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Israel Attacks America

06.22.08 (2:14 am)   [edit]
NEWS YOU WON'T FIND ON CNN Send Page To a Friend Israel Attacks America Insiders and Angry Survivors Speak Out On The Deadly Assault On A U.S. Naval Vessel By Paul Craig Roberts 19/06/08 "Hustler" -- -- -JUNE 8, 1967. On the fourth day of the Six Day War between Israel and Egypt, Syria and Jordan, the USS Liberty was positioned in in­ternational waters off the coast of Egypt. Israeli aircraft had flown over the vessel in the morn­ing and had reported that it was American. In close proximity to the war zone, the Liberty’s crew was reassured by the presence of Israeli aircraft. But at 2:00 p.m., sailors sun­bathing on the deck saw fighter jets approach­ing in attack formation. Red flashes from the wings of the fighters were followed by explosions, blood and death. A beau­tiful afternoon in the eastern Mediterranean suddenly became a nightmare. Who was at­tacking the Liberty and why? The attack on the Liberty was an attack on the United States of America. The Liberty was an intelligence ship. Its purpose was to monitor Soviet and Arab communications in order to warn both Tel Aviv and Washing­ton should the Soviets enter the war on behalf of their Arab allies. The Liberty was armed only with four machine guns to repel boarders. Its request for a destroyer escort had been denied. The assault on the Liberty is well docu­mented. With no warning, the Liberty was attacked by successive waves of unmarked jets deploying cannons, rockets and napalm. The attacking jets jammed all of the U.S. communications frequencies, an indication they knew the Liberty was American. The air assault failed to sink the ship. About 30 minutes into the attack, three torpedo boats appeared. Flying the Star of David, the vessels were not on a rescue mission. They proceeded to attack the Liberty with cannons, machine guns and torpedoes. One torpedo struck the Liberty midship, instantly kill­ing 25 Americans while flooding the lower decks. The Israeli torpedo boats later struck the life rafts the Liberty crew had launched when preparing to abandon ship, sending the message that there would be no survivors. At approximately 3:15 two French-built Israeli helicopters carrying armed troops appeared over the Liberty. Phil Tourney could see their faces only 50 to 60 feet away. He gave them the finger. Surviving crew members are convinced the Israelis were sent to board and kill all survivors. The Israeli jets destroyed the Liberty ’s communication antennas. While under attack, crew members strung lines that permit­ted the ship to send a call for help. Once notified, the Sixth Fleet comman­der ordered the carriers USS America and USS Saratoga to launch fighters to drive off or destroy the attackers. The unencrypted order was picked up by Israel, which immediately called off its attack. The torpedo boats and the hovering helicopters sped away. Tel Aviv quickly notified Washington that it had mis­takenly attacked an American intelligence ship, and the U.S. fighters were recalled. However, a subsequent rescue mission was aborted by direct orders from Washington. The USS Liberty suffered 70% casualties, with 34 killed and at least 171 wounded. Al­though the expensive, then-state-of-the­art vessel was kept afloat by the heroic crew, it later proved unsalvageable and was sold as scrap. Why Didn’t Help Come? No explanation has ever been given by the U.S. government for Defense Secretary Robert McNamara and President Lyndon B. Johnson’s orders for the Sixth Fleet to abort a rescue mission. Lieu­tenant Commander David Lewis of the Liberty told colleagues that Admiral L.R. Geis, com­mander of the Sixth Fleet carrier force, in­formed him that when he challenged McNa­mara’s order to recall the rescue mission, LBJ came on the line and said he didn’t care if the ship sank; he wasn’t going to embarrass an ally. The communications officer handling the transmission has given the same account. Dead in the Water—a 2002 BBC docu­mentary on the Israeli raid—reported that confusion about the attacker’s identity almost resulted in a U.S. assault on Egypt. Richard Parker, at the time this country’s political counselor in Cairo, confirmed in the documentary that he received official communication that an American retaliatory attack on Egypt was imminent. The U.S. government’s official position on the USS Liberty corresponds with Israel’s: The attack was unintentional and a result of Israeli blunders. This is the official position despite the fact that Lyndon B. Johnson’s CIA Director Richard Helms, Secretary of State Dean Rusk, Assistant Secretary of State Lucius Battle and a long list of Naval officers, government officials and Liberty survivors are on record saying the Israeli attack was intentional. According to Helms, Battle and the minutes of a White House meeting, Johnson believed the attack was intentional. Helms says LBJ was furious and complained when the New York Times buried the story on page 29, but that the President finally decided he had to publicly accept Israel’s explanation. “The political pressure was too much,” Helms said. U.S. communications personnel, intelligence analysts and ambassadors all report having read U.S. intercepts of Israeli orders to attack the Liberty. In one intercept an Israeli pilot reports that the Liberty is an American ship and asks for a repeat and clarification of his orders to attack an American ship. An Israeli who identified himself as one of the pilots involved later came to America and met with U.S. Representative Pete McCloskey and Liberty survivors. The airman said he had refused to participate in the attack when he saw that the target was an American ship. He was arrested upon returning to base. The Liberty flew the Stars and Stripes. The ship’s pendant number GTR-5, measured several feet in height on both sides of the bow. On the stern the name of the vessel was clearly denoted in large letters of the Latin alphabet. Mistaking the Liberty for an Egyptian ship, as Israel claims to have done, was impossible. Tattered Flags Show Ferocity of the Attacks: The Israelis claim the Liberty flew no flag, but two U.S. flags full of holes from the attack exist. When the first was shot down, crewmen replaced it. Measuring 13 feet across, this flag—bearing battle scars—is on display at the NSA’s National Cryptologic Museum in Fort Mead, Maryland. Admiral John S. McCain Jr., the father of the current U.S. senator, ordered Admiral Isaac C. Kidd and Captain Ward Boston to hold a court of inquiry and to complete the investigation in only one week. In a signed affidavit, Captain Boston said President Johnson ordered a coverup and that he and Admiral Kidd were prevented from doing a real investigation. Liberty survivors were ordered never to speak to anyone about the incident. Their silence was finally broken in 1980 when Random House published Lieutenant Commander James Ennes Jr.’s book Assault on the Liberty. It is now established fact that the attack on the Liberty was intentional and was covered up by President Johnson and every administration since. There has never been a Congressional investigation, nor have the majority of survivors ever officially testified. Moreover, testimony that conflicted with the coverup was deleted from the official record. Disgusted by the U.S. government’s official stance discounting the survivors’ reports, Admiral Thomas Moorer—retired Chief of Naval Operations and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff—organized and headed a commission to make public the known facts about the attack and coverup. The Moorer Commission also included Admiral Merlin Staring (former Judge Advocate General of the U.S. Navy), Marine Corps General Raymond G. Davis and James Akins (onetime U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia). The commission’s October 22, 2003, report concluded: “That there is compelling evidence that Israel’s attack was a deliberate attempt to destroy an American ship and kill her entire crew. “That fearing conflict with Israel, the White House deliberately prevented the U.S. Navy from coming to the defense of USS Liberty by recalling Sixth Fleet military rescue support while the ship was under attack. “[That] surviving crew members were later threatened with ‘court-martial, imprisonment or worse’ if they exposed the truth; and [the survivors] were abandoned by their own government. “That there has been an official coverup without precedent in American naval history. “That a danger to our national security exists whenever our elected officials are willing to subordinate American interests to those of any foreign nation.” Why did Israel attack the Liberty? Was something supersecret going on that is so damaging, it must be protected at all cost? Some experts believe Tel Aviv decided to sink the Liberty because the ship’s surveillance capability would discover Israel’s impending invasion and capture of Syria’s Golan Heights, an action opposed by Washington. Others believe Israel was concerned the Liberty would discover Israel’s alleged massacre of hundreds of Egyptian POWs, which supposedly happened contemporaneously with the attack on the U.S. ship. Still others believe that Israel intended to blame the attack on Egypt in order to lure America into the war. It is known that the United States was providing Israel with reconnaissance and that there were joint U.S.-Israeli covert operations against the Arabs, undertakings Washington was desperate to keep secret. Survivors with whom I spoke said the attack was the easy part of the experience. The hard part has been living with 40 years of official coverup and betrayal by the U.S. government. One survivor said that he was asked to leave his Baptist church when he spoke about the Liberty, because the minister and fellow churchgoers felt more loyalty to Israel than to a member of the congregation who had served his country. His church’s position was that if our government believed Israel, the survivors should also. Survivor Phil Tourney said that “being forced to live with a coverup is like being raped and no one will believe you.” Survivor Gary Brummett said he “feels like someone who has been locked up for 40 years on a wrongful conviction.” Until the U.S. government acknowledges the truth of the attack, Brummett says the survivors are forced to live with the anger and dismay of being betrayed by the country they served. Survivor Bryce Lockwood has been angry ever since June 8, 1967. The torpedo that killed his shipmates, wrecked his ship and damaged his health had been manufactured in the USA. Survivor Ernie Gallo told me he “has been haunted for four decades” by the knowledge that his commander in chief recalled the U.S. fighters that could have prevented most of the Liberty ’s casualties. Liberty survivors say it is difficult to know which is worse: Israel’s intentional attack on an American ship or the U.S. government’s participation in a conspiracy with Israel to keep the truth from the American people. Every American should be troubled by the fact that the President of the United States and the secretary of defense prevented the U.S. Sixth Fleet from protecting a U.S. Naval vessel and its 297-man crew from foreign attack. They should also be troubled that the President ordered the Navy to determine the attack was unintentional and that the coverup ordered by Lyndon B. Johnson in 1967 remains the official position of the U.S. government. Note: This article is based entirely on documented sources and on interviews with six Liberty survivors, as well as Captain Ward Boston and Bill Knutson, the executive officer of the USS America fighter squadron dispatched on the first aborted rescue mission. For additional information, see USSLiberty.org. Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, an assistant secretary of the U.S. Treasury during the Reagan Administration, is a former associate editor of the Wall Street Journal and coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions

The Incredible Story of Youssef Nada

06.22.08 (2:11 am)   [edit]
NEWS YOU WON'T FIND ON CNN Send Page To a Friend The Incredible Story of Youssef Nada By Silvia Cattori Under the cover of the " war against terror ", the United States and the European Union have granted unlimited powers to secret services and police. Emergency measures which were introduced on a provisional basis in 2001, outside any judiciary control, have become permanent. Since September 2001, at least 80,000 people, mainly Muslim, would have been kidnapped, kept in secret prisons, and tortured by CIA and FBI agents. Hundreds of others have been put on the UN « black list ». That’s what happened to the businessman Youssef Nada, 77 years old, an Italian citizen of Egyptian origin, accused by U.S. President, G.W Bush of financing Al-Qaeda. Two judiciary investigations resulted in a non-suit, but Mr. Nada didn’t get his name deleted from the UN « black list » (*). His assets remain frozen; he is barred from travelling to or transiting in any country. He can’t go outside the tiny enclave of Campione - an Italian enclave inside Swiss territory - where Silvia Cattori went to meet him. 18/07/08 "ICH" -- -Silvia Cattori : Once he knew, in detail, your incredible story, Mr. Dick Marty denounced the injustice which is inflicted on you. He reported on your case, 19th March 2007 to the Council of Europe [1]. Despite his report, you remain on the « black list » of people suspected of assisting terrorism, deprived of freedom because my country continues to uphold the UN sanctions against you. You are living in Italy, yet being kept as hostage by Switzerland?! I want to tell you that many of us are outraged by the martyrdom that Switzerland continues to inflict on you. Youssef Nada : You can’t say that it is “the country, Switzerland”. The citizens are one thing, and politics is another. It is true that, in Switzerland, the people here are tolerant and peaceful, and neutral. Not only is the Government neutral, but the people themselves are neutral. But Mr. Dick Marty proved that he is one of the best Swiss citizens. Really, you feel when you read and hear what he says, that he is a humanitarian. The risk he took when he followed the “Extraordinary Renditions” case [2], nobody took before him. All the politicians know what is going on, but no one has the courage to speak. He was the only one who had the courage. Although I respect all the Swiss people, I respect Mr. Marty more, and not only because of the attitude he had towards me. His courage when he talks about people who are helpless in front of the biggest power is unique. Silvia Cattori : Mr. Marty’s behaviour was exemplary; but unfortunately not the behaviour of the media. You implicate them on your personal website [3]. Does that mean that the journalists are apologists in support of this war? Youssef Nada : Some journalists do have a special agenda, which they just mix up. They take part from me, part from their preconceived ideas, and make their own story. However, most journalists and media are honest. You can’t generalise. There are a lot of honest people within the media, doing their job and looking for the facts and for the interest of the public. Every month, I speak to about 15 to 20 journalists. TV journalists came: two from France, two from England, one from Austria, two from Germany, two from Italy, one from Spain, others from the Middle East and from the Far East. Some of these journalists are very honest. In fact, some of them, even without seeing me, defended my case in a correct way. Silvia Cattori : It must have been a terrible hardship for you. Every day, you were confronted by new accusations, all more unlikely and overwhelming than the last, without being able to answer them! Youssef Nada : In business, we have a lot of surprises. I was in business for about 55 years: naturally, every week, I had a surprise. After many years, I became anti-surprise. I am at the end of my life. For me, what happens now is as important as what could happen tomorrow or the next day. Silvia Cattori : On your website, among those journalists who must have hurt you, you mentioned Guido Olimpio [4], Richard Labévière [5], Sylvain Besson [6]. How do you reproach them in particular? Youssef Nada : Those journalists that you just mentioned may have their own hidden agendas or they may be full of hate. They attacked me with lies. I have explained it on my website. Silvia Cattori : Mr. Sylvain Besson wrote a book in which he makes serious accusations against you. And this book was published after 2005, when all the prosecutors’ files against you were closed for lack of evidence, plus the Swiss Federal Court blamed the Swiss Federal Prosecutor for his actions. Did you meet Mr. Besson? Youssef Nada : I never accepted. He tried. Not only did he try; he came to the door, and rang the bell. I said to him: “I am sorry. I have already said to you on the phone that I shall not receive you”. Silvia Cattori : According to you, why so many journalists were so dead set against you? Was it a mistake? Or had they a special agenda? Youssef Nada : Some have a special agenda, and some might be working as spies for foreign services. I don’t know who is working for whom. But, they definitely made mistakes; definitely they were out of line. There is no doubt that they had a special agenda. I don’t want to elaborate more here, since I have a case against Mr. Guido Olimpio, and the Court is still working on it [7]. There is another big civil case for damages. The Court has accepted that the case will be transferred to the Milan Civil Court. Silvia Cattori : Don’t all these anti-Muslim campaigns have a common root: the war of dispossession that Israel has been waging against its Arab neighbours since 1948? The accusations that Mr. Olimpio made against you in his article of 20th October 1997, where he claimed that you were financing Hamas might well have come from the Israeli secret services? Youssef Nada : When Olimpio wrote this article, he was working in Milan for “Il Corriere della Sera”. In court, he said that he testified, in 1996 if I am not mistaken, in front of the U.S. Congress and at the Treasury department, about terrorism financing, and he included us [the Al-Tawqa bank and Mr. Nada] in it. Silvia Cattori : Thus, one can guess that the baseless accusations of some journalists such as Guido Olimpio and Richard Labévière have been helping develop Islamophobia? Youssef Nada : I don’t know if we should mention only those two names; it is a group of journalists and their accomplices, a spider’s web connected together [8]. I don’t trouble myself looking for them. Actually, I have to defend myself; that’s all. What they are doing, and for whom, is not interesting for me. Definitely, they have a special agenda. Which agenda? I don’t know. I never met them. If I saw them, maybe I could understand something. I don’t consider them very important. It is true that their accusations put some oil on the fire, but they are nothing for me. Silvia Cattori : The aim of those who were campaigning against you, was it not to damage and to compromise, by using information coming from intelligence circles, the influential opponent to President Mubarak that you are? An opponent who belongs to the Muslim Brotherhood who happen to be combated by Mubarak as well as by Israel? They spread the rumour that your bank was “giving money to Hamas” – a political group that Israel qualifies as a “branch of the Muslim Brotherhood”. Was it not a way to give President Bush a pretext to accuse Muslim charities of being linked to terrorism, thereby convincing the European countries to close them down? And, it did happen. Youssef Nada : I’m not going to guess who is behind them . I don’t have the means to examine these questions. Silvia Cattori : The strategy of the United States and Israel is very clear: to maintain an atmosphere of fear about “terrorists”, even if they have to fabricate them, in order for the public to accept the establishment of measures “to fight terrorism” outside of any legal framework. Youssef Nada : What we heard, came from the US administration, not from Israel. Everyone accepted Bush’s comments: “Either you are with me or against me”, from the beginning. Then the followers said: “We are with you”. Silvia Cattori : But, if the European States accepted so easily the establishment of emergency measures was there not a successful propaganda campaign regarding the “Islamist threat” aided by the media, of which you are also a victim? Youssef Nada : That “terrorist threat” is nonsense. In Europe, for example, in the last 30 years, we struggled against Baader - Meinhof, the Brigate Rosse, the ETA, Cosa Nostra, and the IRA. All these terrorist events that happened in Europe, Europe was able to absorb. It didn’t ruin the life of the Europeans. The governments took special measures; they contained them, and absorbed them. And it passed. There has been a wave of crimes - criminals were there, and it’s true that it was organised crime - but the democracy and the States with legal measures were able, through the law, to absorb and to contain them without going outside the law. But, when something happens in the United States - nobody knows even now who was behind the September 11 attacks, maybe Usama Ben Laden, maybe others, I don’t know – then the entire world has to pay the price! Silvia Cattori : In his book entitled “Innocent Victims in the Global War on Terror”, Dr. M. A. Salloomi [9] has documented that the United States and Western countries are freezing the funds of Islamic NGOs, and of Muslim Charity Organisations, under the pretext that they finance terrorism. One understands very clearly, through this study, that one of the aims of Israel and the U.S. was to ban all NGO financial and humanitarian aid to the victims of this "Global War on Terror". These restrictions are part of the war waged by Israel and the United States on various fronts. They attack a country, starve its population, and wait for them to surrender. Today, the Muslim charity organisations in Palestine are penalised by these antiterrorist measures, which hit also Hamas. Their funds are frozen. Youssef Nada : Unfortunately, this is a misunderstanding from the West. If it is true that some of those terrorists happened to be Muslim, that doesn’t mean that they are following Islam. I don’t speak about Hamas; it’s another case. The word “Hamas” is not part of my dictionary. Hamas anyhow is out of the question; I don’t talk about them, absolutely, because I don’t want more problems, and my case is still open. I don’t speak about this movement, because, as you know, one of the main accusations that the US authorities made against me was the one made by Olimpio that we were helping Hamas. The US treasury copied what this journalist falsely said that “the Bank, Al-Taqwa, donated 70 million dollars to Hamas”. First of all, how is that possible, when the capital of the bank was just 50 million dollars? The second thing is that we are regulated, we have an auditor, and the auditor is one of the great three auditors in the world: Deloitte & Touche. They aren’t blind; when they investigate and audit our accounts, they can see everything. Finally, we are presenting all our auditors’ reports to the Central Bank of the Bahamas, they are also not blind. But if we come back to the question of the “terrorists”; those people have nothing to do with Islam; those people, if they are indeed Muslim, well, they took Islam in their hands and twisted it to serve their agenda. As for me, I have been a member of the Muslim Brotherhood since I was 17 years old and will be until I die. This is one thing. But to say what some criminals are doing is accepted by Islam is completely incorrect. We don’t accept it, we condemned them - we aren’t afraid - we face everything, and we are ready to face even death. When we say that we condemn them, that means that we condemn them. And when we say that Islam doesn’t accept that, that means that the Islam, which we know and believe in, doesn’t accept what they do in the name of Islam. Silvia Cattori : When Mr. Olimpio alleged that a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, you, was financing Hamas, it was not yet formally on any kind of “terrorist list” [10]. At the time, Israel’s propaganda was working to de-legitimise it, to try to force international bodies to consider it as “terrorist organisation”. You know what followed. Israel and the United States succeeded to brand Hamas beyond anyone’s expectations. [11] Youssef Nada : When he said that I financed Hamas, he couldn’t prove it. That means that their accusations were false. If it were true, they should have been able to prove it. Let me tell you that I have been prosecuted in two countries, in Switzerland and in Italy. In Switzerland, the investigation of the Swiss prosecutor took from 7th November 2001 until 31st May 2005, when he was forced by the Federal Court to close the file against me. In Italy, the Court also opened a file in November 2001, when Switzerland asked them to storm our house and bank, to raid it, and to take any documents they could find. When Switzerland closed the file, we asked the Italians to close the file as well and they closed it, without interrogating me ever. The Swiss interrogated me about all the “Islamists” everywhere: about my taxes, about my nationality and how I obtained it, about my family, about my fortune; about everything, but they never said to me a single word about Hamas. Because they know that I have nothing to do with it. Silvia Cattori : Unfortunately, the harm is done. The journalists that you have denounced made of you a suspicious person, just because you belong to the Muslim Brotherhood! This is a movement that these self-proclaimed “experts in terrorism” have been trying to say is inspired by an ideology that leads to fanaticism. Youssef Nada : I am honoured to be part of the “Muslim Brotherhood”. I don’t see that it is something wrong. It’s an honour to me. Those who write these things about the “Muslim Brotherhood” are ignorant people who copy and repeat what the tyrant rulers of the Middle East say. Those are people who know nothing about the Muslim Brotherhood. In politics, you’ll find a lot of things. That’s politics. When you add a political aspect to justice, everything will crash. That’s what is happening now. Silvia Cattori : When you read articles trying to show that the Muslim Brotherhood is linked to Hamas, or Al-Qaeda, how do you respond to this kind of nonsense? Youssef Nada : That’s their ignorance showing. Those who try to make that connection are ignorant. The Muslim Brotherhood is a philosophy, not one organisation. Every part of the Muslim Brotherhood, in any country, is completely independent from the others. I’ll give you an example: the Muslim Brotherhood in Morocco is in the government, not in the opposition. It’s not a matter of “branches”. The Muslim Brotherhood is not an organisation; it’s a way of thinking. You can find, in the United States, people thinking the same way, convinced about this way of thinking, so they belong to the Muslim Brotherhood; you can find some in Russia, in China, in Indonesia, and that’s a fact. The CIA says that we are in 70 countries, and this is true. They miss only two, because we are actually in 72 countries. But every Muslim Brotherhood, in any country, is completely independent. No one can influence them. They may be together in their way of thinking, but not together in their actions. Silvia Cattori : Today, the associations assisting the most deprived people in Muslim countries have no more money to distribute, because their funds have been frozen, criminalized. The population of Gaza, deprived from any assistance, is slowly dying. Youssef Nada : Again you come to Palestine and Gaza; this subject I don’t want to talk about it. But when you talk about charity in any other places, charity is always in two parts: personal, and governmental. Governments can stop their aid, but personal charity? Nobody can stop it, because it’s going directly from the wealthy to the poor. Silvia Cattori : Those who attacked you knew what political profit they could make by criminalizing a banker of Egyptian origin who happened to be a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. Spreading the idea that this Arab-Egyptian bank, based in Lugano, was financing terrorists, was that not their main objective? They would make an “example” of you, thus giving them a case for some kind of planetary control? Youssef Nada : But my case ended, my file is closed. No one could ever prove that I was linked to any terrorists or assisted terrorists anywhere in the world. My case is completely closed. In spite of the fact that the enquiries opened against me resulted in no actions, I have no bank account. I don’t have even a credit card. I don’t have money [12]. I can’t go out of Campione. I have to fight, not only to get my name off the black list, but fight for my honour and my name as well. Silvia Cattori : You are innocent, we know that today. But those who attacked you knew perfectly that you were not guilty at the time; I am trying to understand why they chose you as a target? Youssef Nada : If you find out, let me know. Silvia Cattori : Everything was so well organised! It can’t have been by chance? Youssef Nada : It is the so-called “Intelligence”, who did the organising; not some individuals; it came from the States. Silvia Cattori : «One is using terrorism to frighten people and to restrict fundamental freedoms» observed Mr. Dick Marty [13]. The United States and Israel – because your case started in 1997, years before the New-York attacks – needed to block any financing to Muslim charity organisations in order to hit resistance movements such as Hamas, They needed an example, which, amplified worldwide by the media, would prepare the world for future repressive measures. Youssef Nada : But the file is closed. If, as you said, they wanted to make this as a case, it didn’t work. My case is closed. Silvia Cattori : Your case is closed, true; but the Bush administration has succeeded in getting all the antiterrorist laws approved that it wanted. It has established surveillance systems designed for controlling all financing and to cut off most Muslim charity organisations from their financial resources. It has succeeded in destroying you, in preventing you even from traveling, and from enjoying your own assets. Youssef Nada : OK, but there is a difference between whether they succeeded with me, or with the others. With the others, I’m not the advocate, because I don’t know. For me, they succeeded, yes. They succeeded to destroy me completely, yes. But they didn’t prevent me from making charitable contributions; I had no charity organisation. I was a banker not a charity organisation. Originally, I am Egyptian. Egypt is full of poor people, people who are sleeping in the street and in the mud and who don’t have a loaf of bread. And I can assure you that, even when I had money and was assisting poor people, not even one penny went to anyone who is connected to violence, or working with those who were using violence. Silvia Cattori : Since Mr. Sarkozy was elected to the French presidency, he has showered praises on the Egyptian President [14]. In a press conference at the Palais de l’Elysée, in January 2008, he declared: “We must help Mr. Mubarak in Egypt (…) because, what do we want over there, the Muslim Brotherhood?” What does that say to you? Youssef Nada : That he is ignorant; he doesn’t know what is going on there. He doesn’t know who Mubarak is, and he doesn’t know what the Muslim Brotherhood is. He just adopted what other people have said; and that’s exactly what I wrote on my website. He is asking other people to inform him; he is ignorant, and he owes his ignorance from others who are more ignorant than him, who hand him the information so he sounds knowledgeable. Silvia Cattori : But why always stigmatise the Muslim Brotherhood and portray M. Hosni Mubarak as some kind of savior? Youssef Nada : You’ll have to ask them whether they are committed to democracy, or to tyrants and dictatorships. If they are committed to democracy, they will never say that Mubarak is good. If they accept dictatorship, it is clear why they support him. Do you know what happened to me, in April, although I am barred to move from Campione? Mubarak sent me to a special military court [15] with another 40 people, and he said that I financed the Muslim Brotherhood with 1 billion dollars. Can you imagine that? I am here, confined, I can’t go out of Campione, I have no bank account, everything is frozen and controlled because of the UN sanctions, and Mubarak said that I financed the Muslim Brotherhood with one billion dollars! How is it possible to affirm such a thing? The Court rejected the case and said – in the words of the Court – there is no case, and they dismissed it, and asked all 40 people to be released immediately. At the gate of the Court, they arrested the 40 people again and sent them to another Court. The second Court said the same. They re-arrested them three times. After the three times being rejected by the normal Courts, Mubarak decided on a military court; Mr. Mubarak sent civil people to the military court! The military court announced the sentence, which was written by Mubarak. So, if M. Sarkozy said that he is supporting Mubarak, he obviously likes dictatorships. I guess that’s his kind of democracy, that’s his personal opinion about democracy. What can I say? I received the verbal information which was presented to the Court; that came from Security. It is written: “After careful investigation, which took from us a long time, we discovered that Mr. Nada has the Swiss nationality” - which is a lie because I have the Italian, not the Swiss nationality. And secondly it is written: “He came out in Aljazeera attacking the President”. Silvia Cattori : And this is true? Youssef Nada : Yes. Silvia Cattori : It is for your interviews on Aljazeera