A "Humanitarian War" on Syria? Military Escalation. Towards a Broader Middle East-Central Asian War?

"As I went back through the Pentagon in November 2001, one of the senior military staff officers had time for a chat. Yes, we were still on track for going against Iraq, he said. But there was more. This was being discussed as part of a five-year campaign plan, he said, and there were a total of seven countries, beginning with Iraq, then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Iran, Somalia, and Sudan." General Wesley Clark

An extended Middle East Central Asian war has been on the Pentagon's drawing board since the mid-1990s.

As part of this extended war scenario, the US-NATO alliance plans to wage a military campaign against Syria under a UN sponsored "humanitarian mandate".

Escalation is an integral part of the military agenda. Destabilization of sovereign states through "regime change" is closely coordinated with military planning.

There is a military roadmap characterised by a sequence of US-NATO war theaters.

War preparations to attack Syria and Iran have been in "an advanced state of readiness" for several years. The Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act of 2003 categorizes Syria as a "rogue state", as a country which supports terrorism.

A war on Syria is viewed by the Pentagon as part of the broader war directed against Iran. President George W. Bush confirmed in his Memoirs that he had "ordered the Pentagon to plan an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities and [had] considered a covert attack on Syria" (George Bush's memoirs reveal how he considered attacks on Iran and Syria, The Guardian, November 8, 2010)

This broader military agenda is intimately related to strategic oil reserves and pipeline routes. It is supported by the Anglo-American oil giants.

The July 2006 bombing of Lebanon was part of a carefully planned "military road map". The extension of "The July War" on Lebanon into Syria had been contemplated by US and Israeli military planners. It was abandoned upon the defeat of Israeli ground forces by Hizbollah.

Israel's July 2006 war on Lebanon also sought to establish Israeli control over the North Eastern Mediterranean coastline including offshore oil and gas reserves in Lebanese and Palestinian territorial waters.

The plans to invade both Lebanon and Syria have remained on the Pentagon's drawing board despite Israel's setback in the 2006 July War: "In November 2008, barely a month before Tel Aviv started its massacre in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli military held drills for a two-front war against Lebanon and Syria called Shiluv Zro’ot III (Crossing Arms III). The military exercise included a massive simulated invasion of both Syria and Lebanon" (See Mahdi Darius Nazemoraya, Israel's Next War: Today the Gaza Strip, Tomorrow Lebanon?, Global Research, January 17, 2009)

The road to Tehran goes through Damascus. A US-NATO sponsored war on Iran would involve, as a first step, a destabilization campaign ("regime change") including covert intelligence operations in support of rebel forces directed against the Syrian government.

A "humanitarian war" under the logo of "Responsibility to Protect" (R2P) directed against Syria would also contribute to the ongoing destabilization of Lebanon.

Were a military campaign to be waged against Syria, Israel would be directly or indirectly involved in military and intelligence operations.

A war on Syria would lead to military escalation.

There are at present four distinct war theaters: Afghanistan-Pakistan, Iraq, Palestine and Libya.

An attack on Syria would lead to the integration of these separate war theaters, eventually leading towards a broader Middle East-Central Asian war, engulfing an entire region from North Africa and the Mediterranean to Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The ongoing protest movement is intended to serve as a pretext and a justification to intervene militarily against Syria. The existence of an armed insurrection is denied. The Western media in chorus have described recent events in Syria as a "peaceful protest movement" directed against the government of Bashar Al Assad, when the evidence confirms the existence of an armed insurgency integrated by Islamic paramilitary groups.

From the outset of the protest movement in Daraa in mid-March, there has been an exchange of fire between the police and armed forces on the one hand and armed gunmen on the other. Acts of arson directed against government buildings have also been committed. In late July in Hama, public buildings including the Court House and the Agricultural Bank were set on fire. Israeli news sources, while dismissing the existence of an armed conflict, nonetheless, acknowledge that "protesters [were] armed with heavy machine guns." (DEBKAfile August 1, 2001. Report on Hama, emphasis added)

"All Options on the Table"

In June, US Senator Lindsey Graham (who serves on the Senate Armed Services Committee) hinted to the possibility of a "humanitarian" military intervention directed against Syria with a view to "saving the lives of civilians". Graham suggested that the "option" applied to Libya under UN Secuirty Council resolution 1973 should be envisaged in the case of Syria:

“If it made sense to protect the Libyan people against Gadhafi, and it did because they were going to get slaughtered if we hadn’t sent NATO in when he was on the outskirts of Benghazi, the question for the world [is], have we gotten to that point in Syria, ...

We may not be there yet, but we are getting very close, so if you really care about protecting the Syrian people from slaughter, now is the time to let Assad know that all options are on the table,” (CBS "Face The Nation", June 12, 2011)

Following the adoption of the UN Security Council Statement pertaining to Syria (August 3, 2011), the White House called, in no uncertain terms, for "regime change" in Syria and the ouster of President Bashar Al Assad:

"We do not want to see him remain in Syria for stability's sake, and rather, we view him as the cause of instability in Syria," White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters Wednesday.

"And we think, frankly, that it's safe to say that Syria would be a better place without President Assad," (quoted in Syria: US Call Closer to Calling for Regime Change, IPS, August 4, 2011)

Extended economic sanctions often constitute a leadup towards outright military intervention. A bill sponsored by Senator Lieberman was introduced in the US Senate with a view to authorizing sweeping economic sanctions against Syria. Moreover, in a letter to President Obama in early August, a group of more than sixty U.S. senators called for "implementing additional sanctions... while also making it clear to the Syrian regime that it will pay an increasing cost for its outrageous repression."

These sanctions would require blocking bank and financial transactions as well as "ending purchases of Syrian oil, and cutting off investments in Syria's oil and gas sectors." (See Pressure on Obama to get tougher on Syria coming from all sides - Foreign Policy, August 3, 2011).

Meanwhile, the US State Department has also met with members of the Syrian opposition in exile. Covert support has also been channelled to the armed rebel groups.

Dangerous Crossroads: War on Syria. Beachhead for an Attack on Iran

Following the August 3 Statement by the Chairman of the UN Security Council directed against Syria, Moscow's envoy to NATO Dmitry Rogozin warned of the dangers of military escalation:

"NATO is planning a military campaign against Syria to help overthrow the regime of President Bashar al-Assad with a long-reaching goal of preparing a beachhead for an attack on Iran,...

"[This statement] means that the planning [of the military campaign] is well underway. It could be a logical conclusion of those military and propaganda operations, which have been carried out by certain Western countries against North Africa," Rogozin said in an interview with the Izvestia newspaper... The Russian diplomat pointed out at the fact that the alliance is aiming to interfere only with the regimes "whose views do not coincide with those of the West."

Rogozin agreed with the opinion expressed by some experts that Syria and later Yemen could be NATO's last steps on the way to launch an attack on Iran.

"The noose around Iran is tightening. Military planning against Iran is underway. And we are certainly concerned about an escalation of a large-scale war in this huge region," Rogozin said.

Having learned the Libyan lesson, Russia "will continue to oppose a forcible resolution of the situation in Syria," he said, adding that the consequences of a large-scale conflict in North Africa would be devastating for the whole world. "Beachhead for an Attack on Iran": NATO is planning a Military Campaign against Syria, Novosti, August 5, 2011)

Dmitry Rogozin, August 2011


While Libya, Syria and Iran are part of the military roadmap, this strategic deployment if it were to carried out would also threaten China and Russia. Both countries have investment, trade as well as military cooperation agreements with Syria and Iran. Iran has observer status in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).

