Gaza doc named Norway's person of year

 
A outspoken Norwegian doctor whose efforts to treat Palestinians wounded in the Gaza conflict garnered worldwide attention has been named person of the year by the country’s largest tabloid, Verdens Gang (VG).

Mads Gilbert, 67,whose day job is head physician and anaesthesiologist as the University Hospital of North Norway, spent more than fifty days treating many of the 11,000 injured in this summer’s conflict.

Gilbert was vocal in his criticism of Israel during the war, describing the country’s actions as “state terrorism at the highest levels.” Israel later banned the doctor from Gaza. The ban was officially for security reasons, but Gilbert himself claimed the ban was due to his comments about the war. Israel denied reports that the ban was for life.

He gave graphic accounts to international media of the situation in Gaza’s hospitals, describing how civilians were “maimed and torne apart”. In an open letter to the Lancet medical journal, he and a number of other doctors said they were “appalled by the military onslaught on civilians in Gaza under the guise of punishing terrorists.”

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The Long War against US "adversaries" in the Muslim world

Nafeez Ahmed on 3 April 2015 published an insightful article at the website Middle East Eye that brings together research from David Hearst demonstrating that the US itself, through its Gulf allies, gave the northern Houthis of Yemen a green light for their offensive last September. (See (1) Blowback in Yemen; (2) Saudi Power Struggles ... and (3) US War in Yemen, Saudi-Arabia, Iran,...)
The first of these articles by David Hearst (Blowback in Yemen) revealed that the Houthi offensive was “conducted under the nose of a US military base in Djibouti” from where CIA drones operate. “The Houthis are even protecting the US embassy in Sanaa.” Hearst revealed that the Houthis had been emboldened by a quiet nod from Saudi Arabia, under the watchful eye of US intelligence.
The second article “Saudi's internal power struggles ...”, which analyzed Saudi support for the military coup in Egypt, outlines how Saudi intelligence chief Prince Bandar met with Houthi leader Saleh Habreh in London. The Saudis wanted to mobilise the Houthis against the Islah Party, Yemen’s Muslim Brotherhood branch that shared power with President Hadi, so that they “cancel each other out” in conflict. But Islah refused to confront the Houthis, and Riyadh’s green light backfired, allowing the militia to march unhindered to the capital.
Nafeez Ahmed explains that “Sources close to Hadi say they were told by the Americans about a meeting in Rome between Iranian officials and the son of former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, to secure his assurances that government units loyal to Saleh would not oppose the Houthi advance.” Nafeez Ahmed also unveils the US strategy in promoting full-scale Sunni-Shia regional war-by-proxy: Since 9/11, every country in the region touched by major US interference has collapsed into civil war as their social fabric has been irreversibly shattered: Yemen, Syria, Iraq and Libya.
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The destructive legacy of Arab liberals

Arab liberals have allied with Israel, the US and Saudi Arabia to wreak an unparalleled record of destruction.

Joseph Massad

The Electronic Intifada

 It has become commonplace to present Arab Islamists of all political stripes (liberals, conservatives, radicals, neoliberals, moderates, extremists, nonviolent, violent, etc.) as a most, if not the most, dangerous political force in the Arab world since the 1967 War.
In fact, and as the following will show, it has been a new brand of Arab liberals — secularists and Islamists (though the former have been far more dangerous) — who have been and continue to be a most dangerous and destructive political force in the post-1967 Arab world.
The Western, Israeli and Saudi war against Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser and anti-imperialist Arab nationalism required the birth of a new liberal intelligentsia. Their emergence on the scene in the late 1950s and in the 1960s, before the war, was part of the American-sponsored “cultural Cold War,” which financed intellectuals across the world for the anti-communist and anti-socialist liberal imperial crusade that also targeted anti-imperialist Third World nationalisms.
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Catastrophe in Yarmouk refugee camp as ISIS takes control

An UNRWA photo shows Yarmouk camp in 2014.

