Democratic Vice Presidential candidate Joe Biden has never been one to mince words, and he lived up to his reputation this morning on Good Morning America. Asked what he thought about the recent turn the McCain-Palin campaign's strategy has taken, with Palin acting as an attack dog and questioning Barack Obama's past associations, Biden offered a typically blunt assessment.

Biden called her statements that Obama was "palling around" with terrorists "volatile" and "over the edge," specifically citing the reactions that crowds have had to this rhetoric at rallies in the past few days. Those reactions have included shouts of "terrorist!" "treason!" and even one chilling "kill him!" One of the worst outbursts, reported by Dana Milbank, involved a press crew being accosted by angry supporters who proceeded to hurl racial epithets at a black worker with the crew.

I hinted yesterday that the McCain-Palin campaign should know better, since anyone with half a brain (I would hope) knows precisely what happens when you bring up the word "terrorist" in modern America, particularly at Republican rallies. It inflames people and passions, causing them to fly off the handle and do rash things. There's another dimension to this strategy, though, that we should be paying attention to.

It's been building for a few weeks now, starting with this Ann Coulter diatribe blaming the current financial crisis on the Clinton administration and, shock of shocks, minorities.

Before the Democrats' affirmative action lending policies became an embarrassment, the Los Angeles Times reported that, starting in 1992, a majority-Democratic Congress "mandated that Fannie and Freddie increase their purchases of mortgages for low-income and medium-income borrowers. Operating under that requirement, Fannie Mae, in particular, has been aggressive and creative in stimulating minority gains." 

Under Clinton, the entire federal government put massive pressure on banks to grant more mortgages to the poor and minorities. Clinton's secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Andrew Cuomo, investigated Fannie Mae for racial discrimination and proposed that 50 percent of Fannie Mae's and Freddie Mac's portfolio be made up of loans to low- to moderate-income borrowers by the year 2001. 

Instead of looking at "outdated criteria," such as the mortgage applicant's credit history and ability to make a down payment, banks were encouraged to consider nontraditional measures of credit-worthiness, such as having a good jump shot or having a missing child named "Caylee." 

Threatening lawsuits, Clinton's Federal Reserve demanded that banks treat welfare payments and unemployment benefits as valid income sources to qualify for a mortgage. That isn't a joke -- it's a fact. 

If you've never read Ann Coulter before, your head probably just exploded, and for that I apologize. But once you get past her wild rhetoric (I love when she says Wall Street bankers are a huge Democratic constituency. Because Republicans never take money from Wall Street), there's a lot to discuss underneath all the hate.

Now, she is correct that one of the main dimensions (not the only one) in this financial meltdown is the fact that people were given mortgages they couldn't afford. Coulter, however, blames this entirely on minorities who "have a good jump shot." And she's not the only prominent conservative to make this argument in recent weeks. That ignores the scale of this crisis - people of every creed and color were coaxed into making bad financial decisions. Plenty of white people have gotten or are getting their homes foreclosed. Plenty of people who actually weren't too badly off financially are in deep crap because they were encouraged to take out second and sometimes third mortgages on their houses and ended up using these bank loans essentially as credit cards. Now the banks come calling and want them to pay off their debt and they don't know what to do. This is too big a crisis to blame on one sector of the population.

Of course, we've seen what happens when people blame minorities in the face of a financial crisis. After all, the same thing happened in various pogroms throughout history. Most notably, in 1938 in Nazi Germany, on the "Night of Broken Glass," or Kristallnacht, when years of anti-semitism boiled over into one night of violence carefully coordinated by the government.

Let's be clear: this is not anywhere near Kristallnacht. I'm not trying to blow things out of proportion, but with that said, the underlying impulses of that event echo some of the things happening right now - the sorts of things that lead to pogroms.

Once Hitler came to power, he and his cronies went to great lengths to convince the German populace that the Jews, some of whom were financially prosperous professionals, were responsible for Germany's defeat in World War I, the Treaty of Versailles, and Germany's subsequent economic collapse (hyper-inflation, of course, had nothing to do with this). By finding a group to blame for the country's problems and whipping the populace into a frenzy, Hitler made Kristallnacht possible and, furthermore, acceptable.

Now Hitler didn't just create anti-semitism in Germany when he came to power. As we all know, anti-semitism has existed for thousands of years and was an everyday part of European life at the time of Hitler's rise (and still today, many would argue). Hitler was simply playing off old fears and prejudices.

What disturbs me is that, while we thankfully have lightyears to go to reach the Nazis' actions, Palin has been playing on these same impulses in her speeches. She's playing with "terrorist," a loaded word for so many people. She's making the suggestion, in the same speeches, that Barack Obama is un-American. Un-American is one thing, but to level it against a black man is even more troubling. Suddenly, you combine a number of prejudices together for people who are scared and, most likely, have some of their own prejudices waiting to jump out. People like Ann Coulter know this, and know that in order to excite (or incite) the base, they need to play on these old fears and combine them with the Bush "us against them" mantra.

When you put it all together, it paints a disturbing picture. You have people afraid of losing their money, their homes, and their retirement plan. People afraid of the shadow of terrorism and nuclear proliferation. And, deeper down, people who may be afraid of African-Americans and minorities from a criminal standpoint, and resentful due to affirmative action and minority housing laws.

But when the Democratic presidential candidate is a black man with a Muslim name, "us against them" takes on a more dangerous dimension. Now, people can put a face on all of their fears - Barack Obama. Or, as former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke wrote on his website in June:

"[Obama] will be a clear signal for millions of our people...Obama is a visual aid for White Americans who just don't get it yet that we have lost control of our country, and unless we get it back we are heading for complete annihilation as a people."

Suddenly, Obama isn't just a Muslim terrorist in disguise, he's also one of the minorities responsible for the financial crisis and destroying America through affirmative action, welfare and political correctness. It's downright scary not just that this is happening in a presidential campaign in America in 2008, but that one campaign appears to be tacitly endorsing behavior like this. As Joe Biden said, Palin didn't even blink at the things people were yelling at her rallies. You could argue she didn't hear them, but she sure hasn't condemned any of it after the fact. And neither has McCain, despite the fact that the Secret Service is investigating possible threats against Obama.

We've gotten to a very ugly place in this election, one where McCain and Palin are so desperate to win voters that they're appealing to the bottom of the barrel in the worst possible way. They and the Republican machine are taking the politics of fear every which way they can, mixing terrorism, xenophobia and racism in a sickening palette. And to think, this was the party of Lincoln, and here they are resorting to racial and religious scare tactics to cow voters into supporting them. I guess that's what happens when you welcome Dixiecrats to your party with open arms in order to win elections.

While I would hope that McCain and Palin don't take this line of attack any further, I doubt that will come to pass. This is their last chance to make up ground, and McCain has shown he'll do anything to win this election. But if one of these rallies erupts into violence, or some sort of racial crime motivated by this rhetoric occurs, it would be a permanent blight on American politics.

If McCain and Palin want to save face and prevent this from getting out of control (we still have a few weeks until the election, after all), they need to come out against this before it escalates. Even just a simple denouncing of these hateful points of view.

Because right now, their silence on this matter says more than any of their rhetoric.

Biden: Palin Must Condemn Supporters' Hateful Obama Attacks [The Huffington Post]

Dagsavisen 05.10 2008

Bosetternes aksjoner sjokkerer det israelske samfunnet. Ifølge en FN-rapport har jødiske bosettere på Vestbredden i første halvår av 2008 gjennomført 222 angrep mot palestinerne, sammenlignet med 291 i hele 2007. Men også den israelske hæren, som er ansvarlig for å opprettholde okkupasjonen, har i de siste månedene blitt angrepet av bosetterne.

Brutal hevnaksjon

Den 13. september, for tre uker siden, forlot en gruppe bevæpnede nybyggere bosettingen Yitzhar nord på Vestbredden. Deres mål var Assira al-Kabiliya, en palestinsk landsby like ved. De marsjerte inn i landsbyen, skjøt i alle retninger, knuste og raserte det de kom over, og dro så tilbake til sin bosetting.

Fire palestinere ble skadd i angrepet. I landsbyen var det portforbud, noe som tvang alle innendørs. De israelske nybyggerne var kommet for å hevne at en av landsbyens unggutter hadde infiltrert deres bosetting og stukket ned en ti år gammel gutt.

Hassan Sharaf, en innbygger i den palestinske landsbyen, var vitne til bosetternes angrep, og anklaget også den israelske hæren for å hjelpe dem.

– Det var helt klart at soldatene ikke tok seg av terroristene på noen seriøs måte. Bosetterne oppførte seg som om de hadde fått grønt lys fra hæren, sa Sharaf etter angrepet.