Escalation is part of the military agenda. Since 2005, the US and its allies, including America's NATO partners and Israel, have been involved in the extensive deployment and stockpiling of advanced weapons systems. The air defense systems of the US, NATO member countries and Israel are fully integrated.


The Role of Israel and Turkey

Both Ankara and Tel Aviv are involved in supporting an armed insurgency. These endeavors are coordinated between the two governments and their intelligence agencies.

Israel's Mossad, according to reports, has provided covert support to radical Salafi terrorist groups, which became active in Southern Syria at the outset of protest movement in Daraa in mid-March. Reports suggest that financing for the Salafi insurgency is coming from Saudi Arabia. (See Syrian army closes in on Damascus suburbs, The Irish Times, May 10, 2011)
The Turkish government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyib Erdogan is supporting Syrian opposition groups in exile while also backing the armed rebels of the Muslim Brotherhood in Northern Syria.

Both the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood (MB) (whose leadership is in exile in the UK) and the banned Hizb ut-Tahrir (the Party of Liberation) are behind the insurrection. Both organizations are supported by Britain's MI6. The avowed objective of both MB and Hizb-ut Tahir is ultimately to destabilize Syria's secular State. (See Michel Chossudovsky, SYRIA: Who is Behind The Protest Movement? Fabricating a Pretext for a US-NATO "Humanitarian Intervention", Global Research, May 3, 2011).

In June, Turkish troops crossed the border into northern Syria, officially to come to the rescue of Syrian refugees. The government of Bashar Al Assad accused Turkey of directly supporting the incursion of rebel forces into northern Syria:

"A rebel force of up to 500 fighters attacked a Syrian Army position on June 4 in northern Syria. They said the target, a garrison of Military Intelligence, was captured in a 36-hour assault in which 72 soldiers were killed in Jisr Al Shoughour, near the border with Turkey.

“We found that the criminals [rebel fighters] were using weapons from Turkey, and this is very worrisome,” an official said.

This marked the first time that the Assad regime has accused Turkey of helping the revolt. ... Officials said the rebels drove the Syrian Army from Jisr Al Shoughour and then took over the town. They said government buildings were looted and torched before another Assad force arrived. ...

A Syrian officer who conducted the tour said the rebels in Jisr Al Shoughour consisted of Al Qaida-aligned fighters. He said the rebels employed a range of Turkish weapons and ammunition but did not accuse the Ankara government of supplying the equipment." (Syria’s Assad accuses Turkey of arming rebels, TR Defence, Jun 25 2011)

The Israel-Turkey Military Cooperation Agreement

Israel and Turkey have a military cooperation agreement which pertains in a very direct way to Syria as well to the strategic Lebanese-Syrian Eastern Mediterranean coastline (including the gas reserves off the coast of Lebanon and pipeline routes).

Already during the Clinton Administration, a triangular military alliance between the US, Israel and Turkey had unfolded. This "triple alliance", which is dominated by the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, integrates and coordinates military command decisions between the three countries pertaining to the broader Middle East. It is based on the close military ties respectively of Israel and Turkey with the US, coupled with a strong bilateral military relationship between Tel Aviv and Ankara. ....

The triple alliance is also coupled with a 2005 NATO-Israeli military cooperation agreement which includes "many areas of common interest, such as the fight against terrorism and joint military exercises. These military cooperation ties with NATO are viewed by the Israeli military as a means to "enhance Israel's deterrence capability regarding potential enemies threatening it, mainly Iran and Syria." (See Michel Chossudovsky,"Triple Alliance": The US, Turkey, Israel and the War on Lebanon, August 6, 2006)

Meanwhile, the recent reshuffle within Turkey's top brass has reinforced the pro-Islamist faction within the armed forces. In late July, The Commander in Chief of the Army and head of Turkey's Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Isik Kosaner, resigned together with the commanders of the Navy and Air Force.

General Kosaner represented a broadly secular stance within the Armed Forces. General Necdet Ozel has been appointed as his replacement as commander of the Army the new army chief.

These developments are of crucial importance. They tend to support US interests. They also point to a potential shift within the military in favor of the Muslim Brotherhood including the armed insurrection in Northern Syria.

"New appointments have strengthened Erdogan and the ruling party in Turkey... [T]he military power is able to carry out more ambitious projects in the region. It is predicted that in case of using the Libyan scenario in Syria it is possible that Turkey will apply for military intervention." ( New appointments have strengthened Erdogan and the ruling party in Turkey : Public Radio of Armenia, August 06, 2011, emphasis added)

MB Rebels at Jisr al Choughour

Muslim Brotherhood Rebels at Jisr al Shughour Photos AFP June 16, 2011

[Note: this photo is in many regards misleading. Most of the rebel gunmen are highly trained with modern weapons.]

The Extended NATO Military Alliance

Egypt, the Gulf states and Saudi Arabia (within the extended military alliance) are partners of NATO, whose forces could be deployed in a campaign directed against Syria.

Israel is a de facto member of NATO following an agreement signed in 2005.

The process of military planning within NATO's extended alliance involves coordination between the Pentagon, NATO, Israel's Defense Force (IDF), as well as the active military involvement of the frontline Arab states, including Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States, Egypt: all in all ten Arab countries plus Israel are members of The Mediterranean Dialogue and the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative.

We are at a dangerous crossroads. The geopolitical implications are far-reaching.

Syria has borders with Jordan, Israel, Lebanon, Turkey and Iraq. It spreads across the valley of the Euphrates, it is at the crossroads of major waterways and pipeline routes.

Syria is an ally of Iran. Russia has a naval base in North Western Syria (see map).

Establishment of a base in Tartus and rapid advancement of military technology cooperation with Damascus makes Syria Russia's instrumental bridgehead and bulwark in the Middle East.

Damascus is an important ally of Iran and irreconcilable enemy of Israel. It goes without saying that appearance of the Russian military base in the region will certainly introduce corrections into the existing correlation of forces.

Russia is taking the Syrian regime under its protection. It will almost certainly sour Moscow's relations with Israel. It may even encourage the Iranian regime nearby and make it even less tractable in the nuclear program talks.( Ivan Safronov, Russia to defend its principal Middle East ally: Moscow takes Syria under its protection, Global Research July 28, 2006)

World War III Scenario

For the last five years, the Middle East-Central Asian region has been on an active war footing.

Syria has significant air defense capabilities as well as ground forces.

Syria has been building up its air defense system with the delivery of Russian Pantsir S1 air-defense missiles. In 2010, Russia delivered a Yakhont missile system to Syria. The Yakhont operating out of Russia's Tartus naval base "are designed for engagement of enemy's ships at the range up to 300 km". (Bastion missile systems to protect Russian naval base in Syria, Ria Novosti, September 21, 2010).

The structure of military alliances respectively on the US-NATO and Syria-Iran-SCO sides, not to mention the military involvement of Israel, the complex relationship between Syria and Lebanon, the pressures exerted by Turkey on Syria's northern border, point indelibly to a dangerous process of escalation.

Any form of US-NATO sponsored military intervention directed against Syria would destabilize the entire region, potentially leading to escalation over a vast geographical area, extending from the Eastern Mediterranean to the Afghanistan-Pakistan border with Tajikistan and China.

In the short run, with the war in Libya, the US-NATO military alliance is overextended in terms of its capabilities. Whiel we do not forsee the implementation of a US-NATO military operation in the short-term, the process of political destabilization through the covert support of a rebel insurgency will in all likelihood continue.

