Many Arab officials have close CIA links: Assange

DOHA: Top officials in several Arab countries have close links with the CIA, and many officials keep visiting US embassies in their respective countries voluntarily to establish links with this key US intelligence agency, says Julian Assange, founder of the whistle-blowing website, WikiLeaks.

“These officials are spies for the US in their countries,” Assange told Al Jazeera Arabic channel in an interview yesterday.

The interviewer, Ahmed Mansour, said at the start of the interview which was a continuation of last week’s interface, that Assange had even shown him the files that contained the names of some top Arab officials with alleged links with the CIA.

Assange or Mansour, however, didn’t disclose the names of these officials. The WikiLeaks founder said he feared he could be killed but added that there were 2,000 websites that were ready to publish the remaining files that are in possession of WikiLeaks after “he has been done away with”.

“If I am killed or detained for a long time, there are 2,000 websites ready to publish the remaining files. We have protected these websites through very safe passwords,” said Assange.

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WikiLeaks clones popping up in Europe and beyond

The perceived successes of WikiLeaks have catalyzed would-be whistle-blowers to launch their own crusades for transparency. The most recent is PirateLeaks.cz, launched by the Czech Pirate Party.

In the aftermath of the latest releases of information of secret documents by the infamous WikiLeaks, a crop of clones have popped up in Europe.
One has been seeded by ex-WikiLeaks staffers, others were simply inspired by the original, but all of them want to make a difference.
WikiLeaks clones include the forthcoming OpenLeaks in Germany, with former WikiLeaks staffer, Daniel Domscheit-Berg at the helm.
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US Declined to Cooperate in Dubai Probe of Mabhouh Killing, WikiLeaks Shows

U.A.E. alleges Mossad orchestrated the assassination of a top Hamas commander in January 2010, asked U.S. to provide credit card details linked to suspects; U.S. last year denied ever receiving such request.
The United States declined a request from the United Arab Emirates to assist an investigation into the assassination of a top Hamas commander.

[Suspects in Dubai assassination of Hamas operative Mahmoud al-Mabhouh. (Haaretz)]Suspects in Dubai assassination of Hamas operative Mahmoud al-Mabhouh. (Haaretz)
Dubai suspects Israel's Mossad agency to have been behind the murder of Mahmoud al-Mabhoh in a Dubai hotel in January 2010. Israel has neither confirmed nor denied a role in the killing.

The U.S. last year denied reports that it had received a request for assistance from Dubai, but a recently released WikiLeaks cable proves otherwise.
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Former Israeli president convicted of rape

JERUSALEM (AP) - Former Israel President Moshe Katsav was convicted Thursday of raping an employee when he was a Cabinet minister, the most serious criminal charges ever brought against a high-ranking official and a case that stunned the nation.

Katsav, 65, faces a minimum of four years in prison on two counts of raping one of his employees in 1998 when he was Israel's tourism minister. The Tel Aviv District Court also convicted him on lesser counts of indecent acts and sexual harassment involving two other women who worked for him after he became president in 2000.

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Never again? Elderly Palestinian women called “whores” on Yad Vashem tour, while racism explodes across Israel

The only image of a Palestinian inside Yad Vashem depicts the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem sig heiling Nazi troops

Max Blumental

This week, a group of elderly Palestinian women were escorted to the Yad Vashem Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance musuem to learn about the Jewish genocide in Europe. At the entrance of the museum, they were surrounded by a group of Jewish Israeli youth who recognized them as Arabs. “Sharmouta!” the young Israelis shouted at them again and again, using the Arabic slang term for whores, or sluts.

The Palestinians had been invited to attend a tour arranged by the Israeli Bereaved Families Forum, an organization founded by an Israeli whose son was killed in combat by Palestinians. They were joined by a group of Jewish Israeli women who, like them, had lost family members to violence related to the conflict. Presumably, both parties went on the tour in good faith, hoping to gain insight into the suffering of women on the other side of the conflict.

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Israel Represses Israelis and Congress Approves

By Stephen Zunes, December 28, 2010

It’s been two years since Israel initiated the “Operation Cast Lead” military assault on the besieged Gaza Strip. Since then, the right-wing Israeli government of Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu has launched an unprecedented wave of intimidation against Israeli peace and human rights groups. These groups say they are “working in an increasingly hostile environment,” according to a New York Times report, and that Israeli government leaders are fostering “an atmosphere of harassment” by turning “human rights criticism into an existential threat.”

However, Congress has chosen to look the other way – and wants the executive branch to do the same.

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Tunisia: The battle of Sidi Bouzid

Poor economic policies have led to widespread distress as Tunisia's youth take their frustrations to the streets.

The economic policies as championed by the 'Washington Consensus' have manifested in unbearable levels of unemployment, a core factor behind the latest rounds of street protests [AFP]

What happened to the state? Where did civil society go? Why is there only silence from Development Minister Mohamed Nouri Jouini?

Before even attempting to answer each one of those questions, these seemingly dysfunctional institutions need to be inspected more closely in order to see the extent to which they share responsibility for the suicidal protests of despair by Tunisia’s youth.

This is a not time for scoring political points. What Wikileaks says or does not say about Tunisia’s ruling familiy serves no purpose here. This is a time for reflection on Tunisia’s own ‘wretched of the earth’ – the ‘khobz-istes’ of Sidi Bouzid and the country’s disenfranchised youth.
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Christian extremists assist Israel in displacing Negev Bedouin

Jonathan Cook, The Electronic Intifada, 28 December 2010

Bedouin children from al-Araqib watch as Israeli forces destroy their village, September 2010.

Half a million trees planted over the past 18 months on the ancestral lands of Bedouin tribes in Israel's Negev region were bought by a controversial Christian evangelical television channel that calls itself God-TV.

A sign posted a few kilometers north of Beersheba, the Negev's main city, announces plans to plant a total of a million trees over a large area of desert that has already been designated "God-TV Forest."

