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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on August 27th, 2010
‘Son of Hamas’ warns U.S. fatally falling for lies
‘Peaceful’ Muslims following Quran’s dictate to establish ‘global Islamic state’Posted: August 25, 2010 By Art Moore, WorldNetDaily, www.wnd.com As the son of a Hamas co-founder who became a Christian, a spy for Israel and a consultant to the Holy Land Foundation terror-finance trial, Mosab Hassan Yousef offers a rare perspective on the Egypt-based Muslim Brotherhood – at once the spawn of nearly every major Islamic terrorist group and of “mainstream” operatives in the U.S. such as the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
Yousef, who recently was granted asylum in the U.S. after the Department of Homeland Security tried to deport him, told WND in a telephone interview Americans must understand that the ultimate goal of the highly influential Brotherhood is not terrorism but to establish a global Islamic state over the entire world. “If they can establish this in a peaceful manner, that’s fine,” he said. “But they are required by the Quran to establish this global Islamic state on the rubble of every civilization, every constitution, every government.” The Holy Land Foundation trial in Dallas in 2008 – the largest terror-finance case in U.S. history – presented evidence of the Muslim Brotherhood’s “100-year plan” to gradually destroy the U.S. and Western civilization from within “so that it is eliminated and Allah’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.” “This is not a doctrine of some freak Muslim,” Yousef observed. “It’s the doctrine, the requirement, of the god of Islam himself and his prophet, whom they praise every day.” One of the Brotherhood’s prime strategies to help achieve its ultimate aim is to spin off groups such as the Washington, D.C.-based Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, that attempt to give Islam a positive face, he pointed out.
CAIR, casting itself as a human rights organization, has often been called on by government and media to represent Muslims in the U.S. But it’s origin as a front group for the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas is now widely documented, including in the WND Books best-selling expose “Muslim Mafia: Inside the Secret Underworld That’s Conspiring to Islamize America” CAIR and some of its leaders were confirmed by the Justice Department as unindicted co-conspirators in the trial of the Texas-based Holy Land Foundation, which was convicted of helping fund Hamas. An FBI letter to lawmakers in April 2009 explained the bureau suspended all formal contacts with CAIR because of evidence the group was founded as a front in the U.S. for Hamas. Among numerous government relationships, CAIR leaders had regular meetings with top FBI brass on security issues and helped lead FBI Muslim “sensitivity training” sessions. At the Holy Land Foundation trial, the FBI presented a transcript from a wiretap of a 1993 meeting in Philadelphia in which Hamas supporters sought to establish Muslim organizations in the U.S. “whose Islamic hue is not very conspicuous.” CAIR was soon founded by two Palestinian participants in the Philadelphia meeting, Omar Ahmad and Nihad Awad.
Wiretaps revealed Ahmad argued for using Muslims as an “entry point” to “pressure Congress and the decision makers in America” to change U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. One FBI official quoted in “Muslim Mafia” says CAIR and the other Muslim Brotherhood front groups differ from al-Qaida only in their methods. “The only difference between the guys in the suits and the guys with the AK-47s is timing and tactics,” the official explained. CAIR, meanwhile – which has more than a dozen former and current leaders with known associations with violent jihad – is trying to keep alive a lawsuit against WND and two investigators behind “Muslim Mafia.” While CAIR repeatedly has denied it receives foreign support, the covert operation that produced “Muslim Mafia” obtained video footage that captured CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper boasting of his ability to bring in a half million dollars of “overseas money,” including from Saudi Arabia. Money continues to flow in the other direction, as well, Yousef said. He noted the FBI documented that the Holy Land Foundation sent $12.4 million from the U.S. to Hamas committees. But based on his 10 years of experience as a spy for the Israeli internal security service Shin Bet, he believes many times that amount has been smuggled to Hamas in cash. As an example, Yousef cited the case of a Palestinian terror operative he met in prison who was arrested transporting $100,000 after Shin Bet provided information to law enforcement authorities. “I guarantee you that there still people who collect money in mosques that go directly to Hamas in cash,” Yousef said. “And this is a problem that the government doesn’t have control over. Obama doesn’t have control over this money.” ‘Hamas is the Muslim Brotherhood’ Hamas itself was formed in 1987 as part of the Muslim Brotherhood’s strategy to advance the movement by spinning off new organizations, Yousef said.
“If they have a confrontation with Israel as the Muslim Brotherhood, they are going to pay a very high price,” he explained. “So they choose people like my father, from the Muslim Brotherhood originally, and they ask them to establish an independent movement that shares the same exact doctrine.” As WND reported, Yousef worked alongside his father, Sheik Hassan Yousef, in the West Bank city of al-Ghaniya near Ramallah while secretly embracing Christian faith and serving as a Shin Bet spy. Since publicly declaring his faith in August 2008, he has been condemned by an al-Qaida-affiliated group and disowned by his family. The Muslim Brotherhood, founded in the 1920s in the wake of the collapse of the Ottoman Turkish empire, considers itself an instrument of the charge Muslims have been given since Islam’s founding 1,400 years ago – to make the Quran and Allah’s authority supreme over the entire world. Along with CAIR, prominent U.S. organizations launched by Muslim Brotherhood leaders include the Muslim Students Association, North American Islamic Trust, the Islamic Society of North America, the American Muslim Council, the Muslim American Society and the International Institute of Islamic Thought. Yousef said, “we have to ask ourselves all the time, what is the goal of the Muslim Brotherhood? Ask them, ‘What do you want?’”
He said the Muslim Brotherhood “will keep the hope and the ultimate goal very clear in the eyes of every Muslim who belongs to the organization that one day [we will] establish an Islamic state and establish Shariah law.” In unusually candid moments, CAIR leaders have expressed that aim. CAIR founder Ahmad was reported telling a Muslim group in the San Francisco Bay area that Islam isn’t in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant and that the Quran should become the highest authority in America and Islam the only accepted religion on Earth. CAIR spokesman Hooper indicated in a 1993 interview with the Minneapolis Star Tribune he wants to see the U.S. become a Muslim country “through education.” The West, Yousef said, has fallen for the “lie” that there are two types of Islam, radical and moderate. While there may be individual Muslims who are radical or moderate, Islam itself is not moderate, he contends. “Let’s learn what Islam says about itself,” Yousef said. “Forget about what the Muslim Brotherhood, what al-Qaida, what Hezbollah – what even Americans or Westerners say about Islam. Let’s study and see what Islam says about itself, then we will understand why we have this problem.” ‘Buying the lie’ American foreign policy, especially under President Obama, he said, has “bought the lie of Muslim groups who are trying to make Islam look good in the eyes of Westerners.”
Because of that approach, he said, Muslim leaders such as Feisal Abdul Rauf have developed “the courage to come forward with a very aggressive symbol” of Islamic authority, the proposed Islamic center and mosque near the site of the 2001 World Trade Center attacks. “If it was any other American president, we wouldn’t have this aggressive step,” Yousef contended. He noted the State Department has designated Rauf an ambassador to the Muslim world despite the imam’s unwillingness to condemn Hamas as a terrorist group. “Of course, he cannot condemn Hamas, because he knows that Hamas is an organization that is doing the will of Allah,” Yousef said. “How can he condemn an organization that serves the same god that he worships every day five times?” Yousef pointed out Rauf has claimed Obama based his highly publicized Cairo speech to the Muslim world last year on a chapter from the Arabic version of Rauf’s book, “A Call to Prayer From the World Trade Center: Islamic Dawah in the Heart of America Post-9/11.” Obama asserted in the speech that violent extremists have exploited tensions between Muslims and the West, insisting Islam was not part of the problem but part of promoting peace. ‘This is the red line’
Defenders of the proposed Ground Zero mosque cite American Muslims’ First Amendment freedoms to practice their religion. But Yousef makes a distinction between Islam and other religions, arguing Islam is a subversive system that threatens America’s very existence. “Even if it’s a religion, and 1.5 billion people around the world believe in it, this doesn’t mean that they are right; and this doesn’t mean that we compromise with them,” he said. “We tell them, ‘You’re accepted, but guess what? This is the red line: We don’t compromise with your god. We don’t compromise with your belief system.’” Yousef reasoned that he certainly would not be allowed to create a religion in which he demanded that his followers kill everyone who doesn’t embrace his beliefs. “Will I be able to register this religion here and build my symbols for this religion in this country?” he asked. “I will go to jail for that – and all my followers as well.” ‘A matter of life and death’ No one in the Middle East has the courage or the power to confront Islam, he said, but transformation can start in the most powerful country in the world. “Instead of giving Islam credit, this is the country where we can start to fight – not against Muslims, against the bad teachings of Islam.” Americans can begin, he said, by “understanding the real nature of Islam.” “I am telling you, this is not a matter of politics,” he said. “It’s a matter of life and death. It’s a matter of hundreds of millions who have been killed because of this deadly ideology of Islam that has been here 1,400 years.”
“This is the time” to speak out, he said, “especially here in America. This is the time to stand firm and strong against this crazy, big system.” Yousef said that while some may want to “scare people about Islam” for some kind of financial or personal profit, he is speaking out because of his concern for America and as “a person who loves my people.” “I cannot wait for them to be liberated,” he said of his fellow Palestinians and Muslims worldwide. “And when I see the example of liberty and freedom in this country, I want this to go to my people.” If America leads the way in confronting Islam, change can come, he said. “But if the country of liberty and freedom welcomes a radical and violent belief that wants to destroy everything, we won’t be able to defeat them,” he said. “This is why we need to work all together. This is not for America only. This is for the world. This is for the future of humanity.” —————————————————————————————————————————————————– To the above, please add the news in the press that the opposition in Egypt is uniting with Mohammad El Baradei making now common front with The Muslim Brotherhood. Then see the arming by France and Russia of the weak Lebanese army and the Syrian army with the high chance that some of the arms will end up with the Syrian directly sponsored pro-Brotherhood groups. What is by now forgotten is that once, under President Nasser of Egypt – Syria, Egypt, and Iraq (one star, two stars, three stars on their flags) were supposed to unite and form the kernel of the new Arab Islamic Nation. In this context what do you think of the arming of Saudi Arabia by the US? How will fault line develop? Is this doable? —————————————————————————————————————————————————– Israel, U.S. Seek to Block French Anti-Tank Missile Sale to Lebanon (Jerusalem Post) Israel Working to Thwart Russian Arms Deal with Syria – Barak Ravid (Ha’aretz) Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has asked Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to stop the sale to Syria of advanced anti-ship missiles. Israel considers the sale of P-800 Yakhont supersonic cruise missiles to Syria a significant danger to its navy vessels in the Mediterranean Sea. Netanyahu told Putin that missiles Russia had delivered to Syria in the past were then transferred to Hizbullah and used against IDF troops during the Second Lebanon War. The highly accurate P-800 has a maximum range of 300 km., carries a 200-kg. warhead, and can cruise several meters above the surface, making it difficult to identify on radar. ——————————————————————————————————————————————————- Israeli-Palestinian Direct Talks and the Art of Low Expectations – Shmuel Rosner {please read that article and see the ending} There used to be a reason for setting low expectations. We were once told that low expectations lead to happiness. You lower your expectation in the hope that humility will help you achieve your goals. You lower your expectations hoping that you will be pleasantly surprised by a more positive outcome. But the Israeli-Palestinian peace process seems to be the outlier, the case in which low expectations have no role to play, no goal to serve, no hope to provide. In this case, low expectations seem to be just, well, a sober description of reality. In this case, the strategy of low expectations is just another casualty of this neverending conflict. And that is one good reason to want these talks to begin.