Sjokkert

– Vi vil ikke tillate en pogrom her, sa statsminister Ehud Olmert, og sammenlignet bosetternes raseringer med angrep som jøder i det 19. århundrets tsar-Russland ofte var utsatt for.

– Tidligere var det bare et par titalls bosettere som var involvert i angrepene, nå dreier det seg om flere hundre, fortalte general Gad Shamni sist torsdag. At en toppoffiser går ut mot bosetterne er høyst sjelden kost i Israel.

– Disse hundretalls bosetterne angriper både palestinerne og oss, og dette er alvorlig, sa han.

I flere tiår har Israel og de jødiske bosetterne nærmest gått hånd i hånd. Men i de siste årene har man sett en viss splittelse. Det alvorligste bruddet kom i september 2005, da Israel tvangsflyttet rundt 8.000 bosettere fra Gaza og trakk seg ut av området. Ikke bare ble regjeringens beslutning sett på som «forrædersk», for mange bosettere førte tilbaketrekkingen faktisk til en slags teologisk krise.

Religiøs plan

Mens flertallet av Israels jøder aldri har vært troende eller religiøse, har landets religiøse sionister sett på opprettelsen av staten Israel i 1948 som del av en slags guddommelig plan før Messias' ankomst. Riktignok lå da de jødiske hellige stedene ennå utenfor rekkevidde, på Vestbredden, som da var under jordansk kontroll, men i de første årene var de religiøse sionistene uansett mer opptatt med å bygge opp den unge staten.

Men så kom krigen i 1967. I løpet av seks dager okkuperte Israel Sinai-ørkenen og Gaza fra Egypt, Vestbredden og Øst-Jerusalem fra Jordan og Golan-høydene fra Syria. For mange religiøse sionister ble den plutselige «tilbakevendingen» til de hellige stedene i Øst-Jerusalem og Hebron et vannskille. For dem var det som om Guds plan var i ferd med å bli gjennomført.

Hotell-okkupasjon

Det hele begynte ved Hotel Park i Hebron. I april 1968 reiste en gruppe religiøse jøder, ledet av en rabbi Moshe Levinger, til Hebron der de sjekket inn i det lokale Hotel Park. Men de nektet så å forlate stedet. Etter noen dagers forhandlinger med den israelske regjeringen ble de gitt land i Hebron der de skulle kunne etablere seg.

I dag, over 40 år senere, lever minst 500.000 jødiske bosettere i Øst-Jerusalem og Vestbredden. I flesteparten av årene ble bosetterne hjulpet og støttet av staten Israel, for okkupasjonen av Vestbredden ble sett på som en slags militær sikkerhetsbuffer i tilfelle en ny krig med de arabiske nabolandene. Israel er et lite land – på det smaleste rett nord for Tel Aviv er det ikke mer enn 16 kilometer fra øst til vest. Okkupasjonen av Vestbredden skulle gi landet en strategisk militær dybde.

Tostatsløsning

Men i dag ser flertallet av israelerne annerledes på saken. Israel har gjort fred med Jordan, landet ved østfronten. Langt mer sentralt for israeleres forståelse av konflikten i dag er at 2,5 millioner palestinere lever på Vestbredden. Slik stadig flere israelere nå ser det, vil ikke Israel i lengden kunne fortsette å være en stat med jødisk flertall med mindre også palestinerne på Vestbredden får sin egen stat.

I de siste 15 årene har en sett en opinionsforskyvning i Israel. Men for bosetterne ble dette bare et svik. Staten Israel oppfylte ikke lenger sin rolle i bosetternes teologiske plan. Ennå støtter og beskytter Israel flere hundre tusen bosettere på Vestbredden. Men toppen av det som kan bli et dypt ideologisk skille kom faktisk kanskje tidligere i uken. Da gikk statsminister Olmert ut på en måte ingen israelsk leder før ham hadde gjort det, og sa at Israel vil måtte trekke seg tilbake fra praktisk talt alle okkuperte områder, inkludert Øst-Jerusalem og Vestbredden.

Palestinsk håp

– Vi må oppnå en avtale med palestinerne som innebærer en tilbaketrekking fra praktisk talt nesten alle områdene, om ikke faktisk alle områdene, sa Olmert tirsdag. Bosetterne kan bare håpe at Olmert, som har annonsert sin avgang, vil forsvinne ut av politikken om kort tid. For palestinerne var dette gode, men sene nyheter.

– I disse dager hører vi ny retorikk fra de israelske lederne, sa den palestinske presidenten Mahmoud Abbas. – Det ville vært bedre om vi hadde hørt slikt tidligere, men dette er likevel erklæringer som kan skape et grunnlag for en fred, sa Abbas.

~~~

Almost 9,000 Palestinians are being held in prisons inside Israel, in violation of international humanitarian law. In hundreds of cases, Israel forbids adult relatives to visit, so it is left to children under 16 to maintain the family contact.

[googlevideo=http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1703765327215644777&ei=V9LoSNP4C5HS2gKP3JSpCw&q=B%27Tselem]

~~~

Rasmi al-Khatib was 13 years old in October 2001, when he was playing soccer with friends. A soldier fired at the children and a bullet struck him. Since then, Rasmi's left arm has been paralyzed.

[googlevideo=http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8254427100166528536&ei=J9PoSMmCJYLi2gK3n6CiCw&q=B%27Tselem]

"""

Hundreds of tunnels under the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt are keeping many of the Palestinian territory's 1.5 million impoverished residents supplied with food and fuel.

On Saturday, Egyptian authorities found the entrances of three tunnels and confiscated a large amount of fuel about to be smuggled into the territory.

Sources say there are more than 6,000 Palestinians employed in the clandestine industry, which merchants say is heavily controlled by the Hamas authorities.

Strict rules are imposed on what can be brought in - weapons, drugs and people-trafficking are prohibited - and tunnel operators are taxed.

Ehab Gheissen, a spokesman for the interior ministry in the deposed Hamas-led government, said: "It is the right of the Palestinian people to do whatever they can to break the siege they live under.

"They have a right to do whatever they can to get what they need, including through tunnels, but at the same time we are watching all of the things that are being brought in."

The tunnels were previously used to smuggle weapons to fight the Israeli occupation, but the blockade that was enforced after Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip in 2007 has made the smuggling of basic supplies a necessity.

Shortages have sent prices of flour and milk soaring, and the industry established around the tunnel smuggling system is now worth millions of dollars.

Sami Abdel Shafi, a Gaza-based business analyst, said: "These days, most of the anecdotal evidence we hear is that the tunnels are being used to bring in very human items, for lack of proper medicine in the Gaza Strip.

"They are used to bring in shoes, chocolate and 7-Up, things like that.

"Then again, all of the quantities being brought in are being blown out of proportion I feel, 1.5 million people deserve a lot more than having to operate under ground, they deserve a much better chance at operating an economy above ground." [...]

A diverse range of items, such as cigarettes, teacups and spare parts for motorcycles, were among the items awaiting collection. But no matter how important the tunnels are in keeping the Palestinian economy going, there is a human cost. At least 35 people have died in the tunnels since the beginning of the year, according to the UN.

General Mahmoud Khalaf, a military analyst, told "These tunnels are not neccessary, and illegal procedures should not be used to transport goods."

"The fact that these tunnels are seen as vital is an allegation perpetrated by Hamas to justify these actions. But yes, I do admit the Israeli-imposed siege has made life harder, but I believe these means are not the way forward."

Abu Mohammed lost his son and a brother when the tunnel they were digging fell in on them. Since then, he has stopped his other children from going down the tunnels."What can we do? We have to eat and they were making money for the family. But now, I won't allow them to work no matter how poor we are. It's just not right," he told.

Egypt is under pressure from Israel to crack down on the tunnels, some of which are in sight of the border police.

Cairo says it is making efforts to halt the trade, and the UN says that during a two-day period in August, 28 tunnels were destroyed by the authorities.

Mohyeldin reported that some Palestinians even boast that the Egyptians will never be able to shut all the tunnels because it is also a lucrative trade for many Egyptians.

But Abdel Shafi warns that longer the tunnels remain a lifeline, the more it will undermine the chances of a proper Palestinian economy being developed."It will have catastrophic consequences in the long term, even if it does provide or alleviate some of the need for the moment," he said."The Gaza Strip cannot be sustained on the operations of the tunnels."

In Gaza, 85 per cent of the population relies on aid and unemployment is running at 45 per cent.  """

Argentine Jewry's dark secret

New book reveals story of Jewish association of pimps that operated in country in late 19th and early 20th century, and was involved in women trade and rape.

