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bring rationality to the discussion of US foreign policy as well as
document the threat of Zionist terrorism, subversion, and ethnonational financial warfare
while I finish The Israel Lobby and American Society.
For more info click here or here!
In addition, I am liquidating my extensive comic book collection to support my pro-Palestinian anti-Israel projects. Some go back to the 1960s, but most go back to the 80s when I was working on digital special effects software and script doctoring.
Many like Nexus (optioned by Disney) have relevance to pop culture views of Jews, Palestinians, the Holocaust, terrorism, and Islam. If you have any special interests, let me know at ThorsProvoni@aol.com.
I can be inspired to add blog entries relating comic books, pop culture, and US foreign policy. I am gradually listing all my comic books at Joachim's comic collection.
wa-laqad katabnaa fi-l-zabur min ba`di-l-dhikri anna-l-arda yarithuha `ibadiya-l-salihuna We have decreed in the Psalms, from beside (in addition to) the reminder, that the land shall be inherited by My righteous (pious — salihuna) servants.
The Promise: Peshitta Matthew 5:5
ܛܽܘܒ݂ܰܝܗܽܘܢ ܠܡܰܟ݁ܺܝܟ݂ܶܐ ܕ݁ܗܶܢܽܘܢ ܢܺܐܪܬ݂ܽܘܢ ܠܰܐܪܥܳܐ tubihun limkika dehenun ni'rtun le'ar`a To the meek their happiness as they will inherit the land.
The Promise: Greek New Testament Matthew 5:5
Makarioi hoi praeis hoti autoi kleronomesousin ten gen Fortunate are the humble, because they will themselves inherit the land.
The Promise: Biblia Vulgata Matthew 5:4
Beati mites: quoniam ipsi possidebunt terram. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the land.
But the humble shall inherit the land (i.e. Palestine),and delight themselves in the abundance of peace.
Key Principle
Tip O'Neill said: "All politics is local."
Martillo's globalization extension: "All local politics is global and all global politics is local." (See Mondoweiss comment.)
Acting with justice: Sayings of the Fathers 1:14
[Hillel] was accustomed to say: If I am not for myself, who is for me? And when I am for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?
Ode to Cholent by Heinrich Heine
Holy cholent, dish celestial, Daughter of Elysium: If he'd only tasted cholent, Schiller would have changed his hymn. God devised and God delivered Unto Moses from on high, And commanded us to savor Cholent for eternity.
Heine's Original German from Prinzessin Sabbat
Schalet, schöner Götterfunken, Tochter aus Elysium! Also klänge Schillers Hochlied, Hätt er Schalet je gekostet.
Schalet ist die Himmelspeise, Die der liebe Herrgott selber Einst den Moses kochen lehrte Auf dem Berge Sinai,
Wo der Allerhöchste gleichfalls All die guten Glaubenslehren Und die heil'gen Zehn Gebote Wetterleuchtend offenbarte.
I run a hi-tech company. I am an inventor and created a key technology that makes it extremely hard for governments and mega-corporations to control the Internet (see Routing in a Bridged Network). Americans can probably thank me that they have any access over the Internet to news reports that have not been sanitized by US corporate media.
Because of my business in the Middle East, I have become concerned about US Israel policy and have begun to apply my background in Eastern European and Jewish studies on behalf of pro-Palestinian anti-Israel and anti-Zionist activism.
The men, all but one of whom are U.S. citizens, conspired to wage jihad overseas, according to a federal indictment. The men honed their weapons skills in rural areas of the state, authorities said.
Reporting from Washington -- Federal authorities in North Carolina on Monday arrested seven men who they said had trained with high-powered weapons as part of a terrorist conspiracy to wage an Islamic holy war overseas.
The men -- including a father who, authorities said, trained in jihad camps in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and his two sons -- sought to provide material support to terrorists and to murder, kidnap, maim and injure people overseas, according to a seven-count federal indictment. The indictment did not allege that the group was plotting attacks on U.S. soil.
If convicted, the suspects, all but one of whom are U.S. citizens, could face life in prison.
At least some of the men were willing to die as martyrs, according to the indictment, which described a plot that began in 2006 and lasted until earlier this month. It said that the North Carolina residents had raised donations to support their training and had recruited and radicalized others -- "mostly young Muslims or converts to Islam, to believe . . . the idea that violent jihad was a personal obligation on the part of every good Muslim."
The men also offered weapons training and helped arrange overseas travel and contacts for others seeking to wage holy war, the indictment said.
Two federal law enforcement officials on Monday said the men did not commit any violent acts.
Although the indictment provided few details, it outlined a plan among four of the suspects "to meet up" in Israel, as well as other overseas forays. The conspiracy, according to the government, included other suspects "known and unknown," and its aim was to provide money, training, transportation and personnel to those wanting to fight a holy war against countries friendly to the United States.
David Kris, assistant attorney general for the Justice Department's national security division, singled out Daniel Patrick Boyd for conspiring "to recruit and help young men travel overseas in order to kill."
"These arrests today show there are people living among us, in our communities in North Carolina and around the U.S., that are honing their skills to carry out acts of murder and mayhem," said Owen D. Harris, special agent in charge of the FBI's Charlotte, N.C., division, which led the investigation. The Charlotte division includes Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill, N.C., where authorities say the men conspired.
The indictment alleged that Boyd, 39, traveled to Gaza in March 2006 and attempted to enter farther into the Palestinian territories with one of his two sons.
A year later, the indictment said, Boyd -- who called himself Saifullah, or Sword of God -- his son Zakariya Boyd and two other suspects went to Israel to wage jihad but returned without success. Defendant Ziyad Yaghi, according to the indictment, traveled to Jordan in 2006 to "engage in violent jihad." And Hysen Sherifi, a 24-year-old U.S. legal permanent resident, traveled to his native Kosovo in July 2008 to "wage violent jihad," then returned to North Carolina to raise support for Islamic militants, the indictment said. Daniel Patrick Boyd and the other suspects showed others how to fire Kalashnikov AK-47s and other weapons similar to those used in Afghanistan, authorities said.
Ove r the last two months, Boyd and some of the others honed their weapons skills on private property in rural Caswell County, the indictment said.
The seven men made preliminary court appearances Monday and are due to appear at detention hearings Thursday in federal court in Raleigh. No attorneys for the men were listed in the criminal filings unsealed Monday.
Authorities would not comment on an unidentified associate of the men who the indictment said left the U.S. on Oct. 7, 2008, "to travel to Pakistan to engage in violent jihad."
The indictment unsealed Monday has highlighted the complexities of the U.S. presence in Pakistan and Afghanistan in recent decades. Daniel Patrick Boyd once fought in Afghanistan and trained in guerrilla camps there and in Pakistan, the indictment said.
But, it added, he did so between 1989 and 1992 in an effort to fight the occupation of Afghanistan by the Soviet Union. Washington led and financed that campaign against its Cold War enemy with hundreds of millions of dollars in military and intelligence assistance, training and manpower.
The Associated Press reported that Boyd, a drywall installer in Willow Spring, N.C., and his brother had been convicted of bank robbery in Pakistan in 1991 and of carrying identification showing they belonged to the radical Afghan guerrilla group Hezb-i-Islami.
josh.meyer@latimes. com
===
Conflicting portrait of NC terror suspect emerges By MIKE BAKER Associated Press July 28, 2009 http://freedetainees.org/6458
RALEIGH, N.C. — Daniel Boyd may have spent the past three years traveling to the Middle East, secretly buying guns and training for jihad with a group of aspiring terrorists as federal authorities claim, but people on his cul-de-sac said Tuesday he also made plenty of time to be a good neighbor.
The 39-year-old drywall contractor and his wife were family oriented, always quick to help with gardens and treehouses and raised well-mannered kids, neighbors said a day after the FBI arrested Boyd and six others, accusing the men of planning to kidnap, kill and maim people abroad.
"If he's a terrorist, he's the nicest terrorist I ever met in my life. I don't think he is," said Charles Casale, 46, a neighbor in Willow Spring who recently got pointers on planting vegetables from the Boyds.
Federal investigators said Boyd was the ringleader of a small North Carolina-based terrorist group, involved in three years of nefarious international travel, gun buys and military-style training trips. Authorities claim the group, including an eighth suspect believed to be in Pakistan, were gearing up for a "violent jihad," though prosecutors haven't detailed any specific targets or timeframe.
Prosecutors said Boyd received terrorist training in Pakistan and brought the teachings back to North Carolina, where over the past three years he recruited followers willing to die as martyrs waging jihad — the Arabic word for holy war.
Frustrated by Raleigh-area mosques that were too moderate, Boyd started breaking away this year to hold prayers in his home, prosecutors said. In the last two months, he took two group members to private property in north-central North Carolina to practice military tactics and use weapons.
"It's clear from the indictment that the overt acts in the conspiracy were escalating," U.S. Attorney George E.B. Holding said.
At his home, though, Boyd's neighbors and family defended him. Boyd's wife, Sabrina, vowed that he was part of an "ordinary family" and urged the public not to rush to judgment. Boyd's sons Zakariya, 20, and Dylan, 22, were also named in the indictment.
"We have the right to justice, and we believe that justice will prevail," she said in a statement. "We are decent people who care about other human beings."
A friend and neighbor, 20-year-old Jeremy Kuhn, said the family seemed closer and more loving than any of the other nearby households. "If it turns out they were terrorists, I will be the most shocked person in the world," he said. "I think they have seven innocent people sitting in jail waiting to have their lives ruined."