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on July 30th, 2010 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/lebanon/7916925/Lebanon-facing-crisis-if-Hizbollah-charged-over-political-murder.htmlLebanon facing crisis if Hizbollah charged over political murder. Lebanon could be pitched into crisis if a tribunal set up to investigate the murder of the former prime minister, Rafik Harari, recommends charging Hizbollah members.by Damien McElroy, Foreign Affairs Correspondent
Rafik Harari, pictured, Photo: AP
Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri was killed in a massive blast on Beirut’s Corniche in 2005. Photo: AP
– Indications that the international tribunal investigating the massive car bomb that killed the veteran Lebanese leader would indict Hizbollah operatives has drawn a furious reaction from the leadership of the Iranian-backed terrorist group. Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hizbollah, raised the threat of withdrawal from the national unity government as it fought the tribunal, which he condemned as an “Israeli project”. Related Articles:
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on June 12th, 2010
The shifting sands of the Middle EastBy Ted Belman Shimon Peres, President of Israel, has, for the last thirty years, called for a New Middle East. In fact he wrote a book by that title in 1993, the year of the Oslo Accords. He believed that economic cooperation in the ME was the starting point for cementing ties and reconciling peoples. The Oslo Accords, of which he was the main architect and instigator, was intended to lead in that direction. It failed miserably. In those days the main players on the Muslim side, were Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Egypt and Syria, all Sunni. And, of course, we cannot leave out Arafat, also a Sunni. All this began to change with the invasion of Iraq by the US in 2003. Talk about unintended consequences. The defeat of Iraq, created a power vacuum which Shiite Iran was salivating to fill. Although Iraq under Hussein was in the Sunni camp, its population was 60% Shiite. Luckily, the Iraqi Shiites prefer independence from Iran perhaps due in part to the fact they are Arab and not Farsi; at least for now but that could change. Iran had aspirations of grandeur and imperialist ambitions. She began to plot a course which would lead to her dominance of the Muslim world and in the Middle East. No small task, since 80% of Muslims are Sunni and Mecca and Medina, the holiest sites in Islam, are located in Saudi Arabia. This course had two prongs; the development of its own nuclear bomb and the confrontation with Israel, the Little Satan and the US the Big Satan on behalf of all Muslims everywhere. Iran also had a natural advantage, her location. Egypt, with its population of 55 million is poor and on the periphery. It also made peace with Israel thereby taking her out of the race for now. Iran borders on Iraq, Turkey, Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Caspian Sea. The US needs Iran to be cooperative in each of these theaters. Iran’s first success was to win over Syria the most rejectionist Sunni state. This was easier than you might expect as Syria is ruled the Alawites, a Shiite sect. Their alliance is constantly growing and seems to have no bounds. This is so notwithstanding that the US has attempted to wean Syria away from Iran. Syria is important because it borders on Jordan, Lebanon and Israel, with whom she has a casus belli for the return of the Golan. Syria also has imperialist ambitions. She has visions of recovering all lands which were part of the Ottoman province of Syria. Britain and France entered into the Sykes-Picot Agreement during WWI in which they agreed that Britain would control Mesopotamia (Iraq) and southern Syria, (Jordan and Israel) and France would control the rest of Ottoman Syria (Syria, Lebanon and Hatay province of Turkey). The League of Nations formalized this agreement in 1923 when it created the British Mandate and the French Mandate. In pursuance of these ambitions, in 1970, Syria invaded Jordan only to be repulsed by Israel. During the recent decades, Syria extended its influence over Lebanon. This was made easier with the growth of Hezbollah which was predominantly Shiite. It was natural for Syria and Iran to come together on this. Together they have armed Hezbollah to the teeth in order to have a proxy for the war against Israel. In truth there is no casus belli between Hezbollah and Israel. Iran took Hamas under its wing after Hamas took over Gaza from the Sunni backed Palestinian Authority in 2007. It was natural for this to happen since they both are dedicated to destroying Israel. This is a development which has put Egypt in the cross hairs. Hamas is an outgrowth of the Muslim Brotherhood which was founded in Egypt in 1928. The Brotherhood has been a thorn in Egypt’s backside ever since. It believes that Muslim society is no longer Islamic and must be transformed by an Islamic vanguard through violent revolution. Thus, the Brotherhood and Iran are natural allies. There is great concern that when Mubarak dies, Egypt will be vulnerable to a Brotherhood takeover. Hamas, with the backing of Iran, could greatly assist in this takeover. Turkey was the last to join the Iranian axis. With the defeat of the Ottoman Empire, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk established the modern state of Turkey. He ruled as President until his death in 1938. During this time he sought to transform Turkey into a modern and secular nation-state. The Turkish army maintained this orientation until the election of islamist Recep Tayyip Erdogan as Prime Minister in 2003. This victory was made possible by the changing demographics of the country. The higher birth rates of the rural class in Turkey (and in Hezbollah in Lebanon) made possible the shift in power. The US championed the admission of Turkey to NATO and to the EU. Turkey maintained a friendship with Israel to gain favor with the US and with the EU. She succeeded in being admitted to NATO but not to the EU. The EU was not in the mood to admit a Muslim state and set all kinds of preconditions. Erdogan decided to chart his own course rather than the one dictated by the EU. Turkey gave up on admission and turned increasing islamist and anti-Israel and, I might add, anti-American. ——————– In Turkey’s MidEast Gambit, Sam Segev notes, “Since his Justice and Development party (AKP) came to power in 2002, Erdogan has cautiously but consistently moved to reclaim Turkey’s “grandeur” of the Ottoman Empire era. “This necessitated a slow but cautious distancing from Israel and the U.S. In 2003, it refused an American request to allow American troops to enter Iraq through Turkish territory. Then a Turkish diplomat was elected secretary general of the 53-member Organization of Islamic Countries and relations with Israel cooled. “Erdogan ramped up his Islamic-oriented policy after his re-election in 2007. He reconciled with Syria, welcomed Hamas leaders in Ankara, hosted Sudanese President Omar Hassan el-Bashir, who is accused of war crimes, and began to undermine Egyptian and Saudi roles in the Sunni moderate Arab world. “ “ Turkey is the only NATO member to host Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and its alignment with Brazil to extricate Iran from stronger sanctions agreed upon by the five permanent members of the Security Council is a direct challenge to American influence in the region. “Turkey’s attempt to break the blockade on the Hamas-run Gaza Strip was a direct affront not only to Israel, but also to Egypt and the Palestinian Authority.” —————— And yet President Obama still believes “Turkey can have a positive voice in this whole process.” To make matters worse, the opinion makers in the US and the EU have come out in favor of lifting the blockade which in effect is in support of Hamas, a terrorist organization. And Obama is on their side. The strengthening of Hamas effectively strengthens Iran, strangles the peace process and scares the bejeesus out of Egypt and Jordan. As Obama stands astride the shifting sands what possible vision can he have? You would think that as the U.S. is losing control of the Middle East and plans to bring most of the boys home before the end of next year, she would need a strong Israel all the more. ### | |||||||||||||||||||||||
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on June 11th, 2010 Turkey signs deal with Arab neighbors to create free trade zoneMeanwhile, EU announces plan to grant duty-free access for Palestinian products. June 10, 2010Turkey signed a deal Thursday with its Arab neighbors of Syria, Jordan and Lebanon to establish a cooperation council to create a zone of free movement of goods and persons among them. Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu emphasized that the deal should not be seen as an alternative to the European Union and invited all other interested countries to join . Turkey is still eager to join the EU, Davutoglu said, but added that the bloc could not and should not restrict the Muslim country’s relations with its neighbors. The four countries signed the deal at the Turkish-Arab Economic Forum, where officials from Arab nations burst into applause as Turkey’s prime minister walked to the podium. Turkey’s popularity in the Middle East has risen amid disputes over Israel’s Gaza blockade and United Nations sanctions against Iran. EU Trade Commissioner Karel de Gucht said such a deal would “improve the access of Palestinian exports to the EU (and) help revamp the private sector in the Palestinian Authority.” De Gucht’s comments were released Thursday after he met with Palestinian Economy Minister Hasan Abu-Libdeh, who said the duty-free access would help the state-building process we are undergoing with the assistance and guidance of close friends such as the EU. No EU capitals have opposed such a move, likely to take effect within months. The issue carries mostly political significance. EU trade with the Palestinian Authority was only 71 million euros ($85 million) in 2008. Last month, the EU announced that it would rethink the future size of its 300 million euro aid budget for Palestinians if no progress is made towards peace soon. The aid is supposed to prepare the Palestinians for a peace treaty with Israel that will give them their own state, but “if that isn’t coming then I can see a number of questions”, said Christian Berger, the EU’s representative in Jerusalem. The annual assistance given to the Palestinians over the past 16 years represents the EU’s highest per capita foreign aid program. The current seven-year budget, part of which funds United Nations support projects, is locked in until 2013. EU Ambassador to Israel Andrew Standley said discussions on the next seven-year budget would start soon and focus on how best to spend the money. There was a debate about whether it should be spent mostly on reducing poverty or more should be devoted to projects that advanced EU geopolitical goals, he said. After 16 months without negotiations of any kind, Israel and the Palestinians began indirect talks last month on a peace treaty via United States mediator George Mitchell. “If there’s a breakthrough then I guess there’s a likelihood that our support will be increased,” Berger told reporters at a briefing of EU delegation heads. ### |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on June 8th, 2010 Weekend June 4th amNew York reported about the thousands of mourners that carried the nine coffins in Istanbul. The youngest killed was 19-year old Troy, New York State, Turkish-American high-school student Farkan Dogan. His father praised him for “dying in a just cause – God is great.” On Sunday June 6th Fareed Zakaria on CNN/GPS preached WORDS – NOT GUNS and was not shy to state that Turkey is also playing a new and dangerous game before interviewing An important Turkish Ambassador – perhaps the real mastermind of The Newest Turkey. He is the personal advisor to the Prime Minister of Turkey. Fareed said: Once an ally of Europe it is (Turkey) now playing games that are enemy more then friend, but Fareed was trying to understand the Turkish position and expressed also that during the Bush Administration, Turkey was treated heavy-handedly and expected to be an ally in Iraq. The Turks bulked. That is how friend became enemy. Fareed looked at the “Quartet – US, UN, EU, Russia – and with Tony Blair in charge said that the best effort is to work with the Palestinians in order to prepare them for Statehood. Israel ifs fully responsible for the security of its citizens and has full right to protect them but is also to see that life is not made impossible in Gaza. In the end, it is up to Senator Mitchell to navigate for the evolution of a two-State hope. The question about the blockade is semantics Fareed and Blair concluded – Israel has the duty to protect itself against weapons and arms that come into Gaza but rural life must return to Gaza. There are objects and materials needed to rebuild agriculture that should be allowed in. The Palestinians can see that there are good things that happen in the West Bank, but Gaza is left out. People in Gaza have to understand that there is a better way then what Hamas is offering them now. Tony Blair – on TV – refused to answer a value question saying that he knows Israel values the relations with Turkey. There is a chance we get to a better way for a bottom up approach in Gaza, as in Palestine Blair said, once you get an alignment between the achievements on the ground and the hopes – there may then be a way for Peace. The Turkish Foreign Minister went to Jeddah for the Islamic Conference to discuss Gaza. As we wrote already, we know that Jordan with Saudi money may try to figure the incentive, the first time, that is after 60 years, for the people in Gaza to cooperate in a more peaceful way. Ambassador Ahmet Davutgglu, came on the program and started by claiming a comparison to the piracy of the coast of Somalia, and asking what are we to do? Fareed did not take this bait and if I were that Turkish Minister I would have walked off – but he did not. He reacted saying that this is not between Turkey and Israel but between Israel and the World and Israel does not want an international inquiry. The man looked like a snake-oil salesman and we envision that as main strategist of the new Erdogan geopolitics, he actually knows very well what he is after – no simple bumbler here. {Ambassador Ahmet Davutoglu, the chief foreign policy advisor to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, visited Washington, March 17-21, 2009, to discuss critical developments in the Middle East before President Obama’s visit to Turkey on April 6-7, 2009. During his visit Davutoglu stated that “The U.S. and Turkey is at the historical moment that both countries have similar views at almost all issues.” Davutoglu underlined that Turkey is becoming a strategic location for