Source  http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=25955

Iran is Not The Threat. Israel is The Threat, American Imperialism is The Threat

A Powerful revolutionary Interview..."Governments should fear their people.!"
RT never posted this on YouTube for some reason??

Ken O'Keefe, [real living hero] an activist based in Gaza, said the uprising in Egypt is no surprise, taking into consideration the situation in the country.

"Wherever you oppress people, wherever you deny them basic human rights, wherever the inequity in the distribution of wealth is as perverse as it is in North Africa, the people will eventually rise up and it's promising to see that people have started the process of shedding off the brutal and corrupt dictate of Mubarak," he said.

As for the diplomatic cables disclosed by WikiLeaks, O'Keefe said he wouldn't doubt that the US had been involved, but the blame should still be laid on the Egyptian leadership. He also added that he is not going to give credence to all WikiLeaks cables.

"WikiLeaks has perpetuated all sorts of illusions, including the illusion that Iran is the threat. Iran is not the threat. Israel is the threat, American imperialism is the threat, British complicity and support for those institutions is the threat, not Iran, and WikiLeaks has been instrumental in perpetuating that threat," O'Keefe said. "Also, the so-called leader of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, has marginalized and attempted to ridicule those of us who can see the truth of 9/11. So, I am not going to buy everything that WikiLeaks produces."

Tehran hosts anti-terror conference

More than 150 foreign experts and elite are attending the International Conference on Global Alliance against Terrorism for a Just Peace (GAATJP) in Tehran.

The conference, which opens on Saturday, will focus on efforts aimed at uprooting terrorism in the region. Hundreds of Iranian experts will also attend the two-day conference which will wrap up in Tehran on Sunday.

Tehran hosted four exhibitions of posters and caricatures on just peace, as well as exhibitions of photos of the families of the victims of terror attacks in Iran and the Middle East ahead of the on GAATJP on Friday.

The conference comes nearly ten years after the United States initiated the so-called 'war on terror,' which has failed to bring peace and stability to the region.

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/179755.html

The Ongoing Plot To Creat Greater Israel

"Greater Israel"--from the Nile to the Euphrates--from the Bible, of course..

"Our task consists of preparing the Israeli army for the new war approaching in order to achieve our ultimate goal, the creation of an Israeli empire." -Moshe Dayan, 1952, Israeli Defense (War) Minister
by Zen Gardner
Yes, this U.S.-hosted parasitic pagan creation of the Illuminati called Is-ra-el (read Is=Isis, Ra=sun god, El=Saturn deity) is working to metastasize in order to so-called "fulfill a promise given to Abraham", their purported ancestor.

Hebrew scholar Levnoch Osman said when defining the aims of Zionism:

"In our eternal Book of Books (the Torah), the lofty ethical teachings of which are cherished by all mankind [give me a break-Z], the land of Israel is described not as a long, narrow strip of land with wavy, crooked borders, but as a state with broad natural borders. God has promised to Patriarch Abraham the following:

"I give unto them the land where they have sown their seed, from the river of Egypt unto the great river of Euphrates’ (Genesis 15:18). And so, in order to realize the words of this prophecy, the Israeli state had to continue, not in the borders it has today but within its broad historical boundaries."

Right. Might start to have an argument if you were "Abraham's seed", if you even believe the origins of that "promise".

Who are these people that claim to be so special?

Future IDF Chief of Staff, Moshe Dayan, as a 'Noter' and wearing a metal emblem of the 'Ghaffir' (early Zionist police force) on his Slavic kolpak hat. Clear Turkish and East European derivation.
Let's look at some true history you'll never get in school today.

The vast majority of people who call themselves Jews today are Ashkenazi Jews.  Unlike the Sephardim, who are Jews descended by blood through Abraham, the Ashkenazim are actually a Turkic people descended from Khazars who had converted to Judaism in the Middle Ages, prior to their westward migrations centuries later into eastern and central Europe and eventually on to Palestine.  This, in a nutshell, is the main theme of Arthur Koestler's book The Thirteenth Tribe.



The Turkic roots of the Ashkenazim undermine their claims of entitlement in the Holy Land according to scriptures in the Holy Bible.  And so the very idea that most modern day "Israelis" are not even of the blood of Abraham is considered a national security threat to the Zionist state because their pretensions of being racial heirs of the Almighty's promises and blessings to Abraham have been annihilated by an extensive historical record.

Looks like we're back to square one, as their answer to this and any challenge on any level is always ultimately the same old accusatory mantra that's been deliberately burned into the human psyche and sends the sheeple running for cover:
"ANTI-SEMITE!"

Another problem--they're not Semites either.

In spite of all this screaming, Zionists are the true anti-semites, murdering their truly Semitic Palestinian population for decades. They even persecute their own minority of true Sephardic Jews of Israel, many of whom are anti-Zionist. Remember, there's a difference between a Jew and a Zionist. Many Zionists are not Jews, and many Jews are not Zionists. They use their "Jewishness" for a cover, to the serious detriment of the very ethnic group they supposedly champion, the sly devils.

So too, the term "anti-semitism" is rendered void of meaning and useless, at least insofar as it is employed by the Turkic Ashkenazim as propaganda.  Ironically, their Palestinian Arab victims are real Semites along with the Sephardic Jews, Arabs in general and a few other groups, all of the blood of Abraham.  At best, the Turkic Khazar-derived Ashkenazim are very long lost cousins of the Semitic folk, and have limited commonality with them in their genes along with the common house-fly and a host of other creatures of the Almighty's vast creation. (source)

Israel Born and Bathed in Blood

Israel's history, both old and new, is bathed in blood. More insidious, Zionist Talmudic teachings and doctrines tell its adherents that they are superior to all others, and that killing the inferior "goyim" is completely justified and nothing to feel any compunction about.
They will do anything, commit any atrocity, and all in the name of Zionism. But no, no. To question them is to commit the most heinous act of treason against humanity.
Talk about reversing the truth. And all this has been engineered by decades of propaganda.

“The goal of modern propaganda is no longer to transform opinion but to arouse an active and mythical belief” -Jacques Ellui

The Plot Towards 'Greater Israel'

The author of the following point wrote about these things in 1968. Since then, to make things worse, warring Israel has amassed billions of dollars of US-supplied state of the art weaponry including a huge nuclear arsenal--all while screaming about its neighbors being the threat. Typical.

By guile, treachery and bloodletting, the Zionists plot to annex all of Jordan, virtually all of Syria, half of Iraq and a large part of Saudi Arabia and all of the rich cotton lands of the Nile Valley. It would be a simpler matter then to grab Yemen, Aden, Muscat, Qatar and Oman with their rich oil development. Israel is already well advanced in the development of its first nuclear warhead. Source

Enter Egypt and Libya

Let's look at this map of "greater Israel". Remember, Libya just west of Egypt is considered the gateway to Egypt throughout history, while Egypt is considered the heart of the Arab world.
Here's Libya's very strategic position. I wonder why the NWO is invading? Gain, or neutralize with "friendly governments", these territories and the rest will follow.

The U.S. is already occupying Iraq and Afghanistan, and Saudi Arabia is an American/Zionist puppet, as is Jordan. Lebanon's been neutered and Syria surrounded.
All while well-armed, American-backed and UN sanctioned Israel is smack in the middle causing all the problems.

Now let's see where the U.S. air and military bases are...

