Aug 31, 2011
By ADAM GOLDMAN and MATT APUZZO, AP
Source: Yahoo News
NEW YORK (AP) — Working with the CIA, the New York Police Department maintained a list of "ancestries of interest" and dispatched undercover officers to monitor Muslim businesses and social groups, according to new documents that offer a rare glimpse inside an intelligence program the NYPD insists doesn't exist.
The documents add new details to an Associated Press investigation that explained how undercover NYPD officers singled out Muslim communities for surveillance and infiltration.
The Demographics Unit, a squad of 16 officers fluent in a total of at least five languages, was told to map ethnic communities in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut and identify where people socialize, shop and pray.
Once that analysis was complete, according to documents obtained by the AP, the NYPD would "deploy officers in civilian clothes throughout the ethnic communities."
The architect of this and other programs was a veteran CIA officer who oversaw the program while working with the NYPD on the CIA payroll. It was an unusual arrangement for the CIA, which is prohibited from spying inside the U.S.
After the AP report, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the NYPD has kept the city safe and does not take religion into account in its policing. The NYPD denied the Demographics Unit exists.
"There is no such unit," police spokesman Paul Browne said before the first AP story ran. "There is nothing called the Demographics Unit."
Internal police documents show otherwise. An NYPD presentation, delivered inside the department, described the mission and makeup of the Demographics Unit. Undercover officers were told to look not only for evidence of terrorism and crimes but also to determine the ethnicity of business owners and eavesdrop on conversations inside cafes.
A police memorandum from 2006 described an NYPD supervisor rebuking an undercover detective for not doing a good enough job reporting on community events and "rhetoric heard in cafes and hotspot locations."
How law enforcement agencies, both local and federal, can stay ahead of Islamic terrorists without using racial profiling techniques has been hotly debated since 9/11. Singling out minorities for extra scrutiny without evidence of wrongdoing has been criticized as discriminatory. Not focusing on Muslim neighborhoods has been equally criticized as political correctness run amok. The documents describe how the nation's largest police force has come down on that issue.
Working out of the police department's offices at the Brooklyn Army Terminal, the Demographics Unit maintained a list of 28 countries that, along with "American Black Muslim," it considered "ancestries of interest." Nearly all are Muslim countries.
Police used census data and government databases to map areas it considered "hot spots" as well as the ethnic neighborhoods of New York's tri-state area, the documents show.
Undercover officers known as "rakers" — a term the NYPD also denied existed — were then told to participate in social activities such as cricket matches and visit cafes and clubs, the documents show.
Police had a list of "key indicators" of problems. It included obvious signs of trouble such as criminal activity and extremist rhetoric by imams. But it also included things commonly seen in neighborhoods, such as community centers, religious schools and "community bulletin boards (located in houses of worship)."
At least one lawyer inside the police department has raised concerns about the Demographics Unit, current and former officials told the AP. Because of those concerns, the officials said, the information gathered from the unit is kept on a computer at the Brooklyn Army Terminal, not in the department's normal intelligence database. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the intelligence programs.
The AP independently authenticated the NYPD presentation through an interview with one official who saw it and by reviewing electronic data embedded in the file. A former official who had not seen the presentation said the content of the presentation was correct. For the internal memo, the AP verified the names and locations mentioned in the document, and the content is consistent with a program described by numerous current and former officials.
In an email Tuesday night, Browne disputed the AP's original story, saying the NYPD only follows leads and does not simply trawl communities.
"We do not employ undercovers or confidential informants unless there is information indicating the possibility of unlawful activity," Browne wrote.
That issue has legal significance. The NYPD says it follows the same guidelines as the FBI, which cannot use undercover agents to monitor communities without first receiving an allegation or indication of criminal activity.
After the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the CIA sent a respected veteran officer, Lawrence Sanchez, to New York, where he worked closely with the NYPD. Officials said he was instrumental in creating programs such as the Demographics Unit and met regularly with unit supervisors to guide the effort. After a two-year rotation in New York, Sanchez took a leave of absence, came off the agency's payroll and became the NYPD's second-ranking intelligence official. He formally left the agency in 2007 and stayed with the NYPD until last year.
The CIA recently dispatched another officer to work in the Intelligence Division for what officials described as a management sabbatical. A U.S. official familiar with the NYPD-CIA partnership said Sanchez's time in New York was a unique assignment created in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. But the official said the current officer's job was much different and was an opportunity for him to learn from an organization outside the CIA.
Both the CIA said and the NYPD have said the agency is not involved in domestic spying and said the partnership is the kind of counterterrorism collaboration Americans expect.
The NYPD Intelligence Division has unquestionably been essential to the city's best counterterrorism successes, including the thwarted plot to bomb the subway system in 2004. Undercover officers also helped lead to the guilty plea of two men arrested on their way to receive terrorism training in Somalia.
"We throw 1,200 police officers into the fight every day to make sure the same people or similarly inspired people who killed 3,000 New Yorkers a decade ago don't come back and do it again," Browne said earlier this month when asked about the NYPD's intelligence tactics.
The Demographics Unit had officers who spoke Arabic, Bengali, Hindi, Punjabi and Urdu, according to the police presentation. The undercover officers were divided into teams based on ethnicity. Arab officers could blend into Arab neighborhoods and Southwest Asian officers, those from Pakistan and Afghanistan, could more easily blend into those neighborhoods.
Rep. Yvette Clarke, a Democrat who represents much of Brooklyn and sits on the House Homeland Security Committee, said the NYPD can protect the city without singling out specific ethnic and religious groups. She joined Muslim organizations in calling for a Justice Department investigation into the NYPD Intelligence Division. The department said it would review the request for an investigation.
Clarke acknowledged that the 2001 terrorist attacks made Americans more willing to accept aggressive tactics, particularly involving Muslims. But she said Americans would be outraged if police infiltrated Baptist churches looking for evangelical Christian extremists.
"There were those who, during World War II, said, 'Good, I'm glad they're interning all the Japanese-Americans who are living here,'" Clarke said. "But we look back on that period with disdain."
___
Online:
View the NYPD documents: http://bit.ly/q5iIXL and http://bit.ly/mVNdD8
___
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Arab Spring: Egypt, Libya and Syria
August 30, 2011
Eid Al Fitr 2011
written by: Sheila Quinn
Source: A New Era
Today I would like to give my own analysis of the Arab Spring in: Egypt,Libya and Syria. First of all I would like to mention that all of the uprisings in the Arab countries are popular uprisings of the people who are sick and tired of tyranny. They are genuine popular movements in which the global oligarchy is attempting to manipulate for its own agenda. But, I would like to say at this point- that these uprisings ,in sha' Allah, are from The Creator. They are,in sha' Allah, the beginning of an era in which all- I mean ALL- of the tyrants of The Islamic Nation will go down! All of the tyrants of The Islamic Nation will go down, one by one- when The Creator wants, and how The Creator wants. Through this, in sha' Allah, the global oligarchy also will go down. If,indeed this is from The Creator- as I think it is-then the global oligarchy will not be able to do anything against it.
Anyone, who thinks that any of these uprisings were started by the oligarchy do not know what they are talking about. It disappoints me when I see articles- from websites that I trust- that insists that either the revolution in Libya and/or the protests in Syria are from the oligarchy. What idiocy.
EGYPT
The uprising in Egypt is not only against Mubarak,but also against those who supported, and encouraged Mubarak's tyranny against the people. From what I know about Egypt, most of the people of Egypt have a great deal of distrust not only for the Israeli State- but for the U.S. Government as well. Indeed, The Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt has tremendous support amongst the people of Egypt (just as The Muslim Brotherhood of Jordan has tremendous support amongst the people of Jordan).
The global oligarchy doesn't just have one plan- but it has many plans. It has Plan A,B,C.D.E...etc. If Plan A doesn't work, then it goes to Plan B. If Plan B doesn't work than it goes to Plan C, etc. For Egypt,its plan A was Mubarak.
But, I think its plan B is to support the uprising while involving its own people in the uprising. I see evidence of this through what I have observed happening in Egypt after Mubarak's fall. I have reason to think that both El Bareidi and Amr Moosa are the oligarchy's Plan B. Why do I say this? Well, for one thing just look at the two of them. El Bareidi is from the international organization which is involved in the regulation of atomic energy. The same organization that has compromised its credibility. As for Amr Moosa,he was the leader of The Arab League. During his leadership he said some good things, but his words were empty. Nothing was accomplished by The Arab League during his leadership;only empty words, and conferences that led to nothing.
There was some controversy in Egypt about the referendum that was taken. It was a referendum that was supported by The Muslim Brotherhood and passed by the Egyptian people. There are a few small parties which objected to the referendum, in spite of the fact, that it passed in an election. Also, originally, the Egyptian Military authority set the date for the elections in early fall. Yet, after objections from the supporters of El Bareidi and Amr Moosa the elections were delayed for a month. What were the objections? They were objections to the fact that The Muslim Brotherhood Of Egypt was very popular and would most likely win in an election. Indeed, The Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt is so popular that the global oligarchy made some moves toward supposedly befriending The Muslim Brotherhood (through Obama's administration's PR statements about maybe having a dialogue with it).
LIBYA
The revolution in Libya started with protests that spread and continued to spread through out the country. The Qaddafi regime immediately resorted to a violent crackdown on the protesters and continued in it. Hundreds of civilians were slaughtered.
At this point, I think that it is important to give a brief summary of the history of Libya. Libya is a country that is a combination of three provinces. Those three provinces were under the Khilafa until it was destroyed in World War One. Afterwards they became the colonies of Italy. It was after the war that a committee of representatives from all three provinces choose a leader. That leader was King Idris. It was under his leadership that Libya was recognized by The U.N. as a country. King Idris was in the process of making Libya an independent country when Qaddafi came and made a military coup against him. It is through this coup that Qaddafi came into power in Libya. He was never elected by the people. He wrote a book that he called "The Green Book" in which he claimed was equal to The Qur'an. For more than forty years he terrorized the people of Libya. During this time he campaigned against colonialism in Africa and against Zionism.
Through his campaigns he established a following of admirers and supporters. He also established a fund through the sale of oil. During his struggle against the freedom fighters of Libya he used both his popularity as an anti-colonialist, as well as, the funds that he gathered from the sale of oil to buy both mercenaries and weapons.
Although, The Transitional National Council of Libya obtained the help of NATO- and therefore, the help of the global oligarchy they (The freedom fighters of Libya)always insisted on the unity of Libya and that there would not be any foreign boots on Libyan soil. Although NATO did help, it only helped through air support. It was through the bravery and dedication of the Libyan people to be a free people that the capital of Libya was finally liberated from Qaddafi's grip. NATO's help in its air support was a mercy from The Creator for the people of Libya.
"The Unbelievers plot, and Allah also plots and the best of plotters is Allah". (Qur'an)
SYRIA
The last country is Syria. Like Libya, the people of Syria have been terrorized by a regime -that they did not elect- for many, many years. It is a regime that the father established, and now his son is leading. It is a regime of a tiny group of individuals in Syria who are known as the Alawite. It has been mistakenly reported as being a sectarian struggle, but in fact the Alawite is a very small group that is terrorizing the great majority of citizens. Many of the members of the armed forces of Syria have been lied to, and probably still are being lied to. They are being told that they will be fighting against an armed insurrection- but then they find out that they are shooting at unarmed civilians. There are different reactions to this realization. Some of them speak up against it and then disappear. Others just accept it and do as they are told. While others leave the military without permission and head for Syria's border with Turkey. The protests are still continuing through out Syria. A number of cities are under siege. Journalists from other countries have been kicked out by the Assad regime. The slaughter continues, only The Creator knows when it will end. But, we as Muslims should know from the teachings of our faith that everyone has an appointment with death that can not be delayed or advanced and that those who die were meant to die when they did. This time is a difficult time for the Syrian people, it is a time of many tests -from The Creator- in faith,in trust and in submission to His Will.
There is no power, or might except with The God.
Eid Al Fitr 2011
written by: Sheila Quinn
Source: A New Era
Today I would like to give my own analysis of the Arab Spring in: Egypt,Libya and Syria. First of all I would like to mention that all of the uprisings in the Arab countries are popular uprisings of the people who are sick and tired of tyranny. They are genuine popular movements in which the global oligarchy is attempting to manipulate for its own agenda. But, I would like to say at this point- that these uprisings ,in sha' Allah, are from The Creator. They are,in sha' Allah, the beginning of an era in which all- I mean ALL- of the tyrants of The Islamic Nation will go down! All of the tyrants of The Islamic Nation will go down, one by one- when The Creator wants, and how The Creator wants. Through this, in sha' Allah, the global oligarchy also will go down. If,indeed this is from The Creator- as I think it is-then the global oligarchy will not be able to do anything against it.
Anyone, who thinks that any of these uprisings were started by the oligarchy do not know what they are talking about. It disappoints me when I see articles- from websites that I trust- that insists that either the revolution in Libya and/or the protests in Syria are from the oligarchy. What idiocy.
EGYPT
The uprising in Egypt is not only against Mubarak,but also against those who supported, and encouraged Mubarak's tyranny against the people. From what I know about Egypt, most of the people of Egypt have a great deal of distrust not only for the Israeli State- but for the U.S. Government as well. Indeed, The Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt has tremendous support amongst the people of Egypt (just as The Muslim Brotherhood of Jordan has tremendous support amongst the people of Jordan).
The global oligarchy doesn't just have one plan- but it has many plans. It has Plan A,B,C.D.E...etc. If Plan A doesn't work, then it goes to Plan B. If Plan B doesn't work than it goes to Plan C, etc. For Egypt,its plan A was Mubarak.
But, I think its plan B is to support the uprising while involving its own people in the uprising. I see evidence of this through what I have observed happening in Egypt after Mubarak's fall. I have reason to think that both El Bareidi and Amr Moosa are the oligarchy's Plan B. Why do I say this? Well, for one thing just look at the two of them. El Bareidi is from the international organization which is involved in the regulation of atomic energy. The same organization that has compromised its credibility. As for Amr Moosa,he was the leader of The Arab League. During his leadership he said some good things, but his words were empty. Nothing was accomplished by The Arab League during his leadership;only empty words, and conferences that led to nothing.
There was some controversy in Egypt about the referendum that was taken. It was a referendum that was supported by The Muslim Brotherhood and passed by the Egyptian people. There are a few small parties which objected to the referendum, in spite of the fact, that it passed in an election. Also, originally, the Egyptian Military authority set the date for the elections in early fall. Yet, after objections from the supporters of El Bareidi and Amr Moosa the elections were delayed for a month. What were the objections? They were objections to the fact that The Muslim Brotherhood Of Egypt was very popular and would most likely win in an election. Indeed, The Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt is so popular that the global oligarchy made some moves toward supposedly befriending The Muslim Brotherhood (through Obama's administration's PR statements about maybe having a dialogue with it).
LIBYA
The revolution in Libya started with protests that spread and continued to spread through out the country. The Qaddafi regime immediately resorted to a violent crackdown on the protesters and continued in it. Hundreds of civilians were slaughtered.
At this point, I think that it is important to give a brief summary of the history of Libya. Libya is a country that is a combination of three provinces. Those three provinces were under the Khilafa until it was destroyed in World War One. Afterwards they became the colonies of Italy. It was after the war that a committee of representatives from all three provinces choose a leader. That leader was King Idris. It was under his leadership that Libya was recognized by The U.N. as a country. King Idris was in the process of making Libya an independent country when Qaddafi came and made a military coup against him. It is through this coup that Qaddafi came into power in Libya. He was never elected by the people. He wrote a book that he called "The Green Book" in which he claimed was equal to The Qur'an. For more than forty years he terrorized the people of Libya. During this time he campaigned against colonialism in Africa and against Zionism.
Through his campaigns he established a following of admirers and supporters. He also established a fund through the sale of oil. During his struggle against the freedom fighters of Libya he used both his popularity as an anti-colonialist, as well as, the funds that he gathered from the sale of oil to buy both mercenaries and weapons.
Although, The Transitional National Council of Libya obtained the help of NATO- and therefore, the help of the global oligarchy they (The freedom fighters of Libya)always insisted on the unity of Libya and that there would not be any foreign boots on Libyan soil. Although NATO did help, it only helped through air support. It was through the bravery and dedication of the Libyan people to be a free people that the capital of Libya was finally liberated from Qaddafi's grip. NATO's help in its air support was a mercy from The Creator for the people of Libya.
"The Unbelievers plot, and Allah also plots and the best of plotters is Allah". (Qur'an)
SYRIA
The last country is Syria. Like Libya, the people of Syria have been terrorized by a regime -that they did not elect- for many, many years. It is a regime that the father established, and now his son is leading. It is a regime of a tiny group of individuals in Syria who are known as the Alawite. It has been mistakenly reported as being a sectarian struggle, but in fact the Alawite is a very small group that is terrorizing the great majority of citizens. Many of the members of the armed forces of Syria have been lied to, and probably still are being lied to. They are being told that they will be fighting against an armed insurrection- but then they find out that they are shooting at unarmed civilians. There are different reactions to this realization. Some of them speak up against it and then disappear. Others just accept it and do as they are told. While others leave the military without permission and head for Syria's border with Turkey. The protests are still continuing through out Syria. A number of cities are under siege. Journalists from other countries have been kicked out by the Assad regime. The slaughter continues, only The Creator knows when it will end. But, we as Muslims should know from the teachings of our faith that everyone has an appointment with death that can not be delayed or advanced and that those who die were meant to die when they did. This time is a difficult time for the Syrian people, it is a time of many tests -from The Creator- in faith,in trust and in submission to His Will.
There is no power, or might except with The God.
Monday, August 29, 2011
How Israel takes its revenge on boys who throw stones
26 August 2011
Source: The Independent
The boy, small and frail, is struggling to stay awake. His head lolls to the side, at one point slumping on to his chest. "Lift up your head! Lift it up!" shouts one of his interrogators, slapping him. But the boy by now is past caring, for he has been awake for at least 12 hours since he was separated at gunpoint from his parents at two that morning. "I wish you'd let me go," the boy whimpers, "just so I can get some sleep."
During the nearly six-hour video, 14-year-old Palestinian Islam Tamimi, exhausted and scared, is steadily broken to the point where he starts to incriminate men from his village and weave fantastic tales that he believes his tormentors want to hear.
This rarely seen footage seen by The Independent offers a glimpse into an Israeli interrogation, almost a rite of passage that hundreds of Palestinian children accused of throwing stones undergo every year.
Israel has robustly defended its record, arguing that the treatment of minors has vastly improved with the creation of a military juvenile court two years ago. But the children who have faced the rough justice of the occupation tell a very different story.
"The problems start long before the child is brought to court, it starts with their arrest," says Naomi Lalo, an activist with No Legal Frontiers, an Israeli group that monitors the military courts. It is during their interrogation where their "fate is doomed", she says.