regional energy infrastructure and further suggested “from now on, everyone sees the strategic importance of Turkey that increases as the days pass” (Anadolu Ajansi, March 19) http://www.jamestown.org/single/?no_cach… tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=34754 } “Israel is standing up for one soldier that was captured by Hamas, what did they expect from us after killing nine of our people?” Fareed reminded him that one student had also American citizenship and that the US could make a request regarding its citizen. To which the Ambassador said that Turkey has contacts with the US on this matter. Also, there is a Human Rights Council in Geneva that should take this up but Israel just said they will not cooperate. Did our citizens violate Israeli territory? No! There was even a Nobel Prize Winner on the boat he further said – the list of the passengers can prove they were not terrorists. For decades Israel and Turkey were allies – i myself mediated between Olmert and Syria. What happened he said was the change in Israel politics. Are you having problems with Prime Minister Netanyahu asked Fareed? His answer came that last Thursday he was supposed to meet with P.M. Netanyahu on negotiations with Syria, but on Monday this happened and they attacked the convoy. This can go on in circles – why then did Turkey organize the flotilla’s leading ship? Fareed asked to the point: There are many people that believe you, as the architect for moving Turkey away from Western Policy? To that he gave a long list of Turkey’s work with the West – Syria, Pakistan, Lebanon, the Balkans, etc. only two weeks ago we had a Peace Conference in Istanbul he said. We are not trouble makers at all – he sad. Following the interview – Fareed Zakaria had also two Jewish opponents – it was Republican Elliot Abrams versus Democrat Peter Beinart – but whatever policy differences they may have with each other, nobody was saying anything positive about Turkey’s recent activity though the door to future more positive intervention is left open. Abrams, with a long track record on Middle East negotiations, under several US Presidents, made it clear that there is no International community that Israel can trust in the post-”Zionism is Racism” UN vote. In the light of this there is no way Israel can rely on the UN. Beinart said that he is not going to defend the Turkish action, but 90% of the water in Gaza is not drinkable – and to this both sides can agree that something must be done -HURRAY! ———— Having reported on the above, let me add that we get mail regarding our effort at honesty in this debate. The most interesting came from Russia and had Russian text, though I would guess it originated with Russian speakers living now in Israel. Please have a look at the video, and without prejudging what the Turks could actually achieve, we can nevertheless wipe out the last few weeks when thinking of their credibility. We will get back to this point in next posting. ========================================================= THIS IS A VIDEO WE RECOMMEND YOU WATCH! We Con the World (LatmaTV production) - We Con the World (LatmaTV production) ================================== ### |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on June 5th, 2010 FLOTILLA ACTIVIST HOPED FOR MARTYRDOM – VIDEO ——- In its latest effort to win back world opinion after killing nine pro-Palestinians in a mid-ocean raid on Monday, the IDF has released a video of a Gaza-bound activist declaring his wish to become a shahid, or Muslim martyr. Israel intercepted a convoy of six boats in international waters, some 60 miles offshore in the early hours of Monday morning. Commandos had been equipped with riot gear for what was supposed to be a routine operation against protesters challenging Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip. Instead troops met stiff resistance and eventually opened fire. Activists have claimed their intentions were entirely peaceful – but the IDF, as well as some analysts, has drawn links between a Turkish charity group that funded the flotilla and al-Qaida terrorists. The army on Wednesday posted this video on the YouTube website to support its claims – see: http://www.sanfranciscosentinel.com/?p=7… At the UN, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, John Holmes, a British Diplomat, former Ambassador to France, appointed to his UN position by United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon January 2007, declared that “we want to turn this disaster into an opportunity, but h warned – the situation is very complicated and do not think it is a simple question to resolve. he made it clear that the UN does not accept any interference at borders and that there should be no restrictions on what the various Palestinian factions want to bring in and the way they use what the donors send them as long as the donors agree. But John Holmes is neither blind nor deaf – so he knows – and said so: “The de facto position is that Israel must agree to the crossing of goods.” {our update is about the inclusion of the article we received from Uri Avnery and we suggest that Mr. Holmes take a historic look at how other Britons dealt blows to themselves over 60 years ago.} He noted, and we say this is the great luck of the UN, the UN has no ships to protect the shipping to Gaza – so it is for the interested parties to get to an agreement with Israel and take into consideration the security worries about shipping of arms to Gaza. Here we get to the main issues. Israel is ready to allow transfer of goods to Gaza provided that some goods are not included but it has not made available such a list. Then the issue of cement – will it be used for housing or military purpose? With lack of agreement between the two main Palestinian factions – Hamas of Gaza and the Palestinian Authority that rules on the outside, who will speak for the people of Gaza? So far – so good – but here Ambassador Holmes gave a clear picture of how difficult it is to satisfy Israel’s worries. He literally started to mumble when the question was what list is Israel expected to produce – the list of acceptable goods or the list of forbidden goods, Mr. Holmes settled on the liste of “forbidden goods – AND EVERYTHING ELSE IS ALLOWED.” But then how do you treat improvisations that lead to dangerous outcomes – like the issue of cement? Not easy indeed. We think that agreed upon foods and medications should be on that list – and everything else excluded until a resumption of Peace talks with the Gazan’s becomes reality – but then Peace talks with the Palestinian Authority about the other, and major, part of the land – the West Bank, should go on speedily. If Turkey wants to be of any help – that is what it can do – host the negotiations without posturing as leader of the hate-Israel tribes. This website has its difficulty in accepting deeds of Israeli governments that did not try to solve the ongoing conflict and one of the people w admire most is Uri Avnery who is a maverick in Israel – that allows us now to take the position that Turkey, a country that we saw as potential trouble shooter, we feel now is becoming rather a trouble causer to Israel and the Obama Administration. Having entered the fray Turkey could now figure out ways how to monitor those lists and how to open the door to needed supplies in Gaza – but within the limits of required Israel security needs. ————- {just call it – biting the hand that feeds you!} A senior United Nations official in the Middle East today expressed deep concern at reports that Hamas has broken into the offices of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in the Gaza Strip this week, confiscated materials and equipment, and forced the offices to shut down. Robert Serry, the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, said in a statement issued in Jerusalem that reports indicated Hamas had broken into NGO offices in both Gaza City and Rafah. “This targeting of NGOs, including UN partner organizations, is unacceptable, violating accepted norms of a free society and harming the Palestinian people,” he said. “The de facto authorities must cease such repressive steps and allow the re-opening of these civil society institutions without delay.” Hamas, which does not recognize Israel’s right to exist, took control of Gaza in 2007 after it ousted the Fatah movement. About 1.5 million Palestinians live in the area, which has been blockaded by Israel for the past three years.
——————- see also: http://israel.foreignpolicyblogs.com/ —————— But that is not all: What should be considered also is - http://www.opendemocracy.net/paul-rogers… Israel-Turkey-United States: Gaza’s global momentPaul Rogers, 3 June 2010, OpenDemocracy.net
Paul Rogers is professor of peace studies at Bradford University and is openDemocracy’s international-security editor.
Israel’s assault on a flagship attempting to break the blockade of Gaza has sparked international condemnation. Behind the crisis lie deeper shifts in world politics in which Turkey is playing a key part.
The Israeli special-forces assault in the early hours of 31 May 2010 on the leading ship of a humanitarian-aid convoy sailing towards the Gaza strip was intended to be a robust statement of national policy. Instead, the deadly commando-raid – in which nine of the on-board activists were killed and thirty wounded – has sparked an international diplomatic crisis with profound implications. This international dimension of the incident was apparent within hours when Israel’s prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu cancelled what was to have been a crucial bridge-building meeting in Washington with Barack Obama and returned to Israel. The events on the Mavi Marmara ferry, both a human tragedy and a public-relations disaster for Israel, were soon to accomplish what the activists had set out to do and Israel been determined to stop: focus global attention on the blockade of the Gaza strip (see Patrick Cockburn, “PR dangerously distorts the Israeli sense of reality”, 2 June 2010). A clear danger Israel had assembled a powerful naval force to intercept a flotilla that represented much the largest and best-resourced effort to break the Gaza blockade. The Mavi Marmara initiative centred on the Turkish group the Foundation of Humanitarian Relief (IHH), a well-endowed organisation that may be supported financially by many Turks but also has (at the very least) informal links with the Ankara government. The IHH had bought the Mavi Marmara from a state-owned company for $1.25 million; there was every sign that the flotilla it led represented the early stage of a long-term operation with high-level Turkish political endorsement (see Simon Thurlow, “Israel Founders in International Waters”, Asia Times, 1 June 2010) . Israel’s absolute determination to maintain control of Gaza meant that the development of such a strategy (essentially under official Turkish tutelage) presented it with a clear danger. Israel therefore decided to use sufficient force to deter any practical attempts to pursue the strategy, even if that would damage further its already strained relations with Turkey. A deep concern The working relationship between Turkey and Israel, complex and in many ways unexpected as it has been, has survived major tests (see Kerem Oktem, “Turkey and Israel: ends and beginnings”, 10 December 2009). Yet it had already been deteriorating for some time before the Israeli military assault on Gaza in December 2008-January 2009 – Operation Cast Lead – made it even more fraught. The public dispute between the Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the Israeli president Shimon Peres at the World Economic Forum in Davos was only the most visible sign of an accentuating trend (see Mustafa Kibaroglu, “Turkey-Israel relations after Gaza“, 26 January 2010). Now, the crisis over the flotilla attack has brought it to an even deeper low. This is worrying enough for Israel, but the profound breach between two of the United States’s closest allies is also a deep concern for Washington. The US is acutely aware that the assault on the Mavi Marmara has potentially damaging reverberations in other areas – Pakistan and Iran, for example – where what it perceives as its core security interests are at stake (see “America and the world’s jungle“, 27 May 2010). Among these effects is a further rise in anti-Americanism in Pakistan, evident in demonstrations in Karachi (see Syed Saleem Shahzad, “Israeli strike echoes in Pakistan”, Asia Times 2 June 2010). This will dismay Washington as it attempts to secure Pakistani cooperation in its tough campaign to subdue the Taliban. But the Barack Obama administration will be even more alarmed by the renewed difficulties in persuading fellow United Nations Security Council states to vote for another round of sanctions against Iran over Tehran’s nuclear programme. The current non-permanent members of the council include Turkey and Brazil, and both were already aggrieved at the United States dismissal of the enriched-uranium exchange-deal they agreed with Tehran on 17 May 2010 (see Mariano Aguirre, “Brazil-Turkey and Iran: a new global balance”, 2 June 2010). Now, after the Israeli raid, Turkey will be even less inclined to support Washington. An Istanbul gathering These matters are serious enough for the United States. But an equally momentous development, one that as yet has not been fully registered, is a five-day meeting that took place in Istanbul’s Cevahir Hotel on 10 April 2010. The “Iraqi resistance support conference” involved dozens of Iraqis who had been active in the Sunni insurgency that developed after the US-led overthrow of the Saddam Hussein regime and occupation of Iraq in 2003 (under the banner of groups such as the 1920 Revolution Brigades and the al-Rashideen Army) (see Ernesto Londono, “Iraq’s Sunni insurgent groups gather to plot comeback amid political crisis.” (Washington Post, 1 June 2010). The Istanbul meeting included people who had been involved in the governing Ba’ath Party during the Saddam Hussein era, though not (it seems) any linked to al-Qaida in Iraq. It did, however, reflect a strong sense that many of those involved in the “awakening” movement that had opposed and weakened al-Qaida in 2007-08 were now being excluded from Iraqi politics at the highest level. Almost three weeks after the Istanbul gathering, on 29 April, a public meeting was held in Damascus to relaunch the Ba’ath Party in Iraq, an organisation outlawed since spring 2003. The Syrian capital may be seen as the “natural” location for this event for reasons both of geographical proximity and political-ideological affinity (Syria, after all, is ruled by a branch of the once-unified Ba’ath and is ostensibly committed to the same Arab nationalist goals). The party’s rebirth was condemned by Iraq’s current prime minister Nouri al-Maliki, who belongs to the (Shi’a-supported) Dawa that long opposed Ba’ath rule. But the International Crisis Group’s specialist