The Jewish National Fund (JNF), an international non-profit organization in charge of forestation and developing Jewish settlements in Israel, received $500,000 from God-TV to plant some of the trees, according to the channel's filings to US tax authorities last year.
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Tunisia uprising

المتظاهرون حاولوا كسر حواجز الشرطة التي حاصرتهم وردتهم عن الخروج إلى شوارع العاصمة

الاشتباكات بين عناصر الشرطة والمحتجين أدت إلى سقوط بعض الجرحى

المتظاهرون رفعوا شعارات ضد التمديد والتوريث

تعزيزات أمنية كبيرة حالت دون خروج المئات من المحتجين إلى شارع الحبيب بورقيبة بالعاصمة

المحتجون لم ينجحوا في تجاوز قوات الأمن التي انتشرت بكثافة أمام مقر الاتحاد العام التونسي للشغل

الاحتجاجات وصفت بانتفاضة الفقراء والجوعى

قوات الأمن استعملت العصي لتفريق المتظاهرين

الحناجر تعالت مرددة شعارات تندد بالفساد وتطالب بالتشغيل

النساء شاركن في المظاهرة الاحتجاجية

المظاهرة تميزت بطابعها السلمي

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How a man, president Ben Ali, setting fire to himself sparked an uprising in Tunisia

A relatively minor incident has become the catalyst for a wave of protests that may end the presidency of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali

Brian Whitaker- The Guardian

Watching events in Tunisia over the past few days, I have been increasingly reminded of an event in 1989: the fall of the Romanian dictator, Nicolae Ceausescu. Is the Tunisian dictator, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, about to meet a similar fate?

After 22 years in power, Ceausescu's end came suddenly and somewhat unexpectedly. It began when the government harassed an ethnic Hungarian priest over something he had said. Demonstrations broke out but the priest was soon forgotten: they rapidly turned into generalised protests against the Ceausescu regime. The Romanian public, to put it mildly, had had enough.

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World Tired of Paying Bill for US Military

Michael Hudson: Major countries looking for alternatives to US dollar
Thanks Pitirre

What a great opening line!

"The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new."
Samuel Beckett - Murphy

WikiLeaks founded Julian Assange promises 3,700 files on Israel

When will you publish the files related to Israel on your website? We will publish 3700 files and the source is the American embassy in Tel Aviv. Prime Minister Netanyahu was traveling to Paris to talk to the US ambassador there. You will see more information about that in six months.
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Pssst..dude..Hurry up..suspicious minds are suspecting.

The power behind the throne? / Zvi Bar'el

Wherever she appears, Sheikha Mozah of Qatar, the emir's wife, makes a splash. That includes helping persuade FIFA to award the 2022 World Cup to the tiny Gulf state ... "We in Qatar are working to emphasize the highly influential historic role of women in the Arab peninsula. This role is not known in the Arab and Western world and is neglected by public opinion, the media and the intellectuals," she said in an interview with the Saudi newspaper Al-Riyadh, after completing a historic three-day visit to the kingdom last March.
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Remnick (New Yorker Magazine) : I can't take the occupation anymore, Jesus!

Philip Weiss
Didi Remez at Coteret has picked up part of an interview in Hebrew at Yediot in which David Remnick, the editor of the New Yorker magazine, shows how intolerable the occupation is becoming to American Jews. Remnick echoes the theme of the liberal Zionists I cited the other day: they are flipped out by Netanyahu's intransigence and are getting ready to flip the bird to Israel: "Do you see a certain change in the US Jewish community? “A new generation of Jews is growing up in the US. Their relationship with Israel is becoming less patient and more problematic
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1932 (Germany) is already here (Israel) / Daniel Blatman
A non-Jew who fled Germany ahead of the Nazi occupation would certainly recall those hard days in his homeland if he were to visit Bat Yam, Safed, Bnei Brak or south Tel Aviv today ... The wild propagandists of the right like MK Michael Ben Ari (National Union ) do not hesitate to use imagery and explanations taken from the anti-Semitic lexicon of Europe: Foreigners spread disease and take Jewish women; black refugees are violent criminals who endanger public safety. This horrific propaganda is terrifying poor population groups who are already living with an infinite number of problems of survival. And the people who espouse this propaganda are persuading themselves that keeping foreigners out and racial separation produce hope for a solution to their problems.
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Is Judaism a race? Ask Israelis / Zvi Bar'el

Can Israeli racism be eliminated through law, trial and punishment, or is it already part of the Israeli identity?
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Defining Israel by what it is not / Gideon Levy

No to Arabs, no to Jews, no to the world; no to foreigners and no to settlement freezes; no to the bomb and no to the peace initiatives; no to ending the siege and no to Syria. That's a frighteningly thin vocabulary - a one-word national dictionary. Among the overabundance of "no," the word "yes" has disappeared. Sixty-two years after its establishment, nobody knows where the state is headed. What does it want? What are its leaders and citizens seeking? What sort of state would we like to see?
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Paraguay to recognize Palestinian state in '11

RAMALLAH (Ma'an) -- Joining a growing number of South American nations to support a unilateral declaration of Palestinian statehood, Paraguay said it plans to recognize an independent Palestinian state next year, Palestinian officials told reporters on Sunday.
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Thousands gather in Turkey to greet ship at center of Gaza flotilla raid

Thousands of pro-Palestinian activists gathered Sunday at a port in Istanbul to welcome back a Turkish-flagged ship that was the scene of bloodshed during an Israeli raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla in May. The Mavi Marmara, on which nine Turkish activists were killed and several Israel Defense Forces soldiers were wounded, underwent repairs at a Mediterranean port in the wake of the commando raid.
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5,000 units to be built in occupied East Jerusalem, West Bank

...Lawyer Qais Yousef Nasser, a specialist in Construction and Planning Laws, stated that the Israeli Housing Ministry sold in 2010 more than 1,400 units in settlements in occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank, and that these units were mainly sold in Homat Shmoel settlement, Maaleh Adumim settlement block, and Pisgat Zeev. Nasser added that the ministry is planning to market 594 units in Pisgat Zeev, and that 11 units were sold last year. 1,280 units are being marketed in Homat Shomel and 301 units of them were sold.
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State sponsored colonist thieves seize 20 dunums of Palestinian land near Nablus

Nablus, December 26, (Pal Telegraph) – Israeli settlers from Shilo settlement seized on Sunday 20 dunums from Khrba Sera, in the south of eastern area of Nablus. The official of the settlement file in the West Bank, Ghasan Deglis, said that numbers of Israeli settlers are in the seized area and plowing the land. In the same context, Deglis said that three bulldozers are bulldozing lands near Barkh settlement in Eraq Boren in Nablus.
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Cuban medics in Haiti put the world to shame

Castro's doctors and nurses are the backbone of the fight against cholera

They are the real heroes of the Haitian earthquake disaster, the human catastrophe on America's doorstep which Barack Obama pledged a monumental US humanitarian mission to alleviate. Except these heroes are from America's arch-enemy Cuba, whose doctors and nurses have put US efforts to shame.

