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Afghanistan: Funding both sides
Eric Walberg
Delegates in Shangra-La pledge eternal war in Afghanistan, as the US creates new and very dangerous allies there.
War junkies popped their champagne corks on 7 June to celebrate the 104th month of US military engagement in Afghanistan, America’s longest war in history (Vietnam lasted 103 months). Presumably they toasted the five NATO soldiers killed on 6 June. Troop deaths have skyrocketed this year and NATO forces are continuing to “mow the grass”, killing dozens of “Taliban” every day, and lots of civilians, though no one seems to know just how many of each or how to tell the difference. In any case, what’s the point of questioning numbers provided by those doing the killing?
German Missionary School in Jerusalem displays virulent Islamophobia
by Khalid Amayreh
A nun with a headscarf at the Schmidt Girls School
On 22 May, 2010, the Schmidt Girls School in East Jerusalem flagrantly fired a Palestinian female teacher, Nadera al Nimmari, reportedly for wearing a headscarf.
According to news reports, the school principal and his secretary escorted al-Nimmari to the school’s outer gate, telling her that she could be reinstated only if she removes the headscarf off her head.
Humiliated and emotionally tormented, al-Nimmari left her school, not understanding what was going on.
In Jerusalem itself, the incident has been viewed as an expression of sheer hatred of and fanaticism against Islam by an institution which claims to promote interreligious tolerance.
Israel’s Hasbara Arab agents
By Khalid Amayreh in occupied Palestine
Just as Israel’s barbarianism was being exposed to hundreds of millions of viewers around the world, following the criminal state’s bloody raid on the Gaza Freedom flotilla on 31 May, Abdul Rahman al Rashed was barking from London, blaming Hamas for the persistence of the Israeli or more correctly Israeli-Egyptian blockade of the coastal territory.
This is the same Abdul Rahman al Rashed that only a few years ago claimed that while all Muslims were not terrorists, it was clear that all terrorists were Muslim.
Cowardly Progressives
Joel S. Hirschhorn
After listening to a number of speeches at a national conference of progressives I come to this conclusion: Progressives are more than eager to take credit for electing President Obama and even to complain about the many failures of him and his administration. They overwhelmingly feel that his campaign promises were far, far better than what he has delivered. They are disappointed. They are frustrated. They are sad. But ultimately they are also cowards.
Why do I say this? Because they seem completely incapable of using straightforward language to criticize Obama. They resist saying he has lied to the public, betrayed progressives and sold out to corporate interests. Most importantly, they do not want to openly confess and proclaim that he has been a sham government reformer.
Racist rabbi dead, advocated genocide against Palestinians
From Khalid Amayreh
Mordechai Elyahu, one of Israel’s most racist and fascist-minded rabbis, died Monday, at the age of 81, Israeli sources reported.
A former Chief Rabbi of Israel, Elyahu was a chief mentor for the Gush Emunim settler movement.
However, Elyahu was especially notorious for advocating ethnic cleansing and murdering non-combatants including children if the crimes are politically expedient for Israel.
In 2007, he urged the Israeli army to employ “Nazi methods” against Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip.
BANKS PROFIT FROM NEAR-ZERO INTEREST RATES: ANOTHER REASON FOR STATES TO OWN THEIR OWN BANKS
Ellen Brown
While individuals, businesses and governments suffer from a credit crisis created on Wall Street, the banks responsible for the crisis are tapping into nearly-interest-free credit lines and using the money to speculate or to make commercial loans at much higher rates. By forming their own banks, states too can tap into very low interest rates, and can buffer themselves from another Lehman-style credit collapse.
Keeping interest rates low is considered the first line of defense for central banks bent on easing the credit crisis and getting banks to lend again. The Federal Reserve’s target for the federal funds rate -- the overnight interest rate that banks charge each other – has been kept at a rock-bottom 0% to 0.25% ever since December 2008. A growing number of economists now think it could stay there well into 2011 or even 2012, prompted by fears that a spreading debt crisis in Europe could hurt a budding U.S. recovery.
Dirk van Dijk, writing for the investor website Zacks.com, explains what a good deal this is for the banks:
We must not accept holocaust propaganda in our schools
Commentary by Khalid Amayreh
Some circles within UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Work Agency, have been trying to introduce “the holocaust” into Palestinian school curricula in the Gaza Strip. In so doing, the organization is trying to appease certain Zionist-minded groups in North America, and to a lesser extent in Europe, which have been lambasting the UN body for “conditioning” the Palestinian school system to Arab ideological and political trends.
Needless to say, the rationale behind such calls for introducing the conspicuously controversial and highly-propagandistic subject into the world of Palestinian youngsters has very little to do with any educational merits. But it has every thing to do with a virulent Zionist propensity to brainwash Palestinians, particularly young generations, into accepting or at least understanding Zionism, a hateful fascist political ideology that has much in common with Nazism, both in terms of theory and practice.
Israel falls back on lies
Khaled Amayreh writes in Jerusalem
While its propaganda machine ramped up to full pace following its attack on the Gaza humanitarian convoy, the truth of Israel's brutality is hard to conceal.
The Israeli government has embarked on a disinformation campaign to justify its act of piracy against the ships carrying humanitarian goods to Gazans starving for the fourth successive year under Israel's illegal blockade.
The activists, representing more than 40 nationalities, were bringing humanitarian materials included powdered milk, wheelchairs and a symbolic shipment of cement and other building materials to help Gazans rebuild homes destroyed during Israel's onslaught on the coastal territory more than 18 months ago.
Name in the news: Sheikh Raed Salah
Khaled Amayreh in occupied Jerusalem
Initially reported wounded on the Freedom Flotilla, Sheikh Raed Salah -- a beacon of the struggle against Israeli oppression -- is unharmed.
As an outspoken opponent to the Israeli occupation, especially Jewish attempts to gain a foothold at Islamic holy places in East Jerusalem, Sheikh Raed Salah Mahajneh has been a thorn in Israel's side for many years, for his tireless but peaceful protests against Israeli repression of the Palestinians.
Disturbed by his views and non-violent opposition, the Israeli authorities arrested and imprisoned the 52-year-old Islamic activist a number of times, mostly on frivolous or totally concocted charges such as "endangering the state of Israel," "aiding a terrorist organisation" or "incitement against the state."
United States of Ecocide: Spilling and Consuming Way to Oblivion
Dr. Glen Barry
A great, free nation remains immobilized in the face of ecological collapse
The United States of America is an epic experiment, as despite great accomplishments and numerous imperfections, we share a long history of constantly striving to improve our union. As Americans settle in for Memorial Day to remember veterans of all stripes - from great wars of world defense to more recent military adventurism - it is appropriate to consider what the current Gulf Oil Spill says about the American way of life. Plainly, our addiction to oil and consumption in general threatens to destroy regional and global ecosystems - the water, air, land and oceans -upon which Americans, humanity and all species depend upon for habitat and life.
America is truly exceptional. Yet it is not because of our materially excessive lifestyles, as best demonstrated by our wide girths and ample posteriors. There is more to America than consumption. Our greatness is primarily due to our wavering, imperfect yet unique commitment to freedom and liberty. Over two hundred years ago a just revolution was fought asserting individual liberties from monarchial authoritarianism. The principles of freedom and liberty were a gift to the world. This is what truly has set us apart. And despite two decades of consistent roll-backs in civil and human rights, Americans remain for now free peoples to prosper or expire.
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