on Iraq (and openDemocracy author) Joost Hiltermann puts this political move in the context of current Iraqi realities: “There is no doubt that Sunnis will feel excluded, disenfranchised and marginalised if they are not given a significant share in government. After all, it is with this expectation that they agreed to abandon the insurgency during the surge in 2007”. The attempted reforming of the Ba’ath Party may well come to nothing. Indeed it may simply be a political ploy – a veiled threat to the Shi’a majority in Iraq that it should avoid entrenching any exclusion of the Sunnis from Iraq’s post-election settlement. This aspect of internal Iraqi politics aside, the Turkish government’s willingness to allow a key meeting of Iraqi ex-insurgents to take place in Istanbul is remarkable. A new wind There is much talk and some fear in western capitals that Turkey is ceasing to look westwards towards the European Union and Nato, and rather seeks to build its influence to the east and south. The view of some analysts in the United States is even more alarmist: that Turkey – its membership of Nato notwithstanding – is increasingly unreliable as a partner of the west (see Steven A Cook, “How do you say ‘frenemy’ in Turkish?”, Foreign Policy, 1 June 2010). The prospect of a revival of a form of Islamist-imperial dominance in the region, under the leadership of Erdogan’s AKP government, offers history-fuelled succour to the notion. A comment in the influential neo-conservative Weekly Standard is indicative: “Since 2005, Americans have been worrying about Iran’s ambitions for regional hegemony. Maybe its time we started worrying about Turkey’s regional ambitions as well. The Turks ruled the region from 1453 to 1922, after all. A renascence of Turkish power, in an Islamist guise, would cause all sorts of troubles no one can anticipate” (see Matthew Continetti, “The Turkish power”, Weekly Standard, 1 June 2010). There are variable degrees of simplification in such views, which need to be considered in the context of Turkey’s substantial military involvement in Nato and its continuing ambitions to join the European Union (see Katinka Barysch, “Turkey and Europe: a shifting axis”, 14 April 2010). What is much more likely is that Turkey is pursuing and will further develop a triple strategic and diplomatic policy: a. retaining its European orientation b. enhancing its regional influence, not least in Iraq and Iran (see Carsten Wieland, “Turkey’s political-emotional transition”, 6 October 2009) c. creating space to work more closely with other major emerging states – notably Brazil, as over the tripartite fuel-swap agreement with Iran In this broader context, the Istanbul hotel meeting may over time prove to be as significant as Turkey’s angry response to Israel’s commando-raid on the Gaza-bound flotilla. What is certain is that both events are ingredients of a change in the world’s political order. ———————————————————- from: Uri Avnery Hope this may interest you. – – June 5, 2010 Kill a Turk and Rest ON THE high seas, outside territorial waters, the ship was stopped by the navy. The commandos stormed it. Hundreds of people on the deck resisted, the soldiers used force. Some of the passengers were killed, scores injured. The ship was brought into harbor, the passengers were taken off by force. The world saw them walking on the quay, men and women, young and old, all of them worn out, one after another, each being marched between two soldiers… The ship was called “Exodus 1947”. It left France in the hope of breaking the British blockade, which was imposed to prevent ships loaded with Holocaust survivors from reaching the shores of Palestine. If it had been allowed to reach the country, the illegal immigrants would have come ashore and the British would have sent them to detention camps in Cyprus, as they had done before. Nobody would have taken any notice of the episode for more than two days. But the person in charge was Ernest Bevin, a Labour Party leader, an arrogant, rude and power-loving British minister. He was not about to let a bunch of Jews dictate to him. He decided to teach them a lesson the entire world would witness. “This is a provocation!” he exclaimed, and of course he was right. The main aim was indeed to create a provocation, in order to draw the eyes of the world to the British blockade. What followed is well known: the episode dragged on and on, one stupidity led to another, the whole world sympathized with the passengers. But the British did not give in and paid the price. A heavy price. Many believe that the “Exodus” incident was the turning point in the struggle for the creation of the State of Israel. Britain collapsed under the weight of international condemnation and decided to give up its mandate over Palestine. There were, of course, many more weighty reasons for this decision, but the “Exodus” proved to be the straw that broke the camel’s back. I AM not the only one who was reminded of this episode this week. Actually, it was almost impossible not to be reminded of it, especially for those of us who lived in Palestine at the time and witnessed it. There are, of course, important differences. Then the passengers were Holocaust survivors, this time they were peace activists from all over the world. But then and now the world saw heavily armed soldiers brutally attack unarmed passengers, who resist with everything that comes to hand, sticks and bare hands. Then and now it happened on the high seas – 40 km from the shore then, 65 km now. In retrospect, the British behavior throughout the affair seems incredibly stupid. But Bevin was no fool, and the British officers who commanded the action were not nincompoops. After all, they had just finished a World War on the winning side. If they behaved with complete folly from beginning to end, it was the result of arrogance, insensitivity and boundless contempt for world public opinion. Ehud Barak is the Israeli Bevin. He is not a fool, either, nor are our top brass. But they are responsible for a chain of acts of folly, the disastrous implications of which are hard to assess. Former minister and present commentator Yossi Sarid called the ministerial “committee of seven”, which decides on security matters, “seven idiots” – and I must protest. It is an insult to idiots. THE PREPARATIONS for the flotilla went on for more than a year. Hundreds of e-mail messages went back and forth. I myself received many dozens. There was no secret. Everything was out in the open. There was a lot of time for all our political and military institutions to prepare for the approach of the ships. The politician consulted. The soldiers trained. The diplomats reported. The intelligence people did their job. Nothing helped. All the decisions were wrong from the first moment to this moment. And it’s not yet the end. The idea of a flotilla as a means to break the blockade borders on genius. It placed the Israeli government on the horns of a dilemma – the choice between several alternatives, all of them bad. Every general hopes to get his opponent into such a situation. The alternatives were:
As our governments have always done, when faced with the choice between several bad alternatives, the Netanyahu government chose the worst. Anyone who followed the preparations as reported in the media could have foreseen that they would lead to people being killed and injured. One does not storm a Turkish ship and expect cute little girls to present one with flowers. The Turks are not known as people who give in easily. The orders given to the forces and made public included the three fateful words: “at any cost”. Every soldier knows what these three terrible words mean. Moreover, on the list of objectives, the consideration for the passengers appeared only in third place, after safeguarding the safety of the soldiers and fulfilling the task. If Binyamin Netanyahu, Ehud Barak, the Chief of Staff and the commander of the navy did not understand that this would lead to killing and wounding people, then it must be concluded – even by those who were reluctant to consider this until now – that they are grossly incompetent. They must be told, in the immortal words of Oliver Cromwell to Parliament: “You have sat too long for any good you have been doing lately… Depart, I say; and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!” THIS EVENT points again to one of the most serious aspects of the situation: we live in a bubble, in a kind of mental ghetto, which cuts us off and prevents us from seeing another reality, the one perceived by the rest of the world. A psychiatrist might judge this to be the symptom of a severe mental problem. The propaganda of the government and the army tells a simple story: our heroic soldiers, determined and sensitive, the elite of the elite, descended on the ship in order “to talk” and were attacked by a wild and violent crowd. Official spokesmen repeated again and again the word “lynching”. On the first day, almost all the Israeli media accepted this. After all, it is clear that we, the Jews, are the victims. Always. That applies to Jewish soldiers, too. True, we storm a foreign ship at sea, but turn at once into victims who have no choice but to defend ourselves against violent and incited anti-Semites. It is impossible not to be reminded of the classic Jewish joke about the Jewish mother in Russia taking leave of her son, who has been called up to serve the Czar in the war against Turkey. “Don’t overexert yourself’” she implores him, “Kill a Turk and rest. Kill another Turk and rest again…” “But mother,” the son interrupts, “What if the Turk kills me?” “You?” exclaims the mother, “But why? What have you done to him?” To any normal person, this may sound crazy. Heavily armed soldiers of an elite commando unit board a ship on the high seas in the middle of the night, from the sea and from the air – and they are the victims? But there is a grain of truth there: they are the victims of arrogant and incompetent commanders, irresponsible politicians and the media fed by them. And, actually, of the Israeli public, since most of the people voted for this government or for the opposition, which is no different. The “Exodus” affair was repeated, but with a change of roles. Now we are the British. Somewhere, a new Leon Uris is planning to write his next book, “Exodus 2010”. A new Otto Preminger is planning a film that will become a blockbuster. A new Paul Newman will star in it – after all, there is no shortage of talented Turkish actors. MORE THAN 200 years ago, Thomas Jefferson declared that every nation must act with a “decent respect to the opinions of mankind”. Israeli leaders have never accepted the wisdom of this maxim. They adhere to the dictum of David Ben-Gurion: “It is not important what the Gentiles say, it is important what the Jews do.” Perhaps he assumed that the Jews would not act foolishly. Making enemies of the Turks is more than foolish. For decades, Turkey has been our closest ally in the region, much more close than is generally known. Turkey could play, in the future, an important role as a mediator between Israel and the Arab-Muslim world, between Israel and Syria, and, yes, even between Israel and Iran. Perhaps we have succeeded now in uniting the Turkish people against us – and some say that this is the only matter on which the Turks are now united. This is Chapter 2 of “Cast Lead”. Then we aroused most countries in the world against us, shocked our few friends and gladdened our enemies. Now we have done it again, and perhaps with even greater success. World public opinion is turning against us. This is a slow process. It resembles the accumulation of water behind a dam. The water rises slowly, quietly, and the change is hardly noticeable. But when it reaches a critical level, the dam bursts and the disaster is upon us. We are steadily approaching this point. “Kill a Turk and rest,” the mother says in the joke. Our government does not even rest. It seems that they will not stop until they have made enemies of the last of our friends. (Parts of this article were published in Ma’ariv, Israel’s second largest newspaper.) -========================================================================== CHAPTER II: Saturday, June 5th there was again an attempt to breach the Israeli blockade, but it had a different result. So, as expected, these events will continue and one might be able to predict the results based on the country that sends out the ship. Please see: http://www.truthout.org/israeli-naval-fo… This time it was an Irish vessel, “the Rachel Corrie, named after the US citizen who was intentionally crushed by an Israeli Army bulldozer in Gaza in 2003, refused demands by Israeli defense forces to dock in Ashdod. It was intercepted in international waters.” From the tone of this report it is made clear that the report was not favorable to Israel – but nevertheless it does produce the truth in this case. Just see further as it says: According to the New York Times, “there were no resistance or injuries, and the military said the ship’s crew and passengers fully complied with the boarding.” And from the Israelis – “Our forces boarded the boat and took control without meeting any resistance from the crew or the passengers. Everything took place without violence,” a military spokeswoman told Agence France-Press, saying no shots had been fired. So, let us conclude – the issue is obviously complicated, so are the reasons for the previous deaths – when a flotilla comes in fighting mode and ready to become “jihadis” there will be dead – if the issue is plain civil protest and delivery of goods – Israel should deal with it accordingly – and the second case proves it. Further: The ship and the 15 people on board, most of them Irish or Malaysian activists, was being escorted into the southern Israeli port of Ashdod from where the aid would be transferred to Gaza through land crossings, the military said. Canada’s CTV reported that the Rachel Corrie was “carrying about 1,000 tons of aid, including wheelchairs, medical supplies and cement.” Passengers, CTV news said, included Nobel Laureate Mairead Corrigan Maguire and are largely affiliated with the group “Free Gaza.” The organization said in statement that the Rachel Corrie was tracked by Israeli ships for two hours prior to the raid and the Israeli navy jammed the vessels equipment. All right – we expect the Israelis to deliver the wheelchairs and medical supplies to Gaza by road, and make a final decision on the cement. Maybe allow in part of it with the FREE GAZA people vouching that it is used for housing. If the Palestinians refuse acceptance – the cement goes back to Ireland or is bought by the Israelis at fair price. Whatever the outcome – we see already that the Irish were not on the way to Gaza in order to stake claim for their flag – and that was the true difference between the first that was a Turkish political pro-Turkish attempt, and the follow-up Irish humanitarian pro-Palestinian attempt.