A medical brigade of 1,200 Cubans is operating all over earthquake-torn and cholera-infected Haiti, as part of Fidel Castro's international medical mission which has won the socialist state many friends, but little international recognition.

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Remember Gaza slaughter..two years ago.

'WikiLeaks to publish Israel cables on Second Lebanon War, Dubai assassination'

Julian Assange, founder of whistle-blowing website, says thousands of documents related to Israel are due to be released over next six months.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said Wednesday that his website is due to release thousands of documents related to Israel, particularly dealing with the Mabhouh assassination in Dubai and the Second Lebanon War, Channel 10 reported Thursday.

In an interview with Al Jazeera, Assange said that only very few files related to Israel were published so far and that WikiLeaks intends on releasing many more documents over the next six months.

Assange, who was recently released from a British prison, said that he holds 3,700 more files related to Israel, and the main source of them is the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv.

Assange said in the interview that WikiLeaks plans on releasing cables that were classified as top secret regarding Israel's month-long war with Hezbollah militants in Lebanon in the summer of 2006.
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The murder of a 20-year-old shepherd on his family lands on the Gaza border– meets only thundering western silence

Today I went to the martyr’s tent in Beit Lehiya. The shepherd who had died was freshly married. His child had been born two days before. His father said, “I am open,” indicating a line running along his sternum. The young man who had died had been his oldest son, leaving three brothers and two sisters. My friends working here, and the statistics, say that these murders, even more, the injuries, have been incessant since I left at the end of July. Incessant, and nearly banal, and marked in the West by a thundering silence—the silence of a racism that roars at the deaths of a Jewish Israeli and does not even bother to shrug at the death of a Bedouin living with his sheep, amidst the soil that’s dry from the rains which still, at end of December, have not come.

Read more-Mondoweiss

Wikileaks

WIkiLeaks to 'prove' Mossad behind Dubai murder
DUBAI (AFP) -- Dubai's police chief said WikiLeaks will confirm his charge that Israel's Mossad secret service was behind the Jan. 20 murder of a Hamas commander visiting the emirate, in a newspaper report Friday ... WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, quoted on the website of Al-Jazeera television, has vowed to release "sensitive" documents on the Israel-Hezbollah war of 2006 and on Mahmud Al-Mabhuh's murder in his Dubai hotel room.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=344990

Army opens probe into how Bradley Manning stole files
Washington - The U.S. Army has launched a wide-ranging investigation into how a private suspected of downloading thousands of secret reports and diplomatic cables and handing them over to WikiLeaks was able to do so and whether other soldiers should face criminal charges in the case, McClatchy has learned. The Army confirmed the investigation, but wouldn't release details.
http://www.truth-out.org/wikileaks-army-opens-probe-into-how-bradley-manning-stole-files66238

Ancient Christian site opens in UAE

The only known pre-Islamic Christian site at the southern end of the Arabian Peninsula, located at Sir Bani Yas Island, off the coast of the United Arab Emirates, has opened to tourists for the first time. A Christian church is the latest attraction in this conservative Muslim nation. Christian monasteries have already been discovered in nearby Saudi Arabia, though rarely publicised due to reluctance to embrace pre-Islamic religions in the region. Al Jazeera's Dan Nolan reports.

For Christians in Iraq, a Christmas of mourning and fear

...Nearly two months after a shocking assault by Islamist militants, Our Lady of Salvation Catholic Church will commemorate Christmas quietly, with daytime mass and prayers for the dead, under security fit more for a prison than a house of worship. It is the same at Christian churches across Baghdad and northern Iraq, where what's left of one of the world's oldest Christian communities prepares to mark perhaps the most somber Christmas since the start of the Iraq war.
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Political front

Ecuador formally recognizes Palestinian state
QUITO, Ecuador (AFP) -- Ecuador formally recognized Palestine as an independent state on Friday, following the lead of its neighbors Bolivia, Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay earlier this month.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=345111

Hamas: Committed to truce
Hamas committed to mutual ceasefire in Gaza 'as long as there is no oppression and no aggression,' group leader al-Zahar tells crowd of supporters; truce no sign of weakness, he says
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4004011,00.html

Abbas: No Israeli presence in future state
(Ynet) During tour of Ramallah, PA leader says will not agree to IDF positions along borders of Palestinian state and will not accept Israeli troops as part of international force.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4004200,00.html

UN to commemorate Durban conference (AP)
UN to hold summit honoring contentious 2000 anti-racism meeting that singled out Israel; US votes against proposal to celebrate event, envoy Rice says it 'included ugly displays of intolerance, anti-Semitism'
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4004063,00.html

Haniyeh to reshuffle cabinet
Hamas spokesman Taher An-Nunu said Haniyeh formed a special committee to meet with factions and national figures to offer them positions in the new government.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=345027

Haniyeh files complaint with UN
Hamas spokesman Taher An-Nunu said Thursday that Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh filed a complaint to the United Nations via a letter to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon against Israeli army activity.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=344914

Turkey set on improving Israel ties but insists on apology for Gaza flotilla raid
Turkey's foreign minister said on Saturday that his country wants improved ties with Israel but that Israel must apologize and offer compensation for its raid on a Gaza Strip-bound aid flotilla in May in which nine Turkish citizens were killed.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/turkey-set-on-improving-israel-ties-but-insists-on-apology-for-gaza-flotilla-raid-1.332909

Turkey ties frayed, Israel turns to the Balkans
JERUSALEM (AFP) -- Israel is boosting its ties with Balkan nations after a deep freeze in relations with Turkey, formerly its closest and strongest regional ally.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=344992

War crimes

Report: Bereaved doctor to sue Israel
TEL AVIV, Israel (Ma'an) -- Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish, who lost three daughters when the Israeli army fired shells at his home during Operation Cast Lead, will file on Sunday a massive damages claim, an Israeli newspaper reported. "I didn't want to file the lawsuit, and until now I didn't want to discuss it," he told Yedioth Ahronoth in a phone interview from Toronto, Canada, where he immigrated following the tragedy. "I tried to take every step that would allow me to close this with love and goodwill, but they didn't leave me a choice.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=344941