Sameer Shilu, 12, was asleep when the soldiers smashed in the front door of his house one night. He and his older brother emerged bleary-eyed from their bedroom to find six masked soldiers in their living room.
Checking the boy's name on his father's identity card, the officer looked "shocked" when he saw he had to arrest a boy, says Sameer's father, Saher. "I said, 'He's too young; why do you want him?' 'I don't know,' he said". Blindfolded, and his hands tied painfully behind his back with plastic cords, Sameer was bundled into a Jeep, his father calling out to him not to be afraid. "We cried, all of us," his father says. "I know my sons; they don't throw stones."
In the hours before his interrogation, Sameer was kept blindfolded and handcuffed, and prevented from sleeping. Eventually taken for interrogation without a lawyer or parent present, a man accused him of being in a demonstration, and showed him footage of a boy throwing stones, claiming it was him.
"He said, 'This is you', and I said it wasn't me. Then he asked me, 'Who are they?' And I said that I didn't know," Sameer says. "At one point, the man started shouting at me, and grabbed me by the collar, and said, 'I'll throw you out of the window and beat you with a stick if you don't confess'."
Sameer, who protested his innocence, was fortunate; he was released a few hours later. But most children are frightened into signing a confession, cowed by threats of physical violence, or threats against their families, such as the withdrawal of work permits.
When a confession is signed, lawyers usually advise children to accept a plea bargain and serve a fixed jail sentence even if not guilty. Pleading innocent is to invite lengthy court proceedings, during which the child is almost always remanded in prison. Acquittals are rare. "In a military court, you have to know that you're not looking for justice," says Gabi Lasky, an Israeli lawyer who has represented many children.
There are many Palestinian children in the West Bank villages in the shadow of Israel's separation wall and Jewish settlements on Palestinian lands. Where largely non-violent protests have sprung up as a form of resistance, there are children who throw stones, and raids by Israel are common. But lawyers and human rights groups have decried Israel's arrest policy of targeting children in villages that resist the occupation.
In most cases, children as young as 12 are hauled from their beds at night, handcuffed and blindfolded, deprived of sleep and food, subjected to lengthy interrogations, then forced to sign a confession in Hebrew, a language few of them read.
Israeli rights group B'Tselem concluded that, "the rights of minors are severely violated, that the law almost completely fails to protect their rights, and that the few rights granted by the law are not implemented".
Israel claims to treat Palestinian minors in the spirit of its own law for juveniles but, in practice, it is rarely the case. For instance, children should not be arrested at night, lawyers and parents should be present during interrogations, and the children must be read their rights. But these are treated as guidelines, rather than a legal requirement, and are frequently flouted. And Israel regards Israeli youngsters as children until 18, while Palestinians are viewed as adults from 16.
Lawyers and activists say more than 200 Palestinian children are in Israeli jails. "You want to arrest these kids, you want to try them," Ms Lalo says. "Fine, but do it according to Israeli law. Give them their rights."
In the case of Islam, the boy in the video, his lawyer, Ms Lasky, believes the video provides the first hard proof of serious irregularities in interrogation.
In particular, the interrogator failed to inform Islam of his right to remain silent, even as his lawyer begged to no avail to see him. Instead, the interrogator urged Islam to tell him and his colleagues everything, hinting that if he did so, he would be released. One interrogator suggestively smacked a balled fist into the palm of his hand.
By the end of the interrogation Islam, breaking down in sobs, has succumbed to his interrogators, appearing to give them what they want to hear. Shown a page of photographs, his hand moves dully over it, identifying men from his village, all of whom will be arrested for protesting.
Ms Lasky hopes this footage will change the way children are treated in the occupied territories, in particular, getting them to incriminate others, which lawyers claim is the primary aim of interrogations. The video helped gain Islam's release from jail into house arrest, and may even lead to a full acquittal of charges of throwing stones. But right now, a hunched and silent Islam doesn't feel lucky. Yards from his house in Nabi Saleh is the home of his cousin, whose husband is in jail awaiting trial along with a dozen others on the strength of Islam's confession.
The cousin is magnanimous. "He is a victim, he is just a child," says Nariman Tamimi, 35, whose husband, Bassem, 45, is in jail. "We shouldn't blame him for what happened. He was under enormous pressure."
Israel's policy has been successful in one sense, sowing fear among children and deterring them from future demonstrations. But the children are left traumatised, prone to nightmares and bed-wetting. Most have to miss a year of school, or even drop out.
Israel's critics say its policy is creating a generation of new activists with hearts filled with hatred against Israel. Others say it is staining the country's character. "Israel has no business arresting these children, trying them, oppressing them," Ms Lalo says, her eyes glistening. "They're not our children. My country is doing so many wrongs and justifying them. We should be an example, but we have become an oppressive state."
Child detention figures
7,000 [Figure corrected, with apologies for earlier production error.] The estimated number of Palestinian children detained and prosecuted in Israeli military courts since 2000, shows a report by Defence for Children International Palestine (DCIP).
87 The percentage of children subjected to some form of physical violence while in custody. About 91 per cent are also believed to be blindfolded at some point during their detention.
12 The minimum age of criminal responsibility, as stipulated in the Military Order 1651.
62 The percentage of children arrested between 12am and 5am.
Source: The Independent
The boy, small and frail, is struggling to stay awake. His head lolls to the side, at one point slumping on to his chest. "Lift up your head! Lift it up!" shouts one of his interrogators, slapping him. But the boy by now is past caring, for he has been awake for at least 12 hours since he was separated at gunpoint from his parents at two that morning. "I wish you'd let me go," the boy whimpers, "just so I can get some sleep."
During the nearly six-hour video, 14-year-old Palestinian Islam Tamimi, exhausted and scared, is steadily broken to the point where he starts to incriminate men from his village and weave fantastic tales that he believes his tormentors want to hear.
This rarely seen footage seen by The Independent offers a glimpse into an Israeli interrogation, almost a rite of passage that hundreds of Palestinian children accused of throwing stones undergo every year.
Israel has robustly defended its record, arguing that the treatment of minors has vastly improved with the creation of a military juvenile court two years ago. But the children who have faced the rough justice of the occupation tell a very different story.
"The problems start long before the child is brought to court, it starts with their arrest," says Naomi Lalo, an activist with No Legal Frontiers, an Israeli group that monitors the military courts. It is during their interrogation where their "fate is doomed", she says.
Sameer Shilu, 12, was asleep when the soldiers smashed in the front door of his house one night. He and his older brother emerged bleary-eyed from their bedroom to find six masked soldiers in their living room.
Checking the boy's name on his father's identity card, the officer looked "shocked" when he saw he had to arrest a boy, says Sameer's father, Saher. "I said, 'He's too young; why do you want him?' 'I don't know,' he said". Blindfolded, and his hands tied painfully behind his back with plastic cords, Sameer was bundled into a Jeep, his father calling out to him not to be afraid. "We cried, all of us," his father says. "I know my sons; they don't throw stones."
In the hours before his interrogation, Sameer was kept blindfolded and handcuffed, and prevented from sleeping. Eventually taken for interrogation without a lawyer or parent present, a man accused him of being in a demonstration, and showed him footage of a boy throwing stones, claiming it was him.
"He said, 'This is you', and I said it wasn't me. Then he asked me, 'Who are they?' And I said that I didn't know," Sameer says. "At one point, the man started shouting at me, and grabbed me by the collar, and said, 'I'll throw you out of the window and beat you with a stick if you don't confess'."
Sameer, who protested his innocence, was fortunate; he was released a few hours later. But most children are frightened into signing a confession, cowed by threats of physical violence, or threats against their families, such as the withdrawal of work permits.
When a confession is signed, lawyers usually advise children to accept a plea bargain and serve a fixed jail sentence even if not guilty. Pleading innocent is to invite lengthy court proceedings, during which the child is almost always remanded in prison. Acquittals are rare. "In a military court, you have to know that you're not looking for justice," says Gabi Lasky, an Israeli lawyer who has represented many children.
There are many Palestinian children in the West Bank villages in the shadow of Israel's separation wall and Jewish settlements on Palestinian lands. Where largely non-violent protests have sprung up as a form of resistance, there are children who throw stones, and raids by Israel are common. But lawyers and human rights groups have decried Israel's arrest policy of targeting children in villages that resist the occupation.
In most cases, children as young as 12 are hauled from their beds at night, handcuffed and blindfolded, deprived of sleep and food, subjected to lengthy interrogations, then forced to sign a confession in Hebrew, a language few of them read.
Israeli rights group B'Tselem concluded that, "the rights of minors are severely violated, that the law almost completely fails to protect their rights, and that the few rights granted by the law are not implemented".
Israel claims to treat Palestinian minors in the spirit of its own law for juveniles but, in practice, it is rarely the case. For instance, children should not be arrested at night, lawyers and parents should be present during interrogations, and the children must be read their rights. But these are treated as guidelines, rather than a legal requirement, and are frequently flouted. And Israel regards Israeli youngsters as children until 18, while Palestinians are viewed as adults from 16.
Lawyers and activists say more than 200 Palestinian children are in Israeli jails. "You want to arrest these kids, you want to try them," Ms Lalo says. "Fine, but do it according to Israeli law. Give them their rights."
In the case of Islam, the boy in the video, his lawyer, Ms Lasky, believes the video provides the first hard proof of serious irregularities in interrogation.
In particular, the interrogator failed to inform Islam of his right to remain silent, even as his lawyer begged to no avail to see him. Instead, the interrogator urged Islam to tell him and his colleagues everything, hinting that if he did so, he would be released. One interrogator suggestively smacked a balled fist into the palm of his hand.
By the end of the interrogation Islam, breaking down in sobs, has succumbed to his interrogators, appearing to give them what they want to hear. Shown a page of photographs, his hand moves dully over it, identifying men from his village, all of whom will be arrested for protesting.
Ms Lasky hopes this footage will change the way children are treated in the occupied territories, in particular, getting them to incriminate others, which lawyers claim is the primary aim of interrogations. The video helped gain Islam's release from jail into house arrest, and may even lead to a full acquittal of charges of throwing stones. But right now, a hunched and silent Islam doesn't feel lucky. Yards from his house in Nabi Saleh is the home of his cousin, whose husband is in jail awaiting trial along with a dozen others on the strength of Islam's confession.
The cousin is magnanimous. "He is a victim, he is just a child," says Nariman Tamimi, 35, whose husband, Bassem, 45, is in jail. "We shouldn't blame him for what happened. He was under enormous pressure."
Israel's policy has been successful in one sense, sowing fear among children and deterring them from future demonstrations. But the children are left traumatised, prone to nightmares and bed-wetting. Most have to miss a year of school, or even drop out.
Israel's critics say its policy is creating a generation of new activists with hearts filled with hatred against Israel. Others say it is staining the country's character. "Israel has no business arresting these children, trying them, oppressing them," Ms Lalo says, her eyes glistening. "They're not our children. My country is doing so many wrongs and justifying them. We should be an example, but we have become an oppressive state."
Child detention figures
7,000 [Figure corrected, with apologies for earlier production error.] The estimated number of Palestinian children detained and prosecuted in Israeli military courts since 2000, shows a report by Defence for Children International Palestine (DCIP).
87 The percentage of children subjected to some form of physical violence while in custody. About 91 per cent are also believed to be blindfolded at some point during their detention.
12 The minimum age of criminal responsibility, as stipulated in the Military Order 1651.
62 The percentage of children arrested between 12am and 5am.
Hospital patients now being microchipped with "electronic tattoos"
August 25, 2011
by: Christina Luisa
Source: Natural News.com
(NaturalNews) Being microchipped is now being spun as a method of protecting the health of hospital patients. To help mask the practice of this bodily invasion with a trendy, high-tech appearance, microchipping sensors are being referred to as "electronic tattoos" that can attach to human skin and stretch and move without breaking.
Supposedly the comparisons of this hair-thin electronic patch-like chip to an electronic tattoo are being made because of how it adheres to the skin like a temporary tattoo using only water.
The small chip is less than 50 micrometers thick, which is thinner in diameter than a human hair. It is being marketed as a "safe" and easy way to temporarily monitor the heart and brain in patients while replacing bulky medical equipment currently being used in hospitals.
This device uses micro-electronics technology called an epidermal electronic system (EES) and is said to be a development that will "transform" medical sensing technology, computer gaming and even spy operations, according to a study published last week.
The hair-thin chip was developed by an international team of researchers from the United States, China and Singapore and is described in the Journal of Science.
The proven link between animal microchipping and cancer
Pet microchips have become increasingly common over the past few years. These chips are marked with a small barcode that can be scanned just like the tags on grocery items.
This seems to suggest that microchips are meant to turn the wearer into an object that can be tracked and catalogued. Once inserted in an animal, the chip stays there for the entirety of its lifetime and can be used to identify the pet if it should be found on the street or turned into a shelter. The subdermal chips are often recommended by vets and animal care experts as a way to ensure lost pets find their way home again.
But research suggests that despite their proclaimed usefulness, pet microchips may cause cancer. Multiple studies have clearly linked pet microchips with increased incidence of cancer and tumors in mice and rats.
In the past, public disclosure of these suggested links between microchipping and cancer in animals stirred widespread concern over the safety of implantable microchips in living beings. The animal microchip study findings that created such an uproar were so persuasive that Dr. Robert Benezra, head of the Cancer Biology Genetics Program at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, was quoted in an article about microchipping as saying, "There's no way in the world, having read this information, that I would have one of those chips implanted in my skin, or in one of my family members."
A 2001 study found that 1% of rats with implanted microchips developed cancerous tumors near the chip location. At least a dozen animal studies have been done between 1990 and 2007 and most concluded that microchips significantly increased the risk of cancer at the microchip site.
Soon we'll all have "cool electronic tattoos!"
All the electronic parts of the new EES chip are built out of wavy, snake-like components which allow them to be stretched and squeezed. They also contain tiny solar cells which can generate power or get energy from electromagnetic radiation. The sensor is mounted on to a water-soluble sheet of plastic and attached to the body by brushing the surface with water - hence the comparison to a temporary tattoo.
This new device being implanted in hospital patients certainly looks and acts like a microchip - yet it is persistently being referred to as an "electronic tattoo" in order to make the concept appear harmless, friendly - even trendy!
Invasive microchips - is the cost worth the convenience?
Scientists claim the supposed advantage of the EES chips is their ability to cut back on the bevy of wires, gel-coated sticky pads and monitors that are currently relied on to keep track of the vital signs of hospital patients. Apparently these traditional forms of bulky equipment and monitors are overly "distressing" to patients.
It appears scientists believe these new microchips are convenient enough that they outweigh the potential risks.
In test trials, the microchip was purposefully attached to the throat of a human and used to detect differences in words such as up, down, left, right, go and stop. Researchers used these functions to control a simple computer game.
Is the convenience of not having to manually operate equipment great enough to justify the implantation of an electronic sensor beneath the skin of humans? Would you trust a microchip to monitor your bodily functions without causing health hazards in the process?
The future of America: microchipped zombies
Researchers believe the technology could be used to replace traditional wires and cables, but this sounds remarkably like an excuse used to cover up the real truth: that this new microchipping method is a way to ensure all of us are eventually microchipped and able to be tracked and monitored. Soon, everyone will be required to wear chips or "tattoos" that prove they got their vaccinations, to link to health records, credit history and social security records.
If the government can require Americans to carry microchipped documents including your work, financial and health records, it seems it is only a matter of time before these chips will be implanted for the sake of "convenience" or "security." According to them, all of this is being done "for our own good."
Read more and watch videos about the government's agenda to microchip all humans by 2017 here: http://yedies.blogspot.com/2010/11/...
Sources used and further reading:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-14...
by: Christina Luisa
Source: Natural News.com
(NaturalNews) Being microchipped is now being spun as a method of protecting the health of hospital patients. To help mask the practice of this bodily invasion with a trendy, high-tech appearance, microchipping sensors are being referred to as "electronic tattoos" that can attach to human skin and stretch and move without breaking.
Supposedly the comparisons of this hair-thin electronic patch-like chip to an electronic tattoo are being made because of how it adheres to the skin like a temporary tattoo using only water.
The small chip is less than 50 micrometers thick, which is thinner in diameter than a human hair. It is being marketed as a "safe" and easy way to temporarily monitor the heart and brain in patients while replacing bulky medical equipment currently being used in hospitals.
This device uses micro-electronics technology called an epidermal electronic system (EES) and is said to be a development that will "transform" medical sensing technology, computer gaming and even spy operations, according to a study published last week.
The hair-thin chip was developed by an international team of researchers from the United States, China and Singapore and is described in the Journal of Science.
The proven link between animal microchipping and cancer
Pet microchips have become increasingly common over the past few years. These chips are marked with a small barcode that can be scanned just like the tags on grocery items.
This seems to suggest that microchips are meant to turn the wearer into an object that can be tracked and catalogued. Once inserted in an animal, the chip stays there for the entirety of its lifetime and can be used to identify the pet if it should be found on the street or turned into a shelter. The subdermal chips are often recommended by vets and animal care experts as a way to ensure lost pets find their way home again.
But research suggests that despite their proclaimed usefulness, pet microchips may cause cancer. Multiple studies have clearly linked pet microchips with increased incidence of cancer and tumors in mice and rats.
In the past, public disclosure of these suggested links between microchipping and cancer in animals stirred widespread concern over the safety of implantable microchips in living beings. The animal microchip study findings that created such an uproar were so persuasive that Dr. Robert Benezra, head of the Cancer Biology Genetics Program at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, was quoted in an article about microchipping as saying, "There's no way in the world, having read this information, that I would have one of those chips implanted in my skin, or in one of my family members."
A 2001 study found that 1% of rats with implanted microchips developed cancerous tumors near the chip location. At least a dozen animal studies have been done between 1990 and 2007 and most concluded that microchips significantly increased the risk of cancer at the microchip site.
Soon we'll all have "cool electronic tattoos!"
All the electronic parts of the new EES chip are built out of wavy, snake-like components which allow them to be stretched and squeezed. They also contain tiny solar cells which can generate power or get energy from electromagnetic radiation. The sensor is mounted on to a water-soluble sheet of plastic and attached to the body by brushing the surface with water - hence the comparison to a temporary tattoo.
This new device being implanted in hospital patients certainly looks and acts like a microchip - yet it is persistently being referred to as an "electronic tattoo" in order to make the concept appear harmless, friendly - even trendy!
Invasive microchips - is the cost worth the convenience?
Scientists claim the supposed advantage of the EES chips is their ability to cut back on the bevy of wires, gel-coated sticky pads and monitors that are currently relied on to keep track of the vital signs of hospital patients. Apparently these traditional forms of bulky equipment and monitors are overly "distressing" to patients.
It appears scientists believe these new microchips are convenient enough that they outweigh the potential risks.