The other four men arrested range in age from 21 to 33. Only one is not a U.S. citizen, but he is a legal resident.
An attorney who met with one of the defendants, Ziyad Yaghi, 21, said Yaghi was disappointed.
"Our concern is that people are rushing to a judgment and there's no evidence that anyone's been shown," attorney Robert Nunley said. Public defenders assigned to Boyd did not return messages seeking comment, and there were no attorneys for the other men listed in court records. If convicted of providing material support to terrorism and "conspiracy to murder, kidnap, maim and injure persons abroad," the men could face life in prison. They are expected to appear in court Thursday for a detention hearing.
Authorities believe the eighth suspect is currently in Pakistan, according to a law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity. A second law enforcement official, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said the suspect was Jude Kenan Mohammad, 20. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk about the investigation.
Holding said he hoped an arrest was near, but didn't elaborate. Authorities believe Boyd's roots in terrorism run deep. When he was in Pakistan and Afghanistan from 1989 through 1992, he had military-style training in terrorist camps and fought the Soviets, who were ending their occupation of Afghanistan, according to the indictment.
In 1991, Boyd and his brother were convicted of bank robbery in Pakistan. They were also accused of carrying identification showing they belonged to the radical Afghan guerrilla group, Hezb-e-Islami, or Party of Islam. Each was sentenced to have a foot and a hand cut off for the robbery, but the decision was later overturned.
A former CIA official who was stationed in Pakistan at the time said the agency intervened and quickly persuaded the Pakistani intelligence service to help free the Boyd brothers. The former official spoke on the condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak publicly about the incident.
The official didn't believe the Hezb-e-Islami identification cards they had been carrying proved they were jihadists.
The Boyd brothers' wives told The Associated Press in an interview in 1991 that the couples had U.S. roots but Americans were "kafirs" — Arabic for heathens.
It is unclear when Boyd and his family returned to the United States, but in March 2006, Boyd traveled to Gaza and attempted to introduce his son to individuals who also believed that violent jihad was a personal religious obligation, the indictment said. The document did not say which son Boyd took to Gaza.
The indictment said some of the defendants took trips to Jordan, Israel and Pakistan to engage in jihad, but only discussed the results of one of those trips. After traveling to Israel, Boyd and his two sons returned to the United States in July 2007 "having failed in their attempt," according to the documents.
Associated Press writers Devlin Barrett in Washington; Adam Goldman in New York and Alysia Patterson in Willow Spring contributed to this report. Sphere: Related Content
BACKGROUND: There is an historical connection between the Gazan community and the off shore fishery. In recent times some 3000 fishermen in over 700 boats made their livelihood in the waters off the shores of Gaza. Before 1978 when the fishing area included the sea off the Sinai coastline the area covered some 75,000 square kilometers.
The larger boats are about 20 meters in length and usually carry a crew of 7. They are typically trawlers using downriggers to lower their nets to the ocean bed. Currently their main catch is bream or sardines that average between 8 and 14 inches. Smaller craft, hassakas, normally deploy their nets a few hundred meters off shore. The nets are then hauled in by hand. These catches are very modest.
On September 13, 1993 the Oslo Agreement was signed marking the basis for a peaceful accord between Israel and the Palestinians.
The 1994 GAZA-JERICHO AGREEMENT outlined specific steps needed to realize the general provisions of the Oslo Agreement. Under its terms the Gazan fishermen were free to use a marine corridor extending 20 nautical miles from the Gaza shore bounded by restricted zones to the north and south abutting Israeli and Egyptian waters.
Beginning in late 2000 the Israeli military initiated a continuing campaign of intimidation and harassment against fishing boats that ventured near or beyond a 6 nautical mile limit. Their patrol boats attacked and harassed the Gazans on a daily basis. To date the Israelis have killed 15 and wounded over 200 fishermen
Among the warships used were ones in the Dabur and Dvora classes. Their armaments include 20 mm to 30 mm cannons, machine guns, automatic grenade launchers plus high-pressure water cannons. Some have 700-mile ranges and top speeds of 52 knots. Originally they were built in the US but in recent years they are constructed by Israel Aircraft at a plant in the Negev.
No formal notice or explanation of restrictions was ever given to the Palestinians. Instead any regulations have been written and enforced by Israeli machine guns and water cannons. Since the Operation Cast Lead "ceasefire" their attacks have become more aggressive, often occurring within a few hundred yards of the shore. Even Gazans walking on their beaches have been wounded by gunfire intended for the fishing boats. The fishermen continue to be killed, wounded or arrested. Their boats continue to be targeted or impounded. The noose of the siege grows tighter.
WHY? A TIMELINE:
For the first 50 years after Israel's founding the country explored extensively for natural gas or oil deposits with little success. Approximately 400 onshore and 25 offshore mainly exploratory wells were dug during that period. Israel was obliged to import 85 percent of its energy needs by buying coal and petroleum products from Egypt, Russia, Mexico and elsewhere.
- September 13, 1993 - The Oslo Agreement was signed laying the basis for peaceful relations between Israel and the Palestinians.
-May 4, 1994: PLO Chairman Yasser Araft and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin signed The Gaza-Jericho Agreement as part of the subsequent procedures called for in the Oslo Agreement.
Article XI established three Maritime Activity Zones that extended 20 nautical miles out to sea from the coast of Gaza. Two narrow Zones running parallel to the boundaries of Egyptian and Israeli waters were designated No Fishing Areas. Under the terms of the Agreement the larger remaining Zone "will be open for fishing, recreation and economic activities." For the next 6 years the Gazan fishermen operated freely within the Zone with no major confrontations by the Israelis.
In addition the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, Part V, describes an Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) that would grant Gaza control of all seabed assets up to 200 nautical miles from its shore. There is speculation that vast deposits of natural gas are located beyond the 20-mile Maritime Activity Zone. Such a resource would give Gaza the potential of becoming another Dubai in a relatively short period if they were allowed to develop their own deposits.
-1999 -The British Gas Group (BG Group) discovered a vast deposit of natural gas within Gaza's Maritime Activity Zone: Over 1.3 trillion cubic feet equal to 150 million barrels of oil were estimated to be there. Located about 15 miles off the coast, the deposits were named Gaza Marine 1 and 2. It was estimated that there were sufficient reserves to generate electric power for all Palestinian needs for a decade and still have a surplus to export.
- On 11/8/99 Chairman Yasser Arafat signed an agreement giving BG Group 90 percent interest and 10 per cent to Consolidated Contractors Company, an Athens based Palestinian entity connected to the PLO. They and the Palestinian Investment Fund (PIF) had the option to later assume up to 40 per percent interest. A final allocation of the rights continues to be contested between BG Group, Israel, Egypt and the Palestinians in obscured ongoing negotiations.
- July 25, 2000: Yasser Arafat walked out on the Camp David meeting.
-September 27, 2000: Yasser Arafat traveled 19 miles off the Gaza coast to light the first flare stack flowing up from the natural gas deposit. An Israeli oil consortium had contested the Palestinian rights to the gas but was overturned in an Israeli court. Original estimates for development and production expenses were in the area of 2 billion dollars. Profits were estimated at another 2 billion dollars.
In the initial stages BG considered running an underwater pipeline 20 nautical miles from Gaza Marine directly to Gaza where it would be used in retrofitted generators to provide power. Excess gas would be piped to the West Bank or converted to Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) for export to foreign buyers.
This plan was abandoned when Sharon announced that the Israelis would never buy the gas directly from the Palestinians. At that point the BG Group negotiated with Egypt to run an undersea pipeline to a plant at El-Arish. The gas would then be piped to Israel so that they would not have to deal directly with the Palestinians.
Under pressure from Tony Blair BG Group was forced to negotiate with the Israelis instead who wanted the pipe to run directly to Ashqelon. Those discussions were so long and contentious that ultimately the BG Group closed their Israel office and again began dealing with Egypt.
- September 28, 2000: Ariel Sharon visited the Temple Mount despite warnings by Arafat and other leading Palestinians. The predictable riots and deaths following this provocation marked the beginning of 2nd Intafada. As a result Sharon was elected Prime Minister in February 2001. He reaffirmed that Israel would never buy gas from the Palestinians. After the outbreak of the 2nd Intafada the Israelis began an ever-tightening blockade of Gaza with fewer and fewer trucks and no foreign boats allowed to enter.
- Late 2000: Attacks by Israeli patrol boats against Gazan fishing boats began and have continued to this day. These attacks started only after the discovery of the natural gas deposits and 5 years before Hamas freely won the legislative elections on January 25, 2006. It is apparent that these assaults on the fishermen had nothing to do with security or with Hamas. Instead it had everything to do with Israel controlling a 4 billion dollar resource belonging to the Palestinians.
-In the late 1990's Noble Energy, based in Houston, TX, began explorations for natural gas off the Israeli coast in conjunction with Israeli partners Avner Oil and Delek Drilling.
March, 2000: Nobel Energy announced the discovery of the Mari-B natural gas deposit located approximately 15 miles off shore and close to the Gaza Marine Zones. Initial estimates projected reserves exceeding 1 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. In 2003 a platform was completed and gas began flowing through a pipeline to Ashqelon. Until 2009 the Mari-B reserve remained the only sizable reserve found in Israeli territory. Although it was a significant deposit it did not approach meeting Israel's energy needs and was a finite resource.