that Mr. Mubarak considers you an enemy? Youssef Nada : He doesn’t say I’m an “enemy of a dictatorship”, but “enemy of Egypt”. He summarised for all of Egypt, 80 million Egyptian people in one person…himself. Silvia Cattori : Are you well known in Egypt? Youssef Nada : My case in known. Those who are following my case there know that I am innocent. I can hold my head up high and will never back down. Silvia Cattori : The Court didn’t find anything against you, and you are imprisoned here in your house. How do you feel about that injustice? Youssef Nada : I am used to it. Before coming to Europe – I came in 1969, I was 28 years old - I lived 20 years in a dictatorship. I am used to it. If they went against the legal action to put me in a trap here illegally, I am already accustomed to being treated illegally by dictators. The Swiss Federal Court wrote in their decision to the Swiss prosecutor: The accused must know what he is accused with, and you never told him what he is accused with. It could be allowed to take a longer time, because you asked several legal assistants from a lot of other countries. Maybe they were late to give those answers. One year, two years, three years could be accepted but, after that, you aren’t allowed to keep the file open. Either you have evidence against Mr. Nada, and you present it to the Court, or, if you don’t have, close the file. And on 31st May 2005 the Swiss Federal prosecutor declared there was no evidence and closed the file. Silvia Cattori : You are deprived from your freedom but at least, you aren’t like the Egyptian prisoners, tortured!? Youssef Nada : No, I have never been tortured. Mr. Besson claimed that I said that I was tortured. That’s not true; I never said that I had been tortured. I was arrested in Egypt. They just took us and put us in a concentrating camp, without any trial. The only question they asked me was “What is your name, father’s name, mother’s name, what is your address”. And, after two years, they released me, without any reasons. It was repeated here in Switzerland; they confiscated my documents, blocked my account card, my movements, held me under house arrest in 1,6 square kilometers in Campione. Then they closed the investigative file and said that there is no evidence for illegal or wrongdoings; but here I am, still in the same position, as if there is evidence that I am guilty. Where is the law? Where is democracy? Is it democratic Switzerland, the country that is famous for being committed to the law and human rights? If this injustice isn’t rectified, it will be a black point on the clean white history of this great country. Silvia Cattori : You have lost everything because of journalists who linked you to Ben Laden, you and your bank. Do you intend to take a legal action against those people who completely ruined your life? Youssef Nada : It is not the journalists; it was done by much bigger interests than those small people. They just threw some stones at me. The harm was done. My life is short. But I have to fight until I die. I have to fight in the courts to correct the injustice. I have good lawyers. They are assisting me where it is allowed, on condition that, when the court will decide damages, they will take their money owed to them for my defence. For example, in the case where I won in Bellinzona, the Court decided to pay the lawyer; they paid him about 80,000 Swiss francs. I have no money, but I am one of a tribe of about 10,000 persons. They’ll never let me go hungry. They give me food but no money. Silvia Cattori : Mr. Guido Olimpio, who is the origin the untrue accusations which were made against you, did he ever request to forgive him? Youssef Nada : I don’t know whether he is actually the source of the accusations; but, as I told you, my head is up and will never come down. I was used to live under dictatorship, and I consider myself now under dictatorship. Silvia Cattori : And Mr. Labévière, when you were declared not guilty by the Swiss and Italian Courts, did he ever show up to correct what he had said before, or did he disappear? Youssef Nada : He disappeared. For me he is nothing more than a liar and not noble, I have forgotten about him; only when you or others bring up his name do I remember his lies and character. Silvia Cattori : But the way in which some have described you is stupefying! Youssef Nada : It is part of the wave of “Islamophobia”. We have a lot of examples for injustice in history. The Jews confronted it in the past; they were not treated as human beings. They were treated with injustice. And, by time, from down they came up. I believe, for those who treated them like with injustice, that there is a day of justice for what they did to the Jews. Now, if it is happening with the Muslims, the same that what happened with the Jews will come. It is a circle; you don’t know what will come out. Justice is justice. It should be there for everyone, whether they are Jews, Muslims, Christians or others. When I was born, I was born human, not Muslim. After that, I became Muslim. We have a lot of things that bind us together. I share the humanity with all those others who are there. Now, there are some troubles with some Muslims in Europe, and all the concentration is on the behaviour of people of the lower class who are ignorant, poor, helpless, and couldn’t get an education or even bread in their countries, as their corrupt governments robbed all the wealth from them. On the other hand, Europe is full of educated Muslims in every part of society and professions, wealthy and middle class engineers, doctors, lawyers, businessmen, bankers, professors, etc. They are law-abiding citizens, convinced about democracy, respecting others and open to them, serving the societies; there are millions in Europe but the emphasis is only on those who cause trouble. But, tell me, when you are in need of some workers for dirty jobs, for example the rubbish, no Swiss wants to go collect the rubbish, then you bring in these people coming from a dictatorship, coming from poverty, coming from no health care, coming from no education, and used to being treated less than animals. When you bring them here – they are the poor people among the Muslims - if you concentrate on this category and show all the bad things about them and their behaviour, and then no one can defend or deny that it exists. It would be better to avoid that from the beginning and to educate these immigrants when they come here where there is democracy, there is law, there is no dictatorship, and you have to obey the law; and then they can do the dirty jobs that you want them to do. But you bring them from a dictatorship, and you expect that they will be like you, without doing anything to help them change. The basic problem, the core of the problem is the dictatorship. For example, to come back to what you said about Sarkozy; he encourages Mubarak, he encourages the dictatorship, and he is the President of a democratic country! Silvia Cattori : Does he encourage him because Mr. Hosni Mubarak is defending the interests of Israel and of the United States in the region? Mr. Sarkozy is today their best ally. Youssef Nada : You are jumping to another subject. Silvia Cattori : These subjects are linked together. Youssef Nada : Not for me. This is dirty politics. If you forget the democratic principles, which you came to defend, and you support dictatorship, that’s not a clean agenda But, for me, I am a special case. Tell me, you know that the list at the United Nations concerning so-called “terrorists” includes 400 persons and entities. Do you think that the world, the democracies are threatened by 400 people? Which democracy is threatened? Is it so fragile that 400 criminals can make the democracy change to become a dictatorship? This Ben Laden, who is in a cave, in a mountain, and he can’t come out, you consider him to be a very big threat for democracy in the world? Inflating a small creature to make him a giant, and you are afraid of the giant! Silvia Cattori : That’s the reason why it is so worrying, because these are lies which are preparing for another war, against Iran maybe, and your case is part of that long war which started in Iraq in 1991. Youssef Nada : My case is completely different. Silvia Cattori : So, it was just by mistake that you were charged? Youssef Nada : No, it is intentional. But I have nothing to do with the other cases. Silvia Cattori : But your case is a political case? Youssef Nada : Yes. It is a political case, that’s true. Let me tell you: all my life, since I was a child, even before joining the Muslim Brotherhood, I was open to my friends in a primary school where there were orthodox Copts, and Jews. I was open to them and still am. I share with them, our humanity, we are human. We differ; a Chinese, a Japanese, differs from me, but still he is a human; I share with him so many things. I differ from him on some points, one of them is religion; it doesn’t mean that he is my enemy. Silvia Cattori : Why a person who is so smart and mild like you… Youssef Nada : (laughing) When you know, let me know. Silvia Cattori : You seem not to be angry with these people who made you suffer. Youssef Nada : As I told you, if I lived for 29 years under a dictatorship, I am used for it . It is not new. For you, it is new, because you lived in a democratic country, but, for me, I am used to this, that the things will happen outside the legal area. I was treated outside the legal parameters. Silvia Cattori : What is the most difficult for you? Youssef Nada : My freedom. I was born a free man, and now I am not a free man. My rights have been taken from me. Silvia Cattori : And now your phone is being monitored? Youssef Nada : I don’t care about that, because I haven’t said anything wrong. But I am not a free man. If I am not a free man, then I have to expect everything or my freedom to be taken away. And that’s what happened. I am not a free man, and I am not happy without my freedom. Silvia Cattori : What about your health: are you still preoccupied with health problems? Youssef Nada : My hand is broken, and I have bleeding in my eyes and arteries in the neck, but I can’t go to the doctor. I can’t go to see specialized doctors, because they don’t exist in Campione. I need to go, but they refused to let me. I asked them several times for permission, but they refused. Even the Federal Court in Lausanne said to them: « this man’s rights were abused ». And, since Switzerland investigated the case and found nothing, the emigration office in Switzerland must not prohibit me, when it is allowed, to go to the doctor, they have to assist me at the United Nations Security Council and convince them. It is true that what happens to me is not justified, but Switzerland has to follow the Security Council rules. So I sent them a letter asking them for the authorization to go to the doctor outside Campione; they refused. Even after what the Court ruled. In a democratic country, one has to go to the Court; there is no other way. Silvia Cattori : Do you think that you’ll be able to soon get these UN sanctions cancelled against you and finally see your name taken off this list which designates you as “assisting terrorists”? Youssef Nada : I applied for it; they refused. They wrote that the designating country refused my request. I can’t go out of Campione. Italy is my country. I am Italian. Campione is an Italian enclave inside the Swiss territory. Silvia Cattori : You feel as though you are in prison? Youssef Nada : Yes, naturally. I am in a “Swiss Guantanamo”. The Court said that with this action, and because I am living in Campione, it means that I am under house arrest. I am on the so-called “assisting terrorists” list. Silvia Cattori : Why do they still keep your name on that list? Youssef Nada : I don’t know; if you know, tell me. Silvia Cattori : What helps you to face this adversity? Youssef Nada : My connection with who created me. He created me, and I believe I will go to Him. Silvia Cattori : Is there anything one can do to help you get out of this situation ? Youssef Nada : Nobody can do it, except justice. It is still in the hands of dirty politics. When they stormed my house, and offices, Mr. Roshacher made a declaration to “Swiss info”. That same day, on 7th November 2001, Bush came out on television and spoke about me. It was morning here when they raided my house and, in the evening, it was thus morning in Washington, Mr. Bush came on television and talked about us (our bank and its partners), and he said: « We are going to starve them». Silvia Cattori : If these lies have been fabricated by certain Intelligence Services, and not by Mr. Olimpio, would that mean that he has been just a puppet in this story? Youssef Nada : He and the others are tools, used for this case. As I said to you I forgot them; only when you mention them do I remember them. Silvia Cattori : How long since you can’t leave Campione? Youssef Nada : Actually, nobody said that I was forbidden to leave Campione, until I went to London on 10th November 2001, three days after they stormed my house and offices. I said to the Substitute of the Prosecutor of the Swiss Confederation, Mr. Claude Nicati that I had to travel and that I was going to London. He said: “There is no restriction (he gave it to me by writing), but when I call you, you must come, otherwise I will arrest you”. I went to London again in 2003. For 6 months continuously I was on Aljazeera, every week, on the screen, (and it was translated by the “Wall Street Journal” and by the “Washington Post”). I came from Aljazeera to the Hilton; my door was not opening and I went to see the concierge. He said to me “Just a moment Mr. Nada” and he kept me about five minutes, and he brought me another key saying “Sorry, sometimes the magnetic strip is not working”. I went up to the 5th floor. When the lift opened, 5 people stormed in and yelled: “Scotland Yard!” I said: “What is wrong?” He said: “Let us go to your room”. We went to the room and then he said: “Mr. Nada, bring your bag”. I said: “Sorry, I have to make my prayers at first”. He answered: “We don’t have time”. I said to him: “Make what you want but I am going to make my prayers; if you want to force me, force me, but I have to make my prayers before leaving”. Then I went to the bathroom; one of them wanted to come, I said “No, but I’ll leave the door open”. And then I made my prayers, and he said, “Bring your bag”. I replied, “I am the age of your grandfather, I can’t carry it. You carry it if you want or throw it through the window”. They carried it and brought it down. Silvia Cattori : You are a very strong man! Youssef Nada : I am burned already. What can they do more? Silvia Cattori : Are you writing your story? Youssef Nada : Yes, I am very busy. I have a lot of things to do. I have to follow the lawyers, because the lawyers can’t work alone; I must give them the documents. You know after closing the files, Swiss law allows you to go and see them and make copies. They gave me that permission. I went, with my lawyer, two times. The first time, we copied the indexes. It was 40 boxes, with 10 files in every box. And a second time, I took 2500 copies. I have all the documents. The lawyers come here, from time to time. Silvia Cattori : When I think of all what you are suffering because of the attitude of my country, I feel ashamed… Youssef Nada : No. Don’t be ashamed because, I tell you frankly: the respect that I have for this country, Switzerland, is more than for any other country. The mistakes they’ve made, it is another thing. But the respect that I received here, from the normal people, from the prosecutor, from the lawyers, from the parliamentarians, from the doctors, from some journalists, from the workers, engineers has been wonderful. I had the full respect for and from everyone. After they stormed the house, when I went down, in the street. Three persons stopped me saying « Viva Signor Nada ». It is true that, in the media, there were a lot of bad things written. As I told you, the ignorant people are using people more ignorant than they are. And that’s what happened with Richard Labévière. When he went to Egypt, he used ignorant people, more ignorant than him, who gave him some information, and he put them in his film and in his book; all rubbish. Can you imagine that he wrote that Youssef Nada assisted Hadj Amin al-Husseini, the Mufti of Palestine, to flee Germany after meeting with Hitler, through Switzerland, then to go to Egypt and from Egypt to Palestine!? I was 13 years old when the Mufti fled Germany! Richard Labévière, when he wrote that, didn’t say that I was 13 years old at that time. When I wrote it, everything came out; even in Wikipedia, you can see it. And they also said that “Nada was working with the admiral SS Canaris in Egypt, during the war”. They forgot my birth date and that Canaris and the Mufti didn’t need a 13-year-old child to assist them! Silvia Cattori : I can imagine how tough all that has been for you. Youssef Nada : I was working in 27 countries just to find myself isolated here in one and a half square kilometers. But thanks to God, I have visitors from all over the world. I know my values that give me strength to stand up during the bad days as well as the good days. My head is up and will continue to be up until I die. Silvia Cattori : Thank you for having given us this interview. NOTES (*) See: Video of the testimony of Youssef Nada on the refusal of the United Nations to cross his name off the black list. Reviewed by Greta Berlin and Monica Hostettler. [1] See : «UN Security Council black lists - Introductory memorandum», by Dick Marty, Rapporteur, Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, 19 March 2007. « Dick Marty dénonce la ’liste noire’ du terrorisme », Swissinfo.ch, 25 avril 2007. [2] See : «Alleged secret detentions and unlawful inter-state transfers of detainees involving Council of Europe member states», by Dick Marty, Rapporteur, Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, 12 June 2006 « Secret detentions and illegal transfers of detainees involving Council of Europe member states: second report », by Dick Marty, Rapporteur, Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, 11 June 2007. [3] See : « Official site of Youssef Nada ». [4] See, notice about Mr. Olimpio, on the Official site of Youssef Nada. Guido Olimpio, was the correspondent of the Corriere della sera. He stated on 9-10-2002in Milan criminal court before being indicted that he has contacts with the USA FBI, and that ‘ he gave an audience at the USA congress 1996 and that he testified in front of the security commission of the USA congress’. Presented as an « expert in international terrorism », Mr. Olimpio writes on the Middle East since the Eighties. From 1999 to the summer 2003, he was chief correspondant for the Corriere della Sera in Israël. [5] Regarding Richard Labévière, author of the book « Dollars for Terror: The U.S. and Islam », see notice about him on the Official site of Youssef Nada. [6] Sylvain Besson, journalist for the Swiss daily Le Temps. Author of the book : «La conquête de l’Occident», October 2005. [7] It is the article « Hamas perde meta’ del tesoro », by Guido Olimpio, Corriere della Sera, 20 October 1997, which started the accusation of a financing of Hamas by the bank Al Taqwa of Youssef Nada. Mr. Youssef Nada wrote on his Official site : « It took from 1997 until 2005 to obtain condemnation from the Milan criminal court against the writer of the article Guido Olimpio of “Corriere Della Sera”, and a civil case against him is in the pipe line. The lies of Guido Olimpio article in “Corriere Della Sera” were defused, and spread everywhere. ». [8] Mr. Youssef Nada wrote on his Official site : « Among those who participated in defusing the lies, whether for envy or hate, whether knowingly or not, whether intentionally or not, whether hired to corner the Islamist activists, or motivated politically or financially, or for their own professional agenda, or misled, are the following names: Richard Labeviere, Roland Jacquard, Leo Sisti, Kevin Coogan, Paolo Fusi, Daniel Pipes Victor Comras, Sylvain Besson, and others whom will be named later ». During those years where Israel and the United States were waging their war against Islam, experts in terrorism and theoriticians of Islamophobia have appeared, such as Daniel Pipes in the United States. See « Daniel Pipes, the expert of hate », Red Voltaire, 2 March 2006. [9] Book published in Arabic. Under translation in English, French and German. [10] The résolution 1267 of 1999, concerns Al-Qaïda and the Taliban. The Security Council of the United Nations has started the practice of sanctions against people (and not States) in October 1999, to fight the Taliban’s regime in Afghanistan . [11] The résolution 1373 of the Security Council of the United Nations, adopted after the 11 September 2001, put the emphasis on the struggle against the financing of terrorism by introducing a general obligation to froze the assets and the economic resources of people et and entities involved in acts of terrorism. The Council of the European Union has established its own list after the 11 September 2001. [12] See : « Swiss firm shuts down after terrorism probe », swissinfo.ch, 9 January 2002. [13] See :« On se sert du terrorisme pour faire peur et pour restreindre les libertés fondamentales », Interview of Dick F. Marty, Horizons et débats, 28 January 2008. [14] See : « Official visit to Egypt - Statements made by M. Nicolas Sarkozy, President of the Republic, during his joint press briefing with Mr Hosni Mubarak, President of Egypt (excerpts)», 30 December 2007. « Interview given by M. Nicolas SARKOZY, President of the Republic, to the "Al-Ahram" Egyptian newspaper (excerpts)», 1st August 2007. [15] See : « Des cadres des Frères musulmans devant un tribunal militaire », El Watan, 17 June 2008. « Egypt: Sentences against Muslim Brothers a perversion of justice », Press release, Amnesty International, 15 April 2008.