'This is a silenced story, ' author says, 'The Jewish community in Argentina remembers it well, but badly wants to keep it under wraps'

Superintendent Julio Elsogray was a strange kind of Buenos Aires cop because he would not take bribes from the pimps who dominated the city in the early 20th century. Eventually, therefore, he was the man who managed to stop them. He did that thanks to a brave whore named Rachel Lieberman, who dared file a complaint against the Zwi Migdal Organization - an association of Jewish women traders.

Thus, in 1930 the two managed to shut down the only association of Jewish panders in the world after 60 years of activity. The Zwi Migdal group was an organization that traded in women while its members wore tefillin and built themselves a synagogue, and their story is both embarrassing and exciting. It involved loads of money, corrupt politicians, violent sex, international women trade, hard brutality, rape, and cheating, all lightly spiced with yiddishkeit and God-fearing traditions.

"This is a silenced story," said writer and poet Ilan Sheinfeld, whose book "The Tale of a Ring" relates the story of that dark period. "The Jewish community in Argentina remembers it well, but badly wants to keep it under wraps because it is a disgrace. There is very little material in Hebrew about this affair."

Intermittently researching his book for 11 years, Sheinfeld travelled to Buenos Aires twice, learned Spanish, and "established ties with Argentinian Jews who knew about the story. I had to peel off layer after layer, convince people to talk, and obtain materials. When you closely examine the affair, you can tell why it was kept secret so far."

Remonta - Fresh flesh shipment

Argentina of the second half of the 19th century was an attractive destination for Jews who fled Russian and Polish pogroms and poverty, headed for the New World. In those decades, Buenos Aires grew rapidly and with it, the Jewish community.

A Hevra Kadisha was established and a newspaper named Mundo Israelita was published as the Jewish community members strove to settle down and become part of the new place. They wished to establish themselves as law-abiding and moral people.

This, however, did not apply to all of the Jews. Hundreds of Jewish immigrants chose a different path and became rufianos - pimps, prostitution peddles. Given that at the time, there was one woman for 10 men, sexual services were in high demand. The temptation to make a profit in this area was plain to see. So the Jewish rufianos stepped in, supplied the demand, and soon enough seized control over the entire prostitution business in Argentina.

"Jews were very prominent among women traders, both as dealers and as employers of prostitutes, particularly in Argentina, Brazil, Poland, and Galicia (Russia)," wrote Yehuda Rimerman in "Prostitution and the Deviant Girl," a book that reviews the history of Jewish prostitution in the modern era. The Argentinian pimps created a total, most effective world, with predefined codewords, rules, and methods of operation. For example, a trip abroad to bring a new shipload of fresh girls was called remonta, a term taken from the horse market.

Here is how it worked: A well-mannered and elegant man would appear one day in a Jewish shtetl in Poland or Russia. He notified the local community and posted an ad in the shul saying he was looking for nice young women to work in the houses of rich Jews in Argentina or even marry them. Despairing with the pogroms and dreadful economic situation, the girls' parents would respond favourably and give their daughters away, hoping to give them a new start.

The girls, mostly aged 13 to 16, packed a small bag, bid their families a sobbing farewell, and boarded the ships to Argentina accompanied by a stranger, certain they are off to a better future. Their training period often started on the way there, on the ship, and was always a cruel and brutal affair. The young virgins were broken in - raped, beaten, starved, and locked in cages. Some of them were married off to local men so that they could obtain entry visas. Far from their families, without friends or knowledge of the language, they started serving men, their bodies belonging to the Jewish rufianos.

A cemetery fit for pimps

The largest bordellos of Buenos Aires housed 60 to 80 sex slaves. There were bordellos all over Argentina, but most of them were in the big city, in the Jewish quarter, on Junin Street.

Yet, as the whorehouses and pimps prospered, the Jewish community rejected them. Articles in the local press condemned them and, in 1885, the community established a Jewish Association for the Protection of Women and Girls. Ads posted on the walls in the Jewish quarter called on the locals not to rent their shops to the rufianos. On their part, the pimps very much wanted to be part of the community. The wealthiest among them used to pick a new girl every night and take her out to the theater, "which was the centre of cultural life in the city. Jewish theatre was very successful then," Sheinfeld said.

"The Jewish communities used to throw fund-raising parties, importing European star performers. The pimps would show up every night because they intended to show off their merchandise, wished to maintain their status, and also wanted be like everybody else. This is why they made donations, which made the community deliberate whether it wanted their money. On the one hand, the community needed money to build public buildings, but on the other hand, it was 'dirty' money and by taking it they feared they would be legitimizing or tacitly accepting the criminals' exploitation of women. This ended one night when Nahum Sorkin, a well-known Zionist activist, stood outside the theater and physically stopped the rufianos from entering. Next, they were banned from the synagogues, and to top it all, they were refused burial in the Jewish cemetery.

This was too much for the rufianos. It is one thing to be banned from the theatre or community balls, but eternal rest is a different story. They formed an association of charity among its members. On 7 May 1906, when there were already half a million Jews in Argentina, the Jewish pimps registered legally as the Zwi Migdal Association, named after one of its greatest contributors. Naturally, the group later split and the splinter, led by Simon Rubinstein, established its own society named Ashkenazum. Once officially recognized, both associations bought plots of land on the outskirt of Buenos Aires and established their own cemeteries there.

The Zwi Migdal Organization reached its peak in the 1920's, when some 430 rufianos controlled 2,000 whorehouses with 4,000 women. The network was well organized and its members cooperated closely to protect their interests. Prostitutes that failed to satisfy their clients were beaten, fined, or taken to work in provincial houses. Every business transaction was logged. The rufianos even held a meat market where newly arrived girls were paraded naked in front of traders in places such as Hotel Palestina or Cafe Parisienne. These activities went on undisturbed because they were frequented by government officials, judges, and reporters. City officials, politicians, and police officers were paid off. The pimps had powerful connections everywhere.

The hijo de puta judge

The rufianos' audacity eventually led to their demise. It happened when they refused to forgo their income from the work of one woman, Rachel Lieberman from Lódž, Poland. She, like so many others, was tempted to travel to Buenos Aires answering a matrimonial ad, but was taken to Jonin Street where she was forced to prostitute. In desperation, she contacted Superintendent Julio Elsogray. She heard his name mentioned on the street as one who would not take Zwi Migdal's money and was actually looking for ways to destroy the organization. She slipped into his office one day and gave a detailed account of the connections among the various pimps in the organization management. Her testimony was reason enough to launch an extensive investigation. This time, unlike on previous occasions that led to nothing, the findings reached Dr. Rodriguez Ocampo, a judge who would not take Zwi Migdal bribes either.

The lengthy trial ended in September 1930, with 108 detainees. "The very existence of the Zwi Migdal Organization directly threatens our society," the judge wrote in his verdict, handing down long prison terms. Nevertheless, while in prison, the pimps pulled some old strings, appealed their sentences in January 1931, and senior Justice Ministry officials left only three of the convicts in jail, discharging the rest. When the media reported this, the public was very upset and pressured the authorities to reverse the discharge decision. Thereafter, hundred of pimps were deported to Uruguay. "Over the years, they slowly returned one by one, but the era of the huge brothels ended," Sheinfeld summed up this story.

Rona Kupferboim

[EN]

"""   Many Palestinians that I met during my travels in the West Bank told me that to know what Palestine really was about and meant, I had to go to Nablus. Most of them also told me that Nablus was their favourite city. After spending 5 weeks there this summer, I understand why. Arriving from Ramallah (on the fastest taxi/service ride I have ever experienced) the first thing you see on arriving in Nablus is its most famous checkpoint: Huwara. Huwara, its people and its colour. Yellow. Yellow like the hundreds of taxis and services parked on both sides of the checkpoint. You need them to leave the city and to get inside the city. Since the start of the second intifada, entry to Nablus by car or truck has mostly been forbidden. You cross the checkpoint on foot, on your way in and out. Once in a service (cheaper taxis that take people from one set stop to another, most of them old Mercedes) it takes only 5 mins to reach Nablus’ vibrant city centre. And then, something else hits you and you start to realise that Nablus is like no other place in the West Bank. The city centre is bustling with life. Cars come out of nowhere, people chat in the middle of the road, falafel shops at every street corner, a man sells coffee to stationary drivers, fruit sellers, people waving at you to stop for a chat, sounds of “welcome, how are you” coming from all directions. Nablus is non stop. You hear, smell, taste and see here. All at once. This is the best example I’ve seen so far of controlled chaos.

People seem to live here. Everyone I meet is smiling, laughing, inviting me to their homes for tea, asking me about my country. Everyone seems so happy to see me here. Everyone.

After a few days in the city, I realise that this is only the outside. Inside everything is a lot darker. Nablus reminds me of a clown. Smiling to hide its suffering.