While there is no hard evidence supporting speculation at this time it appears quite possible for the Israelis to access the gas deposits located in Gaza Marine from the Mari-B platform. Slant drilling techniques now allow bits to reach up to 25,000 feet horizontally from a standing platform. Iraq accused Kuwait of stealing its oil using such a technique before the 1st Gulf War.
October, 2001 - Following the 9/11 attacks the U. S. State Department included both Hamas and Hezbollah on their terrorist list.
- August, 2002: In response to a request from Prime Minister Sharon, the Secretary-General of the United Nations appointed Ms. Catherine Bertini as his Personal Humanitarian Envoy to asses humanitarian needs of the Palestinians. At the end of her visit to the area she made numerous recommendations including one that dealt with the fishing boats. In her report she included a list of "Previous Commitments Made by Israel". Item 2 states: "The fishing zone for Palestinian fishing boats off the Gaza coast is 12 nautical miles. This policy needs to be fully implemented." But it never was!
Despite Bertini's recommendations Israeli attacks became more frequent on fishing boat that passed a 6-mile limit. Most boats carried GPS's in order to know their exact positions. Some captains were intimidated by the Israeli threats and turned back before crossing the "No-Go" line. Others continued to go further out despite the increased danger of attack. The fishery closer to shore has collapsed after so many boats were forced to operate in such a limited area. In addition the waters near shore are polluted due to sewage pouring in from broken pipes. This is one more example of an infrastructure crippled by the Israelis. Before the siege Gaza's fishermen caught 3,000 tons of fish each year. Now it is less than 500 tons.
The most productive fishing months for the Gazans are in the winter and spring. At that time an annual migration of fish traveling from the Nile Delta to Turkish waters pass through the Zone 10 miles and further from shore. The incentive to go beyond the 6-mile limit is very strong.
In addition to firing cannons and machine guns at or near the fishing boats the Israelis periodically introduce noxious chemical substances into the water fired from their boats that leaves a foul odor on any fish or crewmen on deck. It is probable that the chemicals are the same used by the Israelis in crowd control on land. Under the Chemical Weapons Convention of 1997 it is specified "Each state party undertakes not to use riot control agents as a method of warfare."
On occasion the patrol boats have purposely rammed into fishing boats, damaging the vessels and endangering the crew. Numerous times the Israelis have forced fishermen to jump into the water and remain there for up to three hours until they are exhausted and close to hyperthermia.
Periodically the Israelis impound fishing boats and take them and their crews to Ashdod or some other port. The crewmen are generally released after being photographed and interrogated. The boats are held for indefinite periods. Captured fishermen report that the Israelis pressure them to become informers in exchange for the freedom to fish.
9/12/05 - Israel announced that it had ended the occupation of Gaza and withdrew its forces. But it continued to maintain control of air and sea-lanes as well as all border crossings on land. The amount of vehicular traffic remained extremely limited and never approached a typical pre-occupation daily level. The ability for persons to enter or leave Gaza continued to be restricted. Permission or denial for passage was often arbitrary and unpredictable. The conditions of an occupation continue to prevail.
1/25/06 - Hamas won 76 of 132 seats in the Palestinian Legislative Council in an open honest election. After a bloody battle with Fatah elements that were supported by both Israeli and U.S. interests Hamas took control of Gaza. Israel and the United States immediately reiterated that Hamas was a terrorist organization and that they would continue to have no public contact with it. The restrictions at the border crossings were tightened further with even more severe limitations on the admission of produce, materials, medicines and people. Anemia and malnutrition are widespread as a result.
Early June 2008 - Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak instructed the Israel Defense Forces to secretly prepare for an invasion of Gaza, later known as operation "Cast Lead".
June, 2008 -Israel contacted BG Group to propose renewing negotiations over the natural gas deposits. Actual negotiations overseen by Ehud Olmert were taking place in October, 2008. It appears that Israel wished to reach an agreement with BG Group before the secretly planned invasion began.
6/19/08 - Hamas and Israel signed a 6-month truce agreement calling for cessation of rocket firings by Hamas and military incursions by Israel. In May over 300 rockets had been fired. Hamas was lead to believe that significant increase in shipments would be allowed to enter Gaza. Before the truce roughly 70 trucks were allowed to bring provisions into Gaza each day compared with some 900 permitted before the Israeli clamped down in 2000. Hamas was led to believe that a similar flow of traffic would be restored. Instead Israel allowed only an increase from the 70 to 90 trucks.
8/24/08 - Two boats, the Liberty and Free Gaza sailed into Gaza Harbor from Cyprus carrying 44 international supporters of the Palestinians. They were the first vessels to break the Israeli siege in 41 years. The venture had been organized by Free Gaza Movement (freegaza.org).
I was aboard the ship Free Gaza and again on 2 other trips to Gaza aboard the Dignity that was later rammed and badly damaged by an Israeli warship.
10/31 & 11/9/08 - I joined other international observers traveling aboard 3 separate Gazan fishing boats. We went to document events and locations and to hopefully serve as deterrents against attacks by Israeli gunboats. On both days we were harassed by machine gun and cannon fire and explosive charges landing within a few feet of our boat. Several times each day the largest of the three Israeli patrol boats came within 50 feet of our vessel as they raked the deck and cabin with a high pressure water cannon. Any fish, loose equipment or crewmen caught in the torrent were at risk of being washed over the side. All the cabin windows had been previously smashed by such assaults and were now quickly boarded up when the patrol boats approached. An Italian observer with us had been wounded previously by flying glass, requiring a number of stitches in his back.
According to the crew attacks of this sort occurred every day when a fishing boat approached or passed the 6-mile limit imposed by the Israelis. This pattern of attack began in 2000 after the natural gas discovery was made.
11/18/08 - Israeli naval vessels attacked three Palestinian fishing boats located seven miles off the coast of Deir Al Balah, clearly within the limits permitted in the 1994 Gaza-Jericho Agreement. Fifteen Palestinian fishermen and three international observers were kidnapped and taken with the boats to Israel. The fishermen were held for a day and then released. The boats were eventually returned but damaged. The internationals were jailed in Israel for many days and then deported.
11/5/08 - IDF forces killed 6 Palestinians while supposedly searching for a tunnel passing under the border. By continuing to enforce the siege the Israelis had never honored the conditions of the truce. But this incursion by the IDF was such a blatant violation that it effectively terminated even the semblance of a truce.
According to the Israeli Intelligence Heritage Center one rocket had been fired from Gaza in September and 2 in October before the IDF incursion. Israeli spokesman Mark Regev conceded that Hamas had not fired these few rockets.
During the next 5 weeks 237 rockets were fired into Israel. The provoked increase in rocket fire was Israel's public justification for launching the long planned "Cast Lead" invasion despite offers by Hamas to renew the ceasefire.
11/18/08 - An Egyptian court ordered the government to stop shipping natural gas to Israel. Under a 2005 agreement Egypt agreed to deliver 1.7 billion cubic meters of gas to Israel over a 15-year period. The gas began to flow in May, 2008. A lawsuit followed seeking to bar delivery since the Parliament had not given its approval. The court supported the lawsuit and its findings are being appealed. The potential cutoff of the gas from Egypt gave Israel even more incentive to take control of the Gaza Marine deposits and to deny any benefits to Palestinians whether Hamas or Fatah.
12/27/08 - Israel began bombing Gaza as phase 1 of operation "Cast Lead". The Gaza harbor was bombed during the hostilities damaging a number of the fishing boats.
1/18/2009 - Israel declared a ceasefire ending Operation "Cast Lead".
1/24/2009 - A father and his daughter walking on a Gaza beach were wounded by gunfire from Israeli ships shooting at Gazan fishing boats.
2/14/2009 "GAZAN COAST BECOMING A "NO-GO" ZONE
On Saturday 14th February, 2009, 23 year-old Rafiq abu Reala was shot by Israeli naval forces whilst fishing in Gazan territorial waters, approximately two nautical miles out from the port of Gaza city. He was in a simple fishing vessel, not much larger than a rowing boat, with a small outboard engine, known locally as a 'hassaka'. Rafiq, his brother Rajab and another friend were following the course of a shoal of fish. A group of five more hassakas were out at the time, about a kilometre to the west of Rafiq's boat, further out to sea. An Israeli naval gunboat approached the area and began shooting at the other hassakas, which quickly changed course and headed east, back towards shore.
Suddenly Rafiq realised the gunboat was bearing down on their hassaka. As he recounted the events of that day, Rafiq likened the predatory nature of the naval vessel to that of a wolf. It circled their fishing boat and began shooting heavy ammunition in their direction. The three terrified fishermen threw themselves down flat in the bottom of their boat. The Israeli captain ordered them via megaphone to raise their nets and leave the area. At this point the gunboat was less then 20 metres from Rafiq's hassaka. The second time the gunboat came around no attempt was made to communicate with the fishermen. Rafiq was desperately pulling in the nets with his back facing the gunboat. An M-16 assault rifle was fired hitting him twice with explosive 'dum-dum' bullets, which peppered his back with shrapnel from the bullets themselves.
