronation.

No one automatically deserves a vote simply because of Party affiliation. Hillary and Obama will get the votes of the Party faithful. Other voters will cast their ballots based on issues. On the issues, is any candidate better than Nader? No major party candidate even compares. That is why they have refused to allow Nader to debate.

The Democrats had their chance, and once again they blew it. They started out with Kucinich who called for the immediate withdrawal from Iraq — not only withdrawal across the Iraq border — but Kucinich called for bringing all troops home now. He also supported a Single Payer Health care system. That would save the lives of 18,000 U.S. citizens every year.

The Democrats also had Edwards who had promised to fight the wave of corporate crime — a major problem. Would there be war if the corporations did not profit from the killing?                            More.............................

Holocaust survivors, their descendants and loved ones were heartened by recent Post coverage of the tragically inadequate resources available to Holocaust survivors in their last years ["Holocaust Survivors, Heirs Fight On for Compensation," news story, Nov. 25]. Such coverage is long overdue. Serious issues require attention from policymakers and the media before time runs out -- as it soon will for elderly survivors who have suffered too much already.

Among the 174,000 survivors still alive in the United States, more than 80,000 are too poor to provide for their daily needs. According to the Jewish Federation system, one-quarter of the survivors in the United States live at or below the poverty level, and another quarter live on the edge of poverty, struggling to survive on fixed incomes and unable to pay for basic necessities such as food, rent and medicine, much less home care, dental work, eyeglasses or hearing aids. This does not even begin to address the problems unique to aging Holocaust survivors, such as finding health-care professionals who can deal with the long-term effects of starvation, beatings, disease and other traumas that many endured in the ghettos and concentration camps.                           More.................

ROBERT DREYFUSS, The Nation - February 21, 2008

In October, as part of its ongoing effort to isolate and sanction Iran, the Bush Administration announced sanctions against several Iranian banks, companies and individuals linked to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its special operations unit, the Quds (Jerusalem) Force, for their "support for terrorism." The White House launched a worldwide effort to persuade other countries not to do business with the designees, including Iran's Bank Melli. "Bank Melli provides banking services to the IRGC and the Qods Force," said the Treasury Department. "Entities owned or controlled by the IRGC or the Qods Force use Bank Melli for a variety of financial services."

Buried deep in the State and Treasury Department documents compiled in support of the sanctions--unnoticed by the media--is the address of a Bank Melli branch in a country occupied by US troops: "Location: No. 111-27, Alley 929 District, Arasat Street, Baghdad, Iraq."

That a bank described by the United States as an Iranian facilitator of terrorism operates freely in the heart of Iraq's capital is ironic, to say the least, given the Bush Administration's near-declaration of war against Iran's involvement in Iraq. Citing evidence that Iran supplies arms, money, logistical help and training to Shiite militias and insurgents, hawks in the Administration, including Vice President Cheney, have suggested that US forces in Iraq may strike supply lines, training camps and weapons depots across the Iranian border, even at the risk of igniting all-out war.                         More....................

By David Jackson and Jason Grotto|Tribune reporters

February 21, 2008

ROCK ISLAND, Ill.—Inside the stout federal courthouse of this Mississippi River town, the dirty secrets of Iraq war profiteering keep pouring out.

Hundreds of pages of recently unsealed court records detail how kickbacks shaped the war's largest troop support contract months before the first wave of U.S. soldiers plunged their boots into Iraqi sand.

The graft continued well beyond the 2004 congressional hearings that first called attention to it. And the massive fraud endangered the health of American soldiers even as it lined contractors' pockets, records show.

قرارات الحرب تختلف عن بيانات الإدانة والغضب والاحتجاج، الوضع فيها خطير للغاية وليس نزهة أو مغامرات غير مسؤولة، لأن مصائر أمم بكاملها تتعلق به ومقدرات الدولة بالكامل مرهونة به، وبالتالي عندما يعلن تنظيم حزب الله اللبناني أنه مستعد لإعلان حرب مفتوحة مع الكيان الصهيوني فإن الموقف يستدعي الإدانة الصريحة والقاطعة لسلوك الحزب، لأن مثل هذا القرار أو حتى التلويح به هو نوع من المتاجرة السياسية التي يدفع كامل ثمنها ـ ليس حزب الله ـ وإنما المواطن اللبناني وبقية القوى اللبنانية.