Everyone is happy to see a foreigner, an international, because not many come to Nablus. Walking around the city you quickly realise that there is no tourism here. Only a few NGOs operate here bringing internationals (a nationality in itself in Nablus. Anyone coming from Europe, the U.S.A, Scandinavia... is called an international) into Nablus. People want to know my story and I want to know theirs. They want to understand why the world has forgotten them and I want to understand what has happened to them. They want to “take off their veil”, allow me in. I cannot refuse and decide to film them. For them to talk and the world to listen. To give them a platform to express themselves.

After a few interviews, it rapidly becomes obvious to me that everyone has a story here.

Bashir tells me that he had to stop his studies for a while because he could not afford it. He had to work in Ramallah for long hours, making only 20 shekels a day. Both his parents are unemployed. Like nearly 70% of the population in Nablus. A huge increase compared to the 1997 rate (14.2%). Nablus’s citizens have lost 60% of their income since the start of the second intifada. Most people here are young (50% of the population is under 20) and highly educated. Nonetheless most of the youth here is either unemployed or work in shops selling anything they can (some shops sell groceries but also clothes, house utilities....). Shops can be open for up to ten hours a day without a single customer. Nablusis simply don’t have money to spend.

Hakim tells me that everytime he hears the Israeli Army during the night, he wakes up, gets dressed and sits quietly on his sofa waiting for them. Not because he’s guilty of anything. Except maybe of being Palestinian. No one is safe in Nablus during the night. The situation is extraordinary. Nablus was one of the first cities to welcome a Palestinian police force a few months ago (around November 07) but this police force only acts from 6am till midnight. From midnight onwards the Israeli army takes over. Every night the Israeli army enters the city and its refugee camps (Balata, Askar, El Ayn) and, with the help of loudspeakers, sound bombs and weapons, arrest Palestinians, quite often ransacking their house, beating them and their families, and sometimes killing them. The Israeli army has “carte blanche” here. Even during the day. A police officer told me that the Israelis sometimes call them during the day to tell them that they’ll be down (the army base overlooks the city, on top of a mountain) in a few mins. They clear the place on the spot to let the Army do “its job”. It is as simple as that.

Hassan tells me that one day he was arrested while going through Huwara checkpoint. He spent 11 months in jail. To this day no one has told him why. The only thing he knows is that it was administrative detention. In every story you hear, jail comes up. For a male citizen of Nablus, jail is pretty much compulsory. Nearly half of Nablus’s male residents have gone past the Jail square. However this is no board game, and these men are not just visiting, some of them are incarcerated for months at a time without knowing why they were arrested in the first place or when they’ll be released.

Maroof tells me that during the first and second invasions of Nablus, while he was working as a volunteer with the fire brigade and the Red Crescent, he was nearly killed twice by the Israeli army. They knew he was working as a paramedic. Maroof witnessed many times blatant human rights violations by the army. The ambulances were not allowed to do their job properly and to rescue people. A lot of people died as a result of not being taken to hospital in time. Maroof and his team were once forbidden to leave the old city. They had to stay there for 12 days without edible food.

And then there is Saed who lost his mother in 2002 when she was assassinated by an Israeli sniper. There is Eslam who twice saw the Israeli army occupying his house and could not go out for days at a time. There is Ala from An Najah University (the biggest university in the West Bank) who cannot sleep at night because of nightmares due to multiples Israeli Army interventions and beatings in the old city during the night. There is Amad who went to jail with his whole family for 3 months in 2005.

And then there is this Palestinian girl, 17 years old, from Balata refugee camp, who tells me, on my last day in Nablus, while sharing a meal people from the camp had prepared for us:

“Tell me. What was the image you had of us before coming here? Did you think we were all killers? Did you think we were all crazy? Because I’ve got friends in Europe who told me that over there people think we are all crazy and terrorists. You know it hurts me so much when I hear things like this. We’re not crazy. We’re good people here. I mean not everyone’s good. Like everywhere else. But most of us are good. Nice people. Do you see many terrorists in this room? Do we all seem crazy to you? We’re just normal people and we want to live a normal life. But life for us is hard here. Can you tell the truth to your people when you go back to Europe? Can you tell them who we really are, please?”

I am so touched I cannot answer. Can you?

BBC News Channel - Thursday, 2 October 2008

Hundreds of [Jewish] settlers are engaged in violence against Palestinians and Israeli soldiers, the senior Israeli commander in the West Bank has said.

Hundreds of settlers are engaged in violence against Palestinians and Israeli soldiers, the senior Israeli commander in the West Bank has said.

Majr-Gen Gadi Shamni said diverting military resources to deal with settlers impaired the army's ability to carry out operations against militants.

A recent UN report recorded 222 acts of settler violence in the first half of 2008 compared with 291 in all of 2007.

Palestinians have long complained of settler harassment and intimidation.

They have also complained the Israeli military does little to stop or restrain the settlers.

An Encounter with Settlers in the Streets of Hebron

The heart of Hebron has been occupied by approximately 500 Israeli settlers who claim the right to the city and its holy places. Despite the fact that their presence is illegal under international law, they have managed to violently seize numerous homes in the centre of the city and terrorized the local Palestinian population. Ironically, Israel has stationed a strong army force in the city in order to protect the 500 settlers but not the 170.000 Palestinian inhabitants. The city consequently displays a life that cannot but remind one of a pre-1994 apartheid South Africa. Since the Oslo Accords, Hebron is divided in two parts, with H1 falling under Palestinian authority and security control and H2 falling under Israeli control. However, the Israeli army conducts operations throughout the city, clearly violating the Oslo terms. It is not until visiting Hebron that one understands why the term apartheid is so often coined in relation to the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Hebron’s separated world leaves little to the imagination: different rights belong to different population groups and the tiny minority rules. In order to understand the situation in the West Bank it is a necessity to face the reality of Hebron. Unfortunately, in our wanderings through Hebron, we got to the see the ugliest face of the city in a taste of reality that was more than we bargained for. ~  Rianne Van Doeveren for the Alternative Information Center (AIC)

'Significant change'

"In the past, only a few dozen individuals took part in such activity but today that number has grown into the hundreds. That's a very significant change," Maj-Gen Shamni told the Israeli Haaretz newspaper.

"The margins [in the settler community] are expanding, because they are enjoying a tailwind and the backing of part of the leadership, both rabbinical and public, whether in explicit statements or tacitly" ~ Maj-Gen Gadi Shamni

"These hundreds are engaged in conspiratorial actions against Palestinians and the security forces. It's a very grave phenomenon."

"This is harming our ability to carry out security missions in the territories. We have to divert our efforts to there from other issues.

"The margins [in the settler community] are expanding, because they are enjoying a tailwind and the backing of part of the leadership, both rabbinical and public, whether in explicit statements or tacitly."

The general said that in some cases Israeli soldiers who had intervened to stop settlers from attacking Palestinians had themselves been attacked by settlers.

"The majority [of settlers] here act normally. We're talking about a hard core of a few hundred activists," Maj-Gen Shamni said.

'Wind of extremism'

Israeli political leaders have made comments along similar lines recently.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has spoken of an "evil wind of extremism" threatening Israel's democracy.

This was in reaction to a pipe bomb attack on a leading Israeli academic and critic of the occupation of Palestinian land by presumed hard-line right-wingers.

Mr Olmert has also described a mass attack by settlers on the West Bank village of Asira al-Qabiliya as a "pogrom".

Settlers have said the attack was in response to the wounding of a nine-year-old boy by a Palestinian who had been trying to set fire to an empty house in the near-by Yitzhar settlement.

Defence Minister Ehud Barak has urged tougher penalties for settlers who attack Palestinian property.

About 500,000 Jewish settlers live in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, among a population of about 2.5 million Palestinians.

All settlements are considered illegal under international law, though Israel disputes this. [Emphasis added.] Copyright author(s) or respective News Agency.

Related Links:

• West Bank violence breeds hatred
• 'Hundreds join' settler violence
• The Alternative Information Center
• Israel (Index of articles)

Till now communal riots were engineered by communal forces and the fascist part of the Indian state machinery to polarize society. This trend reached its apogee in the Gujarat 2002 riots.

The communal forces both inside and outside the Indian State machinery learnt some important lessons from Gujarat; chiefly that in this time and space, in the 21st century, it is very difficult to get away with organized pogroms. Ultimately you have to pay a political price which the BJP did in the 2004 elections.

The communal forces then conjured a new phenomenon: why not start engineering bombs first in Hindu dominated areas, and then in Muslim areas?

The trend began with the July 2006 Bombay serial train blasts in "Gujarati Hindu dominated" first-class compartments of the Bombay local train service; soon there were blasts in Muslim areas of Malegaon and Hyderbad.

In 2008, with elections just around the corner in April-May 2009, and the BJP getting relegated to the third position in electoral calculations in the post-nuclear deal vote phase, the bomb blast phenomenon has become endemic.