The force of the shots threw him in the water, plunging him down about six or seven metres below the surface. Rajab asked their friend to control the boat while he rescued Rafiq. Being a strong swimmer, he dived in after Rafiq and pulled him out of the water into the hassaka. However, Rafiq was unconscious by this time. The outboard was being slowed down by the weight of the nets so they headed towards another hassaka 300 metres away where they dumped the nets. The fishermen in this vessel had a mobile phone and made an emergency call. The stricken hassaka reached port at the same time as the ambulance arrived and Rafiq was taken to al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza city in a serious condition.
It could take Rafiq months to fully recover yet he has a family to support. He married just six months ago and his wife is now expecting their first baby. After five years of working as a fisherman, he has experienced Israeli naval forces firing warning shots on many occasions but this was the first time he has been directly targeted. However, Rajab survived being shot in the chest by the Israeli navy two and a half years ago. It is sobering to note that 15 Gazan fishermen have been killed by the Israeli navy since 2000. Rafiq described the level shooting on Saturday like an open war. Fishermen were attacked from Wadi Gaza, south of Gaza city, all the way to the north of Gaza. A number of hassakas were targeted that day, some vessels sustaining serious damage from the shooting.
Palestinian fishermen have come under daily assaults from Israeli gunboats since Israel announced a unilateral ceasefire which supposedly came into force on 18th January. Reports of heavy gunfire and even missile fire are now becoming the 'norm'. Rafiq is the third Gazan fisherman to be shot by the Israeli navy during this non-existant ceasefire. On 26th January, Alaa al-Habil was shot in the lower leg whilst trawling less than one nautical mile off the coast of Gaza. On 6th February, Mahmoud al-Nadar was shot in both legs whilst 1.5 nautical miles off the coast of Rafah in the south of the Gaza Strip. Nowadays it is unthinkable for fishermen to venture beyond three nautical miles from the Gazan coast, with many vessels staying just metres from the beach. However, Gazan territorial waters reach 12 nautical miles offshore - indeed, the Oslo Accords grant a fishing zone extending as far as 20 nautical miles.
Israel is attempting to create arbitrary 'no-go' zones in the sea - enforced solely by the gun. They might succeed if it weren't for the resilience of the fishermen. All this is akin to what is happening on land. The Israeli Occupation Force has declared an area of Palestinian land a kilometre in from the Green Line a 'closed military zone', affecting an audacious land grab that threatens to swallow a vast swathe of rich agricultural land all the way along the eastern length of the Gaza strip." 1
-January, 2009 - Noble Energy announced the discovery of a vast deposit of natural gas some 50 miles off the Haifa shoreline. Named Tamar 1 it is estimated to hold 5 trillion cubic feet and be able to produce 50 per cent more than the daily capacity of the old Mari-B site. The stocks of Noble Energy and its partners Delek Group and Avner Oil have soared since the announcement.
-March 30, 2009 - Noble Energy announced the discovery of another major deposit at Dalit, located about 30 miles off shore from Israel. Production estimates have not been released but the two discoveries are considered sufficient to cover Israel's energy needs for many years.
Despite the discovery of the huge Tamar-1 deposit it is not expected to begin delivery until 2014 at the earliest due to its distance from shore and other logistical considerations. As a result Hezi Kugler, director general of Israel's national infrastructure, has instructed state owned Israel Electric Corp. to renew negotiations with BG over the Gaza Marine field which could be operational by 2012. A delegation from IEC was in the UK in February, 2009 for talks with BG. The incentives remain for Israel to guard and control the natural gas deposits under Gazan waters.
-Attacks by Israeli gunboats on the Gazan fishermen continued unabated. Between March, 2009 and early April at least 3 Gazan fishermen have been injured, 24 abducted to Israel and 11 boats confiscated.
- April 12, 2009 - An unmanned fishing boat blew up about 300 yards off the Gaza coast. The IDF claims that it had been booby trapped in an attempt to attack an Israeli patrol boat. They cite this account as justification for their "monitoring" of Gazan boats and for the latest restrictions that limit fishing to a zone within 2 miles of the coast. Palestinian observers on shore claim the vessel was sunk by gunfire from an IDF ship.
Although the violations of law and basic human rights to the Gazan fishermen pale in comparison to the recent horrors that unfolded throughout Gaza during Operation Cast Lead they must not be overlooked. And they must be seen within the context of another attempted theft of a valuable Palestinian resource.
Former IDF chief of staff Moshe Yallon typified Israeli arrogance and indifference when he stated, "The Palestinians must be made to understand in the deepest recesses of their consciousness that they are a defeated people." The resilience and the resourcefulness of the fishermen and of all the people of Gaza in the face of the horrors they have suffered clearly gives the lie to Moshe Yallon's arrogance. They are not victims. They will prevail.
David K. Schermerhorn Deer Harbor, WA 98243 djschermerhorn at aol.com
(Schermerhorn traveled to Gaza 3 times in 2008 aboard boats organized by Free Gaza (freegaza.org).
Guantanamo Bay detainee Binyam Mohamed has arrived back in the UK, claiming that his "torturers" were receiving questions and material from British intelligence agents.
Former detainee Mr Mohamed alleges that he was tortured into falsely confessing to terrorist activities and claims MI5 officers were complicit in his abuse.
In his statement, Mr Mohamed said: "I have to say, more in sadness than in anger, that many have been complicit in my own horrors over the past seven years.
"For myself, the very worst moment came when I realised in Morocco that the people who were torturing me were receiving questions and materials from British intelligence."
Mr Mohamed, a British resident, aged 30, had been held at Guantanamo Bay for more than four years.
An aircraft carrying the 30-year-old landed at RAF Northolt in north west London just after 1pm on Monday.
Concerns had been expressed about Mr Mohamed's health after he recently went on hunger strike, but he was able to walk off the aircraft without needing support.
He was dressed in casual clothes and clutched what appeared to be a document holder as he made his way to the terminal building surrounded by officials.
Ethiopian-born Mr Mohamed lived in London before his arrest in Pakistan in 2002.
He was held at the controversial US military detention centre at Guantanamo Bay on Cuba from September 2004.
The British Government requested his release, and a team of British officials went to Guantanamo Bay recently to check that he was well enough to travel back to the UK.
Foreign Secretary David Miliband said he was pleased the former detainee had returned to the UK.
He said: "This is the direct result of our request for his release and return, and follows intensive negotiations with the US government.
"Mr Mohamed was accompanied by Foreign and Commonwealth Office officials, officers of the Metropolitan Police and the doctor who visited him at Guantanamo Bay last week.
"We have been in touch with Mr Mohamed's family and legal representatives to inform them of his return.
"The UK Government requested the release and return of all former legal UK residents detained at Guantanamo Bay in August 2007.
"In reaching this decision we have paid full consideration to the need to maintain national security and the Government's overriding responsibilities in this regard."
Mr Mohamed will spend the next few days with his family and legal team.
In his statement, he said: "I hope you will understand that, after everything I have been through, I am neither physically nor mentally capable of facing the media on the moment of my arrival back to Britain.
"I have been through an experience that I never thought to encounter in my darkest nightmares.
"Before this ordeal, torture was an abstract word to me. I could never have imagined that I would be its victim.
"It is still difficult for me to believe that I was abducted, hauled from one country to the next, and tortured in medieval ways - all orchestrated by the United States government.
"While I want to recover, and put it all as far in the past as I can, I also know I have an obligation to the people who still remain in those torture chambers.
"My own despair was greatest when I thought that everyone had abandoned me. I have a duty to make sure that nobody else is forgotten."
Speaking about his period of torture in Morocco, Mr Mohamed said: "I have met with British intelligence in Pakistan. I had been open with them. Yet the very people who I had hoped would come to my rescue, I later realised, had allied themselves with my abusers."
He went on: "I am not asking for vengeance, only that the truth should be made known so that nobody in the future should have to endure what I have endured."
Kate Allen, director of Amnesty International UK, called for an independent inquiry into Britain's role in secret detention and rendition programmes.
"We're pleased that we have Binyam back today but it has taken the British Government far too long to be arguing for these men," she said.
Mr Mohamed's UK lawyer, Clive Stafford Smith, said he was "absolutely" convinced of the former detainee's innocence.
"If anyone wants to put him on trial, in the immortal words of George Bush, bring them on," he said.
Gordon Brown declined to say whether Mr Mohamed will face any restrictions on his liberty when he returns to the UK.
Speaking in Southampton, where he is attending a Cabinet "awayday", the Prime Minister said: "What I can say is that at all times the security of the country will be protected.
"Of course, we have got to look at the details of the arrangements, but at all times the security of the British people comes first."
He added: "My first concern is the security of people in this country and we will do everything in our power to protect the security of people in our country and the Home Secretary will take whatever action is necessary."
Mr Mohamed was detained under Port and Border Controls, part of the Terrorism Act 2000, when he arrived in the UK, Scotland Yard said.
A spokesman said he was not arrested.
He added: "The man has been monitored by a forensic medical examiner during the flight to ensure that he is fit to be detained by police.
"He will have access to a solicitor, as is normal practice.
"Police are conducting investigations into his case. Their inquiries are being carried out, as they must be, strictly in accordance with UK law."
===
`I was victim of medieval torture,' says freed Guantanamo detainee
Return of British resident after seven years fuels demands for Government to clarify role of MI5 agents
Binyam Mohamed, 30, a British resident who has been held at Guantanamo Bay formore than four years, steps from a plane at RAF Northolt, west London
The seven-year ordeal of a British resident who claims he was brutally tortured before being sent to Guantanamo Bay was brought to an end last night during an emotional reunion with his family.