In test trials, the microchip was purposefully attached to the throat of a human and used to detect differences in words such as up, down, left, right, go and stop. Researchers used these functions to control a simple computer game.
Is the convenience of not having to manually operate equipment great enough to justify the implantation of an electronic sensor beneath the skin of humans? Would you trust a microchip to monitor your bodily functions without causing health hazards in the process?
The future of America: microchipped zombies
Researchers believe the technology could be used to replace traditional wires and cables, but this sounds remarkably like an excuse used to cover up the real truth: that this new microchipping method is a way to ensure all of us are eventually microchipped and able to be tracked and monitored. Soon, everyone will be required to wear chips or "tattoos" that prove they got their vaccinations, to link to health records, credit history and social security records.
If the government can require Americans to carry microchipped documents including your work, financial and health records, it seems it is only a matter of time before these chips will be implanted for the sake of "convenience" or "security." According to them, all of this is being done "for our own good."
Read more and watch videos about the government's agenda to microchip all humans by 2017 here: http://yedies.blogspot.com/2010/11/...
Sources used and further reading:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-14...
NATO mulls marriage with Israel
Thu, 08/25/2011
Source: The Electronic Intifada
Israel wishes to participate in NATO’s future wars, judging by the content of a diplomatic cable released this week by WikiLeaks.
Dating from November 2009, the document from the American embassy in Tel Aviv summarizes a briefing given by Claudio Bisorgniero, NATO’s deputy-secretary general, during a visit to Israel.
Fresh from talks with Avigdor Lieberman, the Israeli foreign minister, Bisorgniero noted that Israel wishes to sign a status of forces agreement (SOFA) with the alliance. Such an accord lays down the rules covering a country’s troops when they are operating abroad.
The notion of a SOFA (a silly acronym) between Israel and the alliance has been advocated by the Zionist lobby for a few years now. Less than a fortnight before the cable was drawn up, the policy journal Europe’s World published an article by Matthew Mark Horn from the American Jewish Congress on Israel’s relations with NATO. He indicated that a status of forces accord would allow Israel join NATO operations more swiftly than it has to date. Horn, a former official in the US defense department, hinted at his frustration over how it took two years of negotiations before an Israeli officer could be posted to the headquarters of Operation Active Endeavor in Naples. Originally, that Mediterranean-patrol mission was part of NATO’s response to the atrocities on 11 September 2001; its remit has subsequently been expanded to serve a reactionary agenda of stopping impoverished foreigners from sailing to Europe.
“Sensitive”
Bisorgniero described Israel’s idea of a SOFA as “sensitive”, according to the cable. It could be problematic, he suggested, for NATO to conclude such an agreement with Israel, unless similar arrangements could be found with some Arab countries. Since 1994 NATO has been involved in a process called the Mediterranean dialogue with states neighboring members of the alliance. Along with Israel, those states are Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, Jordan and Mauritania. Israel has used this forum for dialogue to forge greater ties with the alliance than all of the others, however.
It is telling that the cable does not allude even once to Operation Cast Lead, Israel’s assault on Gaza in 2008 and 2009. NATO gave its tacit approval for that act of aggression earlier this year. When Gabi Ashkenazi, the Israeli military chief who oversaw Cast Lead, visited Brussels in January, he was treated to a farewell dinner to mark his imminent retirement as head of the world’s “most moral army.”
No guilt over massacres
Under Ashkenazi’s leadership, that army wiped out 22 members of the al-Dayah family — including 12 children and a pregnant woman — when it bombed the family’s Gaza home in early 2009. NATO commanders may be feeling a sense of affinity with Ashkenazi this month as they have tried to excuse an even bloodier massacre in Libya. On the night of 8 August, NATO attacked residential areas in Zliten, a city in the district of Misrata. According to the Libyan authorities, 85 people were killed. Thirty-three of them were children; 32 them of them women, some reports say.
Don’t feel bad if you have not heard of that massacre; it received scant attention in the Western press. The BBC’s Matthew Price visited the scene of the attack and admitted that he saw the corpses of women and children in the morgue. But he also sought to lend credence to the NATO narrative that it had struck a “legitimate target” (the words of its propagandist Roland Lavoie), where Gaddafi loyalists were sheltering. “The front line is not far away,” Price reported. “From the site, plumes of white smoke can be seen rising from where the fighting is taking place. It would make sense that soldiers would need somewhere to rest in the area.”
NATO’s killing of children does not elicit even the faintest pang of conscience among its commanders and their lackeys in the media. It would be logical, then, for NATO to make sure its flirtations with Israel lead to a proper marriage.
Source: The Electronic Intifada
Israel wishes to participate in NATO’s future wars, judging by the content of a diplomatic cable released this week by WikiLeaks.
Dating from November 2009, the document from the American embassy in Tel Aviv summarizes a briefing given by Claudio Bisorgniero, NATO’s deputy-secretary general, during a visit to Israel.
Fresh from talks with Avigdor Lieberman, the Israeli foreign minister, Bisorgniero noted that Israel wishes to sign a status of forces agreement (SOFA) with the alliance. Such an accord lays down the rules covering a country’s troops when they are operating abroad.
The notion of a SOFA (a silly acronym) between Israel and the alliance has been advocated by the Zionist lobby for a few years now. Less than a fortnight before the cable was drawn up, the policy journal Europe’s World published an article by Matthew Mark Horn from the American Jewish Congress on Israel’s relations with NATO. He indicated that a status of forces accord would allow Israel join NATO operations more swiftly than it has to date. Horn, a former official in the US defense department, hinted at his frustration over how it took two years of negotiations before an Israeli officer could be posted to the headquarters of Operation Active Endeavor in Naples. Originally, that Mediterranean-patrol mission was part of NATO’s response to the atrocities on 11 September 2001; its remit has subsequently been expanded to serve a reactionary agenda of stopping impoverished foreigners from sailing to Europe.
“Sensitive”
Bisorgniero described Israel’s idea of a SOFA as “sensitive”, according to the cable. It could be problematic, he suggested, for NATO to conclude such an agreement with Israel, unless similar arrangements could be found with some Arab countries. Since 1994 NATO has been involved in a process called the Mediterranean dialogue with states neighboring members of the alliance. Along with Israel, those states are Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, Jordan and Mauritania. Israel has used this forum for dialogue to forge greater ties with the alliance than all of the others, however.
It is telling that the cable does not allude even once to Operation Cast Lead, Israel’s assault on Gaza in 2008 and 2009. NATO gave its tacit approval for that act of aggression earlier this year. When Gabi Ashkenazi, the Israeli military chief who oversaw Cast Lead, visited Brussels in January, he was treated to a farewell dinner to mark his imminent retirement as head of the world’s “most moral army.”
No guilt over massacres
Under Ashkenazi’s leadership, that army wiped out 22 members of the al-Dayah family — including 12 children and a pregnant woman — when it bombed the family’s Gaza home in early 2009. NATO commanders may be feeling a sense of affinity with Ashkenazi this month as they have tried to excuse an even bloodier massacre in Libya. On the night of 8 August, NATO attacked residential areas in Zliten, a city in the district of Misrata. According to the Libyan authorities, 85 people were killed. Thirty-three of them were children; 32 them of them women, some reports say.
Don’t feel bad if you have not heard of that massacre; it received scant attention in the Western press. The BBC’s Matthew Price visited the scene of the attack and admitted that he saw the corpses of women and children in the morgue. But he also sought to lend credence to the NATO narrative that it had struck a “legitimate target” (the words of its propagandist Roland Lavoie), where Gaddafi loyalists were sheltering. “The front line is not far away,” Price reported. “From the site, plumes of white smoke can be seen rising from where the fighting is taking place. It would make sense that soldiers would need somewhere to rest in the area.”
NATO’s killing of children does not elicit even the faintest pang of conscience among its commanders and their lackeys in the media. It would be logical, then, for NATO to make sure its flirtations with Israel lead to a proper marriage.
Egypt to hold massive anti-Israel rally
Fri Aug 26, 2011
Source: PressTV
Egyptians are set to stage a million-man demonstration at Cairo's Liberation Square to call for an end to the country's peace accord with Israel, following a week of escalating tensions between the neighbors.
Demonstrators will also gather outside the Israeli embassy to demand the expulsion of Tel Aviv's ambassador to Egypt Yitzhak Levanon.
Scores of protesters have been demonstrating in front of the Israel embassy in Cairo for the seventh day in a row, Egyptian newspaper Al-Masry Al- Youm reported on Friday.
Anti-Israel protests erupted at Tel Aviv embassy in Cairo last week after five Egyptian policemen were killed in an attack by Israeli military on the Rafah border crossing.
On Thursday, Egypt's security forces clashed with protesters who had staged a sit-in outside the Israel embassy in Cairo.
The peace agreement between Israel and Egypt was signed in 1979 to end the state of war between the neighbors.
Under the pressure of anti-Israel protests, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday announced readiness to carry out a joint investigation with Cairo into the killing of the Egyptian security personnel.
"Israel is ready to hold a joint investigation with the Egyptians into the difficult event," a statement issued by Netanyahu's office quoted his national security adviser, Yaakov Amidror, as saying.
Source: PressTV
Egyptians are set to stage a million-man demonstration at Cairo's Liberation Square to call for an end to the country's peace accord with Israel, following a week of escalating tensions between the neighbors.
Demonstrators will also gather outside the Israeli embassy to demand the expulsion of Tel Aviv's ambassador to Egypt Yitzhak Levanon.
Scores of protesters have been demonstrating in front of the Israel embassy in Cairo for the seventh day in a row, Egyptian newspaper Al-Masry Al- Youm reported on Friday.
Anti-Israel protests erupted at Tel Aviv embassy in Cairo last week after five Egyptian policemen were killed in an attack by Israeli military on the Rafah border crossing.
On Thursday, Egypt's security forces clashed with protesters who had staged a sit-in outside the Israel embassy in Cairo.
The peace agreement between Israel and Egypt was signed in 1979 to end the state of war between the neighbors.
Under the pressure of anti-Israel protests, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday announced readiness to carry out a joint investigation with Cairo into the killing of the Egyptian security personnel.
"Israel is ready to hold a joint investigation with the Egyptians into the difficult event," a statement issued by Netanyahu's office quoted his national security adviser, Yaakov Amidror, as saying.
Israel might let Egypt boost Sinai troops
Aug 28, 2011
Source: Yahoo News
JERUSALEM (AFP) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday said that if Egypt asked to increase its troops in the Sinai peninsula, the request would be brought before the security cabinet, public radio said.
Netanyahu's remarks were made to ministers from his right-wing Likud party before the start of the weekly cabinet meeting -- the first since an attack on August 18 killed eight Israelis on a desert road near the Egyptian border by gunmen who infiltrated from the Sinai.
As Cairo seeks to clamp down on militant activity in the peninsula, it has in recent months asked Israel to approve a temporary increase of troops there, raising questions about the need to change the terms of the 1979 peace treaty which limits the number of Egyptian forces there.
But Netanyahu told ministers that such a step would not be taken hurriedly, media reports said.
"If we are going to alter the peace treaty with Egypt -- and I don't think that it is something we need to rush into -- it must be approved by the cabinet," the Haaretz news website quoted him as saying.
So far, Cairo has asked Israel to approve any new increase of troops in the restive peninsula, a senior defence official told AFP on Sunday.
"Until now, there has been no demand for more troops in the Sinai and it is not on the agenda," a senior defence ministry official told AFP on Sunday.
Earlier, Defence Minister Ehud Barak said that since the fall of the regime of former president Hosni Mubarak in February, Israel had "on several occasions" approved Egyptian requests to allow extra forces into the peninsula.
"Since the latest crisis, we let them send in battalions on several occasions," he told public radio referring to the fall of Mubarak and pointing out that Sinai covers an area which is more than three times the size of Israel, the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
"The matter was requested by them on a temporary basis to ensure that the gas pipelines are not blown up, so that (the Egyptian port city of) El-Arish wouldn't be taken over by the Bedouins, and in order to allow the shared fight against terrorism to continue," he said.
The minister was referring to a major Egyptian operation in the northern Sinai which was launched two weeks ago to clamp down on militants who have staged at least five attacks on a gas pipeline supplying Israel and Jordan since February.
The area is also rife with Bedouin outlaws.
"We have an interest in stability, we have an interest in the problem being resolved on the other side" of the border, Barak said, while stressing the paramount importance of the peace treaty for the two neighbours.
Several days after the operation began, public radio reported that Netanyahu had given Cairo the green light increase its troops in Sinai in order to "restore order" there.
Egypt supplies about 40 percent of Israel's natural gas and the repeated attacks on the pipeline have sparked a spike in domestic prices as the Jewish state struggles with a wave of mass protests against the spiralling cost of living.
Source: Yahoo News
JERUSALEM (AFP) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday said that if Egypt asked to increase its troops in the Sinai peninsula, the request would be brought before the security cabinet, public radio said.
Netanyahu's remarks were made to ministers from his right-wing Likud party before the start of the weekly cabinet meeting -- the first since an attack on August 18 killed eight Israelis on a desert road near the Egyptian border by gunmen who infiltrated from the Sinai.
As Cairo seeks to clamp down on militant activity in the peninsula, it has in recent months asked Israel to approve a temporary increase of troops there, raising questions about the need to change the terms of the 1979 peace treaty which limits the number of Egyptian forces there.
But Netanyahu told ministers that such a step would not be taken hurriedly, media reports said.
"If we are going to alter the peace treaty with Egypt -- and I don't think that it is something we need to rush into -- it must be approved by the cabinet," the Haaretz news website quoted him as saying.
So far, Cairo has asked Israel to approve any new increase of troops in the restive peninsula, a senior defence official told AFP on Sunday.
"Until now, there has been no demand for more troops in the Sinai and it is not on the agenda," a senior defence ministry official told AFP on Sunday.
Earlier, Defence Minister Ehud Barak said that since the fall of the regime of former president Hosni Mubarak in February, Israel had "on several occasions" approved Egyptian requests to allow extra forces into the peninsula.
"Since the latest crisis, we let them send in battalions on several occasions," he told public radio referring to the fall of Mubarak and pointing out that Sinai covers an area which is more than three times the size of Israel, the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
"The matter was requested by them on a temporary basis to ensure that the gas pipelines are not blown up, so that (the Egyptian port city of) El-Arish wouldn't be taken over by the Bedouins, and in order to allow the shared fight against terrorism to continue," he said.
The minister was referring to a major Egyptian operation in the northern Sinai which was launched two weeks ago to clamp down on militants who have staged at least five attacks on a gas pipeline supplying Israel and Jordan since February.
The area is also rife with Bedouin outlaws.
"We have an interest in stability, we have an interest in the problem being resolved on the other side" of the border, Barak said, while stressing the paramount importance of the peace treaty for the two neighbours.
Several days after the operation began, public radio reported that Netanyahu had given Cairo the green light increase its troops in Sinai in order to "restore order" there.
Egypt supplies about 40 percent of Israel's natural gas and the repeated attacks on the pipeline have sparked a spike in domestic prices as the Jewish state struggles with a wave of mass protests against the spiralling cost of living.
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Libya rebels tighten noose on Kadhafi bastion
Aug 29, 2011
By Marc Bastian and Dominique Soguel, AFP
Source: Yahoo News
TRIPOLI (AFP) - Libyan rebels closed in on Moamer Kadhafi's hometown of Sirte from both east and west Sunday, a senior military commander said, as the insurgents scrambled to restore essential services to Tripoli.
Fierce fighting also raged in the west of the country as rebels trying to take full control of the region said they had fallen into an ambush in a town southwest of Zuwarah.
Rebel forces moved to within 30 kilometres (18 miles) of Sirte from the west and captured Bin Jawad 100 kilometres to the east, the rebel commander in Misrata, Mohammed al-Fortiya, told AFP.
"We took Bin Jawad today" on the eastern front, and "the thwar (rebel fighters) from Misrata are 30 kilometres from Sirte" in the west, Fortiya said.
Rebels pushing west from the oil hub of Ras Lanuf had been stuck for four days outside Bin Jawad, a key town on the coast road of the Gulf of Sirte, as Kadhafi's forces kept up a defiant resistance.
Sirte is the elusive Kadhafi's last bastion after rebels smashed his forces in Tripoli and seized his Bab al-Aziziya headquarters.
Although his whereabouts remain a mystery, there is widespread speculation that he is holed up in Sirte, 360 kilometres east of Tripoli, among tribal supporters there.
"We are negotiating with the tribes for Sirte's peaceful surrender," Fortiya said, adding that only tribal leaders were involved, and that to his knowledge no direct contact had been made with Kadhafi himself.
But a spokesman for the rebel National Transitional Council (NTC), Mahmud Shammam, warned that negotiations for Sirte's peaceful handover would not be open-ended.
"The negotiations will not go on for ever," he said. "The talks are still going on... We would like to unify Libya very quickly."
As rebels scrambled to get Tripoli back on its feet and appealed for funds, the Arab League early on Sunday urged the UN Security Council to unlock billions of dollars in Libyan assets and property.
Some 70 percent of homes in central Tripoli have no running water because of damage to the network, but potable water is being distributed from mosques, NTC officials said.
Abed al-Obeidi, deputy chief of the transitional council in Tripoli, said the water problem was because of technical faults, denying that sabotage by Kadhafi's forces was to blame.
In the rebel bastion of Benghazi, military spokesman Colonel Ahmed Omar Bani told reporters more than 10,000 prisoners have been freed from Kadhafi's jails since the fall of Tripoli but almost 50,000 others are still missing.
"The number of people arrested over the past months (of the anti-Kadhafi revolt) is estimated at between 57,000 and 60,000," he said. "Between 10,000 and 11,000 prisoners have been freed up until now... so where are the others?"
"We hope that Kadhafi is still in Libya so we can rid the world of this insect," he said. "The only way to treat this pest is to make him accountable for the crimes in Libya."
NTC head Mustafa Abdel Jalil had promised on Saturday that Kadhafi and his senior aides would be given a fair trial if they surrendered.
"We call on Moamer Kadhafi and his associates to surrender so we can protect them and spare them illegal execution," he said in Benghazi. "We guarantee them a fair trial, whatever their position."
The rebels have offered a $1.7 million-dollar reward for Kadhafi's capture, dead or alive.
Rebel pleas for cash help were heard loud and clear at Arab League headquarters in Cairo where a special meeting of foreign ministers urged "the UN and countries concerned" to "unfreeze the assets and property" of Libya.
Dr Najib Barakat of a local rebel council for Tripoli said there were enough medical supplies for three or four weeks, and that some 60 percent of the capital's medical staff were at work.
"All of Tripoli's hospitals are working," Barakat said, except at Abu Slim where around 80 decomposing bodies had been found. "The bodies have been removed and the hospital is being disinfected."
