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Double Cover [4]: Beyond Ridiculous
Winter Patriot
Despite the apparent confusion and the obvious media spin, the picture that emerged from the early reporting of the Mumbai attacks was a fairly comprehensible one: a picture of a false flag commando raid.
It was a commando raid, as opposed to a suicide bombing or other forms of terrorist attack; surely that much was clear to everybody. There were multiple commandos and multiple targets, and it was obvious that a great deal of knowledge and skill must have gone into the planning.
But it was also clearly a false flag attack, as the multiple simultaneous attempts to pin the blame (or take the responsibility) made no sense, singly or in combination. Even as the shooting was going on, the Indian government was saying the attackers (whoever they were) had come from outside the country. A "terrorist group" calling itself the "Deccan Mujahideen" had claimed responsibility, but no terror expert had ever heard of such a group.
In reality-based situations (of which this is not one!), the analysis of such a horrible crime would begin with the known facts, and it would proceed in a systematic fashion, from the knowns to the unknowns.
Revoking Israel's UN Membership
Snorre Lindquist & Lasse Wilhelmson
The Gaza Strip is now the largest concentration camp in the world. The situation grows steadily more insufferable for the 1.5 million Palestinians who live there. Deliveries of food, medicine and fuel are made difficult or stopped altogether. Child malnutrition is increasing. Water supplies and drainage have ceased to function. Children die for lack of healthcare. Tunnels to Egypt, dug by hand, are the only breathing space. Journalists and diplomats are denied entry. Israel is planning more military efforts. The Palestinians in Gaza are now to be starved into surrender and become an Egyptian problem.
The UN should use the word apartheid in connection with Israel and consider sanctions with the former South Africa serving as a model. Miguel dÉscoto Brockman, president of the UN General Assembly, conveyed this message at a meeting on November 24th 2008 with the UN General Secretary Ban Ki-moon present.
U.N. Assembly Head Hailed for Blasting Israel
Thalif Deen
The president of the General Assembly, Father Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann, dropped a political bombshell last week when he lashed out at Israel for its repressive actions in the occupied territories, including the recent blockade of humanitarian aid to Gaza.
"What is being done to the Palestinian people seems to me to be a version of the hideous policy of apartheid," he told delegates, during a meeting commemorating the "International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People".
A senior U.N. official told IPS: "I cannot remember any Assembly president so publicly vocal in denouncing Israel." D'Escoto damned both the Israelis and the United Nations for the plight of the Palestinians. "And he was on target," the official added.
A PLO of Shame
Khalid Amayreh
öAfter many years of the PLO being dormant, if not clinically dead, Palestinian Authority (PA) leader Mahmoud Abbas is trying to revive the organization in order to use it as a pawn against Hamas.
The conclusion of the Oslo Agreement and subsequent coalescence of the organization into the newly established Palestinian Authority (PA) in 1993 drastically weakened the former, rendering it almost irrelevant.
Some PLO factions, like the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), left the organization in protest against the “treacherous concessions” and the crossing by the Fatah leadership, e.g. Yasser Arafat, of Palestinian national constants.
The Ongoing Nakba and Vanunu
Eileen Fleming
[Occupied east Jerusalem] On November 19, 2008, during the final day of Sabeel's [Arabic for The Way] 7th International Conference: THE NAKBA: MEMORY, REALITY AND BEYOND, Noble Peace Prize Laureate Mairead Maguire inspired nearly 300 internationals to rise up and honour Mordechai Vanunu.
Vanunu has been nominated for the Noble Peace Prize annually since 1986 for his courage and truth telling, by providing the photographic evidence that warned the world that Israel had already manufactured upwards of 200 nuclear warheads in 1985. Israel locked Vanunu up for 18 years, has held him under house arrest since April 2004, yet Israel continues to get away with nuclear ambiguity, has never allowed IAEA inspectors into the Dimona, nor have they signed the NPT.
UN: ISRAEL’S ‘ENORMOUS WEB OF UNLAWFUL PRACTICES’ DEVASTATING PALESTINIAN SOCIETY
UN
Through an “enormous web of unlawful practices” that entailed systematic human rights violations, Israel was causing severe devastation and damage to Palestinian society, the observer for Palestine said today as the Fourth Committee (Special Political and Decolonization) launched its annual discussion of Israeli practices affecting the human rights of Arabs in the occupied territories.