Israel to build 1,300 homes for colonists

06.14.08 (2:50 am)   [edit]
Occupied Jerusalem: Israel on Friday confirmed plans to build 1,300 more apartments in occupied east Jerusalem, immediately drawing the ire of Palestinians who accused it of sabotaging already rocky peace efforts. Interior Ministry spokeswoman Sabine Hadad said new apartments were approved for construction in the ultra-Orthodox Ramat Shlomo neighbourhood to help alleviate a housing shortage in occupied Jerusalem. "We firmly condemn this project, which reveals the Israeli government's intention to destroy peace," Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat fumed.

The Jewish Experience

06.14.08 (2:46 am)   [edit]
NEWS YOU WON'T FIND ON CNN Send Page To a Friend The Jewish Experience By Gilad Atzmon 12/06/.08 "ICH" -- -- For more than half a century, those who have been trying to combat the forces that are behind the Israeli paradigm have been identifying Israeli policies and practice with Zionism and Zionist Ideology. I am afraid to say that they were wrong all the way along. Indeed, Zionism’s project dictates the plunder of Palestine in the name of Jewish national aspiration. It is also true to argue that Israel has been rather efficient in translating the Zionist philosophy into a devastating oppressive and murderous practice. Yet, Israelis, or more precisely, the vast majority of Israeli-born secular Jews, are not motivated or fuelled by Zionist ideology. Its spirit or symbols are virtually meaningless to them. As bizarre as it may sound to some, Zionism is either a foreign or just an archaic notion for most Israeli-born secular Jews. Since the vast majority of Israelis are confused by the notion of Zionism, most forms of criticism that would label itself as anti-Zionist would have hardly any effect on Israel, Israeli politics or on the Israeli people. In other words, in the last sixty years, those who have been using the paradigm of Zionism and its antipode have been preaching to the converted. A total review of the amalgam formed by Israel, Zionism and Jewishness is now overdue. Intimate Departure Once a year around Easter, my family leaves me behind for two weeks. My wife Tali and our two kids Mai (12) and Yann (7) make their way to Israel. My wife calls it a family visit, she insists that the kids must see their close relatives and my views on Israel, Jewish identity and global Zionism should never stand in the way or interfere with family matters. For the obvious reasons, I myself never go to Israel. I had decided ten years ago that unless Israel becomes a state of its citizens, I have nothing to do there. In our first parental years in London Tali and I had some discussions about her favourite choice of Easter break. Initially I didn’t approve. I insisted that schlepping innocent youngsters to the apartheid ‘Jews only state’ would contribute little to their future well-being, and in fact, it may distort their ethical senses. In those early parental years Tali dismissed my fears, she argued that our kids should be treated as free human beings. They must be entitled to see their family and it is down to them to make up their minds when they are ready to do so. When our kids were very young, I found it pretty difficult to sustain my argument. Mai and Yann didn’t have any interest in political or ethical complexities. However, as my kids grew up, their journey in and out of the Hebraic shtetl had become a major education chapter for myself more than for anyone else. Observing my kids transformed into light Israelophiles opened my eyes. I happened to grasp the impact of Israel and Zionism through the juvenile eyes of my British kids. I had learned to admit how easy it may be to fall in love with Israel. My kids love it there. They adore the blue sky, they go on and on about the sea and the sandy beaches. I guess that they love humus and falafel. It doesn’t take a genius to realise that everything I have mentioned so far belongs to the land - i.e., Palestine rather than the state - i.e., Israel. However, it doesn’t end there. They also love to talk in Hebrew surrounded by Hebrew speakers, to laugh in Hebrew and even to get upset in Hebrew. They love the Hebraic Chutzpah that is inherently entangled with the Israeli openness. At the end of the day, Hebrew is their mother tongue. When Tali and the kids land in cloudy London they happen to be confused and lost for a while. Tali becomes slightly nostalgic about the successful theatrical career she left behind. This obviously makes a lot of sense. The case of my kids is slightly more complicated. They are Brits. Though Hebrew is their mother tongue, English is their first language. In London they clearly miss some liberties they celebrated there: they want to keep on playing in the open fields, to bathe in the glorious Mediterranean sun overwhelmed by the dry spring blossoms. But far more noticeably, Israel resolves what seems as their inevitable emerging identity complex. While here in London they are troubled with their ethnic identity, they can never decide who they are, whether they are ex-Israelis, ex-Jews, Secular Jews, Christian by culture, the descendents of a Hebrew speaking Palestinian, the son and daughter of a notorious proud self-hater and so on. In Israel, and especially with their family around, none of those questions come into play. The Israelis tend to accept you as a qualified brother as long as you are not an Arab. While in multi-ethnic London my kids are often confronted with some obvious questions regarding their origin, questions they find hard to tackle a lot because of myself and my stand, in Israel those questions are non-existent. When my kids come back to London, for a week or so they make me feel as if it is me and my lunacy which imposed these winter exilic conditions upon them. Deep inside I know that they are absolutely right. ‘Tough’, is all I can say in my defence. For a week or so after their return my kids become light Zionists. It is not that they dispute what I say about Palestine, it is not that they develop any sense of Jewish national aspiration, it is not that my kids are blind to the suffering of the Palestinian people either. In fact my seven-year-old son is horrified by the gigantic wall and can’t stop asking about the people who live behind it. But, there is something they experience in Israel, something that makes Zionism into the biggest successful Jewish Diaspora narrative for over two millennia. It is not the ideology that makes Zionism successful, my kids do not care about ideology, they probably do not know what the word means. It is not the politics either, my kids do not know much about politics. It is all about belonging. Zionism is a symbolic identifier and it provides the Diaspora Jews with a symbolic order. It gives a signifier to every possible appearance, it creates a coherent and consistent world. It gives name to the sea, the sky, the sun, the land, brotherhood, yearning and friendship. But it also gives a name to the enemy, the goyim and even the self-haters. Zionism is a lucid world order, unfortunately it is merciless and murderous as well. Through the eyes of my young kids I have an opportunity to study the meaning of Israel rather than its politics or practices. Through them I can see what Israel is there to offer and how forceful it may be. Analysing my children’s empathic relationship with Israel, I have now grasped that the contemporary Jewish experience is premised on two inherent sets of dialectics. One is set between Eretz Yisrael and the Diaspora, the other can be formulated as ‘love yourself as much as you hate anyone else’. Eretz Yisrael and the Diaspora “I am a human being, I am a Jew and I am an Israeli. Zionism was an instrument to move me from the Jewish state of being to the Israeli state of being. I think it was Ben-Gurion who said that the Zionist movement was the scaffolding to build the home, and that after the state’s establishment it should be dismantled.” (Avraham Burg, ‘Leaving the Zionist ghetto’ in an Interview with Ari Shavit, 25 July 2007) As far as Israeli-born secular Jews are concerned, Zionism means very little. If Zionism is there to maintain that Jews are entitled to national home in Zion, the Israeli-born Jew lives this very realty to start with. For him/her, Zionism is a remote historical chapter associated with an old picture of a man with a big black beard (Herzl). For the Israelis, Zionism is not a transformation awaiting to happen, it is rather a boring, tedious, dated and dull historical chapter on the verge of bla bla. It is far less interesting than contemporary Olmert’s cash envelops or Obama turning into an Israeli Spokesman. Indeed, for the new Israelites, Galut (Diaspora) has some bad connotations. It is associated with ghettos, with shame and persecution, yet, this term doesn’t ascribe to downtown Manhattan or London’s Soho. In other words, Israelis do not tend to identify their migration out of Israel as a return to the Galut. Like other migrant populations, they just search for a better life. It must be mentioned that for most Israelis, Israel is far from being a heroic glorious location. Naturally, after 60 years with the same woman, one may fail to see her beauty anymore. The so-called ‘Israeli’ i.e., an Israeli-born secular Jew, the successful product of post-revolutionary Zionism, is now so used to his existence in the region that he has lost his Jewish survival instinct. Instead, he adopts the most hedonistic interpretation of Western enlightened individualism that abolishes the last reminiscence of tribal collectivism. This may explain why Israel had been defeated in the last Lebanon war. The new Israeli doesn’t see any real reason to sacrifice himself on a collective Jewish altar. He is far more interested in exploring the pragmatic aspects of the philosophy of ‘good life’. This may explain as well why the Israeli military cannot tackle the growing threat of Qassam rockets. In order to do so, Israeli generals need to implement some courageous ground tactics. Seemingly, they learned their lesson in Lebanon: hedonistic societies do not produce Spartan warriors and without real warriors at your disposal you may better off fighting from afar. Instead of sending special infantry units into Gaza at dawn, it is apparently far easier to drop bombs on populated neighbourhoods or alternatively to starve its habitants to submission. Needless to say, the Palestinians, the Syrians, the Hezbollah, the Iranians and the entire Muslim world see it all. Day by day they review the Israeli cowardice tactics, they know that Israel’s days are numbered. As interesting as it may sound, the Israelis are not that concerned with their fatal inevitable emerging reality, at least not consciously. Because their tribal survival instinct has been replaced by enlightened individualism, the young Israeli is concerned largely with personal survival rather than with any collective plan. The Israeli can go as far as asking, “how the hell can I get out of here?” The new secular Israeli Jew is an escapist. As soon as he/she finishes his/her compulsory duty, he or she would either rush to the airport or learn how to ’switch off’ all news channels. The amount of Israelis who leave their homeland is growing by the day. The rest, those who are doomed to stay, develop an apathetic culture of indifference. Beaufort and Sderot I recently watched Beaufort, an Israeli award winning war film. Though I wasn’t at all overwhelmed with the cinematic achievement, the film is an astonishing exposure of Israeli fatigue and defeatism. The film tells the story of an IDF special infantry unit (Golany) that is dug-in in a bunker within a Byzantine fortress on top of a mountain in southern Lebanon. The plot takes place days before the 1st Israeli withdrawal from Southern Lebanon (2000). As it happens, the Israeli platoons are surrounded by Hezbollah warriors. Days and night they live in trenches, hide in concrete shelters and are subject to constant barrages of mortars and missiles. Though they all plan life after that hell they are caught into, they happen to die one after the other by an enemy they don’t even see. The Israelis loved Beaufort, the world was slightly less convinced of its cinematic quality. If you ask yourself why the Israelis loved it so much, here is my answer. For the Israelis, the situation in the Beaufort is an allegory of a state that comes to realise its temporality and futile existence. As much as the Israeli soldiers are dreaming to run away as far as they can get, whether it is settling in NYC or ‘getting stoned’ in Goa, the Israeli society is coming to terms with its doomed fatality. Like the soldiers in the film, the Israelis want to become Americans, Parisians, Londoners and Berliners. The numbers of Israelis who are queuing for Polish passports are increasing by the day. Beaufort the film is a metaphor of a society that comes to terms with itself being in a siege. A society that comes to realise that there maybe no escape route whether it is a physical one or by the means of growing indifference. The film can be interpreted as a parable of a society that comes to terms with the gravest notion of its own temporality. Interestingly enough, as much as the soldiers in the Beaufort and the people of Sderot or Ashkelon are confused by their will to leave everything behind and to run for their life, as much as they can’t see the point in clinging to where they are, for the Diaspora Jew, Israel is nothing less than a lucid model of glory. Israel is both the meaning and the meaning in its making. For the Diaspora Jew, Israel is the symbolic transformation aiming at liberation and even redemption of the Jewish misery. Israel is everything the Diaspora Jew is not. It is full of chutzpah, it is forceful, it is militant, it stands for what it believes in. Accordingly, for a young Jew from Golders Green or Brooklyn, making Aliyah or even just joining what he or she mistakenly regards as the heroic Israeli army, is far more glorious than joining dad’s law firm, dental studio, or accountant company. Being horrified by the remote possibility that my kids may surprise me one day by suggesting that they may consider spending some time in Israel on their own without their mother’s parental guidance, I recently started to grasp that which Israel is there to offer world Jews. In fact, not many Jewish parents would stop their son or daughter from joining the IDF, why should they? The IDF is a very safe army to be in, it avoids ground battle, it kills from afar, it values its soldier as much as it loves inflicting the ultimate pain on others. Every Jewish father must accept that it may be useful for his youngster to learn how to drive a tank, fly a helicopter or shoot an MK 47. Unlike the shockingly under-equipped Palestinian warriors who die in vast quantities on a daily basis, the Israeli soldiers hardly risk their lives. Hence, the heroic Aliyah and even joining the IDF, seems to be a safe adventure, at least for the time being. Though it is rather clear that most young Diaspora Jews choose