Binyam Mohamed's sister, Zuhra Mohamed, said she was "overcome with joy" as she watched her brother shuffle down the steps of the RAF transport plane which had carried him from the notorious US detention camp in Cuba to Northolt airfield, west London.
She said: "When I saw him he looked like he is OK, but he will plainly not be the man I remember all those years ago." Almost as soon as Mr Mohamed had taken his first steps on British soil, the former computer and engineering student made it clear that he had unfinished business with both the US and UK governments. In a carefully worded statement he said he intended to hold to account those he blamed for his alleged rendition, torture and unlawful imprisonment: "I am not asking for vengeance; only that the truth should be made known so that nobody in the future should have to endure what I have endured."
* Binyam Mohamed: `I wish I could say that it is all over, but it is not'
Last night Mr Mohamed's release from US custody reignited calls for the British Government to publish secret documents that would shine further light on the involvement of MI5 agents in his interrogation and alleged torture.
William Hague, the shadow Foreign Secretary, and the Liberal Democrats' foreign affairs spokesman, Ed Davey, joined with human rights groups in calling for the Government to come clean about British complicity in Mr Mohamed's alleged torture. Mr Mohamed, wearing a cream pullover, navy-blue trousers, white trainers and a white cap pulled over the top of his head, was accompanied by Metropolitan Police officers as he shuffled down the steps of the military aircraft steps. Unaided, he was taken to an airport interview room and detained under Port and Border Controls, part of the Terrorism Act 2000.
After further questioning by UK Border Agency officials, who will now consider renewing his British residency status which expired in 2004, he was released without charge.
Family and friends were then granted access to Mr Mohamed, who will spend some time away from the media glare. The 30-year-old Ethiopian national, who came to Britain in 1994, was held in Karachi in 2002 by American and Pakistani secret agents before being allegedly sent to Morocco, where he says he was tortured. He is the first of 250 Guantanamo detainees to be transferred under a review ordered by President Barack Obama. Ms Mohamed, 38, who had flown from America to be reunited with her brother after more than 10 years apart, described last night the family's own ordeal in trying to find out what had happened to him.
Ms Mohamed said in an interview with The Independent that she had been repeatedly told by the US and Pakistani governments that they had no information relating to her brother – whom she had spent three years living with in Ethiopia and then two more years in America.
After he disappeared in 2002, Ms Mohamed and her other brother, Benhur, went to the FBI to ask for help to find him.
She remembers: "They first said, `It looks like he was in the wrong place at the wrong time.' But then they later denied knowing anything about him at all and suggested we contact the Pakistani government. When I spoke to the Pakistani embassy, they said they didn't know where he was either. It was only when the Red Cross contacted us in 2004 that we were aware that Binyam had been taken to Guantanamo Bay. It is now clear that all the time they [the US government] were involved in his interrogation."
Ms Mohamed described both countries' attitudes as "shameful". Behur Mohamed, who came to west London in search of his brother after his disappearance, said yesterday: "It was very disheartening to know that the British had something to do with his suffering."
Mr Hague said it was "high time the UK Government asked the new US administration for permission" to release information relating to Mr Mohamed's case which was withheld by the High Court earlier this month.
Medical treatment: Matters of the mind
*Binyam Mohamed is expected to be referred to the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture, in London, which has helped other Guantanamo detainees deal with the psychological effects of their experiences. Alex Sklan, a clinician who has worked with torture survivors at the foundation for more than 10 years, says it is essential that Mr Mohamed is assessed as soon as possible. "Once out of the media spotlight, Mr Mohamed will need help in addressing the serious long-term consequences of his ordeal," says Mr Sklan. "Long after they are released, survivors of torture can suffer with nightmares related to their ordeal, intrusive thoughts about their torture, outbursts of anger and intense feelings of hopelessness." Sphere: Related Content
"I saw an interesting program on PBS a while back - it was about the Depression and how farmers lined up at auctions, where their neighbors' farms were auctioned off. They wouldn't let outsiders in to the auction and instead forced the price down to a few dollars, which they then got together among themselves and bought the farm being auctioned off. That done, they gave the farm right back to the original owner.
Wonder if that kind of community spirit would rise today?" Hanna
That the question has to be asked is proof enough that this could NEVER happen now. The 'Oakies' of that day had almost nothing physical, but they did have a sense of real community (that is they equally subscribed to fighting both the Fascist-Capitalists and the twisted-Communists), along almost every "ism" of the time. Basically they did not "JOIN" anything because they did not need to, it was one of those freakish moments in history when some common people intuitively understood what was right and what was not. The only garbage they seemed to buy into was that other curse of slavery - formalized religion - and that's what did them in, because they never saw it coming. If they had decoded the Elmer Gantry's as easily as they understood the greed of the bankers and the fascism of the local politicians - they would have survived: but that was not to be.
What killed almost all the 'Oakies' (then) was their failure to gauge the inhumanity of their supposedly fellow human beings. They were given flyers that promised jobs at a decent rate of pay out in 'Cullyfornya' - and as they had plowed their impoverished lands too deep (and consequently lost all the top-soil) to the Dust Bowl: They packed it in: from Missouri , Kansas , Arkansas , Texas and Oklahoma , and headed West, for the paper promise of a whole "new life."
The Oakies took everything they had and piled on to whatever vehicle they could find, along with all their family members (the old included), and began what appeared to be 'a migration' but was in reality just another right-wing reshuffle of the wealth: in which the Oakies became the new immigrants in California - more slave-wage meat to be used and discarded in the fascist machinery of the day. [Immortalized in another early film called Metropolis - that was remade in 1984 - with a fantastic new soundtrack of that year].
The really interesting anomaly about the Oakies is that they were all armed, because side arms and or shotguns were just part of being farmers; so they packed the weapons in with their shovels and hoes and other "tools" when they left for the promised-land. The California Guard saw only the huge numbers of ragged dirty people, and their guns. They could barely understand the hardscrabble language and the determination to survive on the kind of slop what they would not have fed their dogs - but when the cops saw those weapons, the chances of the Oakies to be able to survive completely disappeared. The 1950's film of the Grapes of Wrath was typically another Hollywood re-writing of the actual history - and it was not just a lie but a series of lies to cover-up the true history (yet again), of still another part of their mega-creation called "Manifest Destiny." This was not just crap, it was fetid garbage interlaced with that ever-present razor-wire of self-serving idioms that have worked so well since the Disunited States began this hostile-takeover of a place that was never theirs: This was and is the American-version of Palestine: As it existed several hundred years ago ~ and they were greatly assisted in this theft by the Robber-Baron's own very special-creation ~ the Railroad Barons that "United the Nation" through slave-labor, brutality and raw greed.
The migrations surrounding the Dust Bowl happened shortly after the Slaughter at Wounded-Knee which this "government" has labeled as the end of the 400 year old war against the native population in (north) ' America .' So you see Hanna we have set the example for what the fascist Zionists are doing in Palestine , because they're simply following our example, of what we did to those that owned this land before our forefathers knew this continent even existed. Maybe that's why so many simply chose not to see, not to know the full extent of the Zionists slaughter of the Palestinians in Gaza and throughout the last sixty years?
The point I'm making here is that "we" have not even known what that spirit of individuality, that fire in the mind, of the willingness to work to achieve a better tomorrow is even remotely about. Because long, long ago we sold our souls along with whatever was left of our reputations for even less than a song. . . and now we have no idea of what to do or how to escape this human-tiger-cage that we've made for ourselves.
San Francisco found itself in a similar situation way back when - and their answer to this problem was to get some rope and go down to City Hall where they dragged the mayor and another political thug out of their offices and into the streets where they used the rope and the city's light poles to hang them in broad daylight. Thus was born the political idea (here) of rough and swift political justice, for major corruptions that cheated the public in the name of private profits. Since that time the government and its thugs have done much to discredit this idea as being 'completely beyond the pale' - Because if Vigilantism had caught on; it might have been a lot harder to screw us all with such frequency, and so thoroughly today.
A more recent film has updated this idea: it's called "V is for Vendetta" and while it's a future-illusion based upon a historical set of facts, what it's really about is taking back what actually has supposedly always belonged to all of us.
I wish things were otherwise Hanna, but Americans have lost the mythic idea of living together with anyone but themselves alone. This ' Reaganistic State ' of "ME, MY, & MINE" needs to be totally destroyed, and it looks like it soon shall be: To be replaced, of course, with something much, much worse; the idealized and totally barbaric fascism of the Illuminati and all their blood-sucking friends. It's really kind of fitting that these self-absorbed assholes will be getting the kind of end that they will suffer, of course the SILENT and COWARDLY will also die, along those that tried to stop this shit from taking over everything in sight.
This is what we get for allowing the theft of virtually everything we claimed to call our own, to go unpunished. This is also what happens when all that any society does too AVOID the past like the embrace of death itself - (just as we're doing now) is exactly like what we're allowing the Obamanation to do when they say "look ONLY toward the future" because the past must never be repeated. That's a total oxymoron and should be inscribed upon the tomb of this Republic. It would be except that there will never be a formal burial: because all that there will be, will be buried under miles of rubble. That's what we shall have because we did nothing about the graveyard LBJ created above, way back in 1966.