Arab foreign ministers also called on the United Nations to give the NTC Libya's seat at the UN and its agencies.
NTC number two Mahmud Jibril, who headed the Libyan delegation at the Cairo gathering, warned of "instability" in Libya if the rebels failed to restore salaries and services.
Shammam on Saturday appealed for patience and called on all public, private and oil sector employees to return to work.
"We are starting from point zero in this situation. Do not ask for miracles, but we promise to try to make this difficult period as short as we can," he said.
On Sunday, insurgents expanded their control over the airport and other parts of Tripoli where some resistance remained.
They captured the base of the elite 32 Brigade, commanded by Kadhafi's son Khamis, on Saturday after a NATO air strike and seven hours of fierce fighting that left 11 rebels dead.
In an adjoining cinder-block building, an AFP correspondent saw the charred remains of some 50 people who residents said were captives killed by Kadhafi forces on Tuesday with rifle fire and grenades.
Bani said that Khamis, whose death has been announced several times since the conflict erupted, may have been killed in a clash with rebels on Saturday.
The incident happened at Tarhuna, 80 kilometres (50 miles) southeast of Tripoli when rebels "intercepted a military convoy which had several brand new Mercedes vehicles," he said.
In the ensuing firefight two vehicles in the convoy crashed and burned.
"It is very difficult to identify the charred bodies, but the soldiers captured on the spot told us that they were bodyguards of Khamis Kadhafi," Bani said.
"At the moment, we are unable to identify with certainty the occupants, but we will notify you once we have information."
By Marc Bastian and Dominique Soguel, AFP
Source: Yahoo News
TRIPOLI (AFP) - Libyan rebels closed in on Moamer Kadhafi's hometown of Sirte from both east and west Sunday, a senior military commander said, as the insurgents scrambled to restore essential services to Tripoli.
Fierce fighting also raged in the west of the country as rebels trying to take full control of the region said they had fallen into an ambush in a town southwest of Zuwarah.
Rebel forces moved to within 30 kilometres (18 miles) of Sirte from the west and captured Bin Jawad 100 kilometres to the east, the rebel commander in Misrata, Mohammed al-Fortiya, told AFP.
"We took Bin Jawad today" on the eastern front, and "the thwar (rebel fighters) from Misrata are 30 kilometres from Sirte" in the west, Fortiya said.
Rebels pushing west from the oil hub of Ras Lanuf had been stuck for four days outside Bin Jawad, a key town on the coast road of the Gulf of Sirte, as Kadhafi's forces kept up a defiant resistance.
Sirte is the elusive Kadhafi's last bastion after rebels smashed his forces in Tripoli and seized his Bab al-Aziziya headquarters.
Although his whereabouts remain a mystery, there is widespread speculation that he is holed up in Sirte, 360 kilometres east of Tripoli, among tribal supporters there.
"We are negotiating with the tribes for Sirte's peaceful surrender," Fortiya said, adding that only tribal leaders were involved, and that to his knowledge no direct contact had been made with Kadhafi himself.
But a spokesman for the rebel National Transitional Council (NTC), Mahmud Shammam, warned that negotiations for Sirte's peaceful handover would not be open-ended.
"The negotiations will not go on for ever," he said. "The talks are still going on... We would like to unify Libya very quickly."
As rebels scrambled to get Tripoli back on its feet and appealed for funds, the Arab League early on Sunday urged the UN Security Council to unlock billions of dollars in Libyan assets and property.
Some 70 percent of homes in central Tripoli have no running water because of damage to the network, but potable water is being distributed from mosques, NTC officials said.
Abed al-Obeidi, deputy chief of the transitional council in Tripoli, said the water problem was because of technical faults, denying that sabotage by Kadhafi's forces was to blame.
In the rebel bastion of Benghazi, military spokesman Colonel Ahmed Omar Bani told reporters more than 10,000 prisoners have been freed from Kadhafi's jails since the fall of Tripoli but almost 50,000 others are still missing.
"The number of people arrested over the past months (of the anti-Kadhafi revolt) is estimated at between 57,000 and 60,000," he said. "Between 10,000 and 11,000 prisoners have been freed up until now... so where are the others?"
"We hope that Kadhafi is still in Libya so we can rid the world of this insect," he said. "The only way to treat this pest is to make him accountable for the crimes in Libya."
NTC head Mustafa Abdel Jalil had promised on Saturday that Kadhafi and his senior aides would be given a fair trial if they surrendered.
"We call on Moamer Kadhafi and his associates to surrender so we can protect them and spare them illegal execution," he said in Benghazi. "We guarantee them a fair trial, whatever their position."
The rebels have offered a $1.7 million-dollar reward for Kadhafi's capture, dead or alive.
Rebel pleas for cash help were heard loud and clear at Arab League headquarters in Cairo where a special meeting of foreign ministers urged "the UN and countries concerned" to "unfreeze the assets and property" of Libya.
Dr Najib Barakat of a local rebel council for Tripoli said there were enough medical supplies for three or four weeks, and that some 60 percent of the capital's medical staff were at work.
"All of Tripoli's hospitals are working," Barakat said, except at Abu Slim where around 80 decomposing bodies had been found. "The bodies have been removed and the hospital is being disinfected."
Arab foreign ministers also called on the United Nations to give the NTC Libya's seat at the UN and its agencies.
NTC number two Mahmud Jibril, who headed the Libyan delegation at the Cairo gathering, warned of "instability" in Libya if the rebels failed to restore salaries and services.
Shammam on Saturday appealed for patience and called on all public, private and oil sector employees to return to work.
"We are starting from point zero in this situation. Do not ask for miracles, but we promise to try to make this difficult period as short as we can," he said.
On Sunday, insurgents expanded their control over the airport and other parts of Tripoli where some resistance remained.
They captured the base of the elite 32 Brigade, commanded by Kadhafi's son Khamis, on Saturday after a NATO air strike and seven hours of fierce fighting that left 11 rebels dead.
In an adjoining cinder-block building, an AFP correspondent saw the charred remains of some 50 people who residents said were captives killed by Kadhafi forces on Tuesday with rifle fire and grenades.
Bani said that Khamis, whose death has been announced several times since the conflict erupted, may have been killed in a clash with rebels on Saturday.
The incident happened at Tarhuna, 80 kilometres (50 miles) southeast of Tripoli when rebels "intercepted a military convoy which had several brand new Mercedes vehicles," he said.
In the ensuing firefight two vehicles in the convoy crashed and burned.
"It is very difficult to identify the charred bodies, but the soldiers captured on the spot told us that they were bodyguards of Khamis Kadhafi," Bani said.
"At the moment, we are unable to identify with certainty the occupants, but we will notify you once we have information."
Monday, August 22, 2011
Cross-border attack tests Israel-Egypt treaty
Aug 20, 2011
By IAN DEITCH - Associated Press,MAGGIE MICHAEL - Associated Press
Source: Yahoo News
JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel's landmark 1979 peace treaty with Egypt is being tested by a cross-border attack blamed on Palestinian militants. Israel made a rare apology Saturday for the deaths of three Egyptian soldiers after Cairo threatened to withdraw its ambassador.
The attack on Thursday set off a new cycle of Israeli-Palestinian violence. Israeli airstrikes have been answered by Palestinians pelting southern Israel with at least 80 rockets and mortars since Friday. An Israeli was killed Saturday in the desert city of Beersheba, about 25 miles (40 kilometers) from Gaza.
"Israel is sorry for the deaths of the Egyptian policemen during the attack on the Israel-Egypt border," Defense Minister Ehud Barak said after Egypt threatened to withdraw its ambassador to protest the deaths of its soldiers.
The Egyptian government said late Saturday Israel's apology was welcome, but not enough. Still, it reaffirmed Egypt's commitment to the peace.
Israel's apology was a clear move to try to quickly contain the damage to already shaky relations with Egypt. Egypt's threat to take diplomatic action put Israel in the uncomfortable position of having to apologize for violence that was triggered after its borders were breached and its people attacked and killed.
Israeli officials promised to investigate the deaths of the Egyptians and insisted the peace treaty was stable.
"No one had any intention to harm Egyptian security personnel," Amos Gilled, a senior Israeli Defense Ministry official who works closely with Egypt, told Israel Radio.
But even before the clashes on Thursday, the February ouster of longtime President Hosni Mubarak in a popular revolt had unleashed an outpouring of anti-Israel sentiment in Egypt and criticism of the peace treaty. Israeli officials were also growing wary about instability in post-Mubarak Egypt.
Although the military leaders who now rule Egypt have expressed their commitment to the peace accord, Israel is watching closely for signs they might respond to the rising anti-Israel sentiment and distance themselves from the Jewish state.
As the country moves through a chaotic and rocky transition to democracy, Islamist groups tightly curbed under Mubarak look headed for a more powerful role in the new Egypt — something else that rattles nerves in Israel.
Mubarak was seen by his people as too sympathetic to Israel, negotiating a highly unpopular deal to supply it with natural gas. Israel, in turn, counted on Mubarak as a trusted, if cool, ally, maintaining the peace despite Egyptian disappointment that a wider agreement could not be reached with Palestinians and other Arab states.
The simmering hostilities in Egypt boiled over after the soldiers died. Egypt said it was a violation of the peace accord.
Israel says the attacks began when Palestinian militants from the Gaza Strip crossed into Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, probably through one of the hundreds of smuggling tunnels under the border, then made their way more than 100 miles (150 kilometers) through the barren desert before crossing into southern Israel. Israel and Gaza both border the Sinai Peninsula.
The militants ambushed Israeli buses and cars with gunfire and a bomb and killed eight Israelis.
Israel and Egypt gave different versions of how the Egyptian soldiers died. Egypt said they were killed in an airstrike. Israel offered conflicting accounts. One account said there was an exchange of fire between its soldiers as they pursued the militants along the border.
A senior Israeli defense official told The Associated Press Saturday night that "initial reports in the investigation show that the terrorists came from Gaza and apparently opened fire on purpose near Egyptian positions in order to bring them into the fighting." He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not allowed to speak to reporters.
The Israel-Egypt and Israel-Palestinian issues are closely intertwined. Egypt has tried for decades to broker a peace accord between Israelis and Palestinians. And in recent years, Egypt has tried to mediate an end to the internal Palestinian split between Fatah, which runs the West Bank through the Palestinian Authority, and the Islamic Hamas, which rules Gaza.
The aftermath of the clashes Thursday showed just how quickly Israeli-Palestinian violence can escalate.
Israeli airstrikes have killed 12 Palestinians, including two children, since Thursday, and Israeli leaders have made it clear that they will not put up with mounting violence from Gaza.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu convened senior ministers and security commanders late Saturday in an extraordinary session to discuss the surge in violence.
In Israel, one person was killed Saturday and dozens have been wounded in the barrage from Gaza, including a 2-week-old baby, hospital officials said. The flurry of exploding rockets damaged buildings all over Israel's south.
It was the heaviest salvo of rockets from Gaza since Israel staged an all-out ground and air operation in Gaza to stop daily rocket attacks in early 2009.
Israel is also concerned about an upsurge in Islamic militant activity in Sinai since Mubarak's fall. But no Israeli official has gone on record faulting Egypt for the way it is policing Sinai, where mountainous desert terrain and permeable borders have beckoned to extremists, contraband smugglers and African migrants for years.
Last week, Egypt moved thousands of troops into Sinai as part of a major operation against al-Qaida inspired militants who have been increasingly active since Mubarak's ouster. Since Mubarak was toppled, the natural gas pipeline running through Sinai has been sabotaged five times, disrupting supplies to Israel and Jordan.
Under Mubarak, the killings of troops would have elicited criticism on the front pages of Egyptian dailies. In post-Mubarak Egypt, however, youth activists on social networking sites spread calls for demonstrations in front of the Israeli embassy.
Thousands of protesters gathered outside the embassy in Cairo for a second day on Saturday, demanding the expulsion of the Israeli envoy who is now vacationing abroad. A Palestinian flag was unfurled at the site, and some of the demonstrators threw firecrackers at the building. A protester climbed up the building and took down the Israeli flag, drawing cheers from the crowd.
A dozen armored vehicles were stationed in the area and soldiers formed a cordon in front of the main gates to prevent any protesters from reaching the embassy building.
In Jordan, the only other Arab country at peace with Israel, about 150 protesters called Saturday for cancellation of the 1994 treaty and expulsion of the ambassador.
By IAN DEITCH - Associated Press,MAGGIE MICHAEL - Associated Press
Source: Yahoo News
JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel's landmark 1979 peace treaty with Egypt is being tested by a cross-border attack blamed on Palestinian militants. Israel made a rare apology Saturday for the deaths of three Egyptian soldiers after Cairo threatened to withdraw its ambassador.
The attack on Thursday set off a new cycle of Israeli-Palestinian violence. Israeli airstrikes have been answered by Palestinians pelting southern Israel with at least 80 rockets and mortars since Friday. An Israeli was killed Saturday in the desert city of Beersheba, about 25 miles (40 kilometers) from Gaza.
"Israel is sorry for the deaths of the Egyptian policemen during the attack on the Israel-Egypt border," Defense Minister Ehud Barak said after Egypt threatened to withdraw its ambassador to protest the deaths of its soldiers.
The Egyptian government said late Saturday Israel's apology was welcome, but not enough. Still, it reaffirmed Egypt's commitment to the peace.
Israel's apology was a clear move to try to quickly contain the damage to already shaky relations with Egypt. Egypt's threat to take diplomatic action put Israel in the uncomfortable position of having to apologize for violence that was triggered after its borders were breached and its people attacked and killed.
Israeli officials promised to investigate the deaths of the Egyptians and insisted the peace treaty was stable.
"No one had any intention to harm Egyptian security personnel," Amos Gilled, a senior Israeli Defense Ministry official who works closely with Egypt, told Israel Radio.
But even before the clashes on Thursday, the February ouster of longtime President Hosni Mubarak in a popular revolt had unleashed an outpouring of anti-Israel sentiment in Egypt and criticism of the peace treaty. Israeli officials were also growing wary about instability in post-Mubarak Egypt.
Although the military leaders who now rule Egypt have expressed their commitment to the peace accord, Israel is watching closely for signs they might respond to the rising anti-Israel sentiment and distance themselves from the Jewish state.
As the country moves through a chaotic and rocky transition to democracy, Islamist groups tightly curbed under Mubarak look headed for a more powerful role in the new Egypt — something else that rattles nerves in Israel.
Mubarak was seen by his people as too sympathetic to Israel, negotiating a highly unpopular deal to supply it with natural gas. Israel, in turn, counted on Mubarak as a trusted, if cool, ally, maintaining the peace despite Egyptian disappointment that a wider agreement could not be reached with Palestinians and other Arab states.
The simmering hostilities in Egypt boiled over after the soldiers died. Egypt said it was a violation of the peace accord.
Israel says the attacks began when Palestinian militants from the Gaza Strip crossed into Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, probably through one of the hundreds of smuggling tunnels under the border, then made their way more than 100 miles (150 kilometers) through the barren desert before crossing into southern Israel. Israel and Gaza both border the Sinai Peninsula.
The militants ambushed Israeli buses and cars with gunfire and a bomb and killed eight Israelis.
Israel and Egypt gave different versions of how the Egyptian soldiers died. Egypt said they were killed in an airstrike. Israel offered conflicting accounts. One account said there was an exchange of fire between its soldiers as they pursued the militants along the border.
A senior Israeli defense official told The Associated Press Saturday night that "initial reports in the investigation show that the terrorists came from Gaza and apparently opened fire on purpose near Egyptian positions in order to bring them into the fighting." He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not allowed to speak to reporters.
The Israel-Egypt and Israel-Palestinian issues are closely intertwined. Egypt has tried for decades to broker a peace accord between Israelis and Palestinians. And in recent years, Egypt has tried to mediate an end to the internal Palestinian split between Fatah, which runs the West Bank through the Palestinian Authority, and the Islamic Hamas, which rules Gaza.
The aftermath of the clashes Thursday showed just how quickly Israeli-Palestinian violence can escalate.
Israeli airstrikes have killed 12 Palestinians, including two children, since Thursday, and Israeli leaders have made it clear that they will not put up with mounting violence from Gaza.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu convened senior ministers and security commanders late Saturday in an extraordinary session to discuss the surge in violence.
In Israel, one person was killed Saturday and dozens have been wounded in the barrage from Gaza, including a 2-week-old baby, hospital officials said. The flurry of exploding rockets damaged buildings all over Israel's south.
It was the heaviest salvo of rockets from Gaza since Israel staged an all-out ground and air operation in Gaza to stop daily rocket attacks in early 2009.
Israel is also concerned about an upsurge in Islamic militant activity in Sinai since Mubarak's fall. But no Israeli official has gone on record faulting Egypt for the way it is policing Sinai, where mountainous desert terrain and permeable borders have beckoned to extremists, contraband smugglers and African migrants for years.
Last week, Egypt moved thousands of troops into Sinai as part of a major operation against al-Qaida inspired militants who have been increasingly active since Mubarak's ouster. Since Mubarak was toppled, the natural gas pipeline running through Sinai has been sabotaged five times, disrupting supplies to Israel and Jordan.
Under Mubarak, the killings of troops would have elicited criticism on the front pages of Egyptian dailies. In post-Mubarak Egypt, however, youth activists on social networking sites spread calls for demonstrations in front of the Israeli embassy.
Thousands of protesters gathered outside the embassy in Cairo for a second day on Saturday, demanding the expulsion of the Israeli envoy who is now vacationing abroad. A Palestinian flag was unfurled at the site, and some of the demonstrators threw firecrackers at the building. A protester climbed up the building and took down the Israeli flag, drawing cheers from the crowd.
A dozen armored vehicles were stationed in the area and soldiers formed a cordon in front of the main gates to prevent any protesters from reaching the embassy building.
In Jordan, the only other Arab country at peace with Israel, about 150 protesters called Saturday for cancellation of the 1994 treaty and expulsion of the ambassador.
Jordanians urge Israel envoy expulsion
Aug 21, 2011
Source:PressTV
Hundreds of Jordanians have rallied near Israel's embassy in the capital city of Amman, demanding the expulsion of Tel Aviv's ambassador to Jordan.
Late on Saturday, the protesters condemned Israel's airstrikes on the Gaza Strip, calling for the closure of the Israeli embassy.
Raising the flags of Jordan, Egypt and Palestine, the demonstrators also demanded the abrogation of Amman's 1994 peace treaty with Tel Aviv, DPA reported.
Israel claims it launched its latest attacks on the Gaza Strip on Thursday in response to assaults that targeted two buses and a military vehicle near Eilat in southern Israel, in which eight Israelis were killed.
The Israeli offensive claimed the lives of at least 16 Palestinians and injured more than 45 others, including children.