Gaza: Two years after the horror / Haidar Eid
This week marks the second anniversary of the horror inflicted on the people of the Gaza Strip. Nothing has changed! Gaza has returned to its pre-invasion state of siege, confronted with the usual international indifference. Two years after the Israeli assault that lasted 22 long days and dark nights, during which its brave people were left alone to face one of the strongest armies in the world, Gaza no longer makes the news. Its people die slowly, its children are malnourished, its water contaminated, and yet it is deprived even of a word of sympathy from the President the United States and the leaders of Europe.
http://www.palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id=16509

Olmert in book: Barak tried to prevent Gaza op
(Ynet) Former prime minister's autobiography filled with harsh criticism of defense minister in both military and political arenas. 'Complete and utter nonsense,' says Barak
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4003879,00.html

Academy of hatred / Ziv Lenchner

Op-ed: Silence not an option in face of growing hatred, racism on Israel's streets ... Against the backdrop of the polished productions courtesy of the radical, inciting Right, and certainly under the spell of its malignant inspiration, a special elite unit was operating in Israel's capital as of late. This gang of young Jerusalemites and settlers, most of them teenagers, pulverized random Arabs in God's name. This devilish group, some of whose members already confessed, even employed a temptress, in the spirit of Mossad.
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'The darkness to expel' / Uri Avnery

IT IS easy to despair before the filthy wave of racism that is engulfing us. The remedy for this despair: the growing number of young people, sons and daughters of the new Israeli generation, who are joining the fight against racism and occupation ... Young volunteers for each of these fights - and for all of them together - are needed today more than ever, in face of the racism that is raising its ugly head all over Israel – an open racism, shameless and indeed proud of itself. The phenomenon by itself is not new. What is new is the loss of any vestige of shame. The racists shout their message on every street corner and earn applause from politicians and rabbis.
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Racism has reared its head and the public is apathetic / Gideon Levy

...The obsequious populism of Lapid, the conscientious patron of his city's indigent residents, cannot cover up the disgrace: If the dark-skinned people were blue-eyed blonds, there would be no problem here. The proof? Israel absorbed hundreds of thousands of non-Jewish Russians, blue-eyed blonds, and nobody protested, nobody muttered a word of complaint. Ask the Ethiopians, ask Israeli Arabs, including Bedouin and Druze who serve in the Israel Defense Forces, and then decide whether we're talking about pure, unadulterated racism, and not anything else.
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Wave of ethnic rage in Israel

JERUSALEM (AFP) -- A wave of protests and discriminatory acts by Jewish Israelis against Palestinians and Africans is worrying rights activists and has prompted an unprecedented appeal for calm from Israel's prime minister.
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We have received complaints about the words on your T-shirt so we have called the police - Gagosian Gallery

Laurie Arbeiter
I am writing to alert people about an incident that happened at the Gagosian gallery [in New York] Saturday, December 18, 2010, on the last day of the Anselm Kiefer exhibition, Next Year In Jerusalem. In response to the title of the exhibition and the content of the work [occupations/historical memory] a small group of artists and activists decided to view the show wearing a shirt with the words Next Year In Jerusalem in the three languages Arabic, Hebrew and English.
Read more-Mondoweiss

Israel uses arcane law to try to expel Palestinian

JERUSALEM (AP) – Israel is invoking an arcane military law to try to temporarily expel a Palestinian protest leader from his native east Jerusalem and if successful, Palestinians warn the measure could further hobble efforts to salvage moribund peace process ... Gheith has protested against 350 Israeli settlers living in heavily guarded enclaves in his overwhelmingly Arab neighborhood of Silwan, just south of Jerusalem's Old City ... Gheith is also a leading opponent of Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat's plan to raze 22 Palestinian homes in another neighborhood to make way for an Israeli tourist center. That plan is on hold. "They are trying to make look it like I am the one threatening the security, as if saying no to oppression and to house demolitions is an assault," he said.
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O little town of Bethlehem

Merry Christmas World! From the Bethlehem Ghetto

Ecuador becomes fifth Latin American country to recognize Palestinian state

Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Bolivia have announced this month that they recognize Palestine as state within 1967 borders.
Ecuador President Rafael Correa formally recognized Palestine as an independent state on Friday, following its neighboring countries Bolivia, Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay earlier this month, French news agency AFP reported.

According to AFP, Correa signed "the Ecuadoran government's official recognition of Palestine as a free and independent state with 1967 borders."
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Professor Qumsiyyeh released talks about his detention and torture

"Three of us released after about 10 hours. Five others were kept overnight. Some will have to go to (unfair) trials where Colonial Israeli Judges and prosecutors execute their bureaucratic punishments with no real law other than apartheid racist laws that befit Jewish immigrants at the expense of native Palestinians."

John Pilger - The War You Don't See 5/7

A powerful and timely investigation into the media's role in war, tracing the history of 'embedded' and independent reporting from the carnage of World War One to the destruction of Hiroshima, and from the invasion of Vietnam to the current war in Afghanistan and disaster in Iraq. As weapons and propaganda become even more sophisticated, the nature of war is developing into an 'electronic battlefield' in which journalists play a key role, and civilians are the victims. But who is the real enemy?

John Pilger says in the film: "We journalists... have to be brave enough to defy those who seek our collusion in selling their latest bloody adventure in someone else's country... That means always challenging the official story, however patriotic that story may appear, however seductive and insidious it is. For propaganda relies on us in the media to aim its deceptions not at a far away country but at you at home... In this age of endless imperial war, the lives of countless men, women and children depend on the truth or their blood is on us... Those whose job it is to keep the record straight ought to be the voice of people, not power."

Larry Derfner: The last bastion of colonialism

In the democratic world, Israel’s armed domination of the Palestinians is unique. It didn’t used to be, but now it is one-of-a-kind.
In the democratic world, Israel’s armed domination of the Palestinians is unique. It didn’t used to be, but now it is one-of-a-kind. This country’s occupation of Palestinian territory is the last bastion of colonialism in the free world.

People forget that. Which is why we need human rights reports like “Israeli Soldier Testimonies, 2000-2010” from Breaking the Silence and “Separate and Unequal” from Human Rights Watch – to force people to remember the simple, awful truth.