Opening the Fourth Committee’s general debate, she said that despite the Special Committee’s inability to conduct a field mission -- due to lack of cooperation by Israel -- it had nevertheless carried out an objective examination of the critical human rights situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and the Syrian Golan.
For its report, the Special Committee, which was established by the General Assembly in 1968 to investigate Israeli practices affecting Palestinian human rights in the occupied territories, had visited Egypt, Jordan and Syria and heard from 33 witnesses, as well as different Government officials and non-governmental organization representatives on the situation of human rights in the occupied territories.
“Even under the aegis of a peace process, Israel continued to breach all human rights standards,” the observer for Palestine said, referring to the numerous examples provided in the Special Committee’s report of Palestinian civilians being killed, injured, imprisoned, displaced and collectively punished.
OBAMA'S ECONOMIC DREAM TEAM?
Stephen Lendman
Dream on if you believe it, and something must be up if Karl Rove says it. In a November 28 Wall Street Journal op-ed, he called it "a first-rate economic team" while at the same time objecting to possible (not yet announced) stimulus package elements not entirely to be the kinds "conservatives" prefer like tax cuts for the rich. He nonetheless called Obama's team "reassuring" and hopes it will leave a "market-oriented imprint."
Not to worry, as that's what it's there for - the privileged elite and not the other 90% or more who at best will be very stingerly aided, and as economist Michael Hudson points out to let them repay their bank debts.
Gaza: A Bare Life Zone nearing to a no-life-zone
Sameh Akram habeeb
With the last Israeli maneuvers' of tightening the siege imposed on Gaza, more life necessities vanished. The key power plant shut down 25 days ago resulted in tremendous direful outcomes. More than 75% of the Gaza strip faces severe power cuts and some areas completely plunged into darkness.
Power cuts and daily blackouts resulted in hindering of all facilities depending on power. The remaining power shares provided by Israel and Egypt are not enough to cover the whole coastal strip. Pumped fresh water is not reaching all living places, farms and central water wells. Sewage and treatment water machines are halted. Additionally around 77 million liters of sewage water leak into the Mediterranean contaminating it and damaging fish resources on daily basis.
Jews Must Face 'Dark Side' Of Judaism
Henry Makow
Stephen Bloom has a love of justice typical of many liberal American Jews. A journalism professor, he saw the opening of a Kosher meat packer in Postville Iowa in 1987 by Hasidic Jews as an opportunity to study the Jewish-gentile dynamic in microcosm. He discovered more about Judaism and the causes of anti-Semitism than perhaps he wanted to know.
His conclusion is from "Postville: A Clash of Cultures in Heartland America" published in 2000:
"Initially I had gone to Postville to learn from the Hasidim [orthodox Jews], to share with them a sense of identity and belonging. Instead, what the Postville Hasidim ultimately offered me was a glimpse of the dark side of my own faith, a look at Jewish extremists whose behavior not only made the Postville locals wince, but made me wince, too.
I didn't want to partake in Hasidim's vision that called on Jews to unite against the goyim and assimilation. The world, even in Iowa, was too bountiful to base my likes and dislikes solely on religion. The word Hasid ...literally means 'the pious one,' but the Postville Hasidim..were anything but pious. You couldn't become casual friends with them...They required total submission to their schema of right and wrong, Jew vs. Christian -- or you were the enemy." (291) -In other words, if you're a Jew but don't buy their insanity, then you're no better than the goyim.
Justice needs to be served in 2009
Andrew Hughes
We are nearing the end of what could arguably be called a reign of terror instigated by the ruling oligarchy in Washington, sustained by a supine Congress and which resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands. Unilateral War, indiscriminate bombing of civilian areas, torture, detention camps, perversion of Justice and the abrogation of almost every international treaty regarding human rights have been carried out in the name of the "War on Terror". Who's going to prison ?
Most likely nobody. The new administration that takes the reins in January 2009 does not seem to have any desire to rock any boats that might undermine "stability". There will be enough for Obama and his entourage of past supporters of injustice to do once they have gone through the revolving door on Pennsylvania Avenue.
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