Looks like their imaginary boundaries are moving even farther east...

Over 50 U.S. airbases...insane...and this was in 2008! Remember, the U.S. is Israeli Zionism's puppet so you can pretty much count that Israeli territory in the making in a sense. The US and Israel have become one and the same. Just ask a fundamentalist Zionist Christian who's proud to send American youth to die for this mythical cause.
How bamboozled can you get.

Iran clearly in the way

Let's see how the U.S. was positioned even then to wage war on Iran. The days are counting down.

U.S. military bases circa 2008. Imagine now, plus the US Fleet

Is "Greater Israel" just another smokescreen justification?

Perhaps the Zionists are using this "Greater Israel" concept as an interim step of some sort. It certainly works the same old religious guilt justification synapses that rallies Zionist Jews and brain-washed conservative Christians alike.  Hell, "God told me do it. Expand, dammit!" (Isn't that was mass murderers often say? Just ask the Jesuits--same wicked credo as Mossad.)
Nothing like a "Holy Crusade" to get the blood flowing.
As is the case with all of these manufactured myths and ideologies such as the "chosen people", the idea of a "greater Israel" is in effect nothing new. It's really just another excuse to keep striking out, another Zionist religious smokescreen to justify anything and everything Zionist.

And they'll stop at nothing, including staged terrorist events which they've done for decades, their greatest feat to date being 9/11. But we're not done yet.
(And no, they don't need to inhabit these lands for them to be Israeli, any more than Romans had to populate the lands ruled by Caesar.)

But it does add to the justification to keep arming themselves to the teeth. Much like the U.S. fake "cold war" threat to arm themselves for this world-wide takeover, and now the phony war on terror to justify the NWO militarization and clampdown on their real enemy--the world population.

Epilogue

The U.S. is the main military arm of the NWO, at least for now. They answer to the globalist cabal of which Zionism is an integral part, for occult, satanic reasons. A nasty bloodline runs strong among the Khazarian Ashkenazis, but it is not the only powerful bloodline lineage, such as that of the European so-called royals running through history right on down to today's monarchies, premiers and American presidents.
The march towards global domination by these elites is on. It is accelerating, and we're seeing the outcropping of these powerful forces at work in the Middle East, concurrent to a manipulated global financial meltdown, drastic earth changes, and a worldwide societal awakening happening in parallel.
But don't hand me this BS that these are God's Chosen people. These wicked Zionists don't even believe in a true creator God...they believe in lust, power, hate and greed. Many well intentioned people, Jews and non-Jews, are deceived by this ploy.
But don't you be deceived-- these full blown Zionist manipulators advancing this phony cause are Satan's own spawn with nothing but the worst of intentions for humanity.

"By their fruits shall you know them." - Jesus

Case in point: Horrific "anti-personnel" weapons being unleashed on defenseless Palestinians

They will reap what they sow. The law of karma cannot be escaped.
Please do your part to help expose them and the NWO agenda and bring the light of Truth to the world.

by Zen Gardner at beforeitsnews.com
-Zen
www.zengardner.com

 

http://windowintopalestine.blogspot.com/2011/03/ongoing-plot-to-create-greater-israel.html

Assad forms new Syrian government

Bashar al-Assad, Syria's president, has formed a new cabinet two weeks after sacking the country's government amid unprecendented protests against his rule.

Assad also ordered the release of hundreds of protesters detained over the past couple of weeks but said those who committed crimes "against the nation and the citizens" would remain in jail.

Adel Safar, a former agriculture minister, will lead the new government while veteran diplomat Walid al-Moualem remains as foreign minister, Syria's state news agency reported.
Click here for more of Al Jazeera's special coverage

The announcement follows a deal allowing Syria's army to enter the restive coastal city of Baniyas and claims by human rights groups that several people detained by security forces had been tortured.

The state-run SANA news agency reported that snipers fired on a Syrian military patrol in Baniyas, killing one soldier and wounding another.

"There was a deal on Wednesday between Syrian officials and city residents for the army to enter Baniyas imminently to restore order," Rami Abdel Rahman, president of Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), told AFP by telephone.

"Security agents will refrain from patrolling neighbourhoods to make arrests, and the hundreds of people arrested in Baniyas will be released," he added.

"Elements of armed gangs," some of whom he said were close to security and intelligence services and "have caused unrest in order to create dissension, will be prosecuted", he said.

Al Jazeera's Rula Amin, reporting from Damascus, the capital, said people were waiting to see if the pledge to release all the political prisoners will be fulfilled.

"This is one of the demands of the protesters to release all the prisoners. Also people are watching how the government will be dealing with the protesters in tomorrow's protests," she said.

Celebratory scenes

Our correspondent spoke of a celebratory scene as the Syrian army entered Baniyas.

"People were chanting the people and the army are one; they were throwing rice at them; they were welcoming and celebrating their arrival. The scene there is of a calming tension not escalation, "she said.

She added that "the residents of the town have been fearing these gunmen, four residents have been killed, one soldier was killed today and another one injured".

"According to the government, two days ago nine soldiers were gunned down. So it is a highly volatile situation that the government is trying to contain, and it seems like the people of Baniyas are co-operating and engaging in the government efforts."

Al Jazeera talks to to Marwan Kabalan, a professor of political science, about the latest situation in Syria

Security forces had encircled Baniyas, 280km northwest of Damascus since deadly clashes there on Sunday. Government forces killed at least four people and wounded 17 when they strafed a residential area of the town with gunfire for hours, witnesses said.

Nine soldiers were killed when their patrol was ambushed outside the town, SANA news agency said.

Scores of people were also wounded in the unrest and hundreds reportedly arrested in Baniyas and the nearby village of Baida.

Assad on Thursday appealed for calm in a meeting with a delegation from the city of Daraa, which has been the focal point for anti-government protests.

Our correspondent said: "We spoke to members of the delegation that met with the ... president, and they said that the meeting went well. But they won't elaborate on whether a deal has been reached. It seems like there are some fine details that need to be worked out."

Protests demands

Amin said the protesters had told the president to give them a deadline when their demands will be met.

"Some of their demands are specific to Daraa and others are to do with the rest of Syria [such as] more political freedom, the right to have peaceful protests and the release of all the prisoners that have been detained in the past three months.

"What the government wants is an end to the protests, and even if it acknowledges their right to protest it should be done peacefully. The government wants to put a stop to vandalism and attacks to public property.

"It seems from the people in Daraa that the government is seriously trying to contain [the situation in] Daraa because that is where it all started. If they manage to calm the situation in Daraa, the government believes it will be able to contain the situation throughout Syria."

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/04/201141414535764169.html

US public supports Palestine statehood

It becomes clearer every day that Binyamin Netanyahu's government is terrified by the prospect that the Palestinians are planning to unilaterally declare a state later this year. In fact, it is safe to say that no other proposed Palestinian action has ever shaken up any Israeli government the way that the idea of a unilateral declaration has.

According to Haaretz, Prime Minister Netanyahu is so frightened at the prospect of a Palestinian declaration that he is considering withdrawing Israeli forces (not settlers, of course) from the West Bank as an inducement to prevent the Palestinians from acting:
Netanyahu is weighing a withdrawal of Israel Defence Forces troops from the West Bank and a series of other measures to block the "diplomatic tsunami" that may follow international recognition of a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders at the United Nations General Assembly in September.