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on May 19th, 2010 CHANGE OF DATE FOR WILCOX MIDDLE EAST TALK
The Sixth and I Synagogue has informed us that the room is no longer available on May 20. Instead, the event will be held at the Sixth and I Synagogue on Monday May 24 at 12:00.
United Nations Association – National Capital Area,
Foundation for Middle East Peace,
Am Kolel Jewish Renewal Center, Peace Cafes,
Sixth and I Historic Synagogue and
Washington Interfaith Alliance for Middle East Peace
invite you to a lecture by:
Ambassador Philip C. Wilcox, Jr.
President, Foundation for Middle East Peace
“The Middle East Conflict in the Modern Era”
NEW DATE: Monday May 24, 12-2:00pm
Sixth and I Synagogue
600 I Street Northwest
Washington, DC 20001 (near Gallery Place Metro stop)
Ambassador Wilcox is the President of the Foundation for Middle East Peace, a Washington D.C. based non-profit organization devoted to fostering peace between Israelis and Palestinians. Amb. Wilcox retired in 1997 after 31 years in the U.S. Foreign Service.
Free admission. Light refreshments will be provided.
info at fmep.org“ href=”mailto:info@fmep.org?subject=RSVP%20sixth%20and%20I%20synagogue” target=”_blank”>RSVP to fmep.org
1761 N Street NW, Washington, DC 20036 ### |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on May 17th, 2010 http://www.aolnews.com/story/iran-to-shi… Iran to ship uranium to Turkey in nuclear deal. TEHRAN, Iran -Iran agreed Monday to ship most of its enriched uranium to Turkey in a nuclear fuel swap deal that could ease the international standoff over the country’s disputed nuclear program and deflate a U.S.-led push for tougher sanctions. ———————————– Global Commentary and Think-Tank Analysis (Best of U.S., UK, and Israel):
———————————— Observations: Iran Maneuvers to Delay Sanctions – Ronen Bergman (Ynet News)
Iran’s Nuclear Coup – Editorial (Wall Street Journal)
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on March 29th, 2010 ALJAZEERA English reports from Sirta, Libya: “Arab leaders have expressed their total rejection of Israel’s settlement policy in occupied East Jerusalem at the end of a two-day regional summit in Libya. Regional leaders issued the statement on Sunday after the final session of an Arab League summit in the northern city of Sirte.” But also says: “Arab leaders failed to reach consensus on whether the Palestinians should resume stalled talks with Israel. Leaders rejected pressure from Syria and Libya on the Palestinians to abandon talks with Israel and resume armed resistance.” And includes pieces from Riza Khan reporting: Please see it on: Further – it includes also:
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on March 20th, 2010 Press Conference at the UN World Water Day Monday, 22 March, 2010 H.E. President of the UN General Assembly , H.E. Prime Minister of Tajikistan H.E. Jan Eliasson This high-level dialogue provides an important input to the preparatory process for the Summit on the Millennium Development Goals to be held on 20-22 September 2010, and feeds into the High-Level International Conference on water to be hosted by Tajikistan in June 2010. ————————- The problem with the above press conference, which is part of the daily UN Spokesperson’s Briefing to the Press, is that the UN General Assembly President is Ali Treki, the Foreign Minister of Libya who was declared practically non-person by the Schengen countries, so he is unwelcome to Europe {a President of the UNGA – mind you – no less}, and Oqil Ghaybulloyevich Oqilov, Prime Minister of Tajikistan, just recently host to Ahmedi-Nejad of Iran, and whose country is turning into a pro-Iranian satellite. The fact that the UN water conference will be held in Tajikistan must have to do something with the push for legitimization by some of the world’s less palatable regimes. That leaves the Honorable Jan Eliason, a friend from the days he served at the UN, and a friend of humanity, the only person worthwhile on that UN panel. We say this with full knowledge that water and climate change are indeed main problems for Libya and Tajikistan, but we just do not believe that the other two speakers on that dais have shown politically real interest in this topic. We are curious what journalists will show up and how far can questioning be allowed by the UN, and by the UN General Assembly, Spokesmen. ————————- Monday 04 January 2010 Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad laid wreath at the statue of Ismail Samani a former king here on Monday. After welcome ceremony held by Tajikistan’s Prime Minister Oqil Oqilov, Ahmadinejad started talks with his Tajik counterpart Imomali Rakhmon. During the talks, the two presidents signed three memoranda of understanding, two documents on cooperation and a statement on expansion of bilateral relations. Later in the day, Ahmadinejad is planned to deliver speech to a group of resident Iranians at Ibn Sina Hospital, built by Iran’s private sector in the country. He is also due to inaugurate an Iranology center in the Tajikistan’s medical university. —— Saturday 09 January 2010
The Iranian president was officially seen off by his Turkmen counterpart Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov. He was in Turkmenistan to attend the inaugural ceremony of the first phase of Iran-Turkmenistan’s second gas pipeline project. The 182-km pipeline was inaugurated by the Iranian and Turkmen presidents earlier on Wednesday. President Ahmadinejad was in the region on a three-day visit which had brought him earlier to Tajikistan. He discussed major bilateral, regional and international developments with senior Tajik and Turkmen officials. A number of agreements were also signed by Iranian officials and their Tajik and Turkmen counterparts for promotion of bilateral cooperation between Tehran and the two Central Asian capitals. —– Saturday 09 January 2010 President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad concluded his two-nation tour to the Central Asian region and arrived in Tehran on Wednesday afternoon. Upon his arrival, the Iranian president was welcomed by Supreme Leader’s Advisor for International Affairs Ali Akbar Velayati, 1st Vice-President Mohammad Reza Rahimi as well as a number of high ranking officials and ministers. Speaking to reporters at the airport, President Ahmadinejad described his visits to Tajikistan and Turkmenistan as very fruitful and promising. He discussed major bilateral, regional and international developments with senior Tajik and Turkmen officials. A number of agreements were also signed by Iranian officials and their Tajik and Turkmen counterparts for promotion of bilateral cooperation between Tehran and the two Central Asian capital cities. —– Saturday 09 January 2010 President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said here Thursday that world’s destiny will be decided in the Middle East. “Iran and Syria should in a joint mission establish new world order based on monotheism, justice and humanity,” President Ahmadinejad told Syrian parliament Speaker Mahmoud al-Abrash. He said the world is on verge of big developments and the tyrannical systems are fading. “Iran and Syria shoulder a crucial role in present juncture and their cooperation should further expand,” he added. The 30-year resistance of Iran and Syria is almost close to the victory stage, said the President, adding, “Resistance of nations, including Iran and Syria, has thwarted all the conspiracies of the imperialistic system in the political, economic, military and ideological domains.” The President went on to say that construction of the wall of separation in the occupied lands and of the steel war in Gaza all show the Zionist regime’s vulnerability. “The US government too will have to end up its interventions in the region and get its forces out of there.” Al-Abrash said in return that expansion of relations and cooperation among Muslim states, including Iran and Syria, has nullified enemy conspiracies.
———————————— For more information and the full programme of the day, please see: www.un.org Jonathan Rich, WaterAid, Tel.: +1 347 262 9115, Email: jonathan at jcrcommunications.com ————————————- Let the clean water flowBy CAROLINE BOIN, The Japan Times online, Saturday, March 20, 2010
LONDON — The 18th annual World Water Day (March 22) offers the same old problems and rejects the practical solutions. On Monday, 1 billion people will, as usual, spend the day without clean water and a third of humanity without adequate sanitation. As usual, some 3.5 million men, women and children will die from related diseases this year. Yet many nongovernment organizations and politicians still prefer ideology to ideas, spurning what the private sector delivers to the world’s poor. Activists often claim to be defending the poor from profit-maximizing corporations. But this has more to do with dogma than reality. Given that less than 10 percent of world water management is private, it is hard to see how they can blame corporations for poor supply. In fact, it is governments that mismanage water and misallocate it to political cronies and powerful lobbies such as farmers. The poor, in rural areas or slums, are left unconnected and unable to do much about it. Anti-privatization groups keep repeating that water should be provided by government but ignore that government has been the worst enemy of the poor. On another tack, the World Development Movement and similar groups claim that the private sector has done little for the poor, having connected only three million people in developing countries over the past 15 years. But this figure excludes Latin America and Southeast Asia where private water management — and the number of people getting water — has boomed since the 1990s. In Argentina, for example, privately managed areas got lower water prices, more connections and a drop in infectious diseases and child deaths. Activists have further misrepresented private supply by focusing on multinationals while ignoring the small-scale water vendors who get water to people whom governments have abandoned. In many African cities, they sell plastic water sachets to passersby, while in Paraguay 500 aguateros supply nearly half a million people using tankers and piped water. A World Bank researcher found in 1998 that “in most cities in developing countries, more than half the population gets basic water service from suppliers other than the incumbent official utility.” Country surveys suggest that the situation has changed little since then. The World Health Organization, like activists, disregards these “informal” water vendors, bottled water and tankers. It refuses to consider them as “improved water sources” as they are unregulated, unpredictable and allegedly incapable of serving a mass market. But to the hundreds of millions of people who rely on them, there is nothing incapable about private water providers. For many, they are the difference between life and death. Informal water vendors come in all types, but they all provide water for profit. Their clients are among the most poorly prepared to pay to protect their families from disease and to put their time to better use than searching for clean water. The success of these private water services throughout Latin America, Africa and Asia disproves the claim that the poor are too poor to pay for water and that the private sector has no incentive to serve them. In fact, the poor often pay more for water than those in prosperous areas with “formal” supplies. A World Bank survey of South American cities found that, on average, trucked water costs four to 10 times more than the public network’s price. In Kibera, the Nairobi slum of about 1 million people, jerry-can water sells at four times the average price in Kenya. Activists who accuse the private sector of putting profits before people should realize three things. First, water vendors would stop providing water and sanitation if they did not make a profit. Second, governments are largely to blame for the higher prices because they constrain or outlaw private supply. Finally, people buy from vendors willingly, often with a choice of suppliers. Water is severely under-priced in China, at around a third of the world average. As a consequence 300 million rural people have no safe drinking water. Where vendors do operate, people are prepared to pay up to 10 times the connected cost. The theme of this year’s World Water Day is quality, so legalizing the work of water vendors should be a priority. They could then own sources, land and infrastructure, get credit and expand operations, serving more people at cheaper rates with cleaner water. It is these small-scale ventures — not empty government promises — that can quickly improve water supplies for the poor. Caroline Boin is a project director at International Policy Network, London, which focuses on economic development.