to get on with their lives wherever they are and to avoid ‘taking advantage of’ the Zionist Aliyah challenge, Zionism still provides them with a symbolic identifier. Zionism and its Aliyah operators offer them the opportunity to either identify with the few who went that far or to themselves become soldiers in one of the strongest armies in the world. Wandering Around Zionism invented the Jewish nation and set its national home, Israel, into a devastating conflict that is now taking a global shape and has become a serious global threat. Yet, for the Israelis, those who happen to be in the eye of the storm, ‘Zionism’ means very little. Israelis join the IDF not because they are Zionists but because they are Jews (as opposed to the Muslims around them). This crucial realisation may convey a new meaning for the notion of the ‘wandering Jew’. The dialectic that is set between the Diaspora and Eretz Yisrael leads towards a counter flow of migration, aspiration and yearning. The Diaspora Jews are aspired by Israel in the light of the Zionist fantasy, the Israeli Jews, on the other hand, are determined to escape their emerging siege. The Diaspora is heading towards Eretz Yisrael, the Israeli Jews, at large, are desperate to get out. This counter flow of migration/aspiration is far from being a matter of contingency, in fact it is the direct product of the holy Judaic scriptures. As I explored in my ‘Esther to AIPAC’ paper[1], more and more Bible scholars are now disputing the historicity of the Bible. Seemingly, the Bible is for most part “written after the Babylonian Exile and whose writings rework (and in large part invent) previous Israelite history so that it reflects and reiterates the experiences of those returning from the Babylonian exile.” Consequently, the Bible, being an exilic text, leads to a fragmented reality in which the Diaspora Jew yearns for ‘homecoming’ yet once at home, the ideology loses its appeal. The case of Zionism is shockingly similar, it has managed to aspire some Jews about Zion, yet, once in Zion, the ideology fails to provide for the domestic adventure. We can clearly detect a dialectic tension between Zionism, a Diaspora Jewish identity and Israeliness, which is largely related to the Hebraic project. Zionism and Israel are two diverse poles that together form the contemporary Jewish Experience. Love Yourself as much as you Hate Everyone Else Once we understand the dialectic opposition between Eretz Yisrael and the Diaspora, we are ready to move on and reflect upon the unique complimentarily relationships between the two. As much as Eretz Yisrael and the Diaspora establish a counter flow of aspiration and migration, Israel is there to establish a coherent and consistent symbolic interpretation of Jewish tribal chauvinism and supremacy. Israel makes ‘love yourself as much as you hate everyone else’ into a devastating reality, in which the self-lover happens to be capable of inflicting the ultimate pain on his surrounding neighbours. In order to understand the Jewish concept of self-loving, we may have to reflect first on the issue that makes this particular form of personal emotional consciousness take place: the issue of chosenness. While the religious Judaic understanding of Jewish chosenness is realised as a moral burden in which Jews are ordered by God to stand as a model of ethical behaviour, the secular Jewish interpretation is reduced into a banal chauvinist form of racially orientated supremacy. It clearly encourages those who are lucky enough to have a Jewish mother to love themselves blindly. It is crucial to mention at this stage that in most cases Jewish supremacy would lead to a certain level of dismissal of the elementary rights of the other. In many cases it leads toward animosity and even hatred whether latent or manifest. It is this supremacy which stands at the heart of the Zionist claim for Palestine at the expense of its indigenous inhabitants. But it obviously doesn’t end with Palestine, the radical manifestation of Jewish lobbying for extension of the “War Against Terror” as expressed, for instance, by the AJC is just another example. I would never dare say that this type of war mongering is inherent to Jews (as people), yet, unfortunately, it is rather symptomatic to Jewish tribal political thinking left, right and centre. Thus, it shouldn’t take us by surprise that at the forefront of the struggle for humanism and universal ethics we meet Jews such as Jesus, Spinoza and Marx. These people who went out of their way to introduce a notion of brotherhood stood primarily against the tribal supremacy they found in themselves and in their cultural heritage. They above all protested against what was familiar to them and suggested brotherhood and love instead. However, we may note that Jesus, Spinoza and Marx, didn’t manage to transform the Jews (as a collective), though they had a bit of success with some of them. Seemingly, the move from hard-core dogmatic monotheistic tribalism towards tolerant pluralist universalism is on the verge of the impossible. Indeed, more than a few Jews have managed to leave God behind, as we know some had become Marxists but somehow even many of those remained loyal to their monotheistic tribally exclusive ‘Jews only’ philosophy (Bund, JAZ). Others moved as far as becoming a ‘nation like other nations’ (Zionism) except that they made sure they cleansed and killed those who didn’t fit ethnically to their vision of themselves (1948 Nakba). Some became so liberal and cosmopolitan that they managed to reduce contemporary global conflict into a simplistic take on ’soft drink’. “People who drink Coca Cola do not fight each other”, they informed us. This may be the truth, however, as it seems, the Coke drinkers have recently killed 1.5 million Iraqis all in the name of ‘democracy’. It is extremely crucial to mention that many Jews have managed to assimilate and to leave their tribal traits behind, they operate as ordinary human beings. They have nothing to do with Bund, Neocons or Zionism. Seemingly, those truly liberated beings are not the subject of my study, and I can only wish them luck and success. However, though Jews are divided between themselves on many things, they are united in fighting those who they collectively identify as their enemies. It took me a while to realise that those who operate under the exclusive Jewish banner within the Palestinian solidarity and the Anti-War movements are primarily concerned with fighting any references to Jewish lobbying or Jewish power. One explanation was provided earlier on. Zionism per se, has little to do with Israel, it is an internal Diaspora Jewish discourse. Consequently, the debate between Zionists and Jewish anti-Zionists has no significance on Israel or the struggle against Israeli actions. It is there to keep the debate within the family while planting more confusion amongst the goyim. It allows the Jewish ethnic campaigner to maintain that “not all Jews are Zionists, in fact there are almost two dozen ‘Jewish Anti Zionists’ around the world”. As pathetic as it may sound, this dull argument has been good enough to effectively shatter any criticism of Jewish ethnocentric lobbying that may have been voiced the last four decades. Seemingly (and unfortunately), when it comes to ‘action’, the Zionists and the so-called Jewish ‘anti’-Zionists are acting as one people. Why are they acting as one people? Because they are one people. Are they really one people? It doesn’t matter as long as they themselves believe to be or act as if they are. And what is it that makes them into one people? They probably hate everyone else as much as they love themselves. There is an old Jewish saying, “Tell me who your friends are and I will tell you who you are”, it would be most appropriate to amend it into a far more refined reading of Jewish contemporary tribal politics. “Just tell me who you hate and I’ll tell you who you are”. If, for instance, you hate Finkelstein, Atzmon, Blankfort, Mearsheimer & Walt and so on, you must be Jewish. If you just don’t agree with any of the above you can actually be anyone. Hatred and even personal loathing is sadly symptomatic to Jewish tribal politics, probably something to do with Jewish politics being marginal and defined by negation. Noticeably, Israel has managed to perfect it and give it real new meaning. While the Diaspora Jew is entitled to love himself, his hatred to the other is largely suppressed. As much as some Jews may like to follow their religious calling and spit on churches[2] or just destroy the lives of prominent academics and artists, hatred and violence is not tolerated within the contemporary Western discourse. This is exactly where Israel comes into play. As much as the Israelis love themselves, they are capable of hating anyone else. They are capable of starving millions of Palestinians, they are capable of killing when they feel like it. Israel made ‘love yourself/ hate everyone else’ into a viable practice. It resolved the most inherent ambivalent tension having to do with self-loving while being amongst others. Israel doesn’t just hate Prof. Finkelstein, it is capable of detaining and deporting him as well. Israel doesn’t just hate the Palestinians, it is equally capable of starving them, locking them behind walls and barbed wire, bombing them and even nuking the hardliners when the time is ripe. This is the most frightening aspect of complimentarily between Eretz Yisrael and the Diaspora. It is the materialisation of a hate-ridden society. After two millennia of wandering, the newly reformed national Jew is capable of not just hating but also of inflicting the ultimate pain on those he may hate. Exploring the Jewish Question Once a year, around Easter, my family leaves me behind for two weeks. My wife Tali and our two kids Mai and Yann make their way to Israel. I can clearly see how much they love it there. I can clearly understand what is it that they love there. Gladly, I can say that at least for the time being, my kids are not madly in love with themselves and do not see themselves as part of any tribal collective. Consequently, they do not hate anyone either. However, through their experience I can see what Israel is there to offer, especially to those who do not dwell there. I can see how successful the Israeli adventure looks from afar. Through their experience I learn about the dialectic between the Israel/Hebraic domestic quest and the Zionist/Diaspora aspiration. The negation and complimentarily between the Hebraic and the Diaspora is the essence of contemporary Jewish experience. If we want to tackle the crimes committed by Israel and the evil promoted by global Zionist lobbies, we better initiate a profound study of the Jewish question and the Jewish experience. It is not just Israel or Zionism but rather the unique devastating amalgam of complexity formed by both. Unless we question the Jewish experience, we are doomed to continue wasting our time employing irrelevant archaic 19th century terminology that has nothing to do with the conflict. Once we are brave enough to explore the Jewish question and Jewish identity we may be able to understand that Israeli apartheid is not just political circumstances, it is actually a natural outcome of a particular racially orientated tribal philosophy. The Israeli wall is not a political measure but rather a manifestation of an exclusive racist attitude that stands at the core of the Jewish notion of segregation. Once we stand up and insist upon interpreting Israeli/Zionist scrutinising of the Jewish question we may as well grasp why Senator Obama rushed to the AIPAC conference three hours after his nomination for the Democratic Party was secured. The set of promises made by Obama, Clinton and McCain in AIPAC a few days ago is in fact a true reflection of the contemporary Jewish experience. The senators feed the Jewish American prominent lobbyists exactly with the food they want to swallow. At the expense of the Palestinians, Iraqis, Syrians, Iranians and billion Muslims, American politicians openly promise that America will keep being biased. Seemingly, America prefers to appease its tiny Jewish minority instead of being an international mediator and a true genuine negotiator. I would strongly argue that in the light of the crimes committed by the Jewish state in the name of the Jewish people, we are perfectly entitled to question the philosophy and praxis involved with Jewish experience. We should never be intimidated by Jewish ethnic activists and Zionist smear campaigners. Since Jews do not form a race but largely succumb to some different forms of collective, racially orientated politics, we shouldn’t be afraid of touching the matter. Once we take it as a given that Jews do not form a race, the study of Jewish identity and politics is neither racism nor essentialism. It is actually the very opposite, it is in fact a critical reading of racist ideology and its inherent supremacy. Those of us who regard Israel and Zionism as the grave danger to world peace must pursue in this study. Rather than focusing separately on Zionism or Israel, we must learn the unique amalgam of complexity that is formed by both. This dialectic compound shapes the contemporary notion of Jewish Experience. Zionism in itself is no more than a decoy. It is there to grab our attention and divert our focus. Seemingly our attack on Zionism has no significance on Israel, its policies and its people. At the most, it disturbs some Zionist Jews. As much as the study of the ‘Jewish Experience’ may help us to save millions of lives of Palestinians, Iraqis, Syrians and Iranians, it is also a Jewish collective interest to understand the true nature of the Jewish experience and politics. At the end of the day, it is Jewish politics (rather than religion) that may eventually demonise the entire Jewish collective for the next millennia to come. It is a Jewish collective interest to stop the political beast before it is too late. I owe it to my Palestinian brothers and sisters, I owe it to myself, I owe it to Yann and Mai, I want to make sure that by the time they protest against my own ‘anti-Jewish experience’ I’ll be clever enough to discuss it all with them in an open and thoughtful manner. [1] http://www.counterpunch.org/a... [2] According to Dr. Israel Shahak, in his book Jewish History, Jewish Religion, this practice has ancient roots and has become increasingly commonplace: Dishonoring Christian religious symbols is an old religious duty in Judaism. Spitting on the cross, and especially on the Crucifix, and spitting when a Jew passes a church, have been obligatory from around AD 200 for pious Jews. In the past, when the danger of anti-Semitic hostility was a real one, the pious Jews were commanded by their rabbis either to spit so that the reason for doing so would be unknown, or to spit onto their chests, not actually on the cross or openly before the church. Gilad Atzmon is a jazz musician, composer, producer and writer. This article was first posted at Palestine Think Tank http://palestinethinktank .com...