Electronic Intifada
Fears over the safety of the 18,000 civilians trapped in Yarmouk, south of the Syrian capital of Damascus, have grown following reports that ISIS has taken control of large areas of the Palestinian refugee camp.
ISIS, also known as the Islamic State or ISIL, notorious for its brutal execution of hostages in the areas it occupies in Iraq and Syria, infiltrated Yarmouk camp on 1 April.
Fierce battles are reported to have ensued since then, as Aknaf Beit al-Madqis, an anti-government militia in the camp aligned with the Palestinian faction Hamas, have pushed back against ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Qaida’s affiliate in Syria.
Aknaf Beit al-Maqdis stated today that the group is “fulfilling to defend the capital of the Palestinian diaspora and the blood of our people” and denied reports that its fighters had surrendered.
“We shall remain steadfast until Yarmouk camp is cleansed of the darkness and tyranny, if God allows.”
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When occupation becomes apartheid

Gil Maguire

Israel’s military occupation and control of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza has gone on almost half a century, since it conquered those territories during the 1967 Six Day War. While many fear Israel will become an apartheid state unless it relinquishes all or most of these occupied territories, the evidence is overwhelming that Israel created an apartheid system and became an apartheid state at the end of the 1967 war, 48 years ago.
Read mor-Mondoweiss-

Israel killed more Palestinians in 2014 than in any other year since 1967

More than 2,300 Palestinians killed and more than 17,000 injured, according to annual report by UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
The Guardian
Israel killed more Palestinian civilians in 2014 than in any other year since the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip began in 1967, a UN report has said.
Israel’s activities in the Gaza Strip, West Bank and East Jerusalem resulted in the deaths of 2,314 Palestinians and 17,125 injuries, compared with 39 deaths and 3,964 injuries in 2013, according to the annual report (pdf) by the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
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Israeli school workssheet has this question "which is the superior race and which is the inferior race in Israel?”

Haaretz
Teenagers in an alternative school program were surprised this week to discover the following question on a worksheet on “Nazi ideology and policy”: “From your acquaintance with the peoples that live in Israel, which is the superior race and which is the inferior race?”
The students were part of the Hila program in Petah Tikvah — Hila provides education for teenagers who have dropped out of the state school system. Some 8,000 students are enrolled in the program nationwide. The teachers are employed as subcontractors and not by the Education Ministry.
The worksheet was a prep sheet for a test culminating 10 years of Holocaust studies; for these students the test takes the place of Israel’s matriculation exam in history.

Mideast Apocalypse 2030: Why Obama wants the Palestine Issue Solved. Now.

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) 
It began in Hebron, which Palestinians call “al-Khalil,” the city of Abraham. Hundreds of thousands of Israel squatters had been enticed into this Palestinian city of 400,000 by the Likud government with cheap rent in cookie-cutter apartment buildings constructed on stolen Palestinian land. The raids on Palestinian olive orchards, their main source of income, had become daily affairs, leaving the environs denuded and full of stumps. Then it went beyond killing trees. Palestinian young men were kidnapped, tortured, killed. Graffiti threatened the rest of their families and warned them to escape to Jordan while they could. The Jordanian army moved tank and sniper units to the best crossing points over the Jordan River, announcing it would shoot on sight any Palestinians who attempted to immigrate illegally.

Big Bank’s Analyst Worries That Iran Deal Could Depress Weapons Sales

 
By Lee Fang

Could a deal to normalize Western relations with Iran and set limits on Iran’s development of nuclear technology lead to a more peaceful and less-weaponized Middle East?

That’s what supporters of the Iran negotiations certainly hope to achieve. But the prospect of stability has at least one financial analyst concerned about its impact on one of the world’s biggest defense contractors.

The possibility of an Iran nuclear deal depressing weapons sales was raised by Myles Walton, an analyst from Germany’s Deutsche Bank, during a Lockheed earnings call this past January 27. Walton asked Marillyn Hewson, the chief executive of Lockheed Martin, if an Iran agreement could “impede what you see as progress in foreign military sales.” Financial industry analysts such as Walton use earnings calls as an opportunity to ask publicly-traded corporations like Lockheed about issues that might harm profitability.

How Al Qaeda’s Biggest Enemy Took Over Yemen (and Why the U.S. Government Is Unlikely to Support Them)

 
By Casey L. Coombs and Jeremy Scahill
 Sanaa – Yemeni President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi, his prime minister and entire government cabinet resigned en masse today, just 24 hours after Houthi rebels occupied the presidential compound in Sanaa. The resignations give unprecedented power to the Houthis, a Shiite minority from the country’s isolated northern highlands. The political crisis also opens the door to an all-out war over control of the Yemeni capital, involving Sunni political factions and al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP. The conflict could also draw in Saudi Arabia, the United States and Iran. The streets in Yemen’s capital are now a maze of checkpoints, a few still manned by government forces wearing military uniforms, but most these days are controlled by Houthis. Unlike government forces, the Houthis are typically dressed in tribal garb–a shawl wrapped around their face and a skirt known as a ma’awaz.