READING THROUGH the 431-page book of soldiers’ stories and the 166- page report about the mechanics of Israeli colonialism, you get a sense of how utterly we have become the Palestinians’ masters over the last 43 years.
The bullying and brutalizing of civilians is accepted as routine by young soldiers on occupation duty – even now, after the intifada has been extinguished, when Palestinian Authority police in the West Bank work with Israel to fight violence, terrorism and Hamas.

“There was a lot of joy at others’ misfortune, people even told about it happily,” said a soldier describing the “fanatical atmosphere” at a 2009 night raid on a village near Nablus. The soldiers “break the floors, turn over sofas, throw plants and pictures, turn over beds, break closets, tiles...”

The residents “are dying of fear, girls pee in their pants... [Soldiers] yelled at old people, one of them had an epileptic seizure... he doesn’t speak Hebrew and they continue to yell at him.”
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Breaking news: Israelis Arrest Professor Mazin Qumsiyeh and Others Again During Peaceful Protest

More allegations of illegal behavior from Israel's military, more theft of Palestinian homes and property...

(BETHLEHEM) - This afternoon at around 2:30 p.m. Salem-News.com writer Mazin Qumsiyeh learned that the Israeli military was preparing to illegally raze another Palestinian village. He told his wife that they had to go to Al-Walaja immediately.

After arriving at the scene , this esteemed Professor who has taught at both Duke and Yale Universities, was arrested again by the Israeli military. His only 'crime' was vocally objecting to more inhumane treatment of indigenous Palestinian citizens. This account is by his significant other, J. Qumsiyeh:

He said he just got a call from the villagers that Israeli bulldozer was clearing an area in a different side of the village (the villagers were still trying to figure out the legal situation) than the familiar site where illegal Israel wall construction has been going on for the past year.

We were at his office at Bethlehem University at the time. We dropped everything we were doing and took off. When we arrived at the site, the bulldozer was idle with a dozen solders and private security personnel around. We found out from the 20 some villagers gathered there that they managed to asked the work to be stopped pending further instructions
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And you say you share the same values with this racist country?

Israel moves to legalize segregated Jewish-only communities
Jonathan Cook, The Electronic Intifada, 15 December 2010

New legislation seeks to legalize Jewish-only communities in Israel.

"The question of control over land, Bishara said, was felt especially keenly by the Arab minority, because the state had nationalized 93 percent of all territory inside its recognized boundaries.

Cooperative associations, which are limited to no more than 500 families each, have jurisdiction over most of the country's habitable land and are regarded by the authorities as a bulwark against an Arab takeover, she said.

Arab citizens, meanwhile, are largely restricted to living in 124 towns and villages, and control 2.5 percent of Israel's territory.

Planning and building laws confine the development and expansion of Arab communities, leading to overcrowding. Tens of thousands of Arab families, forced to build in non-zoned areas, live in homes under demolition orders."
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Awake and bear witness!! Israel has destroyed this Palestinian school in the Occupied West Bank 3 times in recent years

This is a December photo from Khirbet Tana, a Palestinian village in the Occupied West Bank near Mekora, a Jewish settlement. Khirbet Tana's people have been expelled, their homes demolished by the Israelis. Photographer must remain anonymous.
Read more-Mondoweiss

Zionist violence isn’t violence at all, jokes our foreign Minister Kevin Rudd

"An editorial in the Sydney Morning Herald today that highlights an amazing recent comment by Australian Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd showing the inherent racism of Western backers of Zionism: "Rudd made a distasteful joke about Menachem Begin carrying out ”some interior redesign” of Jerusalem’s King David Hotel – referring to a terrorist bombing in 1946 that killed 91 people. Has Rudd really has got it as a diplomat?"
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Erdogan: Israel is to blame for failed peace talks

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday that while there were recently high level talks between the Turkish Foreign Ministry and Israel in Geneva, there were no changes in Turkish demands regarding the "Israeli aggression against the humanitarian aid ships in Gaza" and the "murder" of nine Turkish citizens, Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) reported.
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Israel on offensive over Palestinian diplomacy

AFP - Israel has ordered its envoys abroad to launch a "comprehensive defence" against Palestinian efforts for international recognition of an independent state, Haaretz newspaper reported on its website Monday.
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WikiLeaks: Mubarak refused black market Soviet nukes

Cable reports "Egypt had been offered nuclear scientists, materials following collapse of Soviet Union, but Egypt refused."
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‘Israel enjoys peace with Egypt, Jordan, but not peoples’

WikiLeaks cable: "Israel believes moderate Arab states could fall victim to regime change, resume hostilities."
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Israeli racist slogans: "Death to Jewish women who date Arabs"

Bat Yam rally: Death to Jewish women who date Arabs
200 people demonstrate in city center against 'Arabs who are taking our daughters'; leftists wave signs reading 'Jews and Arabs refuse to be enemies'.
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Aid groups say they, not Hamas, are thwarted by Israeli restrictions on Gaza

GAZA CITY - Despite recent moves by Israel to ease construction in the Gaza Strip, restrictions on building materials are hampering international humanitarian efforts while doing little to impede the Hamas-led government they are designed to weaken, aid and nongovernmental groups say.
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BDS: Holiday Carolers Wish Settlement-builder Leviev “A Loss of Business and a Poor Fiscal Year”

New York, NY, December 18, 2010 – Sixty human rights advocates, many sporting Santa hats, performed Christmas carol parodies and theatrical skits calling for the boycott of Israeli diamond mogul and settlement-builder Lev Leviev outside his Madison Avenue store this afternoon. Carolers celebrated the boycott movement’s success in pressuring Leviev’s company Africa Israel to cease settlement building and demanded that Leviev’s company Leader Management and Development do the same.
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The smoking cable: Israel said it had ’secret accord’ with U.S. over expanding settlements even as Obama said in Cairo they must stop!

Philip Weiss
This is why Wikileaks is so crucial: A June 2009 cable from France, days after the great Cairo speech of Obama, in which the Israelis are said to claim a secret deal with the US for settlement growth. I'm running. More to say later. And note too where Sarkozy says, Israel, the horse of history is galloping past the window. Jump now or you are finished. The Palestinians are stronger than you think. Beautiful. Europe is taking Palestine's side now because of this understanding.
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Racist Slogans Displayed During Beit Yam Protest Against Interfaith Couples

On Monday evening, approximately 200 people gathered in the city of Bat Yam, southern Tel Aviv-Jaffa, to protest against interfaith couples, under the banner "We Want a Jewish Bat Yam." The Major condemned the event.