Netanyahu's fear is well-placed. Here is Haaretz newspaper columnist Ari Shavit describing what would follow a unilateral Palestinian declaration:
At that moment, every Israeli apartment in Jerusalem's French Hill neighbourhood will become illegal. Every military base in the West Bank will be contravening the sovereignty of an independent UN member state. The Palestinians will not be obligated to accept demilitarisation and peace and to recognise the occupation.

That is true. But it is also true that an internationally recognised Palestinian state, with a flag flying at the United Nations, would level the playing field for negotiations.

Ever since Israeli-Palestinian negotiations began in 1993, they have been fundamentally unbalanced. On one side is the most powerful military force in the Middle East, backed to the hilt by the United States. On the other is a stateless people who control no territory, have no military, and are barely surviving economically.

That would change once a Palestinian state is declared. Of course, that new state would be weak and vulnerable, but it would have international law on its side, just as Israel does within the pre-1967 borders.

Diplomatically, the two sides would finally be equal; negotiations between the two sides would be government-to-government, not between a powerful state and a supplicant.

Negotiations would have to take place simply because a Palestinian declaration does not, in and of itself, resolve such issues as mutual security, refugees, Jerusalem, and the rest. It simply ensures that such negotiations would, at long last, be serious.

Of course, a September declaration is no done deal. The Palestinians will first need to achieve unity so that the Palestinian state includes both the West Bank and Gaza.

Although the International Monetary Fund now says that the West Bank alone already could constitute a viable Palestinian state, that is true only economically and not politically. A viable Palestinian state must include Gaza and be contiguous.

Palestinian unity will be difficult to achieve for many reasons, including the deep personal animosity between the leaders of Hamas and Fatah, the two rival Palestinian factions.

An important first step toward unity would be for Hamas to adhere to a full cease-fire with Israel starting now (the last thing the Palestinian Authority wants is to declare a state that is at war with Israel).

In fact, during the past week Hamas has been sending feelers to Israel about ending the violence between the two sides, which Israel has ignored.

It is not that Israel wants the strikes and counter-strikes to continue, it is that Netanyahu and company understand that a permanent cease-fire will foster the Palestinian unity necessary for a declaration of statehood.

In fact, it is beginning to appear that preventing a unilateral declaration is Israel's primary diplomatic goal, one that informs all its policies relating to Palestinians. (For their part, Palestinians view Israel's nervousness about the prospect of a declaration as confirmation that it is precisely the right strategy to achieve a state and peace with Israel.)

Of course, the Obama administration is likely to do everything it can to thwart the Palestinians' plans. AIPAC is already working on congressional letters calling on Obama to stop the declaration and, no doubt, an overwhelming majority of the House and Senate will sign on. (The 2012 election is looming and candidates and incumbents are highly focused on fundraising.)

The good news is that the United States cannot use its veto to prevent Palestinian recognition by the United Nations. For Palestine, as for Israel in 1947, it is the General Assembly that confers statehood and not the Security Council. The administration would have to use the other tools in its kit to thwart the declaration; it has no veto.

On the other hand, maybe, just maybe, the administration will recognise that a unilateral declaration of statehood could be the one device that would achieve its oft-stated goal in the Middle East: "two states, Israel and Palestine, living side-by-side in peace and security".

American support for Palestinian state

The American people seem to be getting it. According to a poll released on Monday by the right-wing Israel Project, only 51 per cent of Americans oppose a unilateral Palestinian declaration of independence. Fifty four per cent favour a Palestinian state achieved through negotiations.

For those familiar with polling on matters relating to Israelis and Palestinians, the results are startling. The percentage of support for the Israeli position is usually in the high 70s, while support for the Palestinians is in the teens. Suddenly there is a major shift, and this in a poll sponsored by an organisation that clearly did not want to see findings like these.

Perhaps the Obama administration will come around too.

The United States should support the unilateral declaration of a Palestinian state, followed by serious negotiations. The alternative has been tried over and over again and it always fails.

Why not try something that may actually achieve peace and security for two peoples who, like everyone else, are entitled to it?

It is time for President Obama to deliver on the promise he made in Cairo to use his authority not to defend the deadly status quo but to end it.

MJ Rosenberg is a Senior Foreign Policy Fellow at Media Matters Action Network. The above article first appeared in Foreign Policy Matters, a part of the Media Matters Action Network.

You can follow MJ on twitter @MJayRosenberg.

This article was first published by Foreign Policy Matters.

Army Bombards Gaza, One Resident Wounded

The Israeli Air Force bombarded on Wednesday night after midnight several areas in the Gaza Strip leading to excessive damage; at least one resident was injured.
Three consecutive air strikes were carried out against the “tunnels area” along the Gaza-Egypt border, in Rafah, in the southern part of the Gaza Strip.

At first, the Air force fired several missiles at a siege-busting tunnel in Yibna refugee camp, in Rafah.

Shortly afterwards, the Air Force carried out two consecutive air strikes targeting areas near Salah ed-Deen Gate and al-Barazil neighborhood in Rafah. One resident was wounded and was moved to Abu Youssef Al Najjar Hospital, in Rafah.

The third attack was carried out when the Air Force fired at least one missile at an open area, east of al-Zeitoun neighborhood, south of Gaza city; damage was reported, no injuries.

On Wednesday at dawn, Israeli soldiers invaded several areas in the occupied West Bank, broke into and searched several homes and kidnapped three residents from the central West Bank city of Ramallah, and from Jenin, in the northern part of the West Bank.

Soldiers also installed several roadblocks and searched dozens of vehicles while inspecting the ID card of the drivers and the passengers.

http://www.imemc.org/article/61016?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Libyan rebels, hoping for one state, prepare for two

BENGHAZI, Libya — "One Libya, with Tripoli as its capital" is spray-painted on walls around this rebel city and glides off the tongues of opposition leaders. Moammar Gaddafi will fall in a week, they predict, two at the most, and they’ll build a new country then.

But as weeks stretch into months and progress on the battlefield stalls, this rebel-held area of Libya is settling into its status as a de facto separate state.

Since the February uprising that ended Gaddafi’s rule here, schools and many businesses have remained closed. But police are back on the streets, hospitals are functioning and shops are slowly reopening. Behind the scenes, opposition leaders are feverishly courting international partners as they work to set up a political and economic system for a period of division that some quietly admit may stretch on indefinitely.

A tanker arrived in the rebel-held port of Tobruk on Tuesday to load oil for export, the first time that has happened in nearly three weeks. Although it is unclear whether the rebels will be able to export enough oil to keep the east afloat economically, the tanker’s arrival marked a symbolic step in the rebels’ journey from accidental revolutionaries to governors and statesmen.

Also on Tuesday, rebel leaders for the first time welcomed to Benghazi an official U.S. envoy, who is here both to meet opposition leaders and provide assistance to the fledgling council that runs affairs in the east. [Story on A11.]

For the United States and other Western powers, the rebel efforts to build the rudiments of a nation in eastern Libya reflect the reality of a military stalemate — one in which NATO could be ensnared for months or more.

"We don’t like it, we don’t want it, but this scenario might happen," said Fathi Baja, the rebels’ head of international affairs.

When the uprising began, "people didn’t have a slight idea of what they wanted to do, other than that they knew they wanted Gaddafi to go," Baja said. "Now, as we start to create some political entities here and there, and we try to start some economic life and create an army, we find ourselves in another stage, and we understand that it might take a little time."

It is no small task. During nearly 42 years of rule by Gaddafi, economic and political power was entrenched in Tripoli and civil society was virtually nonexistent. The east, which had long been resistant to Gaddafi’s rule, was badly neglected.