حزب الله هو في النهاية جزء من منظومة سياسية وأمنية وعسكرية تمثلها الدولة اللبنانية، ويفترض أنه يعمل من خلالها وينطلق من ترابها الوطني، وبالتالي فإعلان الحرب انطلاقا من الأراضي اللبنانية أخلاقيا ووطنيا لا بد وأن يكون بتوافق وبقرار الدولة وليس بعض طوائفها، لا يمكن أن يعطى أي حزب أو قوة سياسية في أي دولة صلاحية إعلان الحرب ضد دولة أخرى بمثل هذه "الديماغجية" الفارغة التي خطب بها السيد حسن نصر الله في عزاء عماد مغنية.

علاء اللقطة -  جريدة فلسطين- فلسطين

.Palestine Newspaper - Palestine

 الكابوس

الكابوس أمامي قائم

February 18, 2008 at 9:21 am (Israel, Palestine, zionism)

Jewish extremists assault Palestinian graveyard

Palestinian Information Center

NAZARETH, (PIC)– The Aqsa foundation for the reconstruction of Islamic holy shrines strongly denounced Sunday the Jewish fanatics who assaulted the Islamic Hirbij cemetery in the Ibten town in the Palestinian lands occupied in 1948 and smashed many gravestones, considering this act as a desecration of the living and the dead Muslims. The foundation stated that it would be working soon on refurbishing the smashed gravestones and fencing the graveyard. A Palestinian citizen who works as a janitor near the graveyard discovered this assault and told the Ibten people who in their turn called the Haifa police to conduct its investigations. This is the third assault on the graveyard in the last two years, where Jewish extremists had previously written slurs on the graves against Arabs and Muslims and the Haifa police investigated into the assault but to no avail. Source

It's 2008 - do you know where your tax dollars are?

by Christopher Bollyn
1 April 2005

Mossad, Israel's military intelligence agency, infiltrated the most sensitive computer networks in the United States through a little start-up company known as Ptech, in Quincy, Massachusetts.

Most notably, it was this infiltration that allowed the events of September 11, 2001 to occur.

If the crimes of 9/11 had been properly investigated, these people would have been investigated and booked long ago. The Mossad connection is obvious; read on:

In order to facilitate the computer network penetration, Mossad set up a IT consultancy and software provider named Ptech using Lebanese and Arabs as the front-man financiers and founders and keeping their Jewish American "sayan" in a secondary, but critical position.

First a note of background on what Ptech did, from the January 2005 article "Michael Chertoff and the sabotage of the Ptech investigation" on the Rigorous Intuition weblog: "Joe Bergantino, a reporter for WBZ-TV's investigative team, was torn. He could risk breaking a story based on months of work investigating a software firm linked to terrorism, or heed the government's demand to hold the story for national security reasons. In mid-June, Bergantino received a tip from a woman in New York who suspected that Ptech, a computer software company in Quincy, Mass., had ties to terrorists. Ptech specialized in developing software that manages information contained in computer networks.

February 15, 2008 at 7:28 pm (DesertPeace Editorial, Israel, Palestine, Peace)
Image ‘Copyleft’ by Carlos Latuff

Join us for a conference call on Tuesday, February 19 at 9PM Eastern to learn more about increased U.S. military aid to Israel and how we can organize together to end military aid to Israel.  To RSVP and get the call-in information, please email congress@endtheoccupation.org. 

A pilot accused of training the September 11 hijackers has been given the right to claim compensation for wrongful imprisonment by the Court of Appeal.

	Lotfi Raissi on Telegraph TV: 'I have always said that I believed in British justice and I finally got it today'

Lotfi Raissi, an Algerian, was arrested at his home in west London 10 days after the attacks, accused of being the main instructor for the four pilots.

He was released after seven days but re-arrested and held for four-and-a-half months on an extradition warrant issued at the request of the United States government.

Mr Raissi, 33, trained at the same flight school as Hani Hanjour, the man suspected of crashing Flight 77 into the Pentagon

But he has since been cleared of any involvement in the attacks after the US failed to produce any evidence against him.

His application for compensation had been rejected by the Home Secretary and the High Court, but the Court of Appeal today ruled he had valid grounds for a claim.                                More.........................