Why the Oil Price Is High

06.14.08 (2:36 am)   [edit]
NEWS YOU WON'T FIND ON CNN Send Page To a Friend Why the Oil Price Is High By Paul Craig Roberts 11/06/08 "ICH" -- - How to explain the oil price? Why is it so high? Are we running out? Are supplies disrupted, or is the high price a reflection of oil company greed or OPEC greed. Are Chavez and the Saudis conspiring against us? In my opinion, the two biggest factors in oil’s high price are the weakness in the US dollar’s exchange value and the liquidity that the Federal Reserve is pumping out. The dollar is weak because of large trade and budget deficits, the closing of which is beyond American political will. As abuse wears out the US dollar’s reserve currency role, sellers demand more dollars as a hedge against its declining exchange value and ultimate loss of reserve currency status. In an effort to forestall a serious recession and further crises in derivative instruments, the Federal Reserve is pouring out liquidity that is financing speculation in oil futures contracts. Hedge funds and investment banks are restoring their impaired capital structures with profits made by speculating in highly leveraged oil future contracts, just as real estate speculators flipping contracts pushed up home prices. The oil futures bubble, too, will pop, hopefully before new derivatives are created on the basis of high oil prices. There are other factors affecting the price of oil. The prospect of an Israeli/US attack on Iran has increased current demand in order to build stocks against disruption. No one knows the consequence of such an ill-conceived act of aggression, and the uncertainty pushes up the price of oil as the entire Middle East could be engulfed in conflagration. However, storage facilities are limited, and the impact on price of larger inventories has a limit. Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi recently stated, “There is no justification for the current rise in prices.” What the minister means is that there are no shortages or supply disruptions. He means no real reasons as distinct from speculative or psychological reasons. The run up in oil price coincides with a period of heightened US and Israeli military aggression in the Middle East. However, the biggest jump has been in the last 18 months. When Bush invaded Iraq in 2003, the average price of oil that year was about $27 per barrel, or about $31 in inflation adjusted 2007 dollars. The price rose another $10 in 2004 to an average annual price of $42 (in 2007 dollars), another $12 in 2005, $7 in 2006, and $4 in 2007 to $65. But in the last few months the price has more than doubled to about $135. It is difficult to explain a $70 jump in price in terms other than speculation. Oil prices have been high in the past. Until 2008, the record monthly oil price was $104 in December 1979 (measured in December 2007 dollars). As recently as 1998 the real price of oil was lower than in 1946 when the nominal price of oil was $1.63 per barrel. During the Bush regime, the price of oil in 2007 dollars has risen from $27 to approximately $135. (see http://inflationdata.com/infl... ) Possibly, the rise in the oil price was held down, prior to the recent jump, by expectations that Democrats would eventually end the conflict and restrain Israel in the interest of Middle East peace and justice for the Palestinians. Now that Obama has pledged allegiance to AIPAC and adopted Bush’s position toward Iran, the high oil price could be a forecast that US/Israeli policy is likely to result in substantial supply disruptions. Still, the recent Israeli statements that an attack on Iran was “inevitable” only jumped the oil price about $8. Perhaps more difficult to understand than the high price of oil is the low US long term interest rates. US interest rates are actually below the rate of inflation, to say nothing of the imperiled exchange value of the dollar. Economists who assume rational participants in rational markets cannot explain why lenders would indefinitely accept interest rates below the rate of inflation. Of course, Americans don’t get real inflation numbers from their government and have not since the Consumer Price Index was rigged during the Clinton administration to hold down Social Security payments by denying retirees their full cost of living adjustments. According to statistician John Williams ( www.shadowstats.com ), using the pre-Clinton era measure of the CPI produces a current CPI of about 7.5%. Understating inflation makes real GDP growth appear higher. If inflation were properly measured, the US has probably experienced no real GDP growth in the 21st century. Williams reports that for decades political administrations have fiddled with the inflation and employment numbers to make themselves look slightly better. The cumulative effect has been to deprive these measurements of veracity. If I understand Williams, today both inflation and unemployment rates, as originally measured, are around 12%. By pumping out money in an effort to forestall recession and paper over balance sheet problems, the Federal Reserve is driving up commodity and food prices in general. Yet American real incomes are not growing. Even without jobs offshoring, US economic policy has put the bulk of the population on a path to lower living standards. The crisis that looms for the US is the loss of world currency role. Once the dollar loses that role, the US government will not be able to finance its operations by borrowing abroad, and foreigners will cease to finance the massive US trade deficit. This crisis will eliminate the US as a world power. Paul Craig Roberts a former Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury and former associate editor of the Wall Street Journal, has been reporting shocking cases of prosecutorial abuse for two decades