"The whole of Libya is living in the Middle Ages," said opposition spokeswoman Iman Bugaighis, "but especially the east."

Mustafa Gheriani, an opposition spokesman, said that when Gaddafi’s forces pulled out amid the uprising, "we thought it would be like Egypt — that we have ministries, we have an institution that was running. And we found that there was nothing."

Now, the Transitional National Council — composed of 31 representatives, nominated by each of the towns in the east — is responsible for creating a political, economic and military infrastructure from scratch, a task complicated by the fact that a war is going on just a couple of hours’ drive away.

The council includes a crisis management team, which functions as a cabinet. Many of its members have lived abroad, including an economics minister who abruptly left his position as a University of Washington professor in February.

The team is learning as it goes, and putting out fires almost daily. This week, team members dealt with a spat between the rebels’ top military leaders as well as an attack on an oilfield that the rebels are counting on for revenue. They also hosted diplomats from Italy, which formally recognized the rebels on Monday, and from Great Britain, which they hope will follow. France and Qatar have already recognized the rebels as Libya’s legitimate government.

With plans to draft a constitution and electoral laws, opposition leaders are consulting with experts in the United States and Europe. The leaders say they want a democratic system, including freedom of expression, multiple political parties and an independent judiciary.

On Monday the economics minister, Ali Tarhouni, presented a $1.5 billion, four-month budget that includes salaries for soldiers and civil employees. For such a budget to be sustainable, the east will need to start selling from its ample oil fields.

Libya has long relied on oil, and the rebel government is working hard to resume exports. Qatar has agreed to market the oil, but Libya’s Central Bank and National Oil Corporation were hit with U.N. sanctions last month because of associations with Gaddafi’s family. The rebels have asked the United Nations to exempt them from the sanctions, arguing that both entities have split from Tripoli’s version, though they have retained their names in anticipation of reunification.

Until then, the proceeds will go into an escrow account and the opposition will withdraw them in the form of food, medicine and other humanitarian aid, which would not violate the sanctions, Tarhouni said.

Even if sanctions are lifted, it is unclear whether rebel-controlled oil will be sufficient to sustain this region, which is home to roughly 2 million people. Before the uprising, the country was producing 1.6 million barrels a day. Now, the rebels claim to be producing 100,000 to 130,000.

"It’s not enough," Baja said.

Although the bulk of Libya’s oil riches lie in fields in the central or eastern parts of the country, the biggest export terminals have been trading hands in the fighting. Ports at Ras Lanuf, Brega and Es Sider are either beyond the rebels’ grasp or too heavily contested to be useful to their cause. The tanker that arrived for loading Tuesday came in at Tobruk, which is safely in rebel hands but has limited ability to export.

"They have been talking about larger volumes, but I don’t think they can do that," said Greg Priddy, an oil analyst at the Eurasia Group.

"The bottom line is, this is a trickle. This isn’t enough to move the needle on the world oil market," Priddy added. "But it is a substantial amount of money for the provisional government." At today’s prices, he said, rebel leaders could earn about $100 million a month, enough to buy some basic foodstuffs.

One fact that simplifies shipments from Tobruk: The oil is likely coming from the Sarir field, which is operated by Libyans, not foreigners. That means production can proceed without outside companies.

But on Monday a facility that feeds oil to Tobruk was sabotaged, presumably by Gaddafi’s forces. The damage to production has not yet been assessed, but the attack underscored the east’s fragility. For now its leaders live in semi-hiding, with bodyguards and safe houses, and the east is dependent on NATO airstrikes to keep Gaddafi’s forces at bay.

The rebels’ plans, whether for what will be one state or two, include a more diverse economy. Until now, 96 percent of Libya’s revenue has come from oil; leaders here say they would like to add tourism, agriculture and solar energy.

"Libya will never be a superpower economically," Tarhouni said. "It will be a small, independent state, democratic, somewhat diversified."

- bahrampourt@washpost.com

Staff writer Steven Mufson in Washington contributed to this report.

http://uruknet.info/?p=m76566&fb=1

Jewish guerrillas told British: quit Palestine or die

Fighters were led by future Israeli premier Marcus Leroux A pamphlet warning Britons to leave the Middle East or face death has come to light in a stash of illicit propaganda.

The document does not hail from Basra or Baghdad, nor was it penned by the Islamists of al-Qaeda or the al-Mahdi Army. It was found in Haifa, about 60 years ago, and it was issued by the underground group led by Menachem Begin – the future Prime Minister of Israel and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.

The document, which surfaced at an auction house this week, is addressed to “the soldiers of the occupation army” and aimed at British soldiers serving in Palestine, then under the British Mandate, preceding the establishment of Israel in 1948. The print has faded and the paper has discoloured since it was unearthed from a grove of trees in Haifa in the summer of 1947. Yet the language and the concerns remain current.

Bombings and murders by underground groups, such as Begin’s Irgun, hastened the British withdrawal and the United Nations declaration that led to the founding of modern Israel.

Irgun propaganda targeted the British Army’s wavering morale, already dented by the bomb attack on the Mandate’s headquarters – the King David Hotel in Jerusalem – which killed 91 people.

In the document, Irgun tells British troops: “It is unavoidable that many Jewish soldiers and many British soldiers should fall. And it is only fair that these people know at least why they may be killed.”

It adds: “Most of you have been in this country for quite a long time. You have learned what the word ‘terrorist’ means, some of you may even have come into direct contact with them (and heartily desire not to repeat the experience). But what do you know about them? Why does a young man go underground?”

It then draws a parallel with what would have happened if, seven years earlier, Britain had been overrun by Nazi Germany. “Remember 1940. Then it seemed quite possible that your island country would be conquered and subjugated by Hitler hordes . . . what would you have done? Would you have gone underground?” The pamphlet says that the occupation is “illegal and immoral” and “parallel to the mass assassination of a whole people”, in language that echoes that used on a note pinned to the booby-trapped bodies of two British intelligence officers executed by Irgun that same summer.

The pamphlet came from a stash confiscated and burnt by cyptographers from the Royal Signals regiment. Corporal Raymond Smith found them buried in a secluded grove marked by a white Star of David and was ordered to destroy them, but took one as a memento. A collector acquired the document from Corporal Smith, and brought it to Mullock’s auctioneers in Shropshire.

Richard Westwood-Brookes, Mullock’s historical documents specialist, said the pamphlet was a remarkable find, which “ amounted to a manifesto for terrorist action”. He added: “It also raises the question as to who are ‘terrorists’ and who are ‘freedom fighters’. It’s a debate which raged through the troubles of Northern Ireland and continues in the Middle East.”

Begin’s Irgun set aside its differences with Haganah, a rival underground Jewish group led by David Ben Gurion – the first Prime Minister of Israel, who once likened Begin to Adolf Hitler.