The Cross and the Sword: The Making of a Christian Taliban in Ukraine

Poster in the living quarters of the Brotherhood.

THE RECRUITMENT POINT for volunteers in Dmytro Korchynsky’s holy war is located in the basement of a building in central Kiev, on Chapaev Street, in what used to be a billiard club. Anyone can sign up, and the location isn’t secret — its address and phone number is on the Internet.
Inside, lying on the billiard tables, are toy Kalashnikovs, which recruits can use to shoot at targets on the wall. Behind the bar, shelves are lined not with liquor bottles but with Molotov cocktails left over from the violent protests that ousted the government a year ago; the firebombs may be useful in the next stage of Ukraine’s upheavals.

Netanyahu’s Spying Denials Contradicted by Secret NSA Documents

 
By Glenn Greenwald and Andrew Fishman

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday vehemently denied a Wall Street Journal report, leaked by the Obama White House, that Israel spied on U.S. negotiations with Iran and then fed the intelligence to Congressional Republicans. His office’s denial was categorical and absolute, extending beyond this specific story to U.S.-targeted spying generally, claiming: “The state of Israel does not conduct espionage against the United States or Israel’s other allies.”
Israel’s claim is not only incredible on its face. It is also squarely contradicted by top-secret NSA documents, which state that Israel targets the U.S. government for invasive electronic surveillance, and does so more aggressively and threateningly than almost any other country in the world. Indeed, so concerted and aggressive are Israeli efforts against the U.S. that some key U.S. government documents — including the top secret 2013 intelligence budget — list Israel among the U.S.’s most threatening cyber-adversaries and as a “hostile” foreign intelligence service.

"The “logic” of capitalist development has left a nightmare of environmental destruction in its wake." Noam Chomsky

Magna Carta Messed Up the World, Here’s How to Fix It 

In a few months, we will be commemorating the 800th anniversary of the sealing of Magna Carta—commemorating, but not celebrating; rather, mourning the blows it has suffered.
The first authoritative scholarly edition of Magna Carta was published by the eminent jurist William Blackstone in 1759. It was no easy task. As he wrote, “the body of the charter has been unfortunately gnawn by rats”—a comment that carries grim symbolism today, as we take up the task the rats left unfinished.
Blackstone’s edition actually includes two charters: the Great Charter and the Charter of the Forest. The former is generally regarded as the foundation of Anglo-American law—in Winston Churchill’s words, referring to its reaffirmation by Parliament in 1628, “the charter of every self-respecting man at any time in any land.” The Great Charter held that “No freeman shall be arrested or imprisoned,” or otherwise harmed, “except by the lawful judgment of his equals and according to the law of the land,” the essential sense of the doctrine of “presumption of innocence.”

French firm pulls out of controversial Jerusalem cable car project

Palestinian Authority complained to Paris about Safege’s involvement in the project. French finance and foreign ministries warned the company about the legal risks, and it pulled out.
 By Nir Hasson-Haaretz



Safege of France, which was slated to play a key planning role in the Jerusalem cable car project, has canceled its participation after being warned against it by the French finance and foreign ministries, a Wednesday media report said.
To “avoid giving any political interpretation,” Suez Environnement “has decided not to continue,” Le Figaro on Wednesday quoted a spokesman for Safege’s parent as saying.
Another French company that was mentioned in connection with the Jerusalem cable car has also declined to get involved.
The project, described in detail in Haaretz three weeks ago, is expected to encounter much opposition for its political as well as environmental and urban-planning implications. Many observers are skeptical that the plan will ever come to fruition.

Ex CIA officer calls pro-Israel Congress members "useful idiots" to "Likudist ideology.

Spy vs. Spy: Espionage and the U.S.-Israel Rift 

 By Jeff Stein (Newsweek)

If more evidence was needed to show that the relationship between Benjamin Netanyahu and Barack Obama has morphed from tragedy to farce, it came late Monday with the revelation that Israel had spied on the nuclear talks between the United States and Iran.  