From July 2008 at the time of writing this piece here have been several blasts---in the past week, blasts have occurred almost daily.

One thing is clear: it is not that bomb blasts are being engineered to create communal riots. That (communal riots following bomb blasts) simply has not happened. The new mantra seems to be of bomb blasts replacing communal riots. This means that if in the past riots were engineered to create communal polarization the same kind of polarization is being sought to be created by engineering bomb blasts.

So the pattern: four blasts in a Hindu dominated area; then one or two in a Muslim dominated area. So Malegaon and Modesa after Bangalore, Ahmedabad and the two blasts in Delhi.

This is a foreign pattern for even Indian communal forces; this trend has been seen in areas where Mossad and CIA operate; a similar/exact phenomenon was seen in Lebanon where Beirut, a beautiful and cosmopolitan Asiatic city was turned into an arena of sectarian Muslim-Christian conflict with bomb blasts being engineered every day in respective Muslim-Christian areas, something which now even Hollywood films (see Spy Game) admit as a CIA ploy to destroy Lebanon.

The post-American invasion Iraq situation too sees a similar thing---of sectarian Shia-Sunni violence being generated by the bomb blast phenomenon, engineered by the CIA, private US mercenary firms like Blackwater and the US forces.

A third region is Pakistan where too blasts take place respectively, in Shia or Sunni, Sindhi or Mohajir, NWFP or Punjabi or Baluchi areas alternately and with regularity. Here the western game is clear: America and Israel have been working for decades to dismember Pakistan and control its nuclear arsenal.

India was spared of this ordeal till 1991 as Prime Ministers like Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi, and even Rajiv Gandhi, did not allow Mossad-CIA penetration.

Before liberalization during Narsimha Rao's regime, Indian passport holders could not travel to two places: Israel and South Africa. India was at the forefront of the International crusade against apartheid and the denial of a homeland for Palestinians.

Why is it that after liberalization, which was initiated soon after Rajiv Gandhi's assassination, India recognized Israel and established diplomatic relations, and then the Babri Masjid demolition incident occurred?

So three things are related: liberalization of the Indian economy, the change in Indian foreign policy from an anti-imperialist, pro-Third World position to a pro-American, pro-Israel stance, and the increasing persecution of Muslims, in an institutionalized form.

See that these three developments occur side by side, and now in 2008 we see India being turned into another Lebanon.

The biggest delusion of the RSS-BJP is that by blaming organizations like SIMI or Muslim "terrorists" for the recent blasts they are doing some service to the nation. On the contrary, by not exposing the foreign Mossad-CIA hand, they are going against the interests of India.

Why did the BJP-RSS not cry foul over the flight of Ken Haywood from India after the email sent by the so-called "Indian Mujahideen" group was traced to his computer in New Bombay?

Why was there no demand for a probe into the role of this dubious American national with shady evangelical, anti-Hindu and anti-Muslim connections in America? These connections can be seen by clicking on links like this, this or this or this, or even this or this.

Let this be very clear and sound today, supporting the persecution and the arrest and the torture of thousands of Muslim youth, is tantamount to being anti-national.

Today being anti-Muslim is tantamount to being anti-national.

What India needs today are not just protests. We need a special prevention of atrocities against minorities Act, something which makes refusal of housing and flats to minorities, refusal by a police officer to register a FIR by minorities, or to act in their protection, failure of a district magistrate or a senior superintendent of the police to prevent a riot or a bomb blast, the picking up of Muslims and other minorities without a formal charge, the very idea of detention of Muslim youths after blasts, or encounter killings, the calling of Muslms by the name Laandiya or Katua, a stringent crime with due punishment.

India already has a prevention of violence/atrocities against Scheduled castes act; it is a crime to call a Dalit a chamar; or not to register his or hers FIR. Why can't a similar act, be enacted for the minorities?

In India the so-called war against terror, against SIMI or the Indian Mujahideen is a fictitious, bogus war. The recent bomb blasts were engineered by security forces, and foreign agencies and RSS-Bajrang Dal.

The real war is against Muslim/minority persecution, the appropriate response to Batla House type fake encounter killing, and the extension of civil liberties guaranteed in the Indian constitution.

See the history of nations:

In America and Europe mere constitutional guarantees were not enough. Specific new laws had to be enacted from time to time to abolish slavery, protect minorities, and end persecution, segregation and racism.

America passed through its civil rights moment in the 1960s. India has to confront its own civil rights moment now. There is a simple message to Indian liberals. Either support the demand for a special civil rights act for minorities or perish. For, soon the fascist forces persecuting Muslims will turn against you.

If there is a civil war in India on this issue, so be the case; in any case with direct American intervention in Pakistan, conflict between America and India is very near. Liberals do not understand this but the Indian army does. So there is bound to be a double civil war in India. One against foreign intervention in the Indian sub-continent and the other against anti-national fascist forces.

(Amaresh Misra is the author of Mangal Pandey: The true story of an Indian revolutionary (Rupa); Lucknow: Fire of grace (HarperCollins), and more recently War of Civilizations: India, South Asia, Europe and the World)

Also read: When my conspiracy theory is better than yours

""" Jerusalem - Israeli negotiators have told their Palestinian counterparts they want to annex 7.3 percent of the West Bank as part of a final peace deal, Palestinian officials said Tuesday.

In exchange, Israel would cede Israeli territory near the Gaza Strip that is equivalent to 5.5 percent of the West Bank, and would open a passage to allow Palestinians to travel between the West Bank and Gaza.

The officials, who are close to the negotiations, spoke on condition of anonymity because the talks are supposed to be secret.

Nabil Abu Rdeneh, an aide to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, would not comment on the Israeli offer, but said that "the gap between the two positions on the issue of borders is still wide."

Palestinian officials have said they agree in principle to a land swap that would enable Israel to annex some large Jewish settlements in the West Bank. However, the officials said they're not willing to swap more than 1.8 percent of the West Bank.

The Israeli proposal resembled offers made by Israel in previous rounds of negotiations in 2000 and 2001 before the process broke down in violence.

Today, the two Palestinian territories are controlled by bitter rivals: the Islamic Hamas rules Gaza, while Abbas' Western-backed government controls the West Bank and is negotiating with Israel.

According to the Israeli offer, the land swaps would only go ahead once Abbas had regained control of Gaza, the Israeli daily Haaretz reported Tuesday. That appears increasingly unlikely to happen, as Hamas has effectively eliminated internal opposition and is firmly in control of the coastal strip and its 1.4 million residents.

Haaretz also claimed that Abbas has agreed to put off negotiations on Jerusalem. However, Abbas has said repeatedly that all issues are on the table and that he's not ready to reach a partial deal.

The final borders of the two states, Israel and Palestine, are only one of the three main issues facing the sides. They must also resolve the fate of the Palestinian refugees who lost their homes when Israel was established in 1948 and their descendants. The third issue, and the thorniest, involves Jerusalem, with its holy sites coveted by both sides.

Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said the report of the Israeli offer was "baseless or half-truths," and charged that Israel was preparing to make it look as if the Palestinians were responsible for rejecting a generous deal.

"We hope the Israeli side will stick to the agreement to continue negotiations away from the media and not to begin engagement in the blame game," Erekat said.

Mark Regev, an Israeli government spokesman, declined to comment on the report, but said "important progress" had been made in recent months, "including on the issue of final borders."

"More work still needs to be done, and we are committed to continuing the effort to try to reach a joint Israeli-Palestinian document," he said.

The current Israeli-Palestinian talks were launched at a U.S.-sponsored peace conference late last year, with the goal of reaching an agreement by the end 2008. Both sides have increasingly indicated they doubt they can bridge the gaps between then by the deadline.

Further complicating matters, Olmert has been buffeted by corruption charges and is facing the end of his term in office. The Israeli leader announced that he will step down after his Kadima Party elects a new leader in September, though he might stay on as head of a caretaker government for months afterward if national elections are called.