Begin forged a political career as a hardliner, but, after becoming Prime Minister, signed the Camp David agreement with Egypt in 1979.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article4360655.ece

Instead of Bombing Dictators, Stop Selling Them Bombs

When all you have is bombs, everything starts to look like a target. And so, after years of providing Libya's dictator with the weapons he's been using against his people, all the international community - France, Britain and the United States - has to offer the people of Libya is more bombs, this time dropped from the sky rather than delivered in a box to Muammar Qaddafi's palace.
If the bitter lesson of Iraq and Afghanistan has taught us anything, though, it's that wars of liberation exact a deadly toll on those they purportedly liberate - and that democracy doesn't come on the back of a Tomahawk missile.
President Barack Obama announced his latest peace-through-bombs initiative last week - joining ongoing US conflicts and proxy wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia - by declaring he could not "stand idly by when a tyrant tells his people that there will be no mercy and ... where innocent men and women face brutality and death at the hands of their own government."
Within 24 hours of the announcement, more than 110 US Tomahawk cruise missiles were fired into Libya, including the capital Tripoli, reportedly killing dozens of innocent civilians - as missiles, even the "smart" kind, are wont to do. According to The New York Times, allied warplanes with "brutal efficiency" bombed "tanks, missile launches and civilian cars, leaving a smoldering trail of wreckage that stretched for miles."
"[M]any of the tanks seemed to have been retreating," the paper reported. That's the reality of the no-fly zone and the mission creep that started the moment it was enacted: bombing civilians and massacring retreating troops. And like any other war, it's not pretty.
While much of the media presents an unquestioning, sanitized version of the war - cable news hosts more focused on interviewing retired generals about America's fancy killing machines than the actual, bloody facts on the ground - the truth is that wars, even liberal-minded "humanitarian" ones, entail destroying people and places. Though cloaked in altruism that would be more believable were we dealing with monasteries, not nation-states, the war in Libya is no different. And innocents pay the price.
Russia, the Arab League and others have said that coalition airstrikes have caused significant civilian casualties. Though the number of deaths are unconfirmed at this time, Reuters repots that the Arab League will be commissioning an analysis into health ministry claims that 64 civilians died in the initial flurry of missile strikes on Libya. The New York Times also reported that civilian cars were among those hit by coalition airstrikes.
If protecting civilians from evil dictators was the goal, though - as opposed to, say, safeguarding natural resources and the investments of major oil companies - there's an easier, safer way than aerial bombardment for the US and its allies to consider: simply stop arming and propping up evil dictators. After all, Libya's Muammar Qaddafi reaped the benefits from Western nations all too eager to cozy up to and rehabilitate the image of a dictator with oil with those denouncing him today as a murderous tyrant, and just a matter of weeks ago selling him the very arms his regime has been using to suppress the rebellion against it.
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In 2009 alone, European governments - including Britain and France - sold Libya more than $470 million worth of weapons, including fighter jets, guns and bombs. And before it started calling for regime change, the Obama administration was working to provide the Libyan dictator another $77 million in weapons, on top of the $17 million it provided in 2009 and the $46 million the Bush administration provided in 2008.
Meanwhile, for dictatorial regimes in Yemen, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, US support continues to this day. On Saturday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton even gave the US stamp of approval to the brutal crackdown on protesters in Bahrain, saying the country's authoritarian rulers "obviously" had the "sovereign right" to invite troops from Saudi Arabia to occupy their country and carry out human rights abuses, including attacks on injured protesters as they lay in their hospital beds.
In Yemen, which has received more than $300 million in military aid from the US over the last five years, the Obama administration continues to support corrupt thug and president-for-life Ali Abdullah Saleh, who recently ordered a massacre of more than 50 of his own citizens who dared protest his rule. And this support has allowed the US to carry out its own massacres under the auspices of the war on terror, with one American bombing raid last year taking out 41 Yemeni civilians, including 14 women and 21 children, according to Amnesty International.
Rather than engage in cruise-missile liberalism, Obama could save lives by immediately ending support for these brutal regimes. But for US administrations, both Democratic and Republican, arms sales appear to trump liberation. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute documented that Washington accounted for 54 percent of arms sales to Persian Gulf states between 2005 and 2009.
Last September, The Financial Times reported that the US had struck deals to provide Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Oman with $123 billion worth of arms. The repressive monarchy of Saudi Arabia accounts for over half that figure, with it set to receive $67 billion worth of weapons, including 84 F-15 jets, 70 Apache gunships, 72 Black Hawk helicopters, 36 light helicopters and thousands of laser-guided smart bombs - the largest weapons deal in US history.
Instead of forking over $150 million a day to the weapons industry to attack Libya or selling $67 billion in weapons to the Saudis so they can repress not just their own people, but those of Bahrain, we - the ones being asked to forgo Social Security to help pay for empire - should demand those who purport to represent us in Washington stop arming dictators in our name. That might drain some bucks from the merchants of death, but it would give nonviolent protesters throughout the Middle East a fighting chance to liberate themselves.
The US government need not drop a single bomb in the Middle East to help liberate oppressed people. All it need do is stop selling bombs to their oppressors.

instead-bombing-dictators-stop-selling-them-bombs68680


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Encircled by enemies again?

prime minister of Israel’s hawkish coalition government, makes no secret of his queasiness about Egypt’s upheaval and his fear that the peace treaty with Israel’s giant Arab neighbour could unravel after 32 years. The prospect of an Egyptian government that included the Muslim Brotherhood, let alone one that were led by it, plainly gives him the creeps. For one thing, it might open the Egyptian border with Gaza (see article), so strengthening the Brothers’ Palestinian offshoot, Hamas, whose charter calls for the Jewish state’s destruction. People close to Mr Netanyahu mutter darkly about the “Hamas-isation” of Egypt, a possibility that fills most Israelis, not just on the right, with dread. “Half of the Palestinian people have already been taken over by Iran,” says Israel’s prime minister, with barely a hint of conscious hyperbole.

The Egyptian upset is heightening a sense of encirclement that has not been felt so acutely by Israelis in decades. In Lebanon to the north, a pro-Western prime minister has recently been displaced by one backed by Hizbullah, the Shia party-cum-militia that is armed and sponsored by Iran. To the north-east, Syria, also on friendly terms with Iran, seems resolute in its support for Hamas. Meanwhile Iran itself, Israel’s biggest bugbear in the wider region and governed by a mercurial president fired with righteous anger towards Israel, moves steadily towards getting a nuclear weapon.

Perhaps even more worrying for Israel is a rising fear that on its eastern flank the ruling monarchy in Jordan, the only Arab country bar Egypt that has a formal treaty with the Jewish state, is being shaken by an assortment of Islamists, tribal leaders, Palestinians (who make up a good half of Jordan’s people), disgruntled former security men and a middle class irritated by the royal family’s perceived extravagance.

In the past year relations with Turkey, once a rare friend of Israel in the Muslim world, have gone from cool to icy. In the words of one of Mr Netanyahu’s colleagues, Israel is surrounded by a “poisonous crescent”. “We are in the midst of a regional earthquake,” says one of his ministers, clearly horrified by its possible reverberations.

Meanwhile, peace talks with the Palestinians have broken down, apparently irretrievably. The chances of their revival during Mr Netanyahu’s term in office, which has two years to run, seem negligible. Mr Netanyahu roundly blames the Palestinians for their supposed intransigence, an analysis not shared by American or European mediators and monitors, who castigate Israel’s government for refusing to freeze the building or expanding of Jewish settlements in the West Bank, the main bit of a future Palestinian state.

Mr Netanyahu lays particular stress on Israel’s claimed need, if a Palestinian state were to emerge on the West Bank, to retain a military presence there; neutral foreign forces, provided by NATO, as suggested in previous negotiations, would not suffice. “What will prevent infiltration through the Jordan Valley?” he asks. “It requires an Israeli presence to prevent a takeover by Iran’s proxies.” Ministers in Israel’s ruling coalition repeatedly raise the possibility that Hamas might one day oust Mr Abbas’s milder Palestinian party. Some argue that Mr Abbas’s peace talk is a tactical ploy. “A peace treaty does not itself guarantee peace,” warns Mr Netanyahu bleakly. With such suspicions to the fore of his thinking, it is hard to see how a deal based necessarily on mutual trust could ever be struck.