Israeli Minister for Military Affairs Ehud Barak quickly accused resistance groups in Gaza for the attacks and vowed a “full response.”
The democratically elected government of the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas in Gaza, however, strongly dismissed the allegations and warned against any act of aggression on the enclave.
Israel imposed a blockade on Gaza since the Hamas government took control of the territory in 2007.
The blockade has had a disastrous impact on the humanitarian and economic situation in the impoverished territory.
Some 1.5 million people are being denied their basic rights, including the freedom of movement and their rights to appropriate living conditions, work, health and education.
Source:PressTV
Hundreds of Jordanians have rallied near Israel's embassy in the capital city of Amman, demanding the expulsion of Tel Aviv's ambassador to Jordan.
Late on Saturday, the protesters condemned Israel's airstrikes on the Gaza Strip, calling for the closure of the Israeli embassy.
Raising the flags of Jordan, Egypt and Palestine, the demonstrators also demanded the abrogation of Amman's 1994 peace treaty with Tel Aviv, DPA reported.
Israel claims it launched its latest attacks on the Gaza Strip on Thursday in response to assaults that targeted two buses and a military vehicle near Eilat in southern Israel, in which eight Israelis were killed.
The Israeli offensive claimed the lives of at least 16 Palestinians and injured more than 45 others, including children.
Israeli Minister for Military Affairs Ehud Barak quickly accused resistance groups in Gaza for the attacks and vowed a “full response.”
The democratically elected government of the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas in Gaza, however, strongly dismissed the allegations and warned against any act of aggression on the enclave.
Israel imposed a blockade on Gaza since the Hamas government took control of the territory in 2007.
The blockade has had a disastrous impact on the humanitarian and economic situation in the impoverished territory.
Some 1.5 million people are being denied their basic rights, including the freedom of movement and their rights to appropriate living conditions, work, health and education.
Thursday, August 18, 2011
Israel-Jordan ties threatened
Aug. 10, 2011
JERUSALEM, Aug. 10 (UPI) -- Anti-normalization elements in Jordan are threatening economic and diplomatic ties with Israel, sources told The Jerusalem Post.
The Arab Spring, the stalemate in peace negotiations with the Palestinians and Palestinian efforts to gain statehood recognition in the United Nations in September are behind the upswing, sources told the paper.
Examples of the anti-Israel sentiment in the Hashemite Kingdom in recent months include the decision of a Jordanian insurance company to stop covering the cars of Israeli Embassy personnel in Amman, the newspaper said.
The company said it was forced to stop working with the embassy because of the increasing pressure from anti-normalization factions.
The sources also noted the Jordanian press has stepped up anti-Israel rhetoric, citing an article this week on the Amman news service Web site that referred to Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu as a criminal, and described Israel as a "snake" and Zionists as "despicable obnoxious group of people," sources told the Post.
There has also been a marked decrease in agricultural products exported to Jordan since the beginning of the year due to pressure on Jordanian importers, the sources said. Even Jordanians who sell olives to Israel have been subjected to harassment and told the olives sent to Israel are being used to make olive oil for export to Europe for further profit, the paper said.
JERUSALEM, Aug. 10 (UPI) -- Anti-normalization elements in Jordan are threatening economic and diplomatic ties with Israel, sources told The Jerusalem Post.
The Arab Spring, the stalemate in peace negotiations with the Palestinians and Palestinian efforts to gain statehood recognition in the United Nations in September are behind the upswing, sources told the paper.
Examples of the anti-Israel sentiment in the Hashemite Kingdom in recent months include the decision of a Jordanian insurance company to stop covering the cars of Israeli Embassy personnel in Amman, the newspaper said.
The company said it was forced to stop working with the embassy because of the increasing pressure from anti-normalization factions.
The sources also noted the Jordanian press has stepped up anti-Israel rhetoric, citing an article this week on the Amman news service Web site that referred to Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu as a criminal, and described Israel as a "snake" and Zionists as "despicable obnoxious group of people," sources told the Post.
There has also been a marked decrease in agricultural products exported to Jordan since the beginning of the year due to pressure on Jordanian importers, the sources said. Even Jordanians who sell olives to Israel have been subjected to harassment and told the olives sent to Israel are being used to make olive oil for export to Europe for further profit, the paper said.
Proof that the FDA's assault on raw milk has nothing to do with consumer safety Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/033339_FDA_food_safety.html#ix
August 16, 2011
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
Editor of NaturalNews.com
(NaturalNews) An astonishing two-thirds of all fresh chicken meat sold in grocery stores today is contaminated with salmonella (http://www.naturalnews.com/028661_c...). Diet soda is laced with aspartame, a chemical sweetener made from the feces of genetically engineered bacteria (http://www.naturalnews.com/030918_a...). "Natural" corn chips are made from genetically modified corn plants linked to widespread infertility when consumed by mammals (http://www.naturalnews.com/025001.html).
Processed meats are laced with cancer-causing sodium nitrite (http://www.naturalnews.com/007024.html) and everything from soups to salad dressings is "enhanced" with the chemical excitotoxin known as MSG which promotes obesity (http://www.naturalnews.com/009379.html).
Throughout the food industry, blueberries are faked using artificial colors, corn syrup and antifreeze liquids used to winterize vehicles (http://www.naturalnews.tv/v.asp?v=7...). Milk fats are artificial modified through the process of homogenization, which makes them dangerous for human health (http://www.naturalnews.com/022967_m...).
The high fructose corn syrup used to sweeten sodas causes diabetes (http://www.naturalnews.com/028340_d...) and is often contaminated with mercury (http://www.naturalnews.com/032948_h...). Chicken McNuggets are made with a chemical used in silly putty (http://www.naturalnews.com/032820_C...) and the soy protein used in most protein bars is extracted using an explosive chemical called hexane (http://www.naturalnews.com/026303_s...).
The FDA says nothing about all this. Instead, the agency wants you to believe that the real danger in the food supply is found exclusively in raw dairy products which contain no additives or synthetic chemicals, by the way.
Yep: All the toxic chemicals and highly processed ingredients that cause cancer, diabetes, heart disease and nutritional deficiencies are all perfectly good for your health, the FDA says... because they're dead!
OMG it's alive!
Only LIVING foods, you see, pose a health risk according to the FDA. An FDA spokesperson was recently quoted in the NY Times claiming that raw milk causes children to become "paraplegics." (Seriously, I'm not making this up.) Meanwhile, the FDA remains utterly silent on the far more alarming fact that children's hot dogs are laced with cancer-causing sodium nitrite which causes a 300% increase in the risk of brain tumors.
The FDA, you see, has absolutely no concern whatsoever about truly dangerous foods. Almost any chemical in the food supply is fine with the FDA as long as it's not actually alive.
If you're a conventional foods manufacturer in the USA, you can quite literally dump huge quantities of cancer-causing chemicals directly into the food and the FDA won't blink an eye. A little more cancer, after all, boosts the profits of the drug companies and the entire cancer industry, and that has been the FDA's mission all along: To promote the financial interests of the drug companies which prey on sickness and disease.
In fact, much of the food being sold today that the FDA considered "safe" is actually made out of non-food synthetic chemicals or radically modified molecules that used to be food but are now closer to plastics. Partially-hydrogenated oils, for example, are a lot closer to plastic (which is a solid at room temperature) than oil (which is a liquid). That's the whole point of hydrogenation: To make oils solid at room temperature. Care to guess what this does when those same hydrogenated fats are circulating around your bloodstream? Yep, they remain as solids there, too, sludging up your blood, clogging arteries and raising your blood pressure.
But the FDA has no problem with all that. Food companies can commit what is essentially mass genocide through the use of toxic food additives, and the FDA remains completely silent, with its hands over its eyes pretending to see nothing.
Meanwhile, people are dying every single day from preventable diseases caused by toxic food ingredients, dead foods, processed foods and pasteurized food products. The FDA, in openly allowing this to take place, is criminally negligent in the deaths of literally millions of people -- far dwarfing the number of Jews murdered by the Nazi regime.
The FDA = Food and Death Administration
So don't fall for the naive idea that the FDA is somehow interested in actual food safety. Get real! The FDA openly and arrogantly allows the American people to be poisoned en masse by the mainstream food supply being shipped and sold in grocery stores across American right now. What the FDA really doesn't want happening is people waking up to the truth that raw milk is healthier than pasteurized milk. Because if that happened, people might start to question all the other dead, processed foods they're eating, too.
And that might lead to a mass nutritional awakening and a revolution that would ultimately result in the arrest and prosecution of FDA tyrants -- the very same people who have been criminally negligent in allowing the mass poisoning of the American people for all these years, you see. That's what we really need: An armed Justice Department raid on the FDA! Put FDA commissioner Hamburg in shackles and parade her through the streets where all the tens of millions of people who have been damaged or maimed by toxic food ingredients can finally seek justice for the harm caused them by the FDA and the gang of unindicted criminals who run it.
That day is coming, by the way. Justice will arrive and those tyrants in government who have masterminded the mass poisoning of the American people will be held accountable for their crimes. The People will not forget, and the truth simply cannot be suppressed any longer. Thanks to the Rawesome Foods raid, it is now totally obvious to everyone that the FDA is waging a war of terrorism against the American people, and that this is a rogue agency which simply cannot be negotiated with.
Because here at NaturalNews, we do not negotiate with terrorists.
Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/033339_FDA_food_safety.html#ixzz1VNwlYNlj
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
Editor of NaturalNews.com
(NaturalNews) An astonishing two-thirds of all fresh chicken meat sold in grocery stores today is contaminated with salmonella (http://www.naturalnews.com/028661_c...). Diet soda is laced with aspartame, a chemical sweetener made from the feces of genetically engineered bacteria (http://www.naturalnews.com/030918_a...). "Natural" corn chips are made from genetically modified corn plants linked to widespread infertility when consumed by mammals (http://www.naturalnews.com/025001.html).
Processed meats are laced with cancer-causing sodium nitrite (http://www.naturalnews.com/007024.html) and everything from soups to salad dressings is "enhanced" with the chemical excitotoxin known as MSG which promotes obesity (http://www.naturalnews.com/009379.html).
Throughout the food industry, blueberries are faked using artificial colors, corn syrup and antifreeze liquids used to winterize vehicles (http://www.naturalnews.tv/v.asp?v=7...). Milk fats are artificial modified through the process of homogenization, which makes them dangerous for human health (http://www.naturalnews.com/022967_m...).
The high fructose corn syrup used to sweeten sodas causes diabetes (http://www.naturalnews.com/028340_d...) and is often contaminated with mercury (http://www.naturalnews.com/032948_h...). Chicken McNuggets are made with a chemical used in silly putty (http://www.naturalnews.com/032820_C...) and the soy protein used in most protein bars is extracted using an explosive chemical called hexane (http://www.naturalnews.com/026303_s...).
The FDA says nothing about all this. Instead, the agency wants you to believe that the real danger in the food supply is found exclusively in raw dairy products which contain no additives or synthetic chemicals, by the way.
Yep: All the toxic chemicals and highly processed ingredients that cause cancer, diabetes, heart disease and nutritional deficiencies are all perfectly good for your health, the FDA says... because they're dead!
OMG it's alive!
Only LIVING foods, you see, pose a health risk according to the FDA. An FDA spokesperson was recently quoted in the NY Times claiming that raw milk causes children to become "paraplegics." (Seriously, I'm not making this up.) Meanwhile, the FDA remains utterly silent on the far more alarming fact that children's hot dogs are laced with cancer-causing sodium nitrite which causes a 300% increase in the risk of brain tumors.
The FDA, you see, has absolutely no concern whatsoever about truly dangerous foods. Almost any chemical in the food supply is fine with the FDA as long as it's not actually alive.
If you're a conventional foods manufacturer in the USA, you can quite literally dump huge quantities of cancer-causing chemicals directly into the food and the FDA won't blink an eye. A little more cancer, after all, boosts the profits of the drug companies and the entire cancer industry, and that has been the FDA's mission all along: To promote the financial interests of the drug companies which prey on sickness and disease.
In fact, much of the food being sold today that the FDA considered "safe" is actually made out of non-food synthetic chemicals or radically modified molecules that used to be food but are now closer to plastics. Partially-hydrogenated oils, for example, are a lot closer to plastic (which is a solid at room temperature) than oil (which is a liquid). That's the whole point of hydrogenation: To make oils solid at room temperature. Care to guess what this does when those same hydrogenated fats are circulating around your bloodstream? Yep, they remain as solids there, too, sludging up your blood, clogging arteries and raising your blood pressure.
But the FDA has no problem with all that. Food companies can commit what is essentially mass genocide through the use of toxic food additives, and the FDA remains completely silent, with its hands over its eyes pretending to see nothing.
Meanwhile, people are dying every single day from preventable diseases caused by toxic food ingredients, dead foods, processed foods and pasteurized food products. The FDA, in openly allowing this to take place, is criminally negligent in the deaths of literally millions of people -- far dwarfing the number of Jews murdered by the Nazi regime.
The FDA = Food and Death Administration
So don't fall for the naive idea that the FDA is somehow interested in actual food safety. Get real! The FDA openly and arrogantly allows the American people to be poisoned en masse by the mainstream food supply being shipped and sold in grocery stores across American right now. What the FDA really doesn't want happening is people waking up to the truth that raw milk is healthier than pasteurized milk. Because if that happened, people might start to question all the other dead, processed foods they're eating, too.
And that might lead to a mass nutritional awakening and a revolution that would ultimately result in the arrest and prosecution of FDA tyrants -- the very same people who have been criminally negligent in allowing the mass poisoning of the American people for all these years, you see. That's what we really need: An armed Justice Department raid on the FDA! Put FDA commissioner Hamburg in shackles and parade her through the streets where all the tens of millions of people who have been damaged or maimed by toxic food ingredients can finally seek justice for the harm caused them by the FDA and the gang of unindicted criminals who run it.
That day is coming, by the way. Justice will arrive and those tyrants in government who have masterminded the mass poisoning of the American people will be held accountable for their crimes. The People will not forget, and the truth simply cannot be suppressed any longer. Thanks to the Rawesome Foods raid, it is now totally obvious to everyone that the FDA is waging a war of terrorism against the American people, and that this is a rogue agency which simply cannot be negotiated with.
Because here at NaturalNews, we do not negotiate with terrorists.
Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/033339_FDA_food_safety.html#ixzz1VNwlYNlj
Party says 8 hurt in attack on Jordan protest
August 12, 2011
Source:www.seattlepi.com
AMMAN, Jordan (AP) — Jordan's Popular Democratic Unity party says at least 8 of its members were wounded in the southern city of Karak during a protest demanding government reforms.
The political party said in a statement issued Friday that the injured were being treated in a local hospital.
The protesters gathered after Friday prayers when the party says unruly thugs burst in on the crowd, cursing and attacking with knives and sticks.
The party blames the security services for inadequate protection in Karak, about 60 miles (100 kilometers) south of Amman.
Repeated phone calls to the police were unanswered.
Jordan has experienced seven months of mostly peaceful protests demanding greater political say and economic reforms.
Source:www.seattlepi.com
AMMAN, Jordan (AP) — Jordan's Popular Democratic Unity party says at least 8 of its members were wounded in the southern city of Karak during a protest demanding government reforms.
The political party said in a statement issued Friday that the injured were being treated in a local hospital.
The protesters gathered after Friday prayers when the party says unruly thugs burst in on the crowd, cursing and attacking with knives and sticks.
The party blames the security services for inadequate protection in Karak, about 60 miles (100 kilometers) south of Amman.
Repeated phone calls to the police were unanswered.
Jordan has experienced seven months of mostly peaceful protests demanding greater political say and economic reforms.
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Knesset bill would formalize second-class status for Arab citizens
Aug 5, 2011
Noam Sheizaf, +972 Blog
Source: Institute for Middle East Understanding
New Knesset bill aims to have “Jewish nature” of state preferred over democracy, cancel official status of Arabic, and have Jewish law “guide” courts’ rulings
There is one talking point repeated in every hasbara (the Hebrew term for state sponsored propaganda) talk given by an Israeli representative, or in every booklet your campus’ Jewish Agency representative might hand you. It has to do with “the full rights” of Palestinian citizens in Israel, including the status of Arabic as an official language, and the equality of all Israeli citizens under the law. This is the heart of “the only democracy in the Middle East” claim.
Those who are familiar with Israeli society, know that Arab citizens are discriminated against in many ways: Some of these ways are formal—like the new bill allowing segregated communities; the law against family unification of Arab citizens; the absentees’ property laws, and more—while other are a matter of practice, such as the fact that some government agencies won”t hire Arabs, or the that the courts mete out harsher sentences to Arab citizens convicted of the same crimes as Jewish citizens.
Yet a new bill, signed by members of opposition and coalition alike, aims to strip Israel even of the appearance of democracy. If passed (it has a fair chance), this law will determine that in any case of contradiction between democratic values and the Jewish nature of the state, the Jewish element will prevail. More specifically, the bill aims to cancel the status of Arabic as one of Israel’s two official languages; it orders the state to develop communities for Jews only; and in a passage that seems to be taken from the Iranian constitution, declares that when there is no law referring to a certain case, courts should rule in the spirit of halakha, or Jewish religious jurisprudence.
Haaretz reports:
The bill, initiated by MKs Avi Dichter (Kadima ), Zeev Elkin (Likud ) and David Rotem (Yisrael Beiteinu ), and supported by 20 of the 28 Kadima MKs, would make democratic rule subservient to the state’s definition as “the national home for the Jewish people.”
The legislation, a private member’s bill, won support from Labor, Atzamaut, Yisrael Beiteinu and National Union lawmakers.
Sources at the Knesset say the law currently has broad support, and they believe it will be passed during the Knesset’s winter session.
The bill is meant to pass a “basic law”—Israel’s substitute for a constitution—and will require a special majority to change it in the future.
People were concerned about the Boycott Law, which aimed to eliminate one of the most well known methods of opposition to the occupation, or by the Nakba Law, which prohibits certain institutions from marking the Palestinian catastrophe of 1948. But this new bill takes the game to a whole new level, by formally making 20 percent of Israel’s citizens—a native population that predates the state—as second class citizens. They won’t be segregated in the way blacks were in the South or in South Africa (yet?), but Israel won’t even pretend to be their state anymore, and they will have even fewer rights than Jewish citizens. Israel will truly become, to use a phrase by Ahmad Tibi, “a Jewish democracy: Democracy for Jews and a Jewish state for everyone else.”
What will the hasbara army do then?
Noam Sheizaf, +972 Blog
Source: Institute for Middle East Understanding
New Knesset bill aims to have “Jewish nature” of state preferred over democracy, cancel official status of Arabic, and have Jewish law “guide” courts’ rulings
There is one talking point repeated in every hasbara (the Hebrew term for state sponsored propaganda) talk given by an Israeli representative, or in every booklet your campus’ Jewish Agency representative might hand you. It has to do with “the full rights” of Palestinian citizens in Israel, including the status of Arabic as an official language, and the equality of all Israeli citizens under the law. This is the heart of “the only democracy in the Middle East” claim.