If true, the report could indicate Olmert is trying to sew up important parts of a peace deal before leaving office.  """ [source]

~~~

[RO]

""" Ierusalim – Negociatorii israelieni au spus omologilor palestinieni că vor să anexeze 7,3 la sută din Cisiordania, ca parte a procesului final de pace, au declarat ieri oficialii palestinieni.

În schimb, Israel va ceda din teritoriul israelian din apropierea Fâşiei Gaza, care este echivalent cu 5,5 la sută din Cisiordania, şi va deschide un pasaj care să permită palestinienilor să călătorească între Cisiordania şi Fâşia Gaza.

Oficialii care au legătură cu negocierile au vorbit sub condiţia anonimatului deoarece, se presupune că discuţiile ar trebui să fie secrete. Nabil Abu Rdeneh, asistent al preşedintelui palestinian Mahmoud Abbas, nu a vrut să comenteze asupra ofertei israeliene, dar a precizat că „golul dintre cele două poziţii asupra problemei graniţelor este încă unul foarte mare”. Oficialii palestinieni au spus că ar fi de acord, în principiu, asupra unui schimb care ar permite Israelului să anexeze câteva aşezări evreieşti din Cisiordania. Totuşi, oficialii au precizat că nu sunt dispuşi să schimbe mai mult de 1,8 la sută din suprafaţa Cisiordaniei.

Propunerea israeliană se aseamănă cu alte propuneri făcute de Israel în runde anterioare ale negocierilor din 2000 şi 2001, înainte ca acest proces să eşueze şi să se ajungă la violenţă.

Cele două teritorii palestiniene sunt controlate astăzi de rivali înverşunaţi: Hamas conduce în Gaza, în timp ce guvernul domnului Abbas, sprijinit de Vest, controlează Cisiordania şi se află în negocieri cu Israel.

Conform ofertei israeliene, schimburile de teritoriu vor fi duse până la capăt numai după ce Abbas va recâştiga controlul asupra Gazei, a precizat astăzi cotidianul israelian Haaretz.

Pare tot mai greu de crezut ca acest lucru să se întâmple, când Hamas a eliminat efectiv orice fel de opoziţie internă, şi deţine, cu fermitate controlul asupra fâşiei costale şi a celor 1,4 milioane de rezidenţi.

Haaretz a mai afirmat că dl. Abbas a acceptat să suspende negocierile asupra Ierusalimului. Totuşi, Abbas a spus, în repetate rânduri, că toate problemele sunt puse pe masă şi că nu e pregătit să ajungă la o înţelegere parţială.

Graniţele finale ale celor două state, Israel şi Palestina, este doar una dintre cele trei probleme principale care privesc cele două părţi. De asemenea, mai trebuie să rezolve şi soarta refugiaţilor palestinieni, care şi-au pierdut casele când s-a întemeiat Israelul în 1948, şi a descendenţilor acestora.

A treia problemă, şi cea mai spinoasă, implică Ierusalimul cu locurile sfinte râvnite de ambele părţi. Negociatorul palestinian, Saeb Erekat, a spus că raportul ofertei israeliene este „neîntemeiat sau prezintă jumătăţi de adevăruri” şi a imputat că Israel se pregăteşte să facă, în aşa fel încât să arate, că palestinienii sunt responsabili de refuzarea unei oferte generoase. „Noi sperăm ca partea israeliană să respecte înţelegerea de a continua negocierile, departe de ochii presei şi să nu începem cu atacuri într-un joc al învinuirii”, a declarat dl. Erekat.

Mark Regev, purtătorul de cuvânt al guvernului israelian, a refuzat să comenteze asupra raportului, dar a spus că s-au făcut „progrese importante” în ultimele luni, „inclusiv pe tema graniţelor finale”. „Mai este încă multă treabă de făcut şi suntem devotaţi în a continua efortul pentru a încerca să ajungem la un document israeliano-palestinian comun”, a declarat acesta.

Discuţiile israeliano-palestiniene curente au fost lansate la o conferinţă de pace sponsorizată de Statele Unite, de anul trecut, cu scopul de a ajunge la o înţelegere până la sfârşitul lui 2008.

Ambele părţi au indicat pe parcurs că se îndoiesc că ar putea umple golurile dintre ele până la expirarea termenului. Ca să fie lucrurile şi mai complicate, dl. Olmert a primit o lovitură datorată acuzaţiilor de corupţie şi se confruntă cu încheierea mandatului său în oficiu. Liderul israelian a anunţat că se va retrage după ce partidul său, Kadima, va alege un nou lider în septembrie, dar s-ar putea să rămână în continuare la putere ca şef al unui guvern interimar, dacă se va decide asupra unor alegeri naţionale.

Dacă este adevărat, atunci, raportul ar putea indica că Olmert încearcă să „coasă” părţi importante ale înţelegerii de pace înainte să părăsească funcţia. """

"Over the past year, settlers from Yitzhar and the surrounding area have sharply stepped up violent acts in nearby Palestinian villages. The attacks include throwing stones at passing cars, physically attacking farmers, burning down crops, and stealing livestock. On 14 Sept., after a Palestinian stabbed a Jewish boy and burnt down a caravan in the Shalhevet Yam settlement near Yitzhar, dozens of settlers raided the village of ‘Asira al-Qibliya. They threw stones, fired into the air, broke windows, drew Stars of David on walls of homes and widely damaged property. Testimonies given to B’Tselem indicate that soldiers were present at the time, yet did nothing to prevent the settlers' actions, and fired at the Palestinians." [my emph.]

Contrast with the army's reaction to a Palestinian attempting to attack the settlement.

Meanwhile, a 60-year-old Palestinian woman was shoved to the ground by IDF soldiers "slipped and fell" (it's odd how Palestinians keep "slipping" around Israeli soldiers, isn't it?) while trying to block the path of IDF soldiers coming to search her property, whereupon she died of a broken skull "preexisting heart condition".

The images show Israelis from the far-right Yitzhar settlement coming towards the West Bank village of Asira al-Kabaliya and throwing rocks. The attackers were responding to an incident on Saturday afternoon when an intruder burnt down a mobile home and stabbed a nine-year-old boy in the area. The footage was shot by a local resident who then sent it to B'Tselem, an NGO that hands out recording equipment to Palestinians to capture footage of violence in the Israeli and Palestinian Territories (see other posts about the group).

The footage has caused outrage because The Israel Defense Forces appear not to intervene in the attacks. After the video was shot the attackers continued into the village, when six Palestinians were shot and injured. Stars of David were painted on the buildings. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert called the attack a "pogrom against non-Jews", and said that it would not be tolerated.

My comments for France 24's The Observers:

This is yet another video exposing the lucid and raw injustice of the occupation. Everything about this footage - the mob violence, the soldiers' impotence, and the Star of David looking ever as ugly as a Swastika - makes me sick to the stomach. Sadly, what you see in this video is not an anomaly. It has been happening for years, and recently it has been escalating.

Prime Minister Olmert has called this disturbance a ‘pogrom' and has said, ‘There will not be pogroms against non-Jews in the state of Israel'. His words are interesting in two respects:

Firstly, by using the word ‘pogrom' (a word usually reserved for when speaking of anti-Semitic riots against Jews), Olmert joins those who at times see a moral and historical equivalence between violence committed against Jews in the Diaspora, and violence committed by Jews in Israel and the occupied territories. This may seem like a non-issue, but in reality it is an unusual choice of words for a prime minister to use. Perhaps a political leader who is about to resign from office can afford to have on his lips what another politician will only have on his mind.

Secondly, by stating that there will be no pogroms against non-Jews in the state of Israel, Olmert is making a well-intentioned but irrelevant point. Yes, in the state of Israel such actions will not be tolerated. But we are not in the state of Israel. We are in the occupied territories - a place where rights and rule of law do not apply to everyone equally. In the ‘territories' such actions are not an exception to the rule. If Olmert means to say that the territories are in fact part of the State of Israel then this is the biggest story of the year. What he should have said is that the state of Israel will not tolerate such behavior within its borders or outside of them. The difference between the two statements is quite significant.

The date of this attack - Saturday, 13 September 2008 - is also significant. To begin with, for Jews the Sabbath is a holy day of rest and spiritual rejuvenation. Terrorizing and spilling the blood of the innocent is the very last thing that would be permitted on such a day (it is of course never permitted). These Jews who committed the attack are a disgrace to everything that is sacred in Judaism. They have profaned their religion. I point this out not because I have a preference for mob violence on Sunday as opposed to Saturday, rather because it shows you how far these folks have strayed from the essence of their faith.

The date is also telling because it falls on the anniversary of the signing of the Oslo accords. It was on 13 September 1993 that the Israeli government and the PLO officially began a historic peace-process. Of course this could be just a coincidence (one the press has yet to pick up on), yet I suspect it is not. Every year around this time the settler community laments the "tragedy" of the peace process and gets aggressively riled up on how the present government is failing to learn the lessons of Oslo. While it is clear that this particular act of mob violence was triggered by a heinous Palestinian attack, it does not stretch the imagination to see how the people in question were primed and poised to see all Arabs as enemies. After all, the two-state solution, the objective of the Oslo peace process, is a death-knell to the settlers' dream of a greater Israel.

The settler movement is the blight of Israeli democracy. One can only hope that this type of videos can further awake us from our ethical and political slumber."

Israeli police are investigating a rampage by settlers in a Palestinian village in the West Bank on Saturday which PM Ehud Olmert called a "pogrom". Mr Olmert, who is about to step down, called the attack by about 100 settlers on Asira al-Qabaliya "intolerable".