David Morrison, The Electronic Intifada - 14 February 2008

A woman carries a sign reading "No to the faces of the occupation at the crossing" as women Hamas supporters demonstrate against the border closure at the Rafah crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip, 2 February 2008. (Wissam Nassar/MaanImages)

Jessica Frederick & Ghassan Bannoura - IMEMC News

Israeli troops stopping Palestinian ambulance from entering Beit Ummer today – Photo by IMEMC's Ghassan Bannoura February 13, 2008 The Israeli army on Wednesday invaded both the city of Nablus, in the northern West Bank, and the village of Beit Ummer, located near the city of Hebron in the southern West Bank. In total, at least 85 Palestinian civilians were abducted by the invading military. Israeli troops stormed the village of Beit Ummar at around 1:00 am on Wednesday. Troops searched and ransacked scores of homes, with local sources stating that the army placed the village under curfew, not allowing families to leave their homes. As the military operation continued, residents reported that, so far, the army had kidnapped 40 men from the village, their ages ranging from 18 to 45. Israeli troops are still in the village and are not allowing Palestinian ambulances or journalists to enter the village, eyewitnesses reported. When IMEMC photojournalist Ghassan Bannoura arrived at the entrance of the village, Israeli troops did not allow him to enter, and threatened to use live rounds if he do not comply with their order to leave the scene. As a group of international human rights workers from the Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) tried to enter the village, Israeli troops prevented them and declared the entire village a "closed military zone". Later in the day, six CPT workers managed to enter Beit Ummer, although troops prevented them from moving around. Troops later kidnapped the group and released them in a nearby Israeli settlement. Tareq, a CPT worker in Beit Ummer told IMEMC that the soldiers are "rounding up men without any reason. Men are being spot interrogated and then moved away to unknown locations". The Christian Peacemaker Teams are an ecumenical initiative to support violence reduction efforts around the world. In a separate attack by the Israeli military, the northern West Bank city of Nablus was targeted. Troops kidnapped two civilians, detained without charge. Palestinian sources in Nablus reported that Israeli military forces invaded the city on Wednesday at dawn and kidnapped Mou'ayad Hashash, 24. Meanwhile, Samier Mansour, 18, was also taken from his home in the village of Kufer Kalil, just south of Nablus city. Israeli army radio announced that, during pre-dawn invasions across the West Bank, the Israeli army had kidnapped as many as 70 Palestinian civilians.

Mohammed Omer

GAZA CITY, Feb 13 (IPS) - "We are being starved, killed, tortured, and besieged -- and all this while the world just watches," says Abu Wael at the funeral of the latest group of Gazans killed by Israeli forces.

The death toll is mounting, even if much of the media is taking little note of killings on the Gaza side.

Gaza's health ministry spokesman Khaled Radi said that in just one 24-hour period last week, 17 Palestinians were killed and many more injured. The dead include seven policemen who were targeted in southern Gaza's Khan Younis police station while praying at dawn. Four of the Palestinians were killed in Jabalyia refugee camp in the north of the Strip.

An Israeli air strike near al-Tuffah, north of Gaza City, killed two and wounded four, three of them seriously. In yet another attack, a teacher was killed, and three students wounded, when an Israeli tank shell hit an agriculture high school in the northern town of Beit Hanoun.

This mounting death toll came some hours after Hamas claimed responsibility for the bombing in a mall in Dimona in southern Israel which killed one Israeli and injured five. Two Palestinians died carrying out the bombing.              More.............

Desert Peace

(Ben Heine © Cartoons) Febrary 12, 2008 So little is known about the people in Gaza…. so little news gets out these days. We at DesertPeace try to keep our readers updated on the horrific situation there, one of our best sources is Mohammed Omer, a young photo journalist that actually lives there… in Rafah. The following essay is one he wrote for the latest issue of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. Gaza’s Christian Community—Serenity, Solidarity and Soulfulness By Mohammed Omer AS THE SUN rises in the east on the first day of Advent, the bells of Gaza’s churches fill the air, mixing amicably with the Muslim call to prayer. There is an air of quiet serenity spiced with excitement as the faithful walk to their churches and mosques, the doors swinging open, and Christians and Muslims bid each other good morning on yet another Sunday.            More.....................