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on February 10th, 2010 How Washington Can Really Help the Greens in Tehran . from: Trita Parsi. With the February 11 demonstrations around the corner, Washington is increasingly torn on whether and how to support the Iranian pro-democracy movement. Reality is that Washington’s history of involvement in Iran’s political affairs is not a pretty one. But between doing everything and doing nothing, there is a safe, effective third way. Alireza Nader of RAND and I write about that third path in Foreign Policy Magazine today. Trita Parsi, PhD Ever since last June’s disputed presidential election, Iran has been in the throes of change, with the nascent “green movement” protesting against an ever-more-authoritarian state. For months, Washington has asked itself: Should the United States actively push for regime change? Torn between the fear of ending up on the wrong side of history by being too cautious and the fear of ending up undermining the pro-democracy movement by being too aggressive, Barack Obama’s administration is playing a difficult balancing act. History shows that intervention is easier said than done. Past U.S. attempts to sway Iranian internal affairs — such as the CIA-fomented 1953 coup d’état against a democratically elected prime minister, Mohammad Mossadegh — have proven costly for U.S. interests. Most notably, Washington’s support for the shah fueled the 1979 Islamic Revolution, inspiring anti-Western movements in Pakistan, Egypt, and beyond. Second, the United States should avoid sanctions that put a burden on the Iranian people, rather than the Iranian government. Broad-based sanctions that hit the entire economy hurt common citizens far more than the powerful elites. Any new sanctions should demonstrate not only international discontent with the conduct of the Tehran government, but also an effort by the United States to keep from harming average Iranians. The shift toward targeted sanctions against the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) — a 100,000-strong paramilitary and security force with significant business interests — is a welcome development. However, because the IRGC controls Iran’s official and underground economy, identifying sanctions that hurt only the IRGC while sparing the general population is difficult. Instead, U.S. and U.N. designation of specific individuals within the government and the IRGC responsible for the repression and human rights violations would make the sanctions both effective and truly targeted. Such designations would discourage foreign governments and companies from engaging with these individuals or conducting business with them and their affiliates, demonstrating to the regime that its domestic and foreign policies will have significant consequences. This would be helpful to the green movement in two ways. First, international focus on Iran’s human rights record makes it more difficult for Tehran to proceed with its abuses. For instance, the United States should support a special session on the human rights situation in Iran at the U.N. Human Rights Council. Second, it helps counter the Iranian government’s perception that the United States is willing to sacrifice the human rights and pro-democracy aspirations of the Iranian people for the sake of a nuclear deal. Finally (Fifth), Washington should exercise patience and view Iran as a long-term factor in shaping U.S. national security interests across the Middle East. The green movement will not and cannot adjust its action plan to suit the U.S. political timetable. But if patience is granted — which includes avoiding a singular focus on the nuclear issue at the expense of all other considerations — Washington will access a far greater potential for change. ——————- Trita Parsi is president of the National Iranian American Council and the 2010 recipient of the Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order. ======================== UPDATED: Washington will do just that !!! U.S. plans sanctions to hit Iran’s Revolutionary Guards http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/10/world/middleeast/10sanctions.html ### |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on February 6th, 2010 DIRECT QUOTES: BASHAR ASSAD One note: a transcript of our talk, provided by Assad’s office, was generally accurate but it did not include an exchange we had about intelligence. A senior Syrian official had told me that, last year, Syria, which is on the State Department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism, had renewed its sharing of intelligence on terrorism with the C.I.A. and with Britain’s MI6, after a request from Obama that was relayed by George Mitchell, the President’s envoy for the Middle East. (The White House declined to comment.) Assad said that he had agreed to do so, and then added that he also has warned Mitchell “that if nothing happens from the other side”—in terms of political progress—“we will stop it.” Quotes from our conversation follow. President Barack Obama: Bush gave Obama this big ball of fire, and it is burning, domestically and internationally. Obama, he does not know how to catch it. The approach has changed; no more dictations but more listening and more recognition of America’s problems around the world, especially in Afghanistan and Iraq. But at the same time there are no concrete results…. What we have is only the first step…. Maybe I am optimistic about Obama, but that does not mean that I am optimistic about other institutions that play negative or paralyzing role[s] to Obama. If you talk about four years, you have one year to learn and the last year to work for the next elections. So, you only have two years. The problem, with these complicated problems around the world, where the United States should play a role to find a solution, is that two years is a very short time…. Is it enough for somebody like Obama? Hillary Clinton: Some say that even Hilary Clinton does not support Obama. Some say she still has ambition to be President some day—that is what they say. The press conference of Hillary with [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu [in which she appeared to walk away from the Administration’s call for a freeze on settlements] was very bad, even for the image of the United States. Israel and the United States: To be biased and side with the Israelis, this is traditional for the United States; we do not expect them to be in the middle soon. So we can deal with this issue, and we can find a way if you want to talk about the peace process. But the vision does not seem to be clear on the U.S. side as to what they really want to happen in the Middle East. Negotiations with Israel: I have half a million Palestinians and they have been living here for three generations now. So, if you do not find a solution for them, then what peace you are talking about? What, I said, is the difference between peace and a peace treaty? Peace treaty is what you sign, but peace is when you have normal relations. So, you start with a peace treaty in order to achieve peace…. If they say you can have the entire Golan back, we will have a peace treaty. But they cannot expect me to give them the peace they expect…. You start with the land; you do not start with peace. The Israelis: You need a special dictionary for their terms…. They do not have any of the old generation who used to know what politics means, like Rabin and the others. That is why I said they are like children fighting each other, messing with the country; they do not know what to do. [The Israelis] wanted to destroy Hamas in the war [in December, 2008] and make Abu Mazen strong in the West Bank. Actually it is a police state, and they weakened Abu Mazen and made Hamas stronger. Now they wanted to destroy Hamas. But what is the substitute for Hamas? It is Al Qaeda, and they do not have a leader to talk to, to talk about anything. They are not ready to make dialogue. They [Al Qaeda] only want to die in the field. Europe and the Iranian nuclear negotiation: This is not European but Bush’s initiative adopted by the Europeans. The Europeans are like the postman; they pretend that they are not like this but they are like a postman; they are completely passive and I told them that. I told the French when I visited France. Iran: Imposing sanctions [on Iran] is a problem because they will not stop the program and they will accelerate it if you are suspicious. They can make problems to the Americans more than the other way around. If I am Ahmadinejad, I will not give all the uranium because I do not have a guarantee [in response to American and European insistence that most of Iran’s low-enriched uranium be sent abroad for further enrichment to make it usable for a research reactor, but not for a bomb]…. So, the only solution is that they can send you part and you send it back enriched, and then they send another part…. The only advice I can give to Obama: accept this Iranian proposal because this is very good and very realistic. [Note: the Iranian position appeared to be shifting this week.] Lebanon: The civil war in Lebanon could start in days; it does not take weeks or months; it could start just like this. One cannot feel assured about anything in Lebanon unless they change the whole system. Cooperating with the United States in Iraq: They [American officials] only talk about the borders; this is a very narrow-minded way. But we said yes. We said yes—and, you know, during Bush we used to say no, but when Mitchell came [as Obama’s envoy] I said O.K.… I told Mitchell by saying this is the first step and when find something positive from the American side we move to the next level…. We sent our delegation to the borders and [the Iraqis] did not come. Of course, the reason is that [Nouri] al-Maliki [the Prime Minister of Iraq] is against it. So far there is nothing, there is no cooperation about anything and even no real dialogue. George Mitchell: I told him, you were successful in Ireland, but this is different…. [Mitchell] is very keen to succeed. And he wants to do something good, but I compare with the situation in the United States: the Congress has not changed…. But the whole atmosphere is not positive towards the President in general. And that is why I think his envoys cannot succeed. Criticisms of some Israeli policies at the J-Street founding conference: Ahh … that is new!… But we should educate them that if they are worried about Israel, then the only thing that can protect Israel is peace, nothing else. No amount of airplanes or weapons could protect Israel, so they have to forget about that. Pakistan’s government: They supported [Afghan President Hamid] Karzai and realized he cannot deliver. I do not know why they supported him and why—nobody knows why. American power: Now the problem is that the United States is weaker, and the whole influential world is weak as well…. You always need power to do politics. Now nobody is doing politics…. So what you need is strong United States with good politics, not weaker United States. If you have weaker United States, it is not good for the balance of the world. ### |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on January 29th, 2010 IPS Newsbriefs “The banking sector in general will take several years to recover and rebuild the regulatory capital that it’s lost over the past several years combined with higher regulatory capital requirements expected in the near future,” says John Dunlop, who heads the London Energy Project Finance desk at HSH Nordbank, a leading financer of renewable energy projects. “The effect will be to reduce the overall amount of debt finance coming from banks and going to all sectors, including renewables.” Some analysts, however, point out that concerns over climate change and declining fossil fuel reserves have resulted in government stimulus packages that could help project developers overcome the short-term financing drought. “There are certainly concerns about the economy, but I think that renewable energies are going to be a priority because they represent the future,” says Helene Pelosse, director-general of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA). “Countries have to make choices and, since energy resources are limited, then this is the first field where they should invest.” Yet critics have charged that the Copenhagen Accord conspicuously failed to establish the source and mechanisms of this funding – an oversight that could ultimately derail efforts to mobilise financial resources. “Many who were not enthusiastic about the outcome of the conference have considered the talk about funding just a transient one,” Rashid Ahmed bin Fahad, the United Arab Emirates minister for environment and water, said during the World Future Energy Summit in Abu Dhabi last week. “The Accord did not clarify the sources of such funding, how the money is to be distributed and the systems by which these funds operate.” Kilian Baelz, acting director of the Regional Centre for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency (RCREEE), a Cairo-based energy policy think tank, says clean technology is “still high on the agenda” of many Middle East nations, though not all have the same political will or financial means. Oil-rich United Arab Emirates has shown no sign of abandoning its clean energy ambitions, which include the 22 billion dollar carbon-neutral Masdar City project. Other members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and Saudi Arabia) appear to be proceeding with caution. “The small Gulf states have taken a more conservative approach towards lending to renewable energy projects,” says Baelz. “They have seen that their wealth is not guaranteed and that they are vulnerable to developments in the international market.” ### |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on January 6th, 2010 From the latest news coming from Washington – “Under the new airport There may be a Jamaican convert to Islam who preached terrorism in the UK But what about Cuba? Fidel Castro is more atheist then Catholic, surely Mr. President, I watched Bolivia and Venezuela leaders speak in Copenhagen, Please start by taking him of that list! Having said the above – let us get now to the point – MR PRESIDENT - * * * * Please look – I am posting here four reference – links to news New Air Security Checks From 14 Nations to U.S. Draw Criticism In Yemen, U.S. Faces Leader Who Puts Family First Behind Afghan Bombing, an Agent With Many Loyalties Kenya Seeks to Deport Muslim Cleric to Jamaica ———————— THE UPDATE: We have received a comment on this post and it presents a very valid point supposedly made at the UN General Assembly by the Foreign Minister of Cuba: “I mean if they were going to include us, then they should have at least thrown in North Korea.” Even if the e-mail we received from ajay - akazif at gmail.com as presented by www. eggplantpost.com in http://eggplantpost.com/2010/01/05/cuba-… were a made up story, the argument holds water nevertheless. DID THE US INCLUDE CUBA ON THAT LIST BECAUSE IT WANTED TO AVOID BEING SEEN AS GOING AFTER A RAG-TAG OF ISLANIC COUNTRIES? Now, we believe that US security should be spoken here – not again US appeasement-for-oil please! ### |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on August 9th, 2009 NEW YORK TIMES OP-ED COLUMNIST Green Shoots in Palestine II By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN Ever since the collapse of the Oslo peace accords in 2000, and the horror-show violence that followed, there has been only one thing to say about the West Bank: Nothing ever changes here, except for the worst. That is just not the case anymore — much to my surprise. For Palestinians, long trapped between burgeoning Israeli settlements and an Israeli occupation army, subject to lawlessness in their own cities and the fecklessness of their own political leadership, life has clearly started to improve a bit, thanks to a new virtuous cycle: improved Palestinian policing that has led to more Palestinian investment and trade that has led to the Israeli Army dismantling more checkpoints in the West Bank that has led to more Palestinian travel and commerce. Because the West Bank today is largely hidden from Israelis by a wall, Israelis are just starting to learn from their own press what is going on there. On July 31, many Israelis were no doubt surprised to read this quote in the Maariv daily from Omar Hashim, deputy chairman of the Chamber of Commerce of Nablus, the commercial center of the West Bank: “Traders here are satisfied,” said Hashim. “Their sales are rising. They feel that life is returning to normal. There is a strong sense of optimism.” Make no mistake: Palestinians still want the Israeli occupation to end, and their own state to emerge, tomorrow. That is not going to happen. But for the first time since Oslo, there is an economic-security dynamic emerging on the ground in the West Bank that has the potential — the potential — to give the post-Yasir Arafat Palestinians another chance to build the sort of self-governing authority, army and economy that are prerequisites for securing their own independent state. A Palestinian peace partner for Israel may be taking shape again. The key to this rebirth was the recruitment, training and deployment of four battalions of new Palestinian National Security Forces — a move spearheaded by President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad of the Palestinian Authority. Trained in Jordan in a program paid for by the U.S., three of these battalions have fanned out since May 2008 and brought order to the major Palestinian towns: Nablus, Jericho, Hebron, Ramallah, Jenin and Bethlehem. These N.S.F. troops, who replaced either Israeli soldiers or Palestinian gangs, have been warmly received by the locals. Recently, N.S.F. forces wiped out a Hamas cell in Qalqilya, and took losses themselves. The death of the Hamas fighters drew nary a peep, but a memorial service for the N.S.F. soldiers killed drew thousands of people. For the first time, I’ve heard top Israeli military officers say these new Palestinian troops are professional and for real. The Israeli Army’s chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, has backed that up by taking down roughly two-thirds of the 41 manned checkpoints Israel set up around the West Bank, many since 2000, to stifle Palestinian suicide bombers. Those checkpoints — where Palestinians often had to wait for two hours to just pass from one city to the next and often could not drive their own cars through but had to go from cab to cab — choked Palestinian commerce. Israel is also again letting Israeli Arabs drive their own cars into the West Bank on Saturdays to shop. “You can feel the movement,” said Olfat Hammad, the associate director of the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, who lives in Nablus and works in Ramallah. “It is not a burden anymore to move around to Ramallah for business meetings and social meetings.” Nablus recently opened its first multiplex, “Cinema City,” as well as a multistory furniture mart designed to cater to Israelis. Ramallah’s real estate prices have skyrocketed. “I have had a 70 percent increase in sales,” Maariv quoted a Nablus shoe store owner as saying. “People are coming from the villages nearby, and from other cities in the West Bank and from Israel.” “Our people need to see we are governing ourselves and are not simply subcontractors for Israeli security,” Prime Minister Fayyad told me. Khalil Shikaki, a leading Palestinian pollster, added that Abbas and Fayyad want “to be seen as building a Palestinian state — not security without a state.” That is why “there has to be political progress alongside the security progress. Without it, it hurts them very much.” America must nurture this virtuous cycle: more money to train credible Palestinian troops, more encouragement for Israel’s risk-taking in eliminating checkpoints, more Palestinian economic growth and quicker negotiations on the contours of a Palestinian state in the West Bank. Hamas and Gaza can join later. Don’t wait for them. If we build it, they will come. ### |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on August 3rd, 2009