It was filmed by human rights groups and came after an intruder stabbed and wounded a child at Yitzhar settlement. But police have not arrested any of the settlers who were filmed. Four people suffered gunshot wounds in the attack...

In the footage, Israeli soldiers are present at the scene but do not take any action to prevent the violence and destruction of Palestinian property.

About 450,000 Jews live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem in settlements considered illegal under international law.

The history of Israel's expansionism in the Middle East is the constant rationale for imperial American politics. It is as unjust and egregious as any Crusade.

Ehud Olmert, the Israeli prime minister, has likened a rampage by armed Jewish settlers in a Palestinian village to a "pogrom" and said Israel would not tolerate such attacks in the occupied West Bank.

"In the state of Israel, there will be no pogroms against non-Jews," Olmert said at the start of a weekly cabinet meeting on Sunday.

of course admitting that this is a daily phenomenon or that israeli terrorist forces are equally responsible for this phenomenon, or participate in, or ar complicit in, or all of the above, was not mentioned by olmert. although there was another article this week in an israeli newspaper that called itself the "danger of jewish terror." unfortunately, this guy also misses the point and does not see that it is a systemic practice that is institutionalized that all israelis participate in on some level. the violent episode of jewish terrorism that was referred to in the above articles is described here:

Israel expressed outrage on Sunday after a mob of Jewish settlers rampaged through a Palestinian village in the West Bank to avenge the stabbing of a nine-year-old boy in a nearby settlement....

Local rights groups have long accused Israeli forces of failing to combat settler violence against Palestinians, especially around Yitzhar and other hardline settlements that surround the northern West Bank town of Nablus.

"The violence against the villagers in Asira al-Qibliya is just one case among hundreds of attacks against the Palestinians," a spokesman for the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem told AFP.

"The settlers have virtual immunity. Even if they are arrested they are rarely prosecuted, and even when they are prosecuted they are given ridiculously light sentences."

The Palestinians have repeatedly said the settlements themselves -- built contrary to international law on land occupied by Israel in the 1967 war -- are the greatest obstacle to the Middle East peace process.

Ghassan Daghlas, head of village affairs in the Nablus governorate, said settler violence grows worse every year, peaking during the autumn olive-picking season when farmers are targeted.

this village is not far from where i live, in nablus. olive harvest will begin in a few weeks and if it is anything like when i came to the village of yanoun a few of years ago to help pick olives we will indeed see an increase of poisoned and burned trees not to mention harvesters shot.

but here is another form of jewish supremacy. not one that is based on violence per se; nor one that is based on proclaiming that somehow jews are more moral than other people, when clearly they are far less moral. rather, here is one based on the transparent idea that somehow jews are just worth more than non-jews--the title alone says it all: "One Israeli is worth thousands of gentiles," but so does the story:

There are countries that promise a computer for every child or a car for every employee. Israel, which as we well know is blessed with giant open spaces, promises a hill for every resident, and even upholds this promise. In this way, the settlers across the Green Line have the privilege of living on any hill they wish, and inside the Green Line, hills are dished out with generosity to individual farmers and religious settlement groups around Wadi Ara and the Jerusalem Hills.

just to be clear, the line i emphasized above was done to highlight the duplicity in which she makes it appear as if any "resident" can live in any "open space," when in reality it is only the jews who may live wherever they wish in palestine, on palestinian land, in palestinian homes, using palestinian furniture. jonathan cook gives us a far more realistic idea of what is happening with respect who it is who is really being evicted from their lands, from their homes in side 1948 palestine:

Mr Khimayl, however, like hundreds of other families in the Arab neighbourhoods of Ajami and Jabaliya, is up to his eyes in debt and trapped in a world of bureaucratic regulations apparently designed with only one end in mind: his eviction from Jaffa.

Sitting on the cafe’s balcony, Mr Khimayl, 59, said he feels besieged. Bulldozers are tearing up the land by the beach for redevelopment and luxury apartments are springing up all around his dilapidated two-storey home.

He opened a briefcase, one of five he has stuffed with demands and fines from official bodies, as well as bills from four lawyers dealing with the flood of paperwork.

“I owe 1.8 million shekels [Dh1.8m] in water and business rates alone,” he said in exasperation. “The crazy thing is the municipality recently valued the property and told me it’s worth much less than the sum I owe.”

Jaffa is one of half a dozen “mixed cities” in Israel, where Jewish and Palestinian citizens supposedly live together. The rest of Israel’s Palestinian minority, relatives of the Palestinians in the occupied territories, live in their own separate and deprived communities.

Despite the image of coexistence cultivated by the Israeli authorities, Jaffa is far from offering a shared space for Jews and Palestinians, according to Sami Shehadeh of the Popular Committee for the Defence of Jaffa’s Homes. Instead, Palestinian residents live in their own largely segregated neighbourhoods, especially Ajami, the city’s poorest district.

while palestinians continue to be ethnically cleansed, now the zionist state is looking for a quick scheme to pretend as if it is going to evacuate the illegal settlements inside the west bank. of course, israelis never take responsibility for their theft, murder, and destruction. therefore, if their scheme of buying economic settlers out of the west bank works (in which case we'll be left with the worst ideological nut cases running around creating pogroms as in the first article quoted above) then it will be american and european tax payers who will be paying the price:

Israel has been exploring the possibility that the European Union and the US will put up some of the funds required for the implementation of the evacuation-compensation bill, should it mature into an act.

The cabinet held a heated debate on the motion on Sunday, but Ynet has learned that none of the party heads have actually been briefed on the bill, nor has the cabinet been presented with details as to its funding.

Both Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Vice Premier Haim Ramon want to see the evacuation-compensation motion pushed through. Ramon presented the cabinet with the motion's outline during its Sunday meeting, according to which settlers who will agree to voluntarily leave their West Bank homes, east of the separation fence, will be eligible for up to NIS 1.1 million (about $305,640) each in restitution funds.

i wonder how hard it would be, given the way that even olmert admits that illegal israeli settlers participate in pogroms now, if only in one utterance, that we can by extension get the europeans and americans to see that by paying these criminals money to move their houses--which of course would be a continued theft of palestinian land--is a kind of funding of terrorists; they are jewish terrorists (of course it was jews who brought terrorism to the region in the first place--irgun, stern gang, hagana, palmach, etc.). therefore, i think that those who fund their removal--unless it's to europe where they came from--they should have to pay a price and be prosecuted under these ridiculous anti-terrorism laws.

Only last night, I was speaking with a charming student from Pakistan studying engineering in an Australian university, who very feelingly uttered a sentiment very widely encountered in the citizens at large of countries  whether one is traveling in India or Pakistan - "Left to ourselves, we get on very well, and like each other very much. It is the power people of both sides in their crazy games who threaten things for everyone!"

Sathya Sai Baba's Back Yard Still In Deplorable State

The ailing Sathya Sai Baba has long said that he will first clean up his own 'backyard', India, before regenerating the whole of mankind prior to his death around 2022.

The following newspaper reports indicate an India that can all too easily be a power keg of great dimensions. As a democracy, of sorts, and though having formidable firepower across her armed services, she does not appear to be a security threat to the world at large. But what if she should self-immolate?

As a reminder that the present troubles in the state of Bihar are actually longstanding, and indeed reach far further back than this, I have included the BBC correspondant Daniel Lak's 1999 report.

Some More Martial Minorities May Not Tolerate Attacks

The powerful emotions hinted at in the Panthic Weekly report give one pause to consider how, if non-violent and, at the same time, genuine solutions are not found, the widespread killings will not stop with actions against Christian and other small minorities. This publication reflects a worldwide powerbase (albeit by no means reflecting the opinions of all Sikhs) which attracts fairly formidable support and funding both from within India and beyond. The words used by the influential Dr. Amarjit Singh of Khalistan Affairs Center are not likely to be a mere letting off of steam:  "Sikhs ought to remember that after the Christians and Muslims it will be the turn of the Sikhs for a pogrom".

His ominous threat of counter measures is likely to be backed by considerable resources of money, arms, training and all the rest.

Although far from achieving his aims, Mahatma Gandhi, to the end of his life, which he often risked, went to those bent on courses of destruction and helped them seek alternate solutions.