Those who are familiar with Israeli society, know that Arab citizens are discriminated against in many ways: Some of these ways are formal—like the new bill allowing segregated communities; the law against family unification of Arab citizens; the absentees’ property laws, and more—while other are a matter of practice, such as the fact that some government agencies won”t hire Arabs, or the that the courts mete out harsher sentences to Arab citizens convicted of the same crimes as Jewish citizens.
Yet a new bill, signed by members of opposition and coalition alike, aims to strip Israel even of the appearance of democracy. If passed (it has a fair chance), this law will determine that in any case of contradiction between democratic values and the Jewish nature of the state, the Jewish element will prevail. More specifically, the bill aims to cancel the status of Arabic as one of Israel’s two official languages; it orders the state to develop communities for Jews only; and in a passage that seems to be taken from the Iranian constitution, declares that when there is no law referring to a certain case, courts should rule in the spirit of halakha, or Jewish religious jurisprudence.
Haaretz reports:
The bill, initiated by MKs Avi Dichter (Kadima ), Zeev Elkin (Likud ) and David Rotem (Yisrael Beiteinu ), and supported by 20 of the 28 Kadima MKs, would make democratic rule subservient to the state’s definition as “the national home for the Jewish people.”
The legislation, a private member’s bill, won support from Labor, Atzamaut, Yisrael Beiteinu and National Union lawmakers.
Sources at the Knesset say the law currently has broad support, and they believe it will be passed during the Knesset’s winter session.
The bill is meant to pass a “basic law”—Israel’s substitute for a constitution—and will require a special majority to change it in the future.
People were concerned about the Boycott Law, which aimed to eliminate one of the most well known methods of opposition to the occupation, or by the Nakba Law, which prohibits certain institutions from marking the Palestinian catastrophe of 1948. But this new bill takes the game to a whole new level, by formally making 20 percent of Israel’s citizens—a native population that predates the state—as second class citizens. They won’t be segregated in the way blacks were in the South or in South Africa (yet?), but Israel won’t even pretend to be their state anymore, and they will have even fewer rights than Jewish citizens. Israel will truly become, to use a phrase by Ahmad Tibi, “a Jewish democracy: Democracy for Jews and a Jewish state for everyone else.”
What will the hasbara army do then?
Syria (and Beyond) LiveBlog: The Sights and Sounds of Protest
August 3, 2011
Author Scott Lucas
Source:EA WorldView
2018 GMT: An unconfirmed, but very serious report, from Daraa, Syria:
Daraa:Nwa:Martyrdom of Yazan Reyad Jahmany&several wounded by the security ammunition, many ppl r still trapped in the mosque
2013 GMT: We're gathering videos of tonight's protests in Syria, but we're also hearing reports of violent crackdowns in Homs, the area around the Al-Rahman Mosque in Al-Tabait, Lattakia, and this report from Midan, an important neighborhood in the center of Damascus where some activists are reporting casualties:
#Midan ive seen about 15 ambulances storm past me already, i think they are using them to detain ppl.
1933 GMT: The UN Security Council has reached an agreement to condemn the violence in Syria, and is finalizing the language, which will released later today:
The 15 members of the council are now seeking final approval of the wording from their respective governments - when that comes, they will formally adopt the statement later on Wednesday, correspondents say.
1854 GMT: The US is placing even more political pressure on Syria today. The State Department announced today that more of its embassy staff will be evacuated today. White House spokesman Jay Carney openly condemned Assad:
""Syria would be a better place without President Assad...We view him as the cause of instability in Syria."
Members of the Senate are calling for even tougher sanctions against the regime, and the Treasury Department is working on a new package of sanctions at the moment.
1847 GMT: The Local Coordinating Committees of Syria are also reporting a widespread security crackdown in the Damascus suburb of Zabadani (confirming video posted below):
Damascus Suburbs: Zabadani: Sweeping and arresting camapign is still in effect in town. The security forces close out districts completely and successively and then they storm people's houses to arrest them. Also, security arrested people who were riding a bus coming from Damascus. They also forced the riders of other buses to walk back to zabadani.
1840 GMT: Another large protest in another important area around Damascus, Dariya:
1836 GMT: Back from a break to find reports of increased security presence in and around Damascus and its suburbs. Earlier, we reported huge protests in Douma. Now, this video reportedly shows a convoy of military an unmarked vehicles deploying in Zabadani, another important suburbs. It is worth noting that these white vans, often filled with plain-clothed men armed with guns and batons, have been seen in other crackdowns.
1607 GMT: On Monday, EA Worldview may have been the first major news source to break a very important video that claimed to show pro-Assad "thugs" throwing the bodies of protesters into a river in Hama. The Daily Beast and The Guardian picked up on the video. Syrian State TV then released what appeared to be a doctored version of the video, claiming that it showed protesters throwing the bodies of soldiers into the river.
See the entire description, translation, and analysis in our entry, Syria Video Essay: 1st Day of Ramadan was a Day of Chaos
Now, the Hama coordinating committee muddies the water even further, by claims that this video may have been taken in Jisr al Shughour:
1) The Assi river has been dry for a month and a half now because the dams at Rastan have not been opened to allow water to flow.
2) There is no such bridge in Hama.
3) There is no background noise whatsoever in the video Not even a splash. Nothing.
4) the way this video was distributed by unknown sources and the timing, suggests that it was released by the regime to justify an attack on Hama. This video was most likely taken in Jisr el Shughur, and shows pro-regime militia disposing on civilian bodies.
They go on to say that after four months, the regime can come up with no valid accusations against Hama, so they have resorted to making some up
1600 GMT: All morning, we've seen video of a funeral for a protester named Ahmad Sabri, killed in Jaleh today. Now we have video of his recently killed body (graphic) and the sounds of gunfire are very nearby.
1558 GMT: Funeral for protester in Kanaker, southwest of Damascus (MAP):
1552 GMT: An editor at Syrialeaks posts this unconfirmed report from Hama, Syria. We cannot verify the validity of the account, but it does match the descriptions being supplied by many activists:
"There was intermittent shelling into the early hours of the morning. At 5 a.m all communication, including mobile phones, internet and land lines were cut. the blackout covered an area up to 40 k.m outside the city. At 6 a.m the power supply to the city was shut off. Heavy shelling and machine gunfire erupted at 5:30 am, targeting mosque minarets and heaviest in the areas of Hamedieh and Qusour. Other areas shelled in the city include Karameh, Tawouneih and Sabounieh. Helicopters were flying over the city, as gunmen and snipers took up positions on the roofs of government buildings. A large explosion shook the area of Tawaferah. Tanks took up positions in the center of the city at Assi square.
"Bread and food is in short supply in the city, as people in their thousands fled. Those fleeing also came under fire and several were killed. Water supply was cut at 2 p.m, and a thick cloud of smoke covers the city as houses and buildings burn out of control."
1547 GMT: Activists in Douma report that there are over 50,000 protesters. Here is an overhead of the scene:
1544 GMT: Protests at a funeral for a martyr in Douma, a key Damascus suburb:
1534 GMT: Protests today in Jableh, on the coast of Syria:
1421 GMT: The LA Times has managed to reach one of their contacts in Hama via satellite phone (most other communications seem to be blocked at the moment), who reports on the situation there:
"At least three martyrs in Hamadiya district. Tanks surround us. Troops cutting access to food.
"Arbitrary gunfire. Access to hospitals limited. Heavy artillery. Tanks separate neighborhoods."
"The regime is speeding its own end. It's a stupid regime. We feel more empowered. "
1414 GMT: According to Reuters, the Libyan opposition fighters are reporting that they have repelled a Gaddafi counter-attack on their positions in Zliten this morning.
Yesterday, 7 freedom fighters were killed in an attack on their positions.
1342 GMT: We have reports that the town of Jableh (on the coast) is on general strike today, and the entire place is a ghost town. Now this video surfaces, the abandoned market.
1358 GMT: In another major blow to Bashar al Assad's international credibility, Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Arinc Bulent condemned the Syrian action against Hama as an "atrocity."
I'm saying this on my behalf, what's going on in Hama today is an atrocity ... Whoever carries this out can't be our friend. They are making a big mistake ... We insisted on democratic and peaceful solutions and starting reforms. We told them they would collapse otherwise ... Recent events show no lessons were learned from these suggestions.
Turkey's President Abdullah Gul also condemned the attacks.
Turkey is often the mediating voice between the West and the East, especially between regimes that don't have good relations with the West (Iran, Syria, ect.), and Turkey has established ties to Syria. This is yet another sign that there is no going back to the old Syria.
1330 GMT: While Hama, Homs, and Deir Ez Zor may be in military lockdown, the people of Douma, a Damascus suburb, defiantly protests at a funeral for a recent martyr:
1325 GMT: An activist reports an alarming but unconfirmed piece of information, that the Syrian military has deployed jets over Deir Ez Zor, and shelling continues there. We have not heard those reports, but we do know that CNN has interviewed this source in the past.
1320 GMT: The streets of Hama are filled with gunfire, explosions, and smoke:
1317 GMT: Video from the center of Hama, where tanks are clearly targeting civilians on the streets.
1313 GMT: Activists, for the last 2 days, have been reporting intense security in Homs. Now, that security is reportedly even more intense:
Homs:4 buses loaded by security members with their full weapons entered to Khaldieh neighborhood accompanied by 4 jeeps,2b added to 3 buses already present at Omar mosque
1257 GMT: The Guardian gets us caught up on news from Syria. Hama appears to remain the focal point of conflict, and the reports of tanks shelling the city and occupying neighborhoods are still coming in from activists:
"All communications have been cut off. The regime is using the media focus on the Hosni Mubarak trial to finish off Hama," one of the residents told Reuters, adding that shelling concentrated on al-Hader district, large parts of which were was razed during the 1982 military assault on Hama that killed thousands. The square has been the venue of some of the largest demonstrations against Bashar al-Assad's rule during the five month uprising.
1250 GMT: James Miller, reporting for duty. Scott has been tied up for the last 3 hours, so Al Jazeera gets us caught up on the latest news from Egypt, where the trial for former President Hosni Mubarak has begun, and clashes between police and protesters have also occurred.
0915 GMT: The Mubarak trial is on a break, but the big news at the moment is outside the Police Academcy. "All hell broke loose," says an Al Jazeera English correspondent as stone-throwing clashes between supporters and opponents of former President Hosni Mubarak turned into scuffles with the riot police. The latest trouble, which apparently started when a policeman was hit by a stone, spread into streets around the Academy.
0850 GMT: More procedural manoeuvring --- the headline is that lawyers for both the Mubaraks and former Minister of Interior Habib El Adly have asked for the cases to be separated from each other.
El Adly was initially tried individually on the charge of ordering the shooting of protesters, but last week a judge ordered that he stand trial alongside Mubarak today.
The lawyer for El Adly, making his request, claimed that the Minister of Interior had never issued the shoot-to-kill order.
0825 GMT: Almost a half-hour of procedural confusion and wrangling after the defendants announce their presence in the court, as the judge tries to establish which of the many defence lawyers is representing which defendant.
Lawyers for the defendants are complaining they have not been given information; lawyers for the families of victims are demanding that they be allowed into the proceedings.
0800 GMT: Former President Hosni Mubarak has been brought on a stretcher into the defendants' cage in the courtroom in Cairo; his sons Alaa and Gamal are in white shirts. The judge is now addressing the audience, declaring that a person disrupting the proceeding has been taken away for 24-hour incarceration.
0700 GMT: Clashes have been reported outside the Mubarak trial between supporters of the former President and supporters of the uprising against him, with stones and bottles being thrown. White-clad police moved in to separate the groups, while some black-clad riot police have now been posted:
0530 GMT: Attention in Egypt today will be on the Cairo trial of former President Hosni Mubarak on charges of corruption and of responsibility for the killing of protesters during the uprising in January and February against his rule.
Mubarak's two sons, Alaa and Gamal, are also in the dock as is his former Minister of Interior, Habib El Adly.
0525 GMT: Even though Egypt's military rulers have broken up the protest in Tahrir Square in Cairo, a parallel sit-in demonstration continues in the country's second city, Alexandria:
0520 GMT: We are now settling in for a pattern of tension, punctuated by conflict, during the days and of nightly demonstrations and clashes across Syria. James Miller, for the second day in a row, collected a wealth of videos for a visual essay, and a dedicated live-streamer again took to the air to bring sounds (last night's broadcast lasted for about 37 minutes) from Hama, the current centre of the showdown between the regime and protesters.
Author Scott Lucas
Source:EA WorldView
2018 GMT: An unconfirmed, but very serious report, from Daraa, Syria:
Daraa:Nwa:Martyrdom of Yazan Reyad Jahmany&several wounded by the security ammunition, many ppl r still trapped in the mosque
2013 GMT: We're gathering videos of tonight's protests in Syria, but we're also hearing reports of violent crackdowns in Homs, the area around the Al-Rahman Mosque in Al-Tabait, Lattakia, and this report from Midan, an important neighborhood in the center of Damascus where some activists are reporting casualties:
#Midan ive seen about 15 ambulances storm past me already, i think they are using them to detain ppl.
1933 GMT: The UN Security Council has reached an agreement to condemn the violence in Syria, and is finalizing the language, which will released later today:
The 15 members of the council are now seeking final approval of the wording from their respective governments - when that comes, they will formally adopt the statement later on Wednesday, correspondents say.
1854 GMT: The US is placing even more political pressure on Syria today. The State Department announced today that more of its embassy staff will be evacuated today. White House spokesman Jay Carney openly condemned Assad:
""Syria would be a better place without President Assad...We view him as the cause of instability in Syria."
Members of the Senate are calling for even tougher sanctions against the regime, and the Treasury Department is working on a new package of sanctions at the moment.
1847 GMT: The Local Coordinating Committees of Syria are also reporting a widespread security crackdown in the Damascus suburb of Zabadani (confirming video posted below):
Damascus Suburbs: Zabadani: Sweeping and arresting camapign is still in effect in town. The security forces close out districts completely and successively and then they storm people's houses to arrest them. Also, security arrested people who were riding a bus coming from Damascus. They also forced the riders of other buses to walk back to zabadani.
1840 GMT: Another large protest in another important area around Damascus, Dariya:
1836 GMT: Back from a break to find reports of increased security presence in and around Damascus and its suburbs. Earlier, we reported huge protests in Douma. Now, this video reportedly shows a convoy of military an unmarked vehicles deploying in Zabadani, another important suburbs. It is worth noting that these white vans, often filled with plain-clothed men armed with guns and batons, have been seen in other crackdowns.
1607 GMT: On Monday, EA Worldview may have been the first major news source to break a very important video that claimed to show pro-Assad "thugs" throwing the bodies of protesters into a river in Hama. The Daily Beast and The Guardian picked up on the video. Syrian State TV then released what appeared to be a doctored version of the video, claiming that it showed protesters throwing the bodies of soldiers into the river.
See the entire description, translation, and analysis in our entry, Syria Video Essay: 1st Day of Ramadan was a Day of Chaos
Now, the Hama coordinating committee muddies the water even further, by claims that this video may have been taken in Jisr al Shughour:
1) The Assi river has been dry for a month and a half now because the dams at Rastan have not been opened to allow water to flow.
2) There is no such bridge in Hama.
3) There is no background noise whatsoever in the video Not even a splash. Nothing.
4) the way this video was distributed by unknown sources and the timing, suggests that it was released by the regime to justify an attack on Hama. This video was most likely taken in Jisr el Shughur, and shows pro-regime militia disposing on civilian bodies.
They go on to say that after four months, the regime can come up with no valid accusations against Hama, so they have resorted to making some up
1600 GMT: All morning, we've seen video of a funeral for a protester named Ahmad Sabri, killed in Jaleh today. Now we have video of his recently killed body (graphic) and the sounds of gunfire are very nearby.
1558 GMT: Funeral for protester in Kanaker, southwest of Damascus (MAP):
1552 GMT: An editor at Syrialeaks posts this unconfirmed report from Hama, Syria. We cannot verify the validity of the account, but it does match the descriptions being supplied by many activists:
"There was intermittent shelling into the early hours of the morning. At 5 a.m all communication, including mobile phones, internet and land lines were cut. the blackout covered an area up to 40 k.m outside the city. At 6 a.m the power supply to the city was shut off. Heavy shelling and machine gunfire erupted at 5:30 am, targeting mosque minarets and heaviest in the areas of Hamedieh and Qusour. Other areas shelled in the city include Karameh, Tawouneih and Sabounieh. Helicopters were flying over the city, as gunmen and snipers took up positions on the roofs of government buildings. A large explosion shook the area of Tawaferah. Tanks took up positions in the center of the city at Assi square.
"Bread and food is in short supply in the city, as people in their thousands fled. Those fleeing also came under fire and several were killed. Water supply was cut at 2 p.m, and a thick cloud of smoke covers the city as houses and buildings burn out of control."
1547 GMT: Activists in Douma report that there are over 50,000 protesters. Here is an overhead of the scene:
1544 GMT: Protests at a funeral for a martyr in Douma, a key Damascus suburb:
1534 GMT: Protests today in Jableh, on the coast of Syria:
1421 GMT: The LA Times has managed to reach one of their contacts in Hama via satellite phone (most other communications seem to be blocked at the moment), who reports on the situation there:
"At least three martyrs in Hamadiya district. Tanks surround us. Troops cutting access to food.
"Arbitrary gunfire. Access to hospitals limited. Heavy artillery. Tanks separate neighborhoods."
"The regime is speeding its own end. It's a stupid regime. We feel more empowered. "
1414 GMT: According to Reuters, the Libyan opposition fighters are reporting that they have repelled a Gaddafi counter-attack on their positions in Zliten this morning.
Yesterday, 7 freedom fighters were killed in an attack on their positions.
1342 GMT: We have reports that the town of Jableh (on the coast) is on general strike today, and the entire place is a ghost town. Now this video surfaces, the abandoned market.
1358 GMT: In another major blow to Bashar al Assad's international credibility, Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Arinc Bulent condemned the Syrian action against Hama as an "atrocity."
I'm saying this on my behalf, what's going on in Hama today is an atrocity ... Whoever carries this out can't be our friend. They are making a big mistake ... We insisted on democratic and peaceful solutions and starting reforms. We told them they would collapse otherwise ... Recent events show no lessons were learned from these suggestions.
Turkey's President Abdullah Gul also condemned the attacks.
Turkey is often the mediating voice between the West and the East, especially between regimes that don't have good relations with the West (Iran, Syria, ect.), and Turkey has established ties to Syria. This is yet another sign that there is no going back to the old Syria.