Report: Iran Plane that Crashed Was Carrying Arms for Hizbullah – Nir Magal (Ynet News) ### |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on July 29th, 2009 OBAMA BEGINS PRESSURING ARAB LEADERS ON DEAL WITH ISRAEL BY NATHAN GUTTMAN Freezing the expansion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank was once seen as a unilateral Israeli obligation. But the Obama administration is now treating this as part of a package that will require concessions from Arab states as well. An intensified and more public focus on this idea appears to be one of the byproducts of U.S. President Barack Obama’s July 13 pledge to American Jewish communal representatives to address perceptions that he is pressuring only Israel. So far, the Arabs have been resistant. Still, in the wake of Obama’s White House meeting with the Jewish delegation, Israeli, American and Arab leaders have, to varying degrees, shifted their rhetoric in ways that reflect acceptance of a new principle of reciprocity. “The Americans now understand that if they get anything from us on the settlement issue, it will only be in the broader context of some kind of Arab return,” said an Israeli diplomat, echoing other similar comments from Israeli officials recently. The official added that talks between U.S. Mideast envoy George Mitchell and Defense Minister Ehud Barak have focused on components of a two-sided deal that will include both a settlement freeze and reciprocal steps by Arab countries. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton appeared to confirm this in a policy speech two days after Obama’s White House meeting with the Jewish representatives. “Progress toward peace cannot be the responsibility of the United States – or Israel – alone,” Clinton told the Council on Foreign Relations. “Arab states have a responsibility to support the Palestinian Authority with words and deeds, to take steps to improve relations with Israel and to prepare their publics to embrace peace and accept Israel’s place in the region.” A U.S. State Department official told the Forward that steps by the Arab parties were fundamental to Mitchell’s mission. “Special envoy Mitchell continues to engage in constructive conversations with all parties, including Israel, the Palestinians and the Arab states, on steps they could take to help create a climate in which to re-launch negotiations,” he said. At least some Arab parties to the peace process also now appear to accept this. “The price we pay will depend on what kind of a deal we get on the settlement issue,” said an Arab diplomat in response to questions about Israel’s stand. “In return for a symbolic compromise on the settlements, some Arab states will be willing to pay with some symbolic gestures.” But so far, the Obama administration appears stymied in its efforts to obtain a commitment to new concessions toward Israel by Arab states, even in the event of an Israeli commitment – nonexistent up to now, even conditionally – to a settlement freeze. The administration has been frustrated in particular in its quest for flexibility from Saudi Arabia. According to experts and diplomats, tensions between Washington and Riyadh were building even prior to Obama’s meeting with Jewish leaders, as a result of a June 3 meeting between Obama and King Abdullah in the Saudi capital. The meeting ended with a clear disagreement over the issue of Israel. “Why should the king of Saudi Arabia, who is the leader of the Muslim world and the imam of his Muslim community, give something of this nature to the Israelis for free?” asked Jamal Khashoggi, editor-in-chief of the Saudi daily newspaper Al-Watan. “This is a new idea that was probably developed by Israel’s friends in Washington.” Khashoggi said the Saudi monarch believes his 2002 peace initiative, supported by the entire Arab League, already offered concessions and showed the kingdom’s wish for peace. Israel never responded to the Saudi initiative. But in her speech to the Council on Foreign Relations, Clinton said that embracing the 2002 Arab peace plan is not enough, and that concrete initial steps are needed now. The initiative, which Obama has cited as a helpful basis for discussion, commits the Arab world to an official peace agreement with Israel and normalized relations with it if Israel withdraws to its pre-1967 borders, accepts the establishment of a Palestinian state and resolves the issue of Palestinian refugees in accordance with United Nations resolutions. Those U.N. resolutions, however, appear to require the refugees’ return to homes in present-day Israel, constituting one of Israel’s principal objections to the proposal. America’s request for signs of normalization with Israel is now focused on symbolic steps. According to Arab and American diplomatic sources, Washington is now asking for the reopening of commercial interest offices of Oman, Qatar and Morocco in Israel and for permission for Israeli commercial airliners to fly over Gulf states, shortening flights from Israel to East Asia by several hours. Public overtures, such as a handshake with Israeli leaders, or providing tourist visas to Israelis seeking to visit Arab countries, are not on the table now, said an Arab diplomat with close knowledge of the talks. The diplomat stressed that such public gestures are viewed as being at the top of the scale of normalization and therefore will be kept for the final phase of the peace process. “The Arab consensus is that normalization is the last card they have to play,” the diplomat said. Prior to the emerging emphasis on reciprocity, Israel’s obligation to freeze the expansion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank was understood to be an independent requirement of the so-called road map for Middle East peace. The 2002 road map, forged by the Bush administration with international partners, required Israel to “immediately” dismantle settlement outposts that even Israel classifies as unauthorized, and to freeze all settlement activity, including natural growth. The road map also requires the Palestinians to take concrete steps to halt terrorism and violence. But this, too, appears as an independent obligation, untied to any action by Israel. The new Sadat: The most significant sign thus far of Arab willingness to adopt America’s call for normalization has come from the small Gulf kingdom of Bahrain. In a July 16 op-ed published in The Washington Post, Sheikh Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa, the Bahraini crown prince, called on Arab countries to reach out and communicate with Israel. “Essentially, we have not done a good enough job demonstrating to Israelis how our initiative can form part of a peace between equals in a troubled land holy to three great faiths,” Khalifa wrote. He went on to criticize Arabs who wish to perpetuate the Israeli-Palestinian conflict so that Palestinian victims “can be manipulated as proxies.” The Bahraini leader also urged Arabs not to waste more time in waiting for Israelis to take the first step, calling this approach “small-minded.” Samuel Lewis, a former American ambassador to Israel who was directly involved in the Israeli-Egyptian peace talks in the late 1970s, equated Khalifa’s article to peace gestures made by Egyptian president Anwar Sadat before signing the treaty with Israel 30 years ago. “This is exactly the kind of message that an Arab leader gives both to the United States while at the same time aiming at other Arab leaders,” Lewis said in a July 17 conference call organized by Israel Policy Forum. Experts argue that the roots of the disagreement with Saudi Arabia, considered a linchpin for progress, go deeper. Jon Alterman, director of the Middle East program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said the Saudis are disappointed with many aspects of Obama’s policy: His drive for ending America’s dependency on foreign oil, the decision not to appoint a close confidant as ambassador to Saudi Arabia and choosing the route of diplomatic engagement with Iran. “There is a Saudi feeling that this administration does not recognize the importance of Saudi Arabia and does not appreciate them,” Alterman said. ————— further, Daniel Levy, Director, Middle East Task Force, New America Foundation and Senior Fellow, Prospects for Peace Initiative, The Century Foundation, informs us of a recent debate on the Economist’s website. The motion in question was: “This house believes that Barak Obama’s America is now an honest broker between Israel and the Arabs.” The content can be found at: http://www.economist.com/debate/overview… ### |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on July 13th, 2009 Succession Issues Face Key U.S. Middle East Allies. WASHINGTON, Jul 12 (IPS) – Two key U.S. allies in the Arab world, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, are now both facing succession crises that may absorb, or even split, their political elites. This promises a period of political unpredictability ahead in both countries. It may well also complicate Pres. Barack Obama’s Israeli-Arab peace diplomacy, which is based centrally on the role these two large allies – and one smaller one, Jordan – can play in solving inter-Arab problems, reassuring Israelis, and helping to tempt everyone to the peace table. Since January, the head of Egypt’s military intelligence, Lieut.-Gen. Omar Suleiman, has been in charge of three key Middle East mediations. He has been mediating between Israel and the Palestinian movement Hamas over both strengthening the Gaza ceasefire and winning a prisoner exchange between them. He’s also been mediating a chronically elusive reconciliation between Hamas and the other big Palestinian movement, Fatah. Meanwhile, Washington is hoping this year, as always, that Saudi Arabia can buttress U.S. diplomacy with cash and some political leadership. Saudi Arabia has now won the support of all the relevant Arab leaderships, including Hamas’s political bureau, for a key 2002 peace initiative that promises Israel normal political and economic ties in return for a full Israeli withdrawal from lands occupied in 1967 and a fair resolution of Palestinian refugee claims. The Saudi king, Abdullah ibn Abdul-Aziz, will be 85 this August. His longstanding crown prince (and half-brother) Sultan ibn Abdul-Aziz, is 83, and was recently hospitalised for several weeks with suspected cancer. Earlier this year, King Abdullah named his 76-year-old half-brother Naif ibn Abdul-Aziz as “second deputy prime minister”, a position that places him a likely – but not certain -second in line to throne after Sultan. When King Abdul-Aziz ibn Saud, the founder of the modern Saudi state, died in 1953, he left some 37 sons from his 22 wives. Various of these sons have ruled the kingdom in turn since then. Mubarak has led Egypt’s 76 million people since 1981. Throughout those years he has always refused to name a vice-president. The leading military man mentioned for possible next president is none other than Omar Suleiman, the intelligence chief who has been conducting so much of Mubarak’s sensitive Israeli-Palestinian diplomacy. (It also remains possible that the military might throw its weight behind another “insider” candidate, not Suleiman.) The fact that Suleiman has been tasked by Pres. Mubarak with diplomatic jobs that are so important to the broader progress of Washington’s regional peace diplomacy means this diplomacy may well become entangled in any succession struggle that occurs in Cairo. Certainly, though Suleiman has been heading all three of these building-brick negotiations since late January, he has not succeeded in any of them yet. Egypt’s succession struggle is connected to the broader diplomacy in another way, too. Hamas has nearly always been closely aligned with Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood (MB), a broad, nonviolent Islamist movement that is the main challenger to Mubarak’s NDP. Mubarak has never allowed the MB to participate freely in Egypt’s regime-dominated politics, though during a brief and very partial democratic opening in 2005, its candidates won 88 of the 444 elected seats in the Egyptian parliament. If Suleiman succeeds in one or more of his diplomatic tasks, then Hamas would immediately gain much more international legitimacy as a valid participant in the broader peacemaking. Many NDP insiders fear that could reflect well on the MB, too. Ominously enough, the most recent round of reports about Mubarak’s failing health has been accompanied by new arrest campaigns against MB leaders and activists. It is possible that Egypt might see additional political heat during the coming summer months. Jordan is smaller and weaker than Egypt and Saudi Arabia. There at least, the ruling monarch, Abdullah II, has laid to rest – for now – the questions that once swirled around his succession. On Jul. 2 he appointed his son Prince Hussein as crown prince. Prince Hussein is only 15 years old. But since the king is only 47, there is a good chance the crown prince will not be taking over any time soon. (Or perhaps, ever. Back in 1999 when Jordan’s King Hussein died of cancer, in his very last days he revoked the appointment that his brother, Hassan, had held as crown prince since 1965; and he named Abdullah II his successor, instead.) But in Saudi Arabia and Egypt, political succession issues are now taking centre stage. *Helena Cobban is a veteran Middle East analyst and author. She blogs at www.JustWorldNews.org. ————–
North Korea’s supreme leader, Kim Jong Il, is suffering from cancer of the pancreas and is in danger of dying of the disease, South Korean television reported this morning, the latest and most specific in a series of reports on the dictator’s health. The information, which was attributed by Yonhap Television News to unidentified Chinese and South Korean intelligence sources, is consistent with a report in a Japanese newspaper over the weekend that Mr Kim has a “serious pancreatic disorder”, and with television images from North Korea last week, in which he appeared a frail-looking Kim Jong Il, emaciated and slow on his feet. Mr Kim disappeared from public view for three months last year after what intelligence agencies assume was a stroke last August. Since then, judging from television footage of him, his health has declined. The South Korean intelligence agency has reported signs that Mr Kim is paving the way for his youngest son, Kim Jong Un to succeed him; unconfirmed reports have even had the 25-year old visiting Beijing to get to know officials of the closest thing North Korea has to an ally – China. All year, Pyongyang has staged a series of verbal and physical provocations, including the launch of an intercontinental rocket and an underground nuclear test, which suggest that it has abandoned expectations of negotiation with the international community in favour of whipping up nationalist fervour at home. Thee are no obvious signs are that Kim Jong Il is in anything less than complete control, but close examination of recent internal developments leads many Pyongyang-watchers to the conclusion that he is leaning towards military hardliners, and away from the more reform-oriented advisers whom he favoured in the middle of the present decade. ———— For Immediate Release from ETE ON THE UN: This article, by Anne Bayefsky, originally appeared in Forbes.