But where is Sathya Sai Baba's cleaner back yard? It is in a frightful mess, just as is he. See:

Sathya Sai Baba Continues To Ail

When Disasters Overtake S. Sai Baba’s Promises

‘World Avatar’ Sathya Sai Baba’s Troubled Trail

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Selected Press Readings

New York Times

Violence in India Is Fueled by Religious and Economic DivideBy HARI KUMAR and HEATHER TIMMONS

September 3, 2008

New York Times

By HARI KUMAR

August 28, 2008

By SOMINI SENGUPTA

Published: August 25, 2008

Right wing Hindutva Neo-Nazi thugs launch anti-Christian pogrom in the Indian state of Orissa

Friday 12th of September 2008

"Sikhs, ‘captive’ in India should study the tactics of the Hindutva thugs in Orissa and be ready with counter-measures, by organizing/arming themselves and keeping their ‘powder’ dry, in case the November 1984 anti-Sikh barbaric pogrom, in which over ten thousand innocent Sikh men, women and children were murdered, in New Delhi alone, (after a ‘wink and a nod’ from the then Indian Prime minister Rajiv Gandhi) is repeated in this first decade of the 21st century. Sikhs ought to remember that after the Christians and Muslims it will be the turn of the Sikhs for a pogrom".

BBC NEWS. South Asia

By Daniel Lak in Delhi

Friday, September 3, 1999

"Church leaders and political parties in India have condemned the murder of a Catholic priest in the eastern state of Orissa, and called for more protection for the state's non Hindu minority groups ... Many in India, though, of all religious faiths are revolted by the spate of attacks Orissa and pressure to bring them to an end will definitely grow".

Further Reading

Harvard Human Rights Journal. Volume 18. Spring 2005

TWENTY YEARS LATER: RECENT REPORTS HIGHLIGHT THE CONTINUING STRUGGLE FOR SIKH HUMAN RIGHTS

My Papa's own parents, my beloved great grandparents Avraham and Chaya Shapiro, refused to leave until the last of their children escaped Eastern Europe. But after their last child left, Avraham and Chaya were captured by anti-semites in a pogrom in the 1920's. They died from exposure on a train bound for Siberia. Their bodies were thrown off the train into a field. A letter from shtetl neighbors who survived the journey was sent to the family in America to tell what had happened. My mother told me that as her father heard this letter read, Papa ripped his shirt in mourning and wept.

My Papa lived to be ninety-one years old. As a little girl, it was my pride and pleasure to teach him to read and write English. Even now, as an adult with hindsight and objectivity, I can still say that he was the finest man I have ever known. He was a great teacher of “life” for me. 

Years later I became a volunteer English as a Second Language teacher to a new wave of refugees. They were the Russian Jewish “refusenicks” from the former Soviet Union, as well as people of many religions from other communist controlled East European countries. I didn't teach grammar or punctuation. That was left to their morning formal class instructors. My classes were English immersion seminars. We sat in a circle and practiced their new English skills week after week, year after year. Between 1988 and 1996, I had the privilege of teaching, and being taught by, more than eight hundred refugees. 

In August 1990, I brought in candy and drinks to celebrate the first year of this endeavor. By that time more than one hundred adults and I had sat together in circles of chairs while outside the classroom the world swirled in historic events. The Berlin Wall came down, Bush and Gorbachev met on stormy seas off Malta, and Russian Jews began an exodus to Israel, America, and religious freedom in biblical numbers. The Cold War ended. Barbara Bush and Raisa Gorbachev held hands in Washington D.C. like former school chums as the last decade of the old millennium began. People in the USSR began to speak and write freely for the first time since the Russian revolution. Drug lords continued to prosper and American soldiers blasted Noriega out of hiding in Panama with rock music. The earth under San Francisco trembled in a major quake. Mickey Mouse turned sixty and Donald Duck turned fifty without a wrinkle. And the earth spun in space while mankind caused the ozone layer to get thinner and the sun's rays stronger until protective suntan lotion became the newest health trend to follow oat bran. 

But we were safe, my fellow passengers on this planet and I, in our Writing/Conversation classes. The form of each class was hard work, but the substance was love and inspiration. There was no government, but there was peace and a unique prosperity of spirit. There were no contests, yet everyone won. We were all strangers, yet we knew each other because of our human bond.

Some had difficulty speaking, but they were understood and honored for striving. And though these refugees had problems and sadness, they laughed often, and in English. Those classes were points in time during the difficult process of resettlement. Each person had a unique voice and point of view; unlike life under communism, individuality was cherished. The humanity of each was rediscovered in a new land after being hidden since birth from their former governments. 

My students taught me about “life” the way my Papa had taught me about life, and I, and others, taught them more than just English; the correct word was acculturation. Learning to adapt to a new country, even to freedom, was difficult. In return, my students taught me about courage, hope, and how to go living when much is either lost or left behind. They taught me by example how to struggle with dignity and endure disappointments. And the New Americans learned that they could read, write, speak, understand, and even dream in the language of their new home.

Many had thought it would be impossible; it was not. Together we worked and took our small, but important places as footnotes in history. And I hope that they all did truly live “happily ever after.”

Według informacji z Orisy około pięciu tysięcy chrześcijan nadal ukrywa się w dżungli. Kolejne dziesięć tysięcy opuściło swe domy i przebywa w tymczasowych obozach przygotowanych przez władze i strzeżonych przez policję oraz oddziały paramilitarne.

Chrześcijanie w Indiach podkreślają, iż to nie pierwszy przypadek pogromów organizowanych przez fundamentalistów hinduskich. W przeszłości miały one miejsce także w innych rejonach Indii.
Indyjskie władze kościelne są coraz bardziej zaniepokojone nie kończącą się falą przemocy. Arcybiskup Vincent Concessao, metropolita Delhi uważa, iż sytuacja w regionie nie polepsza się. Zdaniem arcybiskupa, konieczne są bardziej efektywne działania na rzecz zakończenia przemocy.

zrodlo: gazeta

Slowem jedna wielka religia vs druga... samo zlo kurcze...

Javed Anand’s ideologically driven diatribe against SIMI

Of course! It is a question of law

By Ghulam Muhammed

It is one thing to be factually correct. It’s altogether another thing to be ideologically driven. Javed Anand’s diatribe titled: ‘Suspect SIMI? Of course’ -- published by The Indian Express, on Saturday, August 16, 2008 seeks life beyond law.

At that level, what is a difference between a religiously driven SIMI and a Leftist fighting a war in the name of Karl Marx, denigrating everything that goes under the umbrella of religion, the supposed ‘opium of the masses’.

If religion is the opium of the masses, anti-religious Marxism too is a heady brew that saps the intellectual faculties of even the most sensible people.

The key sentence that gives out Javed Anand’s subterranean insecurity goes like this: “But is it merely a question of law?”

Of course! It is a question of law.

India as a nation is a legal construct. It is based on law. If you have to find life beyond law, you are on a very shaky territory.

In fact, Javed Anand’s frustration over his gross inability to interpret the law of land by sanctifying the terms ‘secularism and democracy’, in the mould of Marxist logic, while neatly bypassing and ignoring the constitutional fundamental rights of freedom of religion and freedom of speech in drawing up a charge-sheet against SIMI, is so apparent, that it is surprising, he is so unaware that his slip is showing.

Secularism in Indian context does not stand for the denial of religion. India is not a replica of the erstwhile Soviet Russia, where the communist dictators had destroyed and/or closed down all churches and mosques. For over seventy years, people of faith had to undergo endless pogroms, purges, banishments, not to mention the ghastly gulag existence. India’s secularism has to be defined by its deeply ingrained religious ethos.

Javed Anand is ready to accommodate Mulayam Singh and Lalu Prasad, for their support of SIMI, when he writes that ‘Mulayam Singh and Lalu Prasad’s welcoming of the lifting of the ban on SIMI can be explained away in terms of vote bank politics. Why should he begrudge if mainstream Muslims too have welcomed lifting of the ban on SIMI. Are Muslims not entitled to be part of vote bank politics, just because they are Muslims?

Banning of SIMI, was a motivated political exercise, by the Hindutva extremists/opportunist of the ilk of the then Home Minister, L. K. Advani and the then Maharashtra State home minister, Chhagan Bhujbal, an old Shiv Sena protagonist. It was a grand conspiracy to consolidate Hindu vote bank, around demonizing of Muslims, by choosing a suitable candidate to focus on and by implication demonise the entire 150 million Muslims of India. Evidently, this too would be generously treated by Javed Anand, as merely vote bank politics!

Of course, there were hotheads in SIMI, as there are in every grouping, including the Marxists and the Hindutvadis. But the law cannot be so applied that it cannot stand judicial scrutiny. If on presentation of facts, the court is not convinced that SIMI is guilty as charged, why should Muslims not rejoice in being liberated from the conspiracy of the Hindu extremists?

The real problem for Javed Anand stems from his pretentious posturing of becoming the voice of the Muslims. His frustration at witnessing crowds of 20,000 to 200,000 gathering at public meetings called by religious figures is quite understandable. He fails to understand the real pain of the Muslims. Given proper interaction, even a maverick like