James Petras 

On May 24, 2010, the Guardian (U.K.) published a highly confidential document released by the South African government. The 1975 document reveals a secret military agreement signed by Shimon Peres, Israel’s Foreign Minister at the time (and today Israel’s President)  and South Africa’s Defense Minister P. W. Botha. Israel offered to sell the apartheid regime, weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear, chemical and conventional weaponry to destroy and defeat the million person African resistance movement. The Presidents of the Major American Jewish Organization, immediately set in motion the Lying Machine claiming the official minutes of the Israeli nuclear offer and a far reaching agreement on military ties between two apartheid regimes were merely a “conversation” (sic) and that Israel did not “make an offer”.[1] Then without blinking Israel’s apologists went on to contradict themselves by speculating that a nuclear agreement would not have had the approval of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin (Daily Alert May 25, 2010). The documents were discovered by a US academic, Sasha Polakow-Suransky, in South African archives and are published in his book, The Unspoken Alliance: Israel’s Secret Alliance with Apartheid South Africa. Apparently the Israeli’s regime thought the documents were more than a “conversation” because they pressured the post-apartheid South African government not to release them.[2]

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Mary Shaw

The U.S. Congress is moving towards a repeal of the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" (DADT) policy which keeps gay and lesbian service members in the closet lest they be discharged from duty. It's about time.

On May 28, the House passed an annual Pentagon policy provision that "would allow the Defense Department to end the ban 60 days after military leaders receive a report on the ramifications of openly gay and lesbian soldiers and certify that doing so would not disrupt the armed forces," according to the New York Times.

The previous day, the Senate Armed Service Committee had passed the measure, which will go to the full Senate floor soon.

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