1330 GMT: While Hama, Homs, and Deir Ez Zor may be in military lockdown, the people of Douma, a Damascus suburb, defiantly protests at a funeral for a recent martyr:
1325 GMT: An activist reports an alarming but unconfirmed piece of information, that the Syrian military has deployed jets over Deir Ez Zor, and shelling continues there. We have not heard those reports, but we do know that CNN has interviewed this source in the past.
1320 GMT: The streets of Hama are filled with gunfire, explosions, and smoke:
1317 GMT: Video from the center of Hama, where tanks are clearly targeting civilians on the streets.
1313 GMT: Activists, for the last 2 days, have been reporting intense security in Homs. Now, that security is reportedly even more intense:
Homs:4 buses loaded by security members with their full weapons entered to Khaldieh neighborhood accompanied by 4 jeeps,2b added to 3 buses already present at Omar mosque
1257 GMT: The Guardian gets us caught up on news from Syria. Hama appears to remain the focal point of conflict, and the reports of tanks shelling the city and occupying neighborhoods are still coming in from activists:
"All communications have been cut off. The regime is using the media focus on the Hosni Mubarak trial to finish off Hama," one of the residents told Reuters, adding that shelling concentrated on al-Hader district, large parts of which were was razed during the 1982 military assault on Hama that killed thousands. The square has been the venue of some of the largest demonstrations against Bashar al-Assad's rule during the five month uprising.
1250 GMT: James Miller, reporting for duty. Scott has been tied up for the last 3 hours, so Al Jazeera gets us caught up on the latest news from Egypt, where the trial for former President Hosni Mubarak has begun, and clashes between police and protesters have also occurred.
0915 GMT: The Mubarak trial is on a break, but the big news at the moment is outside the Police Academcy. "All hell broke loose," says an Al Jazeera English correspondent as stone-throwing clashes between supporters and opponents of former President Hosni Mubarak turned into scuffles with the riot police. The latest trouble, which apparently started when a policeman was hit by a stone, spread into streets around the Academy.
0850 GMT: More procedural manoeuvring --- the headline is that lawyers for both the Mubaraks and former Minister of Interior Habib El Adly have asked for the cases to be separated from each other.
El Adly was initially tried individually on the charge of ordering the shooting of protesters, but last week a judge ordered that he stand trial alongside Mubarak today.
The lawyer for El Adly, making his request, claimed that the Minister of Interior had never issued the shoot-to-kill order.
0825 GMT: Almost a half-hour of procedural confusion and wrangling after the defendants announce their presence in the court, as the judge tries to establish which of the many defence lawyers is representing which defendant.
Lawyers for the defendants are complaining they have not been given information; lawyers for the families of victims are demanding that they be allowed into the proceedings.
0800 GMT: Former President Hosni Mubarak has been brought on a stretcher into the defendants' cage in the courtroom in Cairo; his sons Alaa and Gamal are in white shirts. The judge is now addressing the audience, declaring that a person disrupting the proceeding has been taken away for 24-hour incarceration.
0700 GMT: Clashes have been reported outside the Mubarak trial between supporters of the former President and supporters of the uprising against him, with stones and bottles being thrown. White-clad police moved in to separate the groups, while some black-clad riot police have now been posted:
0530 GMT: Attention in Egypt today will be on the Cairo trial of former President Hosni Mubarak on charges of corruption and of responsibility for the killing of protesters during the uprising in January and February against his rule.
Mubarak's two sons, Alaa and Gamal, are also in the dock as is his former Minister of Interior, Habib El Adly.
0525 GMT: Even though Egypt's military rulers have broken up the protest in Tahrir Square in Cairo, a parallel sit-in demonstration continues in the country's second city, Alexandria:
0520 GMT: We are now settling in for a pattern of tension, punctuated by conflict, during the days and of nightly demonstrations and clashes across Syria. James Miller, for the second day in a row, collected a wealth of videos for a visual essay, and a dedicated live-streamer again took to the air to bring sounds (last night's broadcast lasted for about 37 minutes) from Hama, the current centre of the showdown between the regime and protesters.
Saturday, August 13, 2011
Meet Mohammed Busidra, Libya’s Post-Gaddafi Political Kingmaker
August 12, 2011
By Doug Saunders
Source: dougsaunders.net
Benghazi
For more than 20 years, he was Moammar Gadhafi’s most notorious political prisoner – the Islamist ringleader who escaped the 1996 one-day massacre of 1,200 of his fellow inmates and survived a decade in solitary confinement.
Today, as Col. Gadhafi’s rebel opponents falter in the rebel capital of Benghazi, Mohammed Busidra has quietly turned himself into the post-Gadhafi kingmaker.
While secular and military figures have fallen into factional fighting, Mr. Busidra, 53, has brought together Libya’s disparate moderate Islamist leaders into the country’s only united political force. He has written a constitution that they have agreed upon, and is organizing Libya’s mosques into a political machine. This has made him, in the view of many people here, the figure who will wield the most political power, and likely control the country’s leadership, in the event of the dictator’s demise.
“We have to prepare our country politically now, to prevent any political vacuum from occurring when the criminal Gadhafi is gone,” Mr. Busidra said in the first interview he has given since early March. “And I can assure you, when we Islamists establish a party, which will be on a national basis, I think we will win comfortably.”
This assessment is shared, sometimes with alarm, by many of his opponents.
“The Islamist opposition are much better organized and financed than us because they are focused entirely on politics,” says Mohammed Bujamaya, founder of the Liberal Gathering, one of several secularist proto-parties struggling for recognition in Benghazi. “We are tied up with the crisis, while they have their figures outside of Benghazi and sometimes out of the country, scheming.”
The prospect of the multinational NATO air-warfare campaign, in which Canada is a participant, effectively helping usher in a democratic Islamist government is causing some unease among member nations. “It is not the best outcome we could hope for, but the Islamists will probably play a role,” says one European diplomat.
On the other hand, some Western figures say they prefer to keep Mr. Busidra empowered because he has worked to prevent Islamic extremists – such as al-Qaeda fighters and jihadist veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns – from becoming influential in post-Gadhafi politics.
“I make a point of meeting with these fighters,” Mr. Busidra says, “And what I say is: ‘Let us be clear from now on. If you are here to represent your ideologies, or to represent al-Qaeda, please leave our country.’ “ His group is presenting itself as a moderate Islamist option, opposed both to the sharia-law absolutism of the Salafists, al-Qaeda and other jihadi fighters, and to secularism.
“I can tell you one thing. I know the Libyan people, and they will not accept very strict Islam – that is definite,” he says. “Yet they will not accept a secular regime. Neither of them will be accepted by Libyans. Those who will win a general election are not secularists or Salafists, but are those who will respect Islam, and at the same time will be able to co-operate with modern life.”
But his moderation only goes so far. For those Libyans hoping that their country will become a liberal-minded holiday destination like neighbouring Tunisia, or a place with European-style equality of gender and sexuality, these Islamists will go only so far.
Mr. Busidra’s proposed Islamist constitution does not impose sharia law – which he says should not be part of the Libyan state – but rather insists that no law be passed which offends the principles of Islam. So, he says, it would remain acceptable for women to leave their heads unveiled (as is frequently done in Libya), as long as head scarves aren’t mentioned in law. But, he insists, both alcohol and homosexuality will have to remain strictly illegal, as will the praise of any religion other than Islam.
Mr. Busidra’s network is formidable: It includes the long-banned Muslim Brotherhood; the February 17 Martyrs’ Brigade, which is the largest fighting force among the rebel armies and is led by the influential cleric Ismail Al-Sallabi; the even more popular cleric, Mr. Sallabi’s Doha-based brother Sheikh Ali Sallabi; and a half-dozen other imams and leaders well known in Libya, including more moderate former members of the long-banned Libyan Islamic Fighting Group. Mr. Busidra’s circle is opposed to the extreme Islam of al-Qaeda and other radical groups.
The Islamists have largely stayed outside of the Benghazi-based National Transitional Council, Libya’s internationally recognized interim rebel government, in large part because NTC executives must pledge not to enter politics after the revolution. But they appear to be dominating military matters and attempting to influence the highest ranks of the NTC.
This point was all rendered much more stark this week with the killing of General Abdel Fatah Younis, the rebels’ top military commander, apparently by members of one of the Islamist-led militias who are part of Mr. Busidra’s circle.
In a sign of this Islamist network’s increasing power, this week Col. Gadhafi’s leading son, Saif al-Islam Gadhafi, gave an interview in which he claimed that he had struck a deal with Ali Sallabi to share power. Mr. Sallabi denied this, though he said he had met with Mr. Gadhafi to discuss a surrender. Whether Saif’s statement was a tactic to divide the opposition or to frighten the West with the spectre of an Islamist aftermath, it showed that Mr. Busidra’s network has become the leading post-revolutionary force.
Mr. Busidra says that he will not run for president, but that he is pushing for Sheikh Ali Sallabi to run: “We regard him as a very qualified leader. He’s very moderate, he’s also very nationalist, and I think most of the people like him.”
But there is something of the campaigning politician in Mr. Busidra himself. He speaks in clear English whose slight Welsh twinge betrays his background – it was while studying biochemistry at Cardiff University that he discovered political Islam – and acts like a diplomat: He opens the interview with lavish praise for Canada’s participation in the NATO campaign. “If Canada didn’t get involved, we could have all been killed by now … we are thankful to Canada and the rest of the alliance, and we hope you will put more effort into accelerating the disappearance of this criminal.”
Islamist politics are not an inevitable outcome in Libya, a country whose people often wear their religion lightly and abhor the strict asceticism of Saudi-style Islamic leadership.
But Mr. Busidra’s group has a number of advantages over any political competition. For one thing, their names – especially Mr. Busidra’s – are virtually synonymous with the February 17 protests whose brutal repression by Mr. Gadhafi’s forces marked the birth of the Libyan revolution. Mr. Busidra, already a well-known preacher, gained popularity in February when he issued a fatwa making it a sin not to join the protests.
Those protests began as mass rallies in support of the mothers of the 1,270 Islamists, mainly young men, who were machine-gunned to death at Tripoli’s Abu Salim prison on one day in 1996. The civil-rights lawyer who represented the mothers, Abdul Hafiz Ghoga, is a staunch secularist who is now the vice-chairman of the rebels’ NTC administration (and is also thought to have a future in politics).
Mr. Busidra had been the negotiator for the prisoners in 1996. Like most of them, he had been imprisoned in 1989 with no charge, after having joined the Pakistani-based Muslim proselytizing movement Tablighi Jamaat – usually considered very moderate and apolitical – while studying engineering in Wales. He would spend the next 20 years and six months in prison, many of them as an organizer of other Islamists.
The fact that he was spared indicates that he was considered powerful enough to be kept alive as a bargaining chip. And when he was released in 2009, as part of a rapproachement with the West organized by Saif Gadhafi, he was given the job of organizing Libya’s prison religious services by Mustafa Abdul Jalil, who was then Libya’s reformist justice minister and is now the head of the rebels’ NTC.
The prison experience, he says, turned him into more of a nationalist than a mere holy man. “I was 30 when I went into prison; when I came out, I was 51,” he says. “So it means I have grown up, and I have started to think, and see things from another point of view.”
And, he says, his group will remain favourable toward the West and its governments and oil corporations, and will not have any objection to sharing power with secular and liberal parties – so long as they don’t offend the Islamists’ core principles.
“The moment they respect our values – Islamic values – and the moment they won’t impose any law or any constitutional rule which is against Islam, we have no reason not to co-operate with liberals and secularists,” he says. “We have no objection to anybody ruling us, as long as there is justice, freedom and equality. During Gadhafi’s days, there was nothing like that.”
By Doug Saunders
Source: dougsaunders.net
Benghazi
For more than 20 years, he was Moammar Gadhafi’s most notorious political prisoner – the Islamist ringleader who escaped the 1996 one-day massacre of 1,200 of his fellow inmates and survived a decade in solitary confinement.
Today, as Col. Gadhafi’s rebel opponents falter in the rebel capital of Benghazi, Mohammed Busidra has quietly turned himself into the post-Gadhafi kingmaker.
While secular and military figures have fallen into factional fighting, Mr. Busidra, 53, has brought together Libya’s disparate moderate Islamist leaders into the country’s only united political force. He has written a constitution that they have agreed upon, and is organizing Libya’s mosques into a political machine. This has made him, in the view of many people here, the figure who will wield the most political power, and likely control the country’s leadership, in the event of the dictator’s demise.
“We have to prepare our country politically now, to prevent any political vacuum from occurring when the criminal Gadhafi is gone,” Mr. Busidra said in the first interview he has given since early March. “And I can assure you, when we Islamists establish a party, which will be on a national basis, I think we will win comfortably.”
This assessment is shared, sometimes with alarm, by many of his opponents.
“The Islamist opposition are much better organized and financed than us because they are focused entirely on politics,” says Mohammed Bujamaya, founder of the Liberal Gathering, one of several secularist proto-parties struggling for recognition in Benghazi. “We are tied up with the crisis, while they have their figures outside of Benghazi and sometimes out of the country, scheming.”
The prospect of the multinational NATO air-warfare campaign, in which Canada is a participant, effectively helping usher in a democratic Islamist government is causing some unease among member nations. “It is not the best outcome we could hope for, but the Islamists will probably play a role,” says one European diplomat.
On the other hand, some Western figures say they prefer to keep Mr. Busidra empowered because he has worked to prevent Islamic extremists – such as al-Qaeda fighters and jihadist veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns – from becoming influential in post-Gadhafi politics.
“I make a point of meeting with these fighters,” Mr. Busidra says, “And what I say is: ‘Let us be clear from now on. If you are here to represent your ideologies, or to represent al-Qaeda, please leave our country.’ “ His group is presenting itself as a moderate Islamist option, opposed both to the sharia-law absolutism of the Salafists, al-Qaeda and other jihadi fighters, and to secularism.
“I can tell you one thing. I know the Libyan people, and they will not accept very strict Islam – that is definite,” he says. “Yet they will not accept a secular regime. Neither of them will be accepted by Libyans. Those who will win a general election are not secularists or Salafists, but are those who will respect Islam, and at the same time will be able to co-operate with modern life.”
But his moderation only goes so far. For those Libyans hoping that their country will become a liberal-minded holiday destination like neighbouring Tunisia, or a place with European-style equality of gender and sexuality, these Islamists will go only so far.
Mr. Busidra’s proposed Islamist constitution does not impose sharia law – which he says should not be part of the Libyan state – but rather insists that no law be passed which offends the principles of Islam. So, he says, it would remain acceptable for women to leave their heads unveiled (as is frequently done in Libya), as long as head scarves aren’t mentioned in law. But, he insists, both alcohol and homosexuality will have to remain strictly illegal, as will the praise of any religion other than Islam.
Mr. Busidra’s network is formidable: It includes the long-banned Muslim Brotherhood; the February 17 Martyrs’ Brigade, which is the largest fighting force among the rebel armies and is led by the influential cleric Ismail Al-Sallabi; the even more popular cleric, Mr. Sallabi’s Doha-based brother Sheikh Ali Sallabi; and a half-dozen other imams and leaders well known in Libya, including more moderate former members of the long-banned Libyan Islamic Fighting Group. Mr. Busidra’s circle is opposed to the extreme Islam of al-Qaeda and other radical groups.
The Islamists have largely stayed outside of the Benghazi-based National Transitional Council, Libya’s internationally recognized interim rebel government, in large part because NTC executives must pledge not to enter politics after the revolution. But they appear to be dominating military matters and attempting to influence the highest ranks of the NTC.
This point was all rendered much more stark this week with the killing of General Abdel Fatah Younis, the rebels’ top military commander, apparently by members of one of the Islamist-led militias who are part of Mr. Busidra’s circle.
In a sign of this Islamist network’s increasing power, this week Col. Gadhafi’s leading son, Saif al-Islam Gadhafi, gave an interview in which he claimed that he had struck a deal with Ali Sallabi to share power. Mr. Sallabi denied this, though he said he had met with Mr. Gadhafi to discuss a surrender. Whether Saif’s statement was a tactic to divide the opposition or to frighten the West with the spectre of an Islamist aftermath, it showed that Mr. Busidra’s network has become the leading post-revolutionary force.
Mr. Busidra says that he will not run for president, but that he is pushing for Sheikh Ali Sallabi to run: “We regard him as a very qualified leader. He’s very moderate, he’s also very nationalist, and I think most of the people like him.”
But there is something of the campaigning politician in Mr. Busidra himself. He speaks in clear English whose slight Welsh twinge betrays his background – it was while studying biochemistry at Cardiff University that he discovered political Islam – and acts like a diplomat: He opens the interview with lavish praise for Canada’s participation in the NATO campaign. “If Canada didn’t get involved, we could have all been killed by now … we are thankful to Canada and the rest of the alliance, and we hope you will put more effort into accelerating the disappearance of this criminal.”
Islamist politics are not an inevitable outcome in Libya, a country whose people often wear their religion lightly and abhor the strict asceticism of Saudi-style Islamic leadership.
But Mr. Busidra’s group has a number of advantages over any political competition. For one thing, their names – especially Mr. Busidra’s – are virtually synonymous with the February 17 protests whose brutal repression by Mr. Gadhafi’s forces marked the birth of the Libyan revolution. Mr. Busidra, already a well-known preacher, gained popularity in February when he issued a fatwa making it a sin not to join the protests.
Those protests began as mass rallies in support of the mothers of the 1,270 Islamists, mainly young men, who were machine-gunned to death at Tripoli’s Abu Salim prison on one day in 1996. The civil-rights lawyer who represented the mothers, Abdul Hafiz Ghoga, is a staunch secularist who is now the vice-chairman of the rebels’ NTC administration (and is also thought to have a future in politics).
Mr. Busidra had been the negotiator for the prisoners in 1996. Like most of them, he had been imprisoned in 1989 with no charge, after having joined the Pakistani-based Muslim proselytizing movement Tablighi Jamaat – usually considered very moderate and apolitical – while studying engineering in Wales. He would spend the next 20 years and six months in prison, many of them as an organizer of other Islamists.
The fact that he was spared indicates that he was considered powerful enough to be kept alive as a bargaining chip. And when he was released in 2009, as part of a rapproachement with the West organized by Saif Gadhafi, he was given the job of organizing Libya’s prison religious services by Mustafa Abdul Jalil, who was then Libya’s reformist justice minister and is now the head of the rebels’ NTC.
The prison experience, he says, turned him into more of a nationalist than a mere holy man. “I was 30 when I went into prison; when I came out, I was 51,” he says. “So it means I have grown up, and I have started to think, and see things from another point of view.”
And, he says, his group will remain favourable toward the West and its governments and oil corporations, and will not have any objection to sharing power with secular and liberal parties – so long as they don’t offend the Islamists’ core principles.