The Spy Who Loves Us

06.14.08 (2:33 am)   [edit]
NEWS YOU WON'T FIND ON CNN Send Page To a Friend The Spy Who Loves Us Pay no mind to the Mossad agent on the line. By Philip Giraldi 10/06/08 "American Conservative" -- - After Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard was sentenced to life in prison in 1986, the U.S. negotiated an understanding with Israel—a “gentlemen’s agreement” —stipulating that neither nation would thenceforth conduct espionage operations in the other’s territory without consent. But the agreement was a sham from the beginning. The Israeli government didn’t even honor its commitments in the aftermath of the Pollard case, failing to return the estimated 360 cubic feet of stolen information to enable the U.S. to conduct a damage assessment. The United States, for its part, continued to recruit and run agents inside Israel throughout the 1980s and 1990s. And it was known within the intelligence and counterintelligence communities that Israel did the same in the United States. David Szady, the FBI’s assistant director for counterintelligence, was so dismayed by the level of Israeli spying in the late ’90s that he called in the head of the Israeli Embassy’s Central Institute for Intelligence and Special Activities (Mossad) office and told him, “Knock it off.” Pollard’s name was in the news again on April 22, when former U.S. Army weapons engineer Ben-Ami Kadish was arrested for passing secrets to Israel. Kadish had been an agent run by Yosef Yagur, who directed Pollard. Yagur, under cover as a science attaché at the Israeli Consulate General in New York, fled the U.S. in 1985 after Pollard was arrested, but remained in touch with Kadish. The arrest revived suspicions that Israeli agents might still be operating inside the U.S., most particularly “Mega,” whose cover name was revealed in an NSA-intercepted conversation between two Israeli intelligence officers. “Mega” was clearly at the policymaker level, as Kadish and Pollard frequently sought files by name or number. Someone more senior in Washington appeared to be directing the Israeli handlers toward sensitive information. Whoever “Mega” was, he is still at large. Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Arieh Mekel sought to play down the allegations, noting, “Since 1985 there have been clear orders from prime ministers not to conduct these kinds of activities.” The media obediently reported the disclaimer under headlines such as Agence France Presse’s: “Israel says no spying on US since 1985.” But the spokesman had not said that. He referred to “these kinds of activities,” possibly meaning the recruitment of American Jews to work as Israeli intelligence agents. Mekel’s half-hearted denial was a step removed from the Israeli government’s reaction to the 2004 investigation of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, when then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev insisted that Israel “does not spy on the United States of America.” It’s possible that Israel has largely demurred from recruiting American Jews as spies, but Tel Aviv’s intelligence operations in the U.S. have undeniably continued. The magnitude of Israeli espionage is certainly known to some senior government officials and is hidden in classified files. But even evidence available in public records attests to widespread infiltration. Spy operations run by a case officer directly involving a controlled agent are only one of many tasks delegated to an intelligence service. Other responsibilities might include tapping into communications networks, directing agents of influence in the foreign government who can enable favorable policy decisions, running covert actions that feed misleading information to the media, and arranging technology transfers that frequently rely on companies that are either fronts or co-operating with the intelligence service to obtain secret military or commercial information. Even if Israel has stopped recruiting American Jews—and that is by no means certain—it nevertheless continues to carry out many core intelligence operations in the United States. Israel has little need to run agents of influence here as its intelligence officers, diplomats, and politicians already have unfettered access to policymakers. It has been reported that the Pentagon under Paul Wolfowitz and Doug Feith—both of whom have been investigated for passing classified information to Israel—took few steps to monitor Israeli visitors. Likewise, the Israeli Embassy has excellent access to the media. When it wants to plant propaganda or place stories intended to shape opinion in a direction favorable to Israel, the Mossad generally looks to the British press. Rupert Murdoch’s Times group of newspapers and the Daily Telegraph, formerly owned by Conrad Black, have featured many articles that clearly originated with Israeli government sources. Such pieces are often picked up and replayed in the United States. Virtually every U.S. government body concerned with security has confirmed that Israeli espionage takes place, though it is frequently not exposed because FBI officers know that investigating these crimes is frustrating and does no favors for their careers. But Israel always features prominently in the annual FBI report called “Foreign Economic Collection and Industrial Espionage.” The 2005 report states, “Israel has an active program to gather proprietary information within the United States. These collection activities are primarily directed at obtaining information on military systems and advanced computing applications that can be used in Israel’s sizable armaments industry.” It adds that Israel recruits spies, uses electronic methods, and carries out computer intrusion to gain the information. The focus on U.S. military secrets is not limited to information needed for the defense of Israel, as was argued when Pollard was arrested. Some of the information he stole was of such value that many high-ranking intelligence officers believe the Soviet Union agreed to the release of tens of thousands of Russian Jews for resettlement in Israel in exchange. In early 1996, the Office of Naval Investigations concluded that Israel had transferred sensitive military technology to China. In 2000, the Israeli government attempted to sell China the sophisticated Phalcon early warning aircraft, which was based on U.S.-licensed technology. A 2005 FBI report noted that the thefts eroded U.S. military advantage, enabling foreign powers to obtain hugely expensive technologies that had taken years to develop. In 1996, ten years after the agreement that concluded the Pollard affair, the Pentagon’s Defense Investigative Service warned defense contractors that Israel had “espionage intentions and capabilities” here and was aggressively trying to steal military and intelligence secrets. It also cited a security threat posed by individuals who have “strong ethnic ties” to Israel, stating that “Placing Israeli nationals in key industries … is a technique utilized with great success.” The memo cited illegal transfer of proprietary information from an Illinois optics firm in 1986, after the Pollard arrest, as well as the theft of test equipment for a radar system in the mid-1980s. A storm of outrage from the Anti-Defamation League led to the Pentagon’s withdrawal of the memo, an apology that predictably blamed the language on “a low-ranking individual,” and a promise that no similar warning would be written again. But the issue of Israeli spying would not go away. Soon after, the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, completed an examination of espionage directed against American defense and security industries. The report described how Israeli citizens residing in the U.S. had stolen sensitive technology to manufacture artillery gun tubes, obtained classified plans for a reconnaissance system, and passed sensitive aerospace designs to unauthorized users. An Israeli company was caught monitoring a Department of Defense telecommunications system to obtain classified information, while other Israeli entities targeted avionics, missile telemetry, aircraft communications, software systems, and advanced materials and coatings used in missile re-entry. Independently, a Defense Department source confirmed the GAO report, citing “dozens of other spy cases within the U.S. Defense industry.” The GAO concluded that Israel “conducts the most aggressive espionage operation against the United States of any U.S. ally.” In early 2001, several federal government agencies noticed a series of intrusive approaches by Israelis who were ostensibly selling paintings. In June, the Drug Enforcement Administration made a compilation of the activities of the so-called “art students” in a classified report, which was later leaked. The report documents 125 specific attempts by Israelis to gain entry to government offices, residences of government employees, and even Defense Department facilities between January and June 2001. The Israelis “targeted and penetrated military bases” and were observed trying to enter federal buildings from back doors and parking garages. One detained Israeli was caught wandering around the federal building in Dallas with a detailed floor plan in hand. Many of those arrested were found to have backgrounds in “military intelligence, electronic surveillance intercept, or explosive ordnance units.” Now, there may have been an Israeli student subculture in the U.S. selling cheap reproductions. But it is also clear that the art-student mechanism was used by intelligence officers to provide cover for espionage. The students were organized in cells of eight to ten members that traveled in vans, which provide concealment for electronic equipment. Several of the students were able to afford expensive airline tickets to hop from plane to plane, two of them flying in one day from Hamburg to Miami, then to Chicago, and finally winding up in Toronto on tickets that cost $15,000 each. In Miami and Chicago, they visited two government officials to try to sell their art. Another student had in his possession deposit slips for $180,000. Six students used cellphones provided by a former Israeli vice consul. Many claimed to be registered at either the University of Jerusalem or the Bezalel Academy of Arts in Jerusalem, but not a single name could be connected to the student body list of Bezalel, and there is no University of Jerusalem. It is plausible that the art students who were actually intelligence officers might have been seeking entry to DEA facilities to gain access to confidential databases. If the broader Israeli espionage effort was focused on Arabs in the United States, such information would be invaluable. The DEA report concluded cautiously that the Israelis “might well be engaged in organized intelligence gathering.” Of the 140 art students arrested, most were deported for immigration violations. Some were just let go. And then there are the movers. Urban Moving Systems of Weehawken, New Jersey was largely staffed by Israelis, many of whom had recently been discharged from the Israeli Defense Forces. As has been widely reported, three movers were photographed celebrating in Liberty State Park against the backdrop of the first collapsing World Trade Center tower. The celebration came 16 minutes after the first plane struck, when no one knew that there had been a terrorist attack and the episode was assumed to be a horrible accident. The owner of the moving company, Dominik Suter, was questioned once by the FBI before fleeing to Israel. He has since refused to answer questions. Whether the movers and the art students had jointly pieced together enough information to provide a preview of 9/11 remains hidden in intelligence files in Tel Aviv, but the proximity of both groups to 15 of the hijackers in Hollywood, Florida and to five others in northern New Jersey is suggestive. Speculation about 9/11 aside, it is certain that Urban Moving was involved in an intelligence-collection operation against Arabs living in the United States, possibly involving electronic surveillance of phone calls and other communications. When they were arrested, the five Israelis working for Urban Moving had multiple passports and nearly $5,000 in cash. They were held for 71 days, failed a number of polygraph exams, and were finally allowed to return to Israel after Tel Aviv admitted that they were Mossad and apologized. Between 55 and 95 other Israelis were also arrested in the weeks following 9/11, and a number were reported to be active-duty military personnel. The FBI came under intense pressure from several congressmen and various pro-Israel groups to release the detainees. The order to free them came from Judge Michael Mukasey, now the U.S. attorney general. An FBI investigator noted, “Leads were not fully investigated” due to pressure from “higher echelons.” According to one source, the White House may have made the final decision to terminate the inquiry. Though the investigation could have gone much farther, the FBI identified two of the Weehawken movers as Israeli intelligence officers and confirmed that Urban Moving was a front for Mossad to “spy on local Arabs.” One CIA officer involved in the investigation concluded, “The Israelis likely had a huge spy operation.” In May 2004, there were two incidents involving Israelis in moving vans in proximity to U.S. nuclear facilities. One occurred in Tennessee near the Nuclear Fuel Services plant, which reprocesses nuclear waste from hospitals. The van was pursued by the local sheriff for three miles after refusing to pull over. The two fleeing Israelis, who threw a bottle containing an accelerant, had in their possession Israeli military ID’s and false U.S. documents. In the second incident, two movers in a van tried to enter the Kings Bay Naval Submarine Base in Georgia, which is home to eight Trident nuclear submarines, but were arrested when dogs detected drugs inside their vehicle. The men had military ID’s and false documents. There was no follow-up by the FBI even though both incidents were reported to federal authorities. There have also been reports of intensive targeting of U.S. government facilities overseas. In late 2001, State Department security noted a series of incidents at diplomatic missions and military bases, all involving Israelis. It described many of the incidents as “bizarre.” In one instance, French police arrested several Israelis at 2 a.m. after they were observed taking numerous photos of the U.S. embassy in Paris. As it was dark, their behavior was unusual to say the least—or perhaps not since it was revealed that the Israelis were using infrared film to detect communications equipment in the embassy. In August 2004, the media discovered an FBI investigation, begun in 1999, involving Pentagon intelligence analyst Larry Franklin. He had openly met Israeli Embassy intelligence officer Naor Gilon as well as two AIPAC officials, director Steve Rosen and chief analyst Keith Weissman. He pleaded guilty in October 2005 to revealing classified information and is now serving a 12-year prison sentence. Rosen and Weissman are currently on trial. If the prosecution is correct, Franklin passed classified information relating to Iran to both AIPAC employees, who in turn provided the information to the Israeli Embassy. The defense has argued that such exchanges are routine in Washington, particularly between close allies such as Israel and the U.S., but that is a dubious reading of events. Passing classified information and documents is not the same as casual political conversation over a cup of coffee. If Israel had stopped spying on the United States, Gilon should have refused to receive the information provided by Franklin. He might even have gone through official channels to report Franklin’s activity. He did neither. Nor did Rosen and Weissman object when they received information that they knew to be classified. Instead, they passed it on to the Israelis. In June 2006, it was revealed that the Pentagon had begun to deny security clearances to American Jews who had family in Israel. Israelis seeking security approval to work for American defense contractors were also finding it increasingly difficult to obtain clearances. A Pentagon administrative judge overruled an appeal by one of the Israelis, stating, “The Israeli government is actively engaged in military and industrial espionage in the United States. An Israeli citizen working in the US who has access to proprietary information is likely to be a target of such espionage.” Israel conducts much of its high-tech spying through its corporate presence in the United States. It is heavily embedded in the telecommunications industry, which permits access to the exchange of information. The Whitewater investigation revealed that President Bill Clinton warned Monica Lewinsky that their phone-sex conversations might have been recorded by a foreign government. That foreign government would have been Israel, where government and business work hand-in-hand in the high-tech sector, and many former government officials and military officers hold senior management positions. The corporations, in return, receive large contracts with the Israeli government and the Israel Defense Forces. Two Israeli companies in particular—Amdocs and Comverse Infosys, both of which are headquartered in Israel—do significant business in the United States. Amdocs, which has contracts with the 25 largest telephone companies in the U.S. that together handle 90 percent of all calls made, logs all calls that go out and come in on the system. It does not record the conversations themselves, but the records provide patterns, referred to as “traffic analysis,” that can provide intelligence leads. In 1999, the National Security Agency warned that records of calls made in the United States were winding up in Israel. Amdocs also has an apparent relationship with some of the art students who were arrested in 2001. Several were provided with bond money by an Amdocs executive. Comverse Infosys provides wiretapping equipment to law enforcement throughout the United States and also has large contracts with the Israeli government, which reimburses up to 50 percent of the company’s research and development costs. Because equipment used to tap phones for law enforcement is integrated into the networks that phone companies operate, it cannot be detected. Phone calls are intercepted, recorded, stored, and transmitted to investigators by Comverse, which claims that it has to be “hands on” with its equipment to maintain the system. Many experts believe that it is relatively easy to create a so-called “back door” that permits the recording to be sent to a second party, unknown to the authorized law-enforcement recipient. And Comverse equipment has never been inspected by FBI or NSA experts to determine whether the information it collects can be leaked, reportedly because senior government managers block such inquiries. According to a Fox News investigative report, which was later deleted from Fox’s website under pressure from various pro-Israel groups, DEA and FBI sources say that even to suggest that Israel might be spying using Comverse “is considered career suicide.” A number of criminal investigations using Comverse equipment have apparently come to dead ends when the targets abruptly change their telecommunications methods, suggesting at a minimum that Comverse employees might be leaking sensitive information to Israeli organized crime. The chickens occasionally come home to roost. In 2002, Israeli espionage might have been directed against the U.S. Congress, which has so assidiously ignored Tel Aviv’s spying. Congressman Bob Ney, currently in prison for corruption, arranged a noncompetitive bid for the Israeli telecommunications company Foxcom Wireless to install equipment to improve cellphone reception in the Capitol and House office buildings. Foxcom, based in Jerusalem, has been linked to imprisoned lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Telecommunications security experts note that equipment that can be used to enhance or improve a signal can also be used to redirect the phone conversation to another location for recording and analysis. The possibility that someone in the Israeli Embassy might be listening to congressmen’s private phone conversations is intriguing to say the least. Some might argue that collecting intelligence is a function of government and that espionage, even between friends, will always take place. But the intensity and persistence of Israeli spying against the United States is particularly disturbing since Israel relies so heavily on American political and military support. Other allies like Britain, France, and Germany undoubtedly have spies in Washington, but there is a line that they do not cross. Given the stakes involved, it would be reasonable for the United States to quietly offer Israel’s leaders a choice. They can continue to receive billions of dollars in aid, or they can persist in spying against their greatest benefactor. They should not be permitted to do both. Philip Giraldi, a former CIA Officer, is a fellow at the American Conservative Defense Alliance. opyright © 2008 The American Conservative