The demonstrators explained that they wanted to show their concern about the 'Arabs who are taking our daughters', referring to the relationships between local Jewish women and Arab men.

During the rally, the speakers remarked that they were "just Jews," not racist, but the protesters repeatedly insulted Arabs and Islam's holy figures. One of the demonstrators also exclaimed "Any Jewish woman who goes with an Arab should be killed; any Jew who sells his home to an Arab should be killed," Israeli new source Ynet quoted.
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WikiLeaks: Former military intelligence chief, Yadlin, wanted Hamas takeover

Diplomatic cable reveals former military intelligence chief regarded 2007 Islamic takeover of Gaza as positive step; said it will allow Israel to declare Strip as hostile entity

Moments before Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip, former Director of Military Intelligence Major General Amos Yadlin said he would "be happy" if it happened, a diplomatic cable published on WikiLeaks revealed on Monday.

In the beginning of June 2007, American Ambassador Richard Jones met with Yadlin following violent clashes between Fatah and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

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Please vote now!! Show you care!

A Request from Cindy Corrie
From: cindy@rachelcorriefoundation.org Date: December 19, 2010 2:33:31 PM EST Subject: Support Seattle bus ad effort - vote in King 5 TV poll Friends, The Seattle Mideast Awareness Campaign’s effort to publicize Israeli War Crimes support with U.S. tax dollars on city buses is getting considerable attention. Story broke about this on Seattle King 5 TV Friday evening. The Jewish Federation has put out a letter opposing the ads. If you haven’t taken the simple step of voting in The King 5 TV poll about the effort, please do! And please pass along to your lists and let others know. Seattle activists will need support this week. Note that those supporting the ads surged ahead in the unofficial poll yesterday after we put word out - but today the opposition has taken the lead. Over 4500 have voted in the poll in just over a day, and the story has been the first or second most read story for the past day - and the most frequently emailed. Comments are welcome. http://bit.ly/dWALp9 Cindy
http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/a-request-from-cindy-corrie/

Israeli ethnic cleansing surge: How many more Palestinian homes must be demolished before western governments act?

As Westerners busy themselves preparing for Christmas, Israel has accelerated its campaign of ethnic cleansing in the Occupied Palestinian Territories and within its own (non-declared) borders. Those familiar with the conduct of successive Israeli governments, right-and left-wing, will not be surprised. They have a long-standing reputation for using international diversions to advance their drive for lebensraum - living space - in Palestine.
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Arab states preparing UN resolution against Israeli settlements

Israeli officials fear that Washington will not rush to exercise its veto power against such a resolution, which calls for international pressure for construction freeze.
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Cleanse away the indigenous..Bring in more EuroAmerican chosen folk

When Zombies Win

"When historians look back at 2008-10, what will puzzle them most, I believe, is the strange triumph of failed ideas. Free-market fundamentalists have been wrong about everything — yet they now dominate the political scene more thoroughly than ever."
Read more-The NYT

Climate Change Threatens To Eliminate Half Of Israel’s Allies

Cancun-Mexico: Delegates meeting in the Mexican resort town this week to discuss climate change policies have expressed grave concern that the rising see levels resulting from global warming threaten to eliminate 50-75% of Israel’s most reliable allies in the UN’s General Council.

The nation of Marshall Islands is expected to be the first to go with its 61,000 strong south pacific population soon fleeing due to rising salinity in their drinking water sources.

Marshall Islands is one of the four reliable “No” votes usually registered against UN resolutions condemning Israeli human rights violations. Along with the United States, Micronesia, and Solomon Islands, the latter two expected to be flooded at later stages in the first half of this century.

Read more-Kabobfest

(Thanks vza)

Messy Arab Etymology! (On names)

ASA & GHUROB

The word “Asia” comes from Greek “Ασία,” which in turn comes from the Akkadian/Saracen word “asa” meaning “east or sunrise.” Arabic (the current lingua franca of all Saracens) has modified this word to “asharq الشرق .”

The word “Europe” comes from Greek “Ευρώπη,” which in turn comes from the Akkadian/Saracen word “ghurob غرب” meaning “west or sunset.” It’s the same word in Arabic.

Interestingly enough, since the Saracens viewed themselves as eastern people (belonging to Asia), the word “ghurob غرب” became synonymous with “strangers” and “ghareeb غريب” meaning foreign/strange.

SUKKAR سكر, HALWA حلوى, & BAKLAWA بقلاوة

Among many types of produce, the Arabs had introduced sugar to Europeans who copied the name into their own respective languages. Although sugar itself (and the word) originally comes from south and southeast Asia, the Arabic word Sukkar comes from the root that means to close or to block. Thus, sukkar literally means intoxicating.

Halva, a great, healthy dessert, entered the English language from eastern European cultures, including Slavic and Yiddish, who borrowed it from the Turks, halve, who in turn took it from Arabic: Halwa, literally meaning “sweet.”

As for baklava, despite Turks and Greeks still fighting over who was first to create this mouth-watering dessert, the word itself is definitely Arabic baqlawa: baql بقل + halwa = sweet nuts. And you know that when an Israeli Mossad agent in Steven Spielberg’s Munich says “The best baklava is made by the Arabs in Jaffa,” then it’s gotta be true!

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In my view this is the most romantic piece of music I've ever heard..