“The White House discovered the operation,” according to the blockbuster account by Adam Entous in The Wall Street Journal, “when U.S. intelligence agencies spying on Israel intercepted communications among Israeli officials that carried details the U.S. believed could have come only from access to the confidential talks, officials briefed on the matter said.”

Talk about spy vs. spy, the old Mad magazine trope featuring two pointy-nosed, masked cartoon creatures. The National Security Agency, eavesdropping on Israeli officials (as usual, according to the revelations of Edward Snowden), overheard them discussing intelligence their own spies had gathered by spying on U.S. officials talking about the Iran negotiations.

 

‘Gloves are coming off’ in US-Israel clash over Iran, says intel insider

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org
 An American former intelligence operative has called the latest revelations of Israeli spying against the United States “appalling” and warned that “the gloves are coming off” in the clash between Washington and Tel Aviv over Iran. The unnamed former operative, described as having “long, firsthand familiarity with Israeli operations”, told Newsweek magazine’s intelligence correspondent Jeff Stein that he was not surprised to find out Israel has been spying on the closed-door talks between the US and the Islamic Republic.

Is Obama really going to get tough with Israel?

It is late in Obama’s term for him to be considering minimal actions against Israel and to expect them to have any real impact on its rogue behavior.
Ali Abunimah (Electronic Intifada)

While Obama has remained circumspect, his administration has sent up trial balloons through David Ignatius, a Washington Post columnist closely allied with the US administration.
Ignatius reports that the White House is “privately weighing” the following “pressure tactics”:

• Drafting a new UN Security Council resolution outlining the framework for a Palestinian state. Such a resolution might summarize the parameters that emerged during Secretary of State John Kerry’s negotiations with Israelis and Palestinians that collapsed last year.
• Deterring Netanyahu’s plans to expand settlements in the West Bank, perhaps through warnings in a planned report to Congress on loan guarantees to Israel. President George H.W. Bush briefly cut off loan guarantees in 1991 to protest settlements, creating a political uproar but no lasting success in halting settlements.
• Altering current US policy that opposes Palestinian efforts to take complaints against Israel to the International Criminal Court. Similarly, the United States might relax its pressure against European allies that are advocating sanctions against Israel.
• Weighing future vetoes of UN Security Council resolutions condemning Israeli settlements or other activity. In the past, the United States’ use of the veto to support Israeli positions has been all but automatic.

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Israel worshiper ‘shocked’ by report Israel spied on Iran nuclear talks..

Speaker of the House John Boehner listens to questions during a news conference (AFP)

The top Republican in Congress said Tuesday he was “shocked” by a report that Israel spied on Iranian nuclear talks but insisted he did not know whether information was shared with US lawmakers.

The Wall Street Journal reported late Monday that in addition to Israelis spying on the highly-sensitive negotiations between Tehran and world powers, details were back-channeled to US legislators in an effort to sabotage the deal intended to limit Iran’s nuclear program.

Joint List to lead mass march on Jerusalem, as Netanyahu forms a gov’t

Joint List party head Ayman Odeh campaigned for Israeli elections like a troubadour. He went town to town speaking of civil rights for Palestinian citizens of Israel often quoting poets and peaceniks alike, even the Hebrew bible. Now Odeh is bringing the goods to Jerusalem. While Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is in the final hours of forming a ruling coalition to lead the country, Odeh’s group is organizing a mass march. Unrecognized villagers will camp and walk their way to Israel’s seat of government, all while their party’s leadership is tightening ties with presumed opposition heads in the Zionist Camp.
Allison Deger (Mondoweiss)

US accuses Israel of spying on nuclear talks with Iran

The Israeli foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, denied the Wall Street Journal report: ‘We reached a decision a long time ago not to spy on the US.’ Photograph: Hazem Bader/AFP/Getty Images 

The US has accused Israel of spying on international negotiations over Iran’s nuclear programme and using the intelligence gathered to persuade Congress to undermine the talks, according to a report on Tuesday.
The Wall Street Journal cited senior administration officials as saying the Israeli espionage operation began soon after the US opened up a secret channel of communications with Tehran in 2012, aimed at resolving the decade-long standoff over Iran’s nuclear aspirations.
The Guardian..read more