Many times of course; good people tried to build, to create, some even sought to get beyond compensation, to actually try and live according to some basic set of principles (beyond greed and lust). Some actually thought they could bring those long dead PROMISES, to life ~ but like Barack all most of them did was TALK. Hell some even believed that those ideas on the aging-parchments could be lived amid the stench of this corruption, but these wounds go too deep. They began as paper-cuts by the thousand: but they have remained untreated and for two-hundred years so that the entire body-politic has been covered in the gangrenous stench of its own rotting life.
To answer your question Hanna; "Community Spirit" is something that has clearly been hijacked by the mob that believes that it, and it alone, is entitled to everything that the rest of us have had to earn - ergo - allowing something as idealistic as an actual "Community Spirit" to take root would be anathema to those very SPECIAL*PEOPLE that still run this dump! Sphere: Related Content
[I have been trying to set up a secondary blog for short comments on articles hosted by wordpress, but I have been unsuccessful in getting trackbacks to work. Below is an example.]
draws attention away from subversion of American politics, law, and culture by Israel advocates and the organized Jewish community.
Jewish Zionist political prosecutions in the USA have ruined the lives of thousands of good and honest US citizens or residents: Free Detainees.Org.
Until activists begin demanding the identification of the IDF as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist Entity (SDGTE), Israel advocacy groups, the organized Jewish community and their covert agents operating with the US government will be able to persecute, prosecute and imprison practically anyone that the Zionist plutocracy and intelligentsia do not like: Freeing Innocent Muslims, Prosecuting Zionist Criminals.
Jewish operatives within the pro-Palestinian movement seem to be running a covert (and in some cases unconscious) effort both
to preserve Jewish power and privilege in the USA and also
to cover up Jewish Zionist crimes against Americans
by directing criticism of Zionism and of the State of Israel away from the harm caused by seditious conspiracies crossing the boundary between governmental and non-governmental organizations.
CHICAGO (Reuters) - A scheme directed by an American in Israel in which fake income tax returns were filed on behalf of U.S. prison inmates netted refunds of more than $4 million, prosecutors said on Monday in announcing fraud charges.
Marvin Berkowitz, 62, was arrested on Sunday in Jerusalem by Israeli authorities based on a U.S. indictment charging him with 34 counts of mail and wire fraud and six counts of identity theft. Nine other men, some of them Berkowitz's relatives in the United States and Israel, were also charged.
Beginning in 2003, prosecutors said Berkowitz's conspirators collected from federal courthouses the names and Social Security numbers of federal inmates and submitted 3,300 federal and state income tax returns in their names demanding refunds. The prisoners were unaware of the scheme.
Government checks amounting to more than $4 million were sent to sham businesses and bank accounts in the United States and Israel and cashed, according to the indictment.
(Reporting by Andrew Stern; Editing by Eric Beech)
The House Intelligence panel is launching a wide-ranging inquiry into whether the CIA has lied to Congress, the committee's top Democrat announced on Friday.
"After careful consideration and consultation with the Ranking Minority Member and other members of the Committee, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence will conduct an investigation into possible violations of federal law, including the National Security Act of 1947," Intelligence Committee Chairman Silvestre Reyes (D-Texas) said in a statement.
Reyes said the investigation will "focus on the core issue of how the congressional intelligence committees and Congress are kept fully and currently informed."
Since Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) — then defending how she handled information she received on waterboarding — in May first accused the CIA of regularly misleading Congress, questions about the relationship between the intelligence community and key members of Congress have swirled around the Capitol.
This past weekend, the issue emerged again after news reports that former Vice President Cheney ordered the CIA to keep information from Congress about a secret CIA assassination program.
CIA Director Leon Panetta, having only weeks on the job before he testified to the Intelligence committees that the CIA had misled Congress in the past, recently told those committees that the agency also failed to inform them about the development of the assassination program.
"To this end, the investigation will examine several issues, including the program discussed during Director Panetta's June 24th notification and whether there was any past decision or direction to withhold information from the Committee," Reyes announced.
Rep. Pete Hoekstra (Mich.) the top Intelligence Committee Republican, blasted the plan and accused Democrats of engaging in partisan politics rather than a genuine inquiry.
"Unfortunately, it comes as no surprise that the day after Chairman Reyes and I discussed bipartisan collaboration, the Democrats, likely under pressure to defend Speaker Pelosi, backed away from the effort, instead offering a partisan plan and ignoring our previous discussions," Hoekstra said in a statement. "As a result, they are putting their partisan conclusions ahead of the facts."
"The chairman and I talked about doing a balanced review of congressional notifications, an issue we both agree should be reviewed," Hoekstra continued. "Instead, they announced an investigation of 'violation' of the National Security Act when the current facts clearly do not support such an accusation."
Reyes, though, said he was committed to continuing to work with Hoekstra on the proper framework for the hearings.
"The Ranking Minority Member and I will be working to finalize a framework agreement on these issues, which would set out a common understanding of the purpose and scope of this effort, as well as ensure that the review of these issues will be conducted in a serious, thorough, and bipartisan manner," Reyes said. "While there may be differences of opinion with respect to specific incidents, I believe we agree that the Committee must be kept fully and currently informed of significant intelligence activities as required by law." Sphere: Related Content
India's parliament has been in uproar after it emerged that former president APJ Abdul Kalam was frisked before boarding a flight to the US.
Several MPs have condemned reports that Mr Kalam was made to wait, take off his shoes and undergo a body frisk by the staff of Continental Airlines.
Protocol exempts former presidents and other dignitaries from such searches.
India's civil aviation minister has promised to "look into the matter" and "take action" against the airline.
A spokeswoman for Continental Airlines said the search was a "normal security procedure".
Mr Kalam was president from 2002 to 2007. The incident took place in April as Mr Kalam boarded a Continental Airlines flight to the US.
But this is the first time it has been reported.
'Outrageous'
"It is an issue which puts the whole nation into shame," senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Arun Jaitley said in parliament.
The incident enraged other parliamentarians too.
"This is an act of ill intention and we will not tolerate it at any cost," Janeshwar Mishra of the Samajwadi Party said.
Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel told parliament that airlines are given a list of people who are exempt from security checks at Indian airports.
"This act of frisking the former president... is absolutely unpardonable and beyond the scope of the laws of our country," Mr Patel said.
"We will look into the matter. If the former president has been insulted, we will take action."
But Continental Airlines maintained there was no special treatment for dignitaries.
"There is no special rule for VIPs [very important persons] and VVIPs [very very important persons]. This is the process the airline adheres to," a spokesperson for the carrier said.
The airline's representative told the Press Trust of India (PTI) news agency that Mr Kalam had been "very co-operative" and "happily underwent the entire process".
According to reports, the former president was made to remove his shoes and the contents of his pockets, and a hand-held metal detector was run over his body. Sphere: Related Content
(NaturalNews) Apple blossoms are beautiful to look at and have a lovely fragrance. It's easy to believe that the fruit they create is good for you. According to legend, people have been eating apples since the Garden of Eden, but that belief didn't take hold until Hugo Van der Goes painted "The Fall of Man" in 1470 C.E. The fruit he chose to paint was the apple, which has never deserved such publicity. Apples are actually members of the rose family, which makes them related to strawberries, and they are delicious and offer many health benefits.
Apple trees originated in Eastern Europe and southwestern Asia. The Vikings believed in a magic apple that offered infinite youth. In the 1800s, Johnny Appleseed whose name was actually John Chapman, really did travel throughout the Midwestern states planting apple trees. His amazing efforts started the billion dollar apple industry we know today.
Apples are available year-round, thanks to shared harvest of the world. In the Southern hemisphere apples are in season when they are not in the Northern Hemisphere, and vice versa. This fruit, considered so ordinary by many people that it is almost forgettable, is one of the few world-wide import/export foods.
Apples are most healthful when eaten raw, with the peel. More than one-quarter of the best nutrients and fiber are contained in the peel. If you don't want to worry about chemicals, use only certified organic apples. They have not been irradiated and come from trees not treated with pesticides. For best results, choose apples that are fully ripe, store in the refrigerator and eat three or more times a week.
There are approximately 7500 varieties of apples in the world. The Red Delicious, one of about 2500 apple varieties grown in the United States, is the American favorite. Apples that have a tart, tangy-sweet flavor are becoming more popular, such as Granny Smith, Honey Crisp and Gala. The only apple that is actually native to North America is the crab apple, sometimes used for jellies, but often considered a nuisance fruit.
Research has shown that regular ingestion of fresh, raw apples reduces the risk of lung cancer. A study of 10,000 people over an unknown period of time demonstrated that lung cancer can be reduced by as much as 50 per cent. Interestingly enough, apples can also be of great benefit to those who are trying to stop smoking. The pectin in a fresh, raw apple contains chemicals that fool the body into thinking it is getting a dose of nicotine. Rats that ate the equivalent of three apples daily reduced their risk of breast cancer by 39%. In another study, rats fed an apple skin extract had a forty-three per cent lower risk of colon cancer and in yet another study, rats had a 57 per cent lower risk of liver cancer.
Natural, raw apple juice, the cloudy kind, is a great way to get most of the benefits of apples. The cloudiness is from the actual apple pulp. Be aware that juice loses about 90 per cent of the phytonutrients that raw apples contain.