The incomparable Paco de Lucia playing 'Aranjuaz concerto'..
I dedicate it to her :)

Pakistani officials: US drone strike kills 54 in Khyber / Jason Ditz

17 Dec - Last night’s US drone strikes against the Khyber Agency, which killed seven suspects, appeared to be only the tip of the iceberg, as Pakistani officials now report that the United States has launched a salvo of missiles against the agency, killing at least 54. The major strikes hit in the Spin Darang village, and were said to be targeting a meeting among suspected Lashkar-e Islam members, a group with a strong presence in Khyber which, like virtually every other faction of Pashtuns in the tribal areas, is often referred to as a “Pakistani Taliban” faction.
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Iraqi refugees match Californians in obesity rates

LOS ANGELES, Dec 17 - Iraqi refugees newly arrived in the United States are exhibiting high rates of chronic health conditions, including the same prevalence of obesity as Californians, government researchers reported. Iraqis represent the largest group of refugees resettling in the United States, accounting for 28,000 arrivals during the past two years -- or 21 percent of the total -- with nearly a quarter going to California, the most for any other state.
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Iraqi Christians flee Baghdad after cathedral massacre / Martin Chulov in Baghdad

17 Dec - Thousands of Christians have been forced to flee in seeking refuge from militant attacks after the siege at a Catholic cathedral in October, the United Nations said today. The UN High Commission For Refugees said at least 1,000 families had fled Baghdad and Mosul since 1 September for the semi-autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq. A further 133 families had registered with the organisation in Syria, as had 109 individuals in Jordan.
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Israeli rabbis commit atrocity against Jewish history / Yoram Kaniuk

Renowned Israeli author Yoram Kaniuk on the Rabbi’s letter forbidding rental of apartments to Arabs -- When settlers and Rabbis called the policemen and soldiers of Israel “Nazis”, hardly anyone spoke out. When I voiced criticism over this, I received phone threats. Then, last week, when MK and MD Professor Aryeh Eldad sided with rabbis who warned their flock not to rent or sell property to non-Jews, I remembered that in Nazi Germany many physicians also identified with Hitler. The term “Nazi” now lingers once more in the air, but on the opposite side to that of settlers who swore at soldiers. The word “Nazi” now lingers because the Rabbis who signed the racist declaration committed an atrocity against Jewish history.
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Yeah yeah yeah..

Ban Ki-Moon names settlement freeze a top UN goal for 2011
18 Dec - The United Nations named improving the living conditions in the Gaza Strip and ending Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank and East Jerusalem as part of its goals for 2011, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said on Friday.
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In Israel, a rabbi who argues that anti-Arab measures are un-Jewish

17 Dec - Jerusalem -- At first glance, Arik Ascherman seems more like a soft-spoken university lecturer than a combative crusader for the rights of the “other,” be they Palestinian or African refugee. Yet the American-born rabbi is embroiled in two of Israel’s main conflicts today: the struggle with Palestinians over the West Bank and, within Israel, a rising tide of anti-Arab and anti-foreigner sentiment.
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An elderly woman allowed to return to Gaza after 62 years of exile apart from her husband and children!

GAZA, (PIC)-- Egyptian authorities allowed an elderly Palestinian woman to return to the Gaza Strip after she spent 62 years in exile in Jordan apart from her husband and children.

Ne’mah Mattar Khamees, in her eighties, was exiled in 1948 by the Israeli occupation to Jordan. She lived in Amman by herself as her husband Ezzat Abu Kwaik and six children remained in the Gaza Strip.

One of her daughters and one of her sons died without her having a chance of seeing them and she lived alone in Amman where she survived on charity and neighbours’ help. She suffered various illnesses and had a spinal fracture.

Her neighbours alerted the Red Cross which contacted the Egyptian authorities and asked for her to be allowed into the Gaza Strip.

The Red Cross met Mrs. Khamees at Cairo airport on Wednesday morning, and the Egyptian Red Crescent provided an ambulance and a doctor to accompany Mrs. Khamees to Al-Areesh, from where she was taken to the Rafah crossing on Thursday morning where she was met by her son Abdel Rahim who was denied her love since he a was a child.

Memorial for victims of Mavi Marmara erected in Spain

18 Dec - A monument was unveiled in the Spanish capital Madrid to commemorate nine Turkish activists killed by Israeli commandos in the May 31 raid on Gaza-Bound aid ship Mavi Marmara. The monument, designed by sculptors Roxanne Robinson and Arevalo Beteta, was erected at the Palestine Park in Leganes near Madrid at the initiatives of three Spanish activists supported by several non-governmental organizations.
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Hollywood dramatized ethnic cleansing in India and Pakistan, why not the other I/P?

Philip Weiss

Proof if any more is needed of the existence of a powerful Israel lobby in our country:

Tonight over dinner I watched the last 30 minutes of Richard Attenborough's Gandhi (1982) on Turner Classics. I was staggered to see the 1947 transfer of Muslim and Hindu refugees at the new border between India and Pakistan portrayed on the big screen. Pitiful streams of refugees. Then the anti-Muslim riots in Calcutta. And Gandhi's fast as he tries to will the new nations to peaceful coexistence. "For god's sake let us embrace like brothers," Nehru says. Gandhi tells a repentant Hindu who has killed a Muslim boy to adopt an orphaned Muslim and raise him as a Muslim. Etc.

The Nakba took place a year after the ethnic cleansing at the border regions of India and Pakistan, and you have never seen the Nakba depicted on the big screen. You have not seen the exodus of refugees from Israel and Palestine portrayed with sympathy-- no, only caricatured, as they were in Borat.

Read more-Mondoweiss

'Israeli War Crimes' signs to go on Metro buses in Seattle

SEATTLE – "Israeli War Crimes," the enormous advertisement reads. "Your tax dollars at work."
To the right of the image is a group of children -- one little boy stares out at the viewer, the others gawk at a demolished building, all rebar and crumbled concrete.
It's an ad you'll be seeing soon on a handful of Metro buses in downtown Seattle.
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Palestinian farmer: Settlers burned 19 of my sheep alive

NABLUS (Ma’an) -- A farmer said he watched a group of settlers in the northern West Bank gather his sheep and set them on fire Saturday afternoon.

When he returned to the area, he told officials, he found 12 sheep burned alive, five with severe burns and two others that were only lightly burned. "I've lost at least $12,000," he said, calling the act abominable.

Mayor of Aqraba, the village near where the attack took place, Jawdat Bani Jabir, identified the farmer as 40-year-old Samir Muhammad Bani Fadl.