pics u should c

06.14.08 (2:27 am)   [edit]
http://poetryforpalestine .spaces.live.com/photos/cns%2192AA638F 9B6EA940%212383/

Report: Abbas informed of Israel's plan to retake Gaza

06.14.08 (2:16 am)   [edit]
Report: Abbas informed of Israel's plan to retake Gaza Al-Quds Al-Arabi quotes Palestinian sources as saying that Abbas called for renewed talks with Hamas in effort to thwart Jerusalem's plan to launch broad military operation in Strip, gradually transfer control over to Palestinian Authority Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas decided to call for a 'national and comprehensive dialogue' with Hamas after being informed of Israel's plan to launch a wide-scale military operation in Gaza and recapture the coastal enclave, according to a report published Saturday by the London-based Arabic-language newspaper Al-Quds Al-Arabi. The newspaper quoted Palestinian sources as saying that Israel plans to gradually transfer control over the Strip to the Palestinian Authority, adding that Abbas expressed his objection to the move during last week's meeting with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and demanded that Jerusalem take a positive stance toward Egypt's efforts to broker a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas. According to the sources, Abbas warned Olmert of the possible ramifications should Israel decide to take over Gaza and is attempting to thwart an Israeli invasion by resuming talks with Hamas. The report said Israel is looking to re-conquer Gaza, annihilate the Palestinian resistance groups, mainly Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and then gradually transfer control over the Strip to Abbas. However, the newspaper said, the Palestinian president is wary of regaining control in Gaza following an Israeli operation. Mousa Abu Marzouk, the deputy head of Hamas' political bureau, told Al-Quds Al-Arabi that Abbas had no other choice but to resume negotiations with the Islamist group "after realizing that all of his other options, such as the attempt to isolate Hamas and participate in the blockade on Gaza, had failed". Senegalese state media reported on Saturday that President Abdoulaye Wade has begun talks with representatives of Hamas and Fatah, hoping to establish common ground in the Palestinian factions' approach to Israel.

Egypt sees Israel preparing major Gaza invasion

06.07.08 (2:55 am)   [edit]
Egypt sees Israel preparing major Gaza invasion CAIRO - Egyptian sources said the intelligence community had concluded that Israel's military was preparing for a massive invasion of the Gaza Strip. The sources said the invasion would attack several areas of Gaza simultaneously and seek to destroy or badly damage the Hamas regime. "All of the signals that we have been receiving point to a massive and imminent invasion," an Egyptian source said. [On Thursday, an Israeli was killed and three others were injured when an Iranian-origin mortar slammed into a factory in southern Israel near the Gaza Strip. Hamas, in an unusual move, claimed responsibility.]

On the Future of Israel and Palestine

06.07.08 (2:53 am)   [edit]
NEWS YOU WON'T FIND ON CNN Send Page To a Friend On the Future of Israel and Palestine An Interview with Ilan Pappé and Noam Chomsky By Frank Barat 06/06/08 "Counterpunch" -- - Barat: Thanks for accepting this interview. Firstly I would like to ask if you are working on something at the moment that you would like to let us know about? Ilan Pappé: I am completing several books. The first is a concise history of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, the other is on the Palestinian minority in Israel and one on the Arab Jews. I am completing an edited volume comparing the South Africa situation to that of Palestine Noam Chomsky: The usual range of articles, talks, etc. No time for major projects right now. Barat: A British M.P recently said that he had felt a change in the last 5 years regarding Israel. British M.Ps nowadays sign E.D.M (Early Day Motions) condemning Israel in bigger number than ever before and he told us that it was now easier to express criticism towards Israel even when talking on U.S campuses. Also, in the last few weeks, John Dugard, independent investigator on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for the U.N Human Right Council said that "Palestinian terror 'inevitable' result of occupation", the European parliament adopted a resolution saying that "policy of isolation of the Gaza strip has failed at both the political and humanitarian level" and the U.N and the E.U have condemned Israel use of excessive and disproportionate force in the Gaza strip. Could we interpret that as a general shift in attitude towards Israel? Ilan Pappé: The two examples indicate a significant shift in public opinion and in the civil society. However, the problem remained what it had been in the last sixty years: these impulses and energies are not translated, and are not likely to be translated in the near future, into actual policies on the ground. And thus the only way of enhancing this transition from support from below to actual policies is by developing the idea of sanctions and boycott. This can give a clear orientation and direction to the many individuals and ngos that have shown for years solidarity with the Palestine cause. Noam Chomsky: There has been a very clear shift in recent years. On US campuses and with general audiences as well. It was not long ago that police protection was a standard feature of talks at all critical of Israeli policies, meetings were broken up, audiences very hostile and abusive. By now it is sharply different, with scattered exceptions. Apologists for Israeli violence now tend often to be defensive and desperate, rather than arrogant and overbearing. But the critique of Israeli actions is thin, because the basic facts are systematically suppressed. That is particularly true of the decisive US role in barring diplomatic options, undermining democracy, and supporting Israel's systematic program of undermining the possibility for an eventual political settlement. But portrayal of the US as an "honest broker," somehow unable to pursue its benign objectives, is characteristic, not only in this domain. Barat: The word apartheid is more and more often used by NGO's and charities to describe Israel's actions towards the Palestinians (in Gaza, the OPT but also in Israel itself). Is the situation in Palestine and Israel comparable to Apartheid South Africa? Ilan Pappé: There are similarities and dissimilarities. The colonialist history has many chapters in common and some of the features of the Apartheid system can be found in the Israeli policies towards its own Palestinian minority and towards those in the occupied territories. Some aspects of the occupation, however, are worse then the apartheid reality of South Africa and some aspects in the lives of Palestinian citizens in Israel, are not as bad as they were in the hey days of Apartheid. The main point of comparison to my mind is political inspiration. The anti-Apartheid movement, the ANC, the solidarity networks developed throughout the years in the West, should inspire a more focused and effect pro-Palestinian campaign. This is why there is a need to learn the history of the struggle against Apartheid, much more than dwell too long on comparing the Zionist and Apartheid systems. Noam Chomsky: There can be no definite answer to such questions. There are similarities and differences. Within Israel itself, there is serious discrimination, but it's very far from South African Apartheid. Within the occupied territories, it's a different story. In 1997, I gave the keynote address at Ben-Gurion University in a conference on the anniversary of the 1967 war. I read a paragraph from a standard history of South Africa. No comment was necessary. Looking more closely, the situation in the OT differs in many ways from Apartheid. In some respects, South African Apartheid was more vicious than Israeli practices, and in some respects the opposite is true. To mention one example, White South Africa depended on Black labor. The large majority of the population could not be expelled. At one time Israel relied on cheap and easily exploited Palestinian labor, but they have long ago been replaced by the miserable of the earth from Asia, Eastern Europe, and elsewhere. Israelis would mostly breathe a sigh of relief if Palestinians were to disappear. And it is no secret that the policies that have taken shape accord well with the recommendations of Moshe Dayan right after the 1967 war : Palestinians will "continue to live like dogs, and whoever wishes may leave." More extreme recommendations have been made by highly regarded left humanists in the United States, for example Michael Walzer of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton and editor of the democratic socialist journal Dissent, who advised 35 years ago that since Palestinians are "marginal to the nation," they should be "helped" to leave. He was referring to Palestinian citizens of Israel itself, a position made familiar more recently by the ultra-right Avigdor Lieberman, and now being picked up in the Israeli mainstream. I put aside the real fanatics, like Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz, who declares that Israel never kills civilians, only terrorists, so that the definition of "terrorist" is "killed by Israel"; and Israel should aim for a kill ratio of 1000 to zero, which means "exterminate the brutes" completely. It is of no small significance that advocates of these views are regarded with respect in enlightened circles in the US, indeed the West. One can imagine the reaction if such comments were made about Jews. On the query, to repeat, there can be no clear answer as to whether the analogy is appropriate. Barat: Israel has recently said that it will boycott the U.N conference on Human Rights in Durban because "it will be impossible to prevent the conference from turning into a festival of anti-Israeli attacks" and has also cancelled a meeting with Costa Rican officials over the Central American nation's decision to formally recognize a Palestinian state. Is Israel refusal to accept any sort of criticism towards its policies likely to eventually backfire? Ilan Pappé: One hopes it will backfire one day. However, this depends on the global and regional balances of power, not only on the Israelis 'over reacting'. The two, namely the balance of power and Israel intransigence, may be interconnected