The primary protective substances in apples are galacturonic acid, naringin, pectin and quercetin. Quercetin is contained in the skin and is believed by neuro-researchers to protect the brain from Alzheimer's disease. Pectin and naringin have been proven to lower LDL, the bad cholesterol. In one study, people who ate two apples daily lowered their LDL by as much as sixteen per cent. Galacturonic acid is used by the body to lower the need for insulin. Apples contain a natural flavonoid, phloridzin. This amazing chemical is unique to the apple and is thought to be the reason apples are important to lung health.
Never underestimate the apple. Although it is available almost anywhere, apples are anything but common. They have an amazing combination of nutrients that makes them one of the best things any human can eat.
Sources: Liu RH, Boyer J. Apple phytochemicals and their health benefits. Nutr J. 2004 May 12;3(1):5. 2004. PMID:15140261.
Bazzano LA, He J, Ogden LG, Loria CM, Whelton PK. Dietary fiber intake and reduced risk of coronary heart disease in US men and women: the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey I Epidemiologic Follow-up Study. Arch Intern Med. 2003 Sep 8;163(16):1897-904 2003.
Wood, Rebecca. 1988. The Whole Foods Encyclopedia. Prentice-Hall Press; New York, NY. PMID:15220. Sphere: Related Content
History repeats itself. With the key to her demolished home around her neck, the middle-aged Palestinian woman standing before me had escaped the first Nakba (meaning 'Day of Catastrophe' marking the exodus of Palestinians from their homes with the creation of the State of Israel) of 1948 only to live through the second Nakba; the Nakba of 2009, which was more destructive and deadly than the first.
In order to reach the tent city in Jabalia, we walked down a long road of pure destruction and demolition; destroyed homes, mosques, buildings, bakeries and stores.
I had wanted to see the tent city in Jabalia to take pictures and talk to the residents living there. Undoubtedly, these people were the most affected by Israel's recent offensive as their livelihoods were minimized to nothing more than a 6x8 foot white tent which had no amenities and housed up to fifty persons per tent.
Wherever we looked there was destruction and children; children who had lost the roof over their heads and now stood vulnerable to not only the elements, but also to Israel's continued bombing of border villages. One child walked up and down the road with a piece of rubble tied to a long cord. It was his new toy since his old toys were lost under the ruins of what used to be his home. Men stood around, drinking tea and talking. With the backdrop of mounds of rubble and tents was another man, praying, on a piece of tarp. While the Israelis had taken away everything else of his, they did not take away his God, and to this, he bowed his head in gratitude.
These Palestinians stand under the burning sun day-in and day-out living their lives for no particular purpose. Many of them used to be farmers. Most of them had lost multiple family members. All of them had lost their homes and farms. An older woman sat in the sand swatting flies. We approached her, as we were told by the residents of this tent city that she had lived through both Nakbas – the Nakba of 1948 and the Nakba of 2009.
Born in 1945, Sabha Yousef Mohammad Abed had lived through the first Nakba but had lost her husband and her farm in the second. Sabha had left her home in Brett (sp?) near Jaffa in what is currently considered Israel-proper when the Zionist forces had first come. Her family fled from one village to the next to escape the Zionist forces until she eventually landed in Gaza, in the village of Jabalia, a few months later. After the first Nakba, she lived for a few years in tents but slowly her life improved as the tents changed into block rooms and from block rooms to actual homes and farms. While Sabha was very young during the first Nakba, she remembers the fear and the constant fleeing from one village to the next. She remembers being shot at and losing family members. She remembers the uncertainty of life and the tents and the running sewage. But more so, she remembers building her life block by block from scratch and establishing a home for herself and her family. Sabha lost this home during the first week of Israel's offensive and is now living in a tent with her children.
While Sabha has never experienced complete stability due to ongoing wars and bombardment from Israeli forces and settlers, she had never seen the magnitude of bloodshed and brutal force used against Palestinians as she saw in Israel's recent offensive. Israeli forces began their aerial strikes against Jabalia on the second day of the offensive. Israeli forces bombed homes and civilians indiscriminately as her neighbors tried to flee. Many of those who tried to flee were taken as hostages by Israeli soldiers and many others were killed or fatally injured. Those who were only mildly injured bled to death due to the lack of medical access and the ambulance drivers' inability to drive the less than one kilometer stretch from the headquarters of the Palestinian Red Cross Society to the bombed-out areas.
As Sabha spoke about Israel's recent offensive, she shook in anger. Tell me where are the militants, she kept asking. Are these children militants? Does any human being deserve to live the way we live, fifty people to one tent with no blankets, no food, no water. And where do we defecate? They have even taken away our dignity. We are less than animals in their eyes. Even animals have more rights than us. To Sabha, Israel's objectives were nothing short of genocide. The Zionists fled from a holocaust and created a new one. They want a land with no people, she stated simply. A land without people for a people who have been purged from their land. For Sabha, this was not a war with Hamas, it was a massacre, and its only objective was to eliminate the Palestinians, to wipe them from the face of the earth.
Sabha told us of how the Israeli soldiers entered their village in midday and separated the men from the women. The soldiers' faces were painted black and they shot at the villager's feet. When Sabha saw her sons being taken away as hostages, she left her aging husband and farm behind and hid in the home adjacent to the hostages. The other women were made to march to the city center under the aerial strikes and constant bombing. Those who resisted or turned back were immediately shot. All around the streets were the dead and injured. The area smelled of phosphorus and rotting bodies. Sabha stayed in hiding for many days. During that time, her husband was forced from their farm as Israeli bulldozers demolished the farm and bulldozed the walls of the farm over their goats, sheep, chicken and camels. Sabha's husband, who stood on the street and watched his farm and home being demolished before his eyes, was killed moments later by an Israeli missile. One of the farm's walls fell over his dead body, and his body lay rotting for days.
As Sabha spoke, the entire village surrounded us. Even the children stood around in a circle and added to Sabha's narrative. One girl, about seven or eight years of age, tugged at my sleeve. That was my home over there, she whispered, pointing at rubble. She was in school when the bombing started. Embarrassedly, she admitted that she was so scared during the bombings that she fainted and peed on herself. Her brother was killed as was many of her extended family.
Sabha is not alone in her anger. I have not met one Palestinian in Gaza who was not shocked and angered by the extent of Israel's brutality in the recent offensive. After conducting an interview with one of the delegates, anchorman and filmmaker Ashraf Mashharawi from British Channel 4 spoke with me about his 16 year old cousin, Ahmad, who was sliced in half by what is believed to be a DIME missile. DIME or Dense Inert Metal Explosives produce an unusually powerful blast within a small area and cause strong biological effects. The blast does not cause bleeding, but rather slices a body as smoothly as though the body was amputated. While Israel's use of DIME has not been officially confirmed, it has been unofficially confirmed by weapons experts and doctors who have visited Gaza.
Ahmad along with Ashraf's younger brother, Mahmoud, age 11, were playing on the rooftop when they were targeted by a drone missile. Both Mahmoud and Ahmad were killed on impact and Ahmad was sliced in half. Days later, the bottom portion of Ahmad's body was located a few kilometers from the rooftop that both Mahmoud and Ahmad were playing on. Parts of Ahmad's legs and one of his arms similarly separated from his body and were found on the rooftop by family members.
Having seen pictures of these DIME-caused amputations, I must admit that it is the most horrifying sight one can imagine. One of the doctors at Al Awda Hospital showed me a video on his cell phone of a baby girl who was similarly sliced in half. Her top half was black from the blast and her bottom half was gone, cleanly cut from the waist down as her guts and insides were exposed for the world to see. In the video, when the doctor – who had undoubtedly seen death in all its forms – approached to see her, he fell to the ground and started wailing. I cannot describe the sight of the girl. Even now as I write about it, I feel light-headed and nauseous. No news station, not even Al-Jazeera, agreed to film this girl. Having seen the doctor's video, I can only sympathize.
Today is Israel's elections. Yet for the Palestinians, the question is not who will take over Ehud Olmert's position, but rather, when will be the next Israeli offensive, how many more Palestinians will be killed, and what will the next genocide that will undoubtedly wipe the memory of all Palestinians living in Gaza look like. Before leaving the tent city in Jabalia, I told Sabha that insha'Allah I will come back to see her in better days, in happier days. She laughed and patted my hand. When you come back, she said, you will be lucky to see any Palestinian left alive here. But maybe its better that we are killed, this life has been hard and painful. I have only wanted peace and stability throughout my life, and have gotten neither. Now I have lost hope. I have lived through many wars, yet I have never seen any war like this before. That is why I know that Israel is out to eradicate us. It failed to eliminate us this time, but will not fail next time. That is why I don't think you will come back and find us next time. Alhamdulillah (thanks to God), that is all I can say.
A few years ago I became involved in the conflict over the Roxbury Mosque. In the course of my research I began investigating the ongoing demonization of Islamic finance and Islamic charities, and lately I have become concerned about innocent Arab and Muslim Americans either
Occasionally, the defense will benefit from the presence of the exceptional juror, who realizes that the prosecution is shoveling a lot of crap -- as happened in the first Holy Land Foundation trial.
Unfortunately, depending on chance will neither free a lot of unjustly imprisoned people nor will it save the US from the cancer that is consuming its social, political and legal system.
(5) An oblique approach is required that pushes on the fault line between Neocon scare-mongering and basic American principles.