Fadil said he was out pasturing his sheep in the eastern part of the village when a group of armed settlers approached him in a white car and asked him to come and speak with them. Feeling threatened, in an area where rights organizations recorded a ballooning number of settler attacks and vandalism during the month of October, Fadil fled and watched the group from an adjacent hill.
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Zionism Fundamentally racism

Resisting an ideology of inequality: Jody McIntyre interviewed
Over the past month, journalist and activist Jody McIntyre has joined a growing number of students, workers, activists and others in the UK protesting a government decision to cut public sector funding, especially to education. Jody, who spent months alongside Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip protesting the Israeli occupation, is now back in London attending and reporting on various student-led actions. The Electronic Intifada's Matthew Cassel spoke with Jody at his south London home.
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Anti-Jewish abuse from Ahava staff

Oi! Zionists in the UK are on the ropes again. First, a picket is mounted against the Ahava store by Palestine solidarity activists protesting the sale of products made from Palestine resources, then the Zionist Federation (ZFUK) mounts a counter picket, then the neo-nazis of the EDL come to support zionism (as they do and always did), then ZFUK activist, Jonathan Hoffman gets photographed openly fraternising with an EDL activist, then he has to issue a grovelling apology for libelling the photographer, also called Hoffman, who snapped the rather compromising situation. And now.... And now what? And now an assistant at the Ahava store has called a Jewish Palestine solidarity activists a Christ-killer. See this short clip from Tony Greenstein's blog.
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S. African politicians 'beaten up by IDF'

Parliament members say 'shoved' by soldiers during anti-Israel protest in village near Bethlehem last week. 'They fired tear gas and stun grenades at us,' one of them claims. Army: Forces used means required to end violent riot.
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Asmahan..my all time favorite Arab singer

Thanks Abu Zuhair..I love this song..Another favorite is 'Farra' ma benna lehi zaman'
Enjoy..

Bradley Manning offered plea bargain in exchange for naming Julian Assange as a co-conspirator

Freed on bail – but US steps up efforts to charge Assange with conspiracy
Accused soldier offered plea bargain if he names WikiLeaks founder
US authorities have stepped up their efforts to prosecute Julian Assange by offering Bradley Manning, the American soldier allegedly responsible for leaking hundreds of thousands of government documents, the possibility of a plea bargain if he names the Wiki-Leaks founder as a fellow conspirator.
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Breaking news: Bolivia recognizes independent Palestinian state

Bolivia has recognized a sovereign Palestinian state on the 1967 borders with Israel, following neighboring Brazil and Argentina's suit.

Bolivian President Evo Morales made the announcement during a conference with regional leaders in Brazil on Friday, the Palestinian Authority's Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

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One Way out for the Palestinians, George S. Hishmeh

When President Barack Obama described the Republican takeover of the House of Representatives in the mid-term elections last month as a “shellacking,” he was praised for his outright admission of his shocking defeat. But when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave him (and his Secretary of State Hillary Clinton) an unprecedented slap in the face by refusing to freeze his colonial expansion into occupied Palestinian territory, which now houses some 500,000 Israelis, the American head of state remained speechless, seemingly bowing his head down.
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We pay for every Israeli war at the gas pump, Max Ajl

How about a new slogan for the anti-war and Palestine solidarity movements? We pay for every Israeli war at the gas pump! No aid to Israel!
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Israel can't defeat Hezbollah: Israeli expert

Reuters - Israel cannot defeat Hezbollah in a direct engagement and the Lebanese guerrilla group would inflict heavy damage on the Israeli home front if war broke out, a former Israeli national security adviser said Thursday.
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Nasrallah: Forbidden to give up any part of Palestine – from sea to Jordan

Hezbollah Secretary-General Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah said that "it is forbidden for any man to give up Palestine, from the sea to the Jordan River, and it is forbidden to give up Jerusalem". In a speech he gave in honor of a Shiite holy day, Nasrallah said: "We will never recognize Israel. We will never give up an inch of our land, we will not forget the holy place."
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Nasrallah: Hezbollah ready to repulse any Israeli attack, despite internal tension in Lebanon

Lebanese army claims to uncover two Israeli spy cameras overlooking Beirut; explosion reported off the coast of Sidon on Wednesday evening.
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Iraq gets U.N. green light for civil nuclear program (Reuters)

Reuters - The U.N. Security Council on Wednesday gave Iraq a green light to develop a civilian nuclear program, ending 19-year-old restrictions aimed at preventing the country from developing atomic weapons.
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Security Council ends Saddam-era Iraq sanctions (AFP)

AFP - The UN Security Council on Wednesday ended key international sanctions imposed on Iraq in a major move to bring closure on the Saddam Hussein era.
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Wikileaks Iraq: how to visualise the text

In October, WikiLeaks released 391,832 reports from the Iraq War, the most comprehensive set of documents about the conflict to date. Each is a report of a specific incident in the Iraq war. At the rate of one document per minute, it would take 272 days non-stop to read every report -- and you still might miss the big picture. This is exactly the sort of problem where visualization can help, by turning patterns in the documents into patterns in a picture.
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The inhumane conditions of Bradley Manning's detention, Glenn Greenwald

Bradley Manning, the 22-year-old U.S. Army Private accused of leaking classified documents to WikiLeaks, has never been convicted of that crime, nor of any other crime. Despite that, he has been detained at the U.S. Marine brig in Quantico, Virginia for five months -- and for two months before that in a military jail in Kuwait -- under conditions that constitute cruel and inhumane treatment and, by the standards of many nations, even torture. Interviews with several people directly familiar with the conditions of Manning's detention, ultimately including a Quantico brig official (Lt. Brian Villiard) who confirmed much of what they conveyed, establishes that the accused leaker is subjected to detention conditions likely to create long-term psychological injuries.
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Oil or Terrorism: Which Motivates U.S. Policy More?

One cable by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in December 2009 notes that “donors in Saudi Arabia constitute the most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide.” Despite this, “Riyadh has taken only limited action to disrupt fundraising for the UN 1267-listed Taliban and LeT [Lashkar e-Tayyiba] groups that are also aligned with al-Qaeda.”
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Pro-WikiLeaks Hackers Send Open Letter To Glenn Beck

The group professing to be Anonymous, the organization allegedly behind Operation Payback, has issued an open letter to Glenn Beck. Essentially, 'Anonymous' would like Beck to know that a) they are not affiliated with WikiLeaks and b) revolution is a good thing and Beck is more than welcome to join theirs.
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Red Cross says Afghan conditions worst in 30 years

Spreading violence in Afghanistan is preventing aid organisations from providing help, with access to those in need at its worst level in three decades, the Red Cross said on Wednesday.
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US intelligence pessimistic on Afghan war: reports

Two intelligence reports, one on Afghanistan and one on Pakistan, offer a more pessimistic view of the war than top US officials and military leaders, who have touted progress in the fight against Taliban insurgents.
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