In Ghana, with a 70% Christian population, he mentioned “good governance” seven times and added direct calls upon his audience to “make change from the bottom up.” He praised “people taking control of their destiny” and pressed “young people” to “hold your leaders accountable.” He made no such calls for action by the people of Arab states–despite the fact that not a single Arab country is “free,” according to the latest Freedom House global survey. Before the Muslim world Obama donned the role of apologist-in-chief. Over and over again his examples of shortfalls in the protection of rights and freedoms were American: the “prison at Guantanamo Bay,” “rules on charitable giving [that] have made it harder for Muslims to fulfill their religious obligation,” impediments to the “choice” of Muslim women to shroud their bodies. Christian Africa was to be treated to no such self-flagellation. In a rare tongue-lashing for Africans from any American president, he chastised: “It’s easy to point fingers and to pin the blame of these problems on others. Yes, a colonial map that made little sense helped to breed conflict … But the West is not responsible for the destruction of the Zimbabwean economy … or wars in which children are enlisted as combatants … tribalism and patronage and nepotism … and … corruption.” He might equally have said to the Arab and Muslim world: “It’s easy to scapegoat Israel and blame your problems on the presence of Jews–albeit on a fraction of 1% of the territory inhabited by the Arab world–but Israel is not responsible for poverty, illiteracy, torture, trafficking, slavery and oppression rampant across your countries.” But he did not. In Ghana he pointed to specific heroes that had exposed human rights abuse, singling out by name a courageous investigative reporter. In Egypt, though journalists and bloggers are routinely threatened, jailed and worse, no such brave soul came to mind. In a Christian African nation he said, “If we are honest, for far too many Africans, conflict is a part of life, as constant as the sun. There are wars over land and wars over resources. And it is still far too easy for those without conscience to manipulate whole communities into fighting among faiths and tribes.” To the Arab and Muslim world he could have said: “Since the day of Israel’s birth Arab and Muslim countries have made conflict with Israel a part of life, warring over land and manipulating whole communities into fighting in the name of Islam to render the area Judenrein.” Instead, he turned on the only democracy in the Middle East and said the presence of Jews on Arab-claimed territory–settlements–is an affront to be “stopped.” It didn’t matter that agreements require ultimate ownership of this territory to be determined by negotiation or that apartheid Palestine is hardly a worthy pursuit. From Ghana he chided Africans: “No person wants to live in a society where the rule of law gives way to the rule of brutality and bribery. That is not democracy, that is tyranny, even if occasionally you sprinkle an election in there. And now is the time for that style of governance to end.” For an Arab and Muslim audience he cooed: “America will defend itself, respectful of the sovereignty of nations and the rule of law. And we will do so in partnership with Muslim communities, which are also threatened.” Ghanaians will likely turn the other cheek, secure enough to take it and even be grateful for the spotlight. But Obama’s double-standard is not a victimless crime. The disparity between the scolding he gave in Ghana and the love-in he held in Cairo illuminates an incoherent and dangerous agenda. In his lofty, but empty, rhetoric in Ghana, Obama promised “we must stand up to inhumanity in our midst,” pledged “a commitment … to sanction and stop” warmongers and embraced the Zimbabwe non-governmental organization that “braved brutal repression to stand up for the principle that a person’s vote is their sacred right.” These are devastating words for Iranians struggling valiantly to keep the hope of democracy alive but forced to bear witness to the contradiction. Betrayed, they have watched the Obama administration pledge to move forward on negotiations with illegally ensconced Iranian thugs–at the very same time their victims are being rounded up, tortured and readied for show-trials in advance of certain execution. On Friday, Obama, and the rest of the G-8 with his blessing, announced that thinking about more sanctions on Iran can wait until September. And then we can expect yet another round of Security Council dickering over minimalist responses to more Iranian stalling tactics–until an Iranian nuclear weapon is inevitable. Though it is 2,202 days since the U.N.’s atomic energy agency first declared that Iran was violating the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, Obama pretends legitimizing those same nuclear-proliferating fascists makes it more likely the clock will stop ticking. Iranians standing up for their allegedly “sacred rights” know Obama has it exactly backwards. Speechifying about “our interconnected world” and “common interests” in Ghana was cold comfort to the voices of Muslim dissidents and Jewish victims deserted in the Obama wilderness. ### |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on July 3rd, 2009 The Japan Times, Saturday, July 4, 2009 Amano signals goal is to fight proliferation By GEORGE JAHN After the agency’s 35-nation board made its decision Thursday, Amano touched on the devastation that U.S. atomic bombs wreaked on his country in pledging to do his utmost to prevent the spread of nuclear arms. ElBaradei saw his agency vaulted into prominence during a high-profile 12-year tenure. North Korea left the nonproliferation fold to develop a nuclear weapons program on his watch, and his agency later launched probes to get to the bottom of suspicions it was trying to make atomic weapons. ElBaradei’s activist approach often rankled Washington, which had a strong preference for Amano, who was viewed by the United States as a technocrat amenable to pursuing a hard line on Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Amano’s allusions to the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki pointed to a deep commitment to nonproliferation. And Japan keenly shares the U.S. concerns about Pyongyang’s nuclear threat. Developing countries supported Amano’s rival, South African Abdul Samad Minty, who was considered ready to challenge the U.S. and the other nuclear powers on issues such as disarmament. They are generally supportive of Iran’s claims to having a right to nuclear power. An initial session in March ended inconclusively, and Thursday’s meeting went down to the wire, with Amano, 62, winning only in the fourth round. That and the fact that Amano barely eked out his victory, just clearing the required two-thirds majority, reflected a continuing divide between the two camps. The divisions have served as an obstacle in one of its key tasks — probing nations suspected of secret, possibly weapons-related, nuclear activities. While Amano was born after the U.S. nuclear strikes that ravaged Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, he alluded to those events in brief comments to reporters, suggesting that as a “national coming from Japan” he would work particularly hard to reduce the threat from atomic arms. Expanding on that theme in recent comments to Austrian daily Die Presse, he said he was “resolute in opposing the spread of nuclear arms because I am from a country that experienced Hiroshima and Nagasaki.” Now his country’s chief delegate to the IAEA, Amano was previously his country’s senior official for disarmament and related issues. Amano will be taking control of the IAEA at a particularly difficult time. Its nuclear investigations of Iran and Syria are both deadlocked, and it has no overview of North Korea, which is forging ahead with its nuclear arms program. ———– Saturday, July 4, 2009 VIENNA (Kyodo) Amano was voted in as first Asian head of IAEA in sixth round of ballots. Yukiya Amano, Japan’s ambassador to the Permanent Mission to the International Organizations in Vienna, was elected the next director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency on Thursday. Yukiya Amano Amano, 62, won against South Africa’s Abdul Samad Minty after six rounds of voting, making him the first IAEA chief from Asia. “For that, the solidarity of all the member states, countries from North and South, from East and West, is absolutely necessary,” he said. Amano also said he will demonstrate Japan’s efforts to promote the peaceful use of nuclear energy. He will take the helm at the nuclear watchdog in December, after formal approval at its annual general meeting in September. Luis Echavarri from Spain dropped out of the voting process after the first round as he garnered the fewest votes. Neither Amano nor Minty could secure enough votes in each of the four following rounds to achieve the necessary two-thirds majority, with Amano falling just one vote short. However, in the sixth round, which was a straight yes and no vote on Amano, he finally managed to get a two-thirds majority, with 23 countries voting in favor and 11 voting against. One of the 35 countries eligible to vote abstained. Amano, who is married and speaks English and French fluently, joined the Foreign Ministry in 1972 and was appointed deputy director of its Disarmament Division in 1982. He held several different positions in the ministry, including director of the Nuclear Energy Division and director general for the Disarmament, Nonproliferation and Science Department, before being appointed to represent Japan at the International Organizations in Vienna in 2005. Japan backing was vital: The government was quick Friday to pledge full support to newly elected International Atomic Energy Agency chief Yukiya Amano, and may also make a financial endowment to the nuclear watchdog. ### |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on June 21st, 2009 With Iran so prominent in the news these days, and with the UN again so low in what concerns its potential for doing any good in matters such as North Korea or Iran, I thought to dig into www.SustainabiliTank.info archives to see what we wrote when the UN General Assembly passed without actual vote, January 26, 2007, the resolution forbidding the denial of the Holocaust which some thought it was a vote of Cain against Ahmadi-Nejad – but was it? In the best case this was a vote of 104 UN member states which leaves out 88 States. Our posting at the time tried to analyze the actual vote for which the UN organization refused to give us country lists – after all too many of the UN officials were not exactly enthused with that effort led by just several of the more advanced US members. Rereading that posting makes for an interesting wake-up call even today. Also of interest, in the President’s the chair at the time at the UN Geneal Assembly sat an Arab Muslim woman -H.E. Sheikha Haya Rasheed Al Khalifa of the Royal Bahrain rulling family. The UN Resolution Against Holocaust Deniers: A Litmus Test To The Integrity Of The UN. Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on January 27th, 2007 ### |
