There is more than enough data on IDF war crimes and crimes against humanity to press on Stuart Levey for the designation of the IDF as a terrorist organization. With such a declaration organizations like Friends of the IDF and individuals like Irving I. Moskowitz become prosecutable under the anti-terrorism laws. As a consequence, the organized Jewish community will suddenly realize how unjust the terrorism prosecutions have been and use its political clout to make sure the Supreme Court declares unconstitutional those terrorism laws that could be used against Zionist and Jewish organizations or their supporters.
The mere fact that the IDF has not been declared a terrorist organization suggests a 14th Amendment violation. While there is some question about whether a state organization can be designated as a global terrorist entity, the US government blew away that issue when it designated the Iranian Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization.
(6) Once a wide-spread pattern of 14th Amendment violations can be demonstrated, pursuing class action and petition for writ of certiorari on behalf of unjustly imprisoned Muslim or Arab Americans might have some chance of success.
(7) Because the USA was at war when these wrongful prosecutions took place and when US officials refrained from applying the law equally to Zionist and Jewish groups, the government-private sector collaboration that prevented the enforcement of US law may in fact constitute seditious conspiracy for which people like Stuart Levey, Matthew Levitt, Daniel Pipes, Dennis Ross, Rachel Ehrenfeld, et al. are prosecutable.
UPDATE
I spoke with a lawyer active in the movement to free detainees, and he doubted that US courts would accept a 14th Amendment challenge to how anti-terrorism laws are enforced because of the tradition of deference to the US government in matters of foreign policy.
I admit it is a tricky issue. There are four arguments to dispose of the issue.
[Hypothetical subsitution of victims 1930s Germany for victims of contemporary Israel] Suppose Roosevelt had concluded that the USSR was greater threat to the USA than Nazi Germany and assisted the German offensive from the West with a US attack from East. It is inconceivable that the US court system would have permitted a suspension of the 14th Amendment and other Constitutional provisions with regard to Jewish US citizens and residents in order to please official or unofficial Nazi allies in the hypothetical War Against Communism. In the case of the US War against Terrorism (S.J. Res. 23/Public Law 107-40: Joint resolution to authorize the use of United States Armed Forces against those responsible for the recent attacks launched against the United States [authorizing the 2001 war in Afghanistan] and H.J. Res. 114/Public Law 107-243: Joint resolution to authorize the use of United States Armed Forces against Iraq [authorizing the 2003 war in Iraq]), it is equally inconceivable that the US Court system would permit a suspension of the 14th Amendment and other Constitutional provisions with regard to Arab or Muslim US citizens and residents in order to please official or unofficial Zionist allies in the War against Terrorism.
[Clear policy decoupling separating War on Terror in Iraq and Afghanistan from policing of finance, charities, and actors in conflicts outside of Iraq and Afghanistan] President George W. Bush frequently stated that the War on Terrorism was not a war against Islam. The US government identified Tamil Tiger support organizations as Specially Designated Global Terrorist Entities (SDGTEs): Executive Order 13224 blocking Terrorist Property and a summary of the Terrorism Sanctions Regulations. The US government has also identified the Mujahideen-e Khalq and its support organizations as SDGTEs
even though these groups support the goal of regime change in Teheran as does the USA and
Furthermore, as a matter of policy neither is the USA at war with Bosnian, Chechen or Palestinian Muslims nor has Congress organized wars against these Muslim populations; yet the US government has added charities and organizations supporting Bosnian, Chechen, and Palestinian Muslims to the list of SDGTEs. In addition, under the relevant decisions and precedents of post-WW2 Nuremberg Law and the International Convention for the Punishment and Prevention of Genocide, there are no grounds to consider any Bosnian, Chechen, or Palestinian organizations to be engaged in terrorist activities while the same precedents and international agreements to which the USA is a signatory clearly indicate that the IDF is routinely engaged in terrorism. A fortiori, whatever policy reasons lead to the identification of Benevolence International Foundation, the Holy Land Foundation, and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard as SDGTEs apply likewise to the Israeli Defense Forces and to charities like the Friends of the Israeli Defense Forces. Thus by US policy, which separates terrorist designation from issues of alliance or congruence of strategic objectives, Stuart Levey must so designate these Zionist organizations, and there is no policy grounds for US courts to refrain from addressing the 14th Amendment and other Constitutional violations associated with the unequal treatment of Muslim and Jewish Zionist organizations under US anti-terrorism laws.
[Purely domistic discriminatory political considerations meant to bolster the Republican Party] Vigorous Bush administration prosecution of Cuban-Venezualan terrorist Luis Clemente Faustino Posada Carrileswould have proven bona fides in the punishment of all terrorists but would have cost political capital among right-wing Cuban Americans. The Bush administration may simply have refrained from applying the anti-terrorism laws in ways that might have cost domestic political support among wealthy Cubans or Zionists, but such behavior on the part of the Treasury or DOJ can hardly withstand challenge on 14th Amendment grounds.
[Low and middle level policy subversion/seditious conspiracy intended to transform the War on Terrorism directed at the USA into the War against Israel's enemies despite the ultimate cost to the USA] Zionist groups and individuals have been attempting to convince the US government of the global Islamic threat since the Iranian Revolution of 1978: Saudia in the Gun Sights. While Zionist subversives had some limited success with the conviction of Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman after FBI entrapment, the conspiracy accelerated its efforts to construct a world-wide Islamist conspiracy in which Palestinian resistance to Zionist oppression was a major component.
For example, al-Qa`ida means the Foundation. Usama bin-Ladin is supposed to have been an aficionado of sci-fi when he younger. Al-Qa`ida in the case of Arab Jihadism is the title of a book by Abdullah Azzam and is often translated as The Solid Basis. Even though Zionist propaganda argues despite the facts that al-Qa`ida is a single organization with a unified command structure comes, in reality Arab-Islamic Jihadism is more of movement than an organization, and it is unlikely that Bin-Ladin is the undisputed commander of anything more than a small group. Zionist ideologists like Rachel Ehrenfeld and Matthew Levitt fabricated the connections and the dots to create the fantasies demonstrating that Muslim Banks and charities like Benevolence International Foundation and Holy Land Foundation were under Bin-Ladin's command. Thus American Zionist government officials acting on behalf of Zionist special interest added both
Israeli efforts to eradicate legimate anti-Zionist resistance by Hamas and also
Neocon-orchestrated Ethiopian intervention to thwart attempts to restore order in Somalia
as fronts to the War on Terrorism in Afghanistan and Somalia.
Thus, even though neither the conflict over Palestine nor the violence in Somalia had any connection to the US War against Terrorism in Afghanistan and in Iraq, Zionist subversives in the Federal Government managed to create de facto US support for Israeli genocide against Palestinians. Marginalizing American Muslims and denying them their Constitutional rights has been a major component of the strategy, and this Israel advocacy project preceded 9/11 but greatly accelerated afterward with the creation of organizations like The David Project and with increasing encouragement of the FBI by Zionist agents inside and outside the government to entrap an increasing number of American Muslims in patently ridiculous terrorist plots. (The Yassin Aref case is particularly outrageous.)
Thus, affirming the 14th Amendment protection of Arab and American Muslims against unequal prosecution does not interfere with US foreign policy but, in fact, thwarts Jewish Zionist subversion far more threatening than Jewish communist subversion ever was (if only because Zionists are better funded than the communists ever were).
While discussing Jewish communist subversion is usually considered anti-Semitic discourse, greater access to Soviet archives since the fall of the USSR shows that such subversion was real if not as large a threat as many anti-communists.
Rather than unjustly imprisoning good and loyal Arab and Muslim Americans, the federal government should be purging and arresting disloyal Jewish Zionist subversives engaged in ongoing seditious conspiracy and violation of US anti-terrorism statutes.
I occasionally link to Robin Yassin-Kassab's articles because he presents so much unique material on his blog. Shelina Zahra Janmohamed has just posted a review of a book by Robin as well as an interview of him on her blog:
The Road from Damascus, written by Robin Yassin-Kassab, is set in London, and follows the story of Sami Traifi, a tortured academic who struggles to follow in the footsteps of his brilliant atheist secular Syrian father.
The book opens in Damascus where Sami is visiting distant relatives in order to inspire his academic thesis, but he discovers a dark secret there that ought to shatter the perfect image he has of his father, but which pushes him deeper into crisis. Interwoven into his tale are the struggles of his neurotic but patient and devout mother Nur, his long-suffering and yet extremely balanced and new-to-discovering religion wife Muntaha, as well as his street-wise fundamentalist brother-in-law, and numerous other characters.
It is a dark, disturbing and challenging read. This is not a frivolous by-the-beach book, far from it. You have to be fully engaged intellectually and emotionally with this book. It rattles you in the way intense literature can. At times you feel physically shaken, at others, you marvel at the author's turn of phrase that shimmer jewel-like in the text. At first glance it is a welcome addition to the writings about Muslim experiences, and in particular it offers an insight into a world that is even less familiar to British readers - that of the Arab experience in the UK. It delves into the history and attitudes that have been shaped by the rise of Arab Nationalism and secularism in the region, and the tensions that have been created - rightly or wrongly - between the notion of keeping religion whilst aspiring to modernity. Sami is a secular atheist fundamentalist who cannot comprehend why his wife finds fulfilment and solace in the faith she discovers long after they are married. He is repulsed by his mother who prays and excludes her from his life out of disgust. Yet they are far more centred and content than he is despite the fact he claims moral and intellectual superiority. He spurns them, whilst they shower him in love.
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since Wed, 26 Dec 2007 20:04:17.