“The moment they respect our values – Islamic values – and the moment they won’t impose any law or any constitutional rule which is against Islam, we have no reason not to co-operate with liberals and secularists,” he says. “We have no objection to anybody ruling us, as long as there is justice, freedom and equality. During Gadhafi’s days, there was nothing like that.”
Tragedy echoes in children’s screams on Hama’s empty streets
12 August 2011
ÜNAL AYDIN, HAMA
Source: Today's Zaman
The central Syrian city of Hama, which was stormed by the army at the start of the month in an assault that killed more than 100 people, according to activists and rights groups, has turned into a ghost town in the literal sense.
Almost all houses in the city, which was once home to 700,000 people, seemed abandoned, while the residents who remained in the city locked themselves into their houses, leaving the streets entirely empty.
The siege of Hama, also the scene of a 1982 massacre, began on the eve of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Troops sent in by Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad’s father, Hafez al-Assad, overran the city and crushed Islamist insurgents, killing many thousands of people.
On Thursday afternoon, 10 journalists from Turkey arrived in Hama to follow the recent situation in this Syrian city. The journalists left for Syria following a statement that the Syrian army had withdrawn tanks and heavy weapons.
Allowing journalists to visit Hama for the first time since the military offensive began was one of the recommendations Turkey’s Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu conveyed to President Assad on Tuesday. Giving similar permission to journalists to visit the city of Deir al-Zor was another piece of advice from Davutoğlu to Assad, and Ankara will look at whether this advice will be heeded in the coming days, Turkish officials told Today’s Zaman on Thursday. The Turkish journalists were escorted around Hama, as the government tried to show that the military presence has been reduced.
There were no tanks or armed units on the streets of Hama. Yet, apparently because of being terrorized by the appearance of buildings that were hit by Syrian forces earlier during a crackdown in which activists said scores of people were killed, residents prefer to stay in their homes, fearing that they may again be targets of these forces.
Having said that, most residents assume military forces are still in the city. Nobody could blame them for such an assumption as there were dozens of soldiers stationed in Assi Square in Hama, which had been the main converging point for hundreds of thousands of protesters in recent weeks. While soldiers have been patrolling the empty streets of the city, the armed units and tanks that withdrew from the city were waiting at certain points just outside the city.
Their presence close to the city was evidence that they are ready to enter the city again to put down any uprising if that fire is lit again.
The small number of civilians on the streets pretended as if they had witnessed no crackdown and as if no tanks had entered the city. After speaking with them for a while, one understands that these are from pro-Assad groups who were assigned to explain to foreigners coming into the city that “everything is all right.”
Some other civilians, apparently terrorized by the soldiers’ presence, said they were not in the city when the operations were launched.
On one side the presence of soldiers, on the other side propaganda by pro-Assad civilians almost enabled the journalists from fully and freely touching the reality on the ground. However, the screams in the eyes of children who were trying to drag the journalists by their arms in order to show them traces of the crackdown were the only real voices that the journalists heard.
The children’s insistence on their effort also indicated that this fire of uprising will not end in the near future. The only thing that could not be controlled by the soldiers were children who especially wanted to show the Hamidia Mosque, which was hit by rockets during a nightly Ramadan prayer, or “tarawih,” which follows the breaking of the fast.
The soldiers could not prevent the children from reaching the journalists since they apparently hesitated to take any action against children in front of foreign journalists.
As some children openly said, “They attacked from aircraft and via rocket-launchers,” some others dared to shout slogans saying “Let the Assad regime be destroyed.”
One of them was masked, and only his eyes were visible.
“For 50 years we have had the same administration in this country,” he said.
“You see us, we have no weapons, but they are attacking us with tanks and planes. And I tell President Assad that even though it will be difficult, we will remove you from power,” he said.
During the short period of time when Turkish journalists were in the city, children in a way became the voice of this silent and oppressed city.
ÜNAL AYDIN, HAMA
Source: Today's Zaman
The central Syrian city of Hama, which was stormed by the army at the start of the month in an assault that killed more than 100 people, according to activists and rights groups, has turned into a ghost town in the literal sense.
Almost all houses in the city, which was once home to 700,000 people, seemed abandoned, while the residents who remained in the city locked themselves into their houses, leaving the streets entirely empty.
The siege of Hama, also the scene of a 1982 massacre, began on the eve of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Troops sent in by Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad’s father, Hafez al-Assad, overran the city and crushed Islamist insurgents, killing many thousands of people.
On Thursday afternoon, 10 journalists from Turkey arrived in Hama to follow the recent situation in this Syrian city. The journalists left for Syria following a statement that the Syrian army had withdrawn tanks and heavy weapons.
Allowing journalists to visit Hama for the first time since the military offensive began was one of the recommendations Turkey’s Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu conveyed to President Assad on Tuesday. Giving similar permission to journalists to visit the city of Deir al-Zor was another piece of advice from Davutoğlu to Assad, and Ankara will look at whether this advice will be heeded in the coming days, Turkish officials told Today’s Zaman on Thursday. The Turkish journalists were escorted around Hama, as the government tried to show that the military presence has been reduced.
There were no tanks or armed units on the streets of Hama. Yet, apparently because of being terrorized by the appearance of buildings that were hit by Syrian forces earlier during a crackdown in which activists said scores of people were killed, residents prefer to stay in their homes, fearing that they may again be targets of these forces.
Having said that, most residents assume military forces are still in the city. Nobody could blame them for such an assumption as there were dozens of soldiers stationed in Assi Square in Hama, which had been the main converging point for hundreds of thousands of protesters in recent weeks. While soldiers have been patrolling the empty streets of the city, the armed units and tanks that withdrew from the city were waiting at certain points just outside the city.
Their presence close to the city was evidence that they are ready to enter the city again to put down any uprising if that fire is lit again.
The small number of civilians on the streets pretended as if they had witnessed no crackdown and as if no tanks had entered the city. After speaking with them for a while, one understands that these are from pro-Assad groups who were assigned to explain to foreigners coming into the city that “everything is all right.”
Some other civilians, apparently terrorized by the soldiers’ presence, said they were not in the city when the operations were launched.
On one side the presence of soldiers, on the other side propaganda by pro-Assad civilians almost enabled the journalists from fully and freely touching the reality on the ground. However, the screams in the eyes of children who were trying to drag the journalists by their arms in order to show them traces of the crackdown were the only real voices that the journalists heard.
The children’s insistence on their effort also indicated that this fire of uprising will not end in the near future. The only thing that could not be controlled by the soldiers were children who especially wanted to show the Hamidia Mosque, which was hit by rockets during a nightly Ramadan prayer, or “tarawih,” which follows the breaking of the fast.
The soldiers could not prevent the children from reaching the journalists since they apparently hesitated to take any action against children in front of foreign journalists.
As some children openly said, “They attacked from aircraft and via rocket-launchers,” some others dared to shout slogans saying “Let the Assad regime be destroyed.”
One of them was masked, and only his eyes were visible.
“For 50 years we have had the same administration in this country,” he said.
“You see us, we have no weapons, but they are attacking us with tanks and planes. And I tell President Assad that even though it will be difficult, we will remove you from power,” he said.
During the short period of time when Turkish journalists were in the city, children in a way became the voice of this silent and oppressed city.
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
Israeli minister urges attack on Gaza
Aug 3, 2011
An Israeli minister has called for a major military offensive against the Gaza Strip, hours after the regime carried out an airstrike on the impoverished coastal sliver.
Israeli Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aaronovitch, whose remarks were aired by the Israeli public radio and the regime's Channel One TV, claimed that “the steady shower of missiles” from Gaza is not tolerable and Israel must retaliate with a “broad military action,” AFP reported on Tuesday.
The hawkish remarks of the Israeli official came amid a recent surge of violence, including airstrikes on Gaza and arrests of Palestinian civilians in the region.
On Tuesday, Israeli fighter jets pounded a tunnel under the enclave's border with Egypt.
The Israeli army frequently bombs the tunnel network in Gaza, claiming that Palestinian resistance fighters use the tunnels to store and smuggle in weapons.
Palestinians, however, dismiss such allegations, insisting that they were forced to resort to the underground tunnels to bring in basic living supplies to the impoverished Gazans because the territory has been sealed off to the outside world by a punishing Israeli blockade for over three years.
Earlier on Monday, Israeli military forces shot dead two Palestinians in the Qalandia refugee camp in the occupied West Bank after the two hurled stones at Israeli troops who were making arrests in the camp.
In another incident on Friday, at least 15 Palestinians were injured when Israeli soldiers were trying to disperse peaceful protesters demanding the reopening of the main entrance of Kafr Qaddum village in northern West Bank.
Israel also launched an all-out military offensive on the besieged Gaza Strip three days before the turn of 2009. The ensuing three-week war killed more than 1,400 Palestinians, including many women and children.
An Israeli minister has called for a major military offensive against the Gaza Strip, hours after the regime carried out an airstrike on the impoverished coastal sliver.
Israeli Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aaronovitch, whose remarks were aired by the Israeli public radio and the regime's Channel One TV, claimed that “the steady shower of missiles” from Gaza is not tolerable and Israel must retaliate with a “broad military action,” AFP reported on Tuesday.
The hawkish remarks of the Israeli official came amid a recent surge of violence, including airstrikes on Gaza and arrests of Palestinian civilians in the region.
On Tuesday, Israeli fighter jets pounded a tunnel under the enclave's border with Egypt.
The Israeli army frequently bombs the tunnel network in Gaza, claiming that Palestinian resistance fighters use the tunnels to store and smuggle in weapons.
Palestinians, however, dismiss such allegations, insisting that they were forced to resort to the underground tunnels to bring in basic living supplies to the impoverished Gazans because the territory has been sealed off to the outside world by a punishing Israeli blockade for over three years.
Earlier on Monday, Israeli military forces shot dead two Palestinians in the Qalandia refugee camp in the occupied West Bank after the two hurled stones at Israeli troops who were making arrests in the camp.
In another incident on Friday, at least 15 Palestinians were injured when Israeli soldiers were trying to disperse peaceful protesters demanding the reopening of the main entrance of Kafr Qaddum village in northern West Bank.
Israel also launched an all-out military offensive on the besieged Gaza Strip three days before the turn of 2009. The ensuing three-week war killed more than 1,400 Palestinians, including many women and children.
Youths abort settlers’ attempt to storm Aqsa Mosque
3rd August, 2011
Source:Friends of Al Aqsa
Jerusalemite youths managed on Monday night to abort an attempt by a group of 20 Jewish settlers to storm the holy Aqsa Mosque during Tarawih prayers.
One of the mosque's guards said that the settlers from Kiryat Arba, in Al-Khalil, managed to enter the Aqsa plaza through the Asbat gate while chanting racist slogans including "Death to the Arabs".
He said that the youths repelled the settlers and blocked their entry into the mosque where worshipers were performing the late night prayers in Ramadan known as the Tarawih.
The guard said that Israeli police arrived to the scene, arrested five young Jerusalemites, and took the settlers away.
Source: The Palestinian Information Center
Source:Friends of Al Aqsa
Jerusalemite youths managed on Monday night to abort an attempt by a group of 20 Jewish settlers to storm the holy Aqsa Mosque during Tarawih prayers.
One of the mosque's guards said that the settlers from Kiryat Arba, in Al-Khalil, managed to enter the Aqsa plaza through the Asbat gate while chanting racist slogans including "Death to the Arabs".
He said that the youths repelled the settlers and blocked their entry into the mosque where worshipers were performing the late night prayers in Ramadan known as the Tarawih.
The guard said that Israeli police arrived to the scene, arrested five young Jerusalemites, and took the settlers away.
Source: The Palestinian Information Center
Under pressure from mass protests, Netanyahu offers dialogue
August 1
by Joel Greenberg
JERUSALEM — Facing his most serious domestic challenge since he took office, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that members of his government would meet with protesters, a day after tens of thousands of Israelis took to the streets to demonstrate against rising housing prices and the high cost of living.
Two weeks of grass-roots economic protests have put pressure on Netanyahu to address demands for greater state involvement to remedy widening gaps between rich and poor and complaints by many middle-class Israelis that living costs are outstripping their salaries.
The protests over housing, which began with a tent camp in Tel Aviv, have spawned similar encampments in other cities. Saturday night’s demonstrations were the largest since the start of the protest wave, which was inspired partly by anti-government uprisings in neighboring Arab countries. Police estimated that more than 100,000 people demonstrated in 10 cities across Israel.
Polls have shown broad public support for the protesters and a sharp drop in Netanyahu’s approval rating since the demonstrations began, with shouts of “The people want social justice!” and demands that the prime minister step down.
The protests have drawn people from across the political spectrum and have taken place outside Israel’s established political parties and their leaders. The demonstrations have united hawks and doves, those on the left and those on the right, who have traditionally lined up according to their stance on the Arab-Israeli conflict. And while the protests represent a strong groundswell of public sentiment, they have not shaken Netanyahu’s broad-based right-wing coalition, which maintains a solid majority in parliament.
Speaking at the start of Sunday’s weekly cabinet meeting, Netanyahu pledged “to change our priorities” and announced that he would appoint a team of ministers and experts to formulate a plan “to ease the economic burden on Israeli citizens.” The prime minister said he would ask the team to “invite representatives of different groups and various sectors” to share their grievances and proposals before the plan is adopted by the government.
But Netanyahu warned against “irresponsible and populist steps that could bring the country to the situation of certain countries in Europe, which have reached the brink of bankruptcy and mass unemployment.”
Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz, a focus of criticism, warned that reforms demanded by the protesters, who have called for “a welfare state now,” could plunge Israel into a debt crisis similar to those plaguing Spain and Greece.
“As finance minister, I have a responsibility to prevent Israel from reaching a situation of economic anarchy,” he told reporters. “We see the talk about the debt crisis in Europe. We even hear talk of a possible default in the United States. My supreme duty is to see to it that we do not reach such a situation in the state of Israel.”
Steinitz said that while steps would be taken to reduce monopolies and increase competition, “we will not turn the rich and the businesspeople and the investors and industrialists into the enemies of the people, because they are part of a healthy economy.”
Israel’s gross domestic product growth is projected at 5 percent this year, and unemployment has declined to a record low of 5.7 percent. But many Israelis say they are struggling to make ends meet because of the rising costs of housing, fuel, utilities and food.
In another sign of pressure on the government, the director general of the Finance Ministry, Haim Shani, resigned Sunday, citing long-standing differences that he said were magnified by the protests.
A recent Facebook-driven consumer revolt forced a reduction in the price of cottage cheese, an Israeli staple. Social workers and doctors have held lengthy strikes over pay and working conditions, and young mothers have protested high day-care costs.
Vice Prime Minister Silvan Shalom said domestic social concerns were moving to the fore after years in which the public debate has been dominated by the conflict with the Palestinians and other external threats.
“We are moving away from a security mind-set to a social mind-set,” Shalom told Channel Two television.
Dan Shilon, a columnist for the newspaper Maariv, urged Netanyahu to step down. “Nothing will stop the protest,” he wrote. “Not a panicked tax cut, not the summer recess of parliament, not the autumn rains, not Katyusha rockets in the north or Qassam rockets in the south, not an attack on Iran nor missiles on Tel Aviv. Nothing will extricate you.”
Source: Washington Post
by Joel Greenberg
JERUSALEM — Facing his most serious domestic challenge since he took office, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that members of his government would meet with protesters, a day after tens of thousands of Israelis took to the streets to demonstrate against rising housing prices and the high cost of living.
Two weeks of grass-roots economic protests have put pressure on Netanyahu to address demands for greater state involvement to remedy widening gaps between rich and poor and complaints by many middle-class Israelis that living costs are outstripping their salaries.
The protests over housing, which began with a tent camp in Tel Aviv, have spawned similar encampments in other cities. Saturday night’s demonstrations were the largest since the start of the protest wave, which was inspired partly by anti-government uprisings in neighboring Arab countries. Police estimated that more than 100,000 people demonstrated in 10 cities across Israel.
Polls have shown broad public support for the protesters and a sharp drop in Netanyahu’s approval rating since the demonstrations began, with shouts of “The people want social justice!” and demands that the prime minister step down.
The protests have drawn people from across the political spectrum and have taken place outside Israel’s established political parties and their leaders. The demonstrations have united hawks and doves, those on the left and those on the right, who have traditionally lined up according to their stance on the Arab-Israeli conflict. And while the protests represent a strong groundswell of public sentiment, they have not shaken Netanyahu’s broad-based right-wing coalition, which maintains a solid majority in parliament.
Speaking at the start of Sunday’s weekly cabinet meeting, Netanyahu pledged “to change our priorities” and announced that he would appoint a team of ministers and experts to formulate a plan “to ease the economic burden on Israeli citizens.” The prime minister said he would ask the team to “invite representatives of different groups and various sectors” to share their grievances and proposals before the plan is adopted by the government.
But Netanyahu warned against “irresponsible and populist steps that could bring the country to the situation of certain countries in Europe, which have reached the brink of bankruptcy and mass unemployment.”
Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz, a focus of criticism, warned that reforms demanded by the protesters, who have called for “a welfare state now,” could plunge Israel into a debt crisis similar to those plaguing Spain and Greece.
“As finance minister, I have a responsibility to prevent Israel from reaching a situation of economic anarchy,” he told reporters. “We see the talk about the debt crisis in Europe. We even hear talk of a possible default in the United States. My supreme duty is to see to it that we do not reach such a situation in the state of Israel.”
Steinitz said that while steps would be taken to reduce monopolies and increase competition, “we will not turn the rich and the businesspeople and the investors and industrialists into the enemies of the people, because they are part of a healthy economy.”
Israel’s gross domestic product growth is projected at 5 percent this year, and unemployment has declined to a record low of 5.7 percent. But many Israelis say they are struggling to make ends meet because of the rising costs of housing, fuel, utilities and food.
In another sign of pressure on the government, the director general of the Finance Ministry, Haim Shani, resigned Sunday, citing long-standing differences that he said were magnified by the protests.
A recent Facebook-driven consumer revolt forced a reduction in the price of cottage cheese, an Israeli staple. Social workers and doctors have held lengthy strikes over pay and working conditions, and young mothers have protested high day-care costs.
Vice Prime Minister Silvan Shalom said domestic social concerns were moving to the fore after years in which the public debate has been dominated by the conflict with the Palestinians and other external threats.
“We are moving away from a security mind-set to a social mind-set,” Shalom told Channel Two television.
Dan Shilon, a columnist for the newspaper Maariv, urged Netanyahu to step down. “Nothing will stop the protest,” he wrote. “Not a panicked tax cut, not the summer recess of parliament, not the autumn rains, not Katyusha rockets in the north or Qassam rockets in the south, not an attack on Iran nor missiles on Tel Aviv. Nothing will extricate you.”
Source: Washington Post
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