Israel’s centrist opposition leader, Tzipi Livni insists that she came close to sealing a peace deal in 2008 with the Palestinians when she was foreign minister in the government replaced by Mr Netanyahu’s coalition. She excoriates what she sees as Mr Netanyahu’s hawkish ineptitude and his apparent belief that Israel will always be surrounded by an army of enemies infused with a murderous anti-Semitism.

As if Israel’s predicament in a region that may soon become more hostile is not bad enough, two more fears are nagging away. Mr Netanyahu and his colleagues are plainly discomfited by what they see as a burgeoning campaign, especially in the West, to erode Israel’s legitimacy. They cite what they deem unfair attitudes over such issues as the Turkish flotilla Israel stopped from sailing to Gaza, killing nine Turks in so doing, and the UN’s Goldstone report critical of Israel’s war in Gaza in 2009. “We are being denied our legitimate right to self-defence,” sighs one of them. Israel’s growing isolation in forums such as the UN is a gnawing worry. “If we are thrown to the wolves, we have a problem,” says a minister.

Source : http://www.economist.com/node/18186996

Israel's shame as Holocaust victims die in poverty

About 80,000 Holocaust survivors emigrated to Israel after WW2. Instead of finding ease and opportunity, many discovered only loneliness and grinding poverty. They accuse Israel of failing to give them the compensation paid by Germany. They say millions of dollars that was meant for them has been used to build the country instead.

Gazans still struggle to cross Rafah border even after the whole world supported Egypt's freedom

Crowds gather outside the office of Gaza's Borders and crossings Authority, in the southern city of Rafah. The people who have come here hope to register their names with border officials in order to gain permission to leave Gaza.

Government officials announced that the registration office would open its doors Sunday morning for the first time since anti government protests broke out in Egypt on January 25th. Since then the Rafah border, the only entrance into the Gaza that bypasses Israel, has been fully closed.
But the Egyptian authorities only authorize travel through the Rafah terminal for people who fall into 4 categories: patients with medical referrals, foreign passport holders, people with visas to other countries, who go straight to the airport, and students with proof of enrollment in their universities. For all others hoping to cross the border remains unrealized.
Approximately 1400 Gazans who were stranded in Egypt during the popular revolution were finally allowed to return home. But not all were fortunate enough to make it. Finally after obtaining travel permission this man accompanied his son, sick with Cancer, to Egypt. When they got there the country fell into turmoil and they returned home without seeing the doctor. The young man died only minutes after they crossed the border back into Gaza.

His illness progressed as we were waiting for travel permission. Even if we had seen the doctors in Egypt we knew it was too late by the time we got there because he fell into a coma. He is at peace now.

As Gaza is cut off form the outside world following years of Israeli siege, government officials have announced that negotiations with Egypt to fully open the border crossing are ongoing, and observers view the gradual easing of the closure as a good sign.

The former Egyptian regime enabled the Israeli siege on the Gaza Strip by closing its borders with the territory, and with both Palestinian and Egyptian figures calling for the full opening of the border, Gazans can only wait and hope that with a new Egyptian leadership the 4 year long isolation of the territory will finally come to an end.

Safa Joudeh, Press TV, Gaza

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/166204.html

4.5 Million Orphans in Iraq: Protests Over Food and Shelter

Orphans join Iraq protests over food, shelter. Orphans join protests in Iraq to call for a better standard of living. Deborah Lutterbeck reports.

BAGHDAD — Fadel Mohammad Ra'ad, 10, is one of thousands of children who have lost their parents to the endless violence that has been gripping Iraq since the 2003 US-led invasion.

"My parents were killed in an explosion at the center of Baghdad last year, leaving me and my sister to no one," the child told IslamOnline.net in a Baghdad orphanage. "I have relatives but all of them have refused to take us in," he added choking at the memory. "We were forced to work to survive."

Children, like many other civilians, are the silent victims of violence in war-torn Iraq. "Violence in Iraq has vast characteristics. Sectarian violence, resistance against US troops, traditional behaviors and the fight against the hungry," explains Haydar Hassan Kareem, a sociologist.

The Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs estimate that around 4,5 million children are orphans. Nearly 70 percent of them lost their parents since the invasion and the ensuing violence. From the total number, around 600,000 children are living in the streets without a house or food to survive. Only 700 children are living in the 18 orphanages existing in the country, lacking their most essential needs.

"Unfortunately the budget allocated to projects that help street children and orphans is decreasing day in and day out," notes an Iraqi Red Crescent employee refusing to give his name. "Worse still, almost no NGO is dedicating itself to this group of kids who are subject to trafficking and sexual abuses in the streets."


http://tv.globalresearch.ca/2011/02/45-million-orphans-iraq-protests-over-food-and-shelter

The World is sinking: Dubai islands 'falling into the sea'

By Richard Spencer, Dubai 9:30PM GMT 20 Jan 2011

But the World, the ambitiously-constructed archipelago of islands shaped like the countries of the globe, is sinking back into the sea, according to evidence cited before a property tribunal.

The islands were intended to be developed with tailor-made hotel complexes and luxury villas, and sold to millionaires. They are off the coast of Dubai and accessible by yacht or motor boat.

Now their sands are eroding and the navigational channels between them are silting up, the British lawyer for a company bringing a case against the state-run developer, Nakheel, has told judges.

"The islands are gradually falling back into the sea," Richard Wilmot-Smith QC, for Penguin Marine, said. The evidence showed "erosion and deterioration of The World islands", he added.

With all but one of the islands still uninhabited – Greenland – and that one a showpiece owned by the ruler of Dubai, most of the development plans have been brought to a crashing halt by the financial crisis.

Nakheel, the developer, was part of Dubai World, the state-owned conglomerate that had to be bailed out of debts put at around $25 billion at the end of 2009. The Dubai World Tribunal was set up to hear cases arising out of the restructuring and separation of the companies involved.

The low-lying islands represent a vague shape out to sea when viewed from Dubai's beaches, but are visible by satellite or from the top of the city's Burg Khalifa, the world's tallest building, which opened to the public last year.

According to the company, 70 per cent of the World's 300 islands have been sold. Nakheel is also behind Dubai's famous Palm-shaped offshore developments. Villas in the only one near completion, Palm Jumeirah, were given to or bought by footballers including David Beckham and Michael Owen.

Though few celebrity buyers were found for The World, it was rumoured – or joked – that Brad Pitt and Angeline Jolie had considered Ethiopia.

Many investors who did buy the islands proved unwilling or unable to finance further work when Dubai's property prices halved in the space of a year.

Some were hit by troubles elsewhere – the owner of the company which bought Ireland for £24 million, John O'Dolan, committed suicide, while the man who bought Britain for £43 million, Safi Qurashi, is serving seven years in jail in Dubai after being accused of bouncing cheques.

The dispute being heard by the property tribunal involves Penguin Marine, the company which bought the rights to provide boat travel to the islands.

With little business, it is trying to exit the contract, which involves paying an annual fee of just under £1 million to Nakheel.

Nahkeel say they will cash an advanced payment guarantee worth just over £1 million if that happens.

Penguin claim that work on the islands has "effectively stopped". Mr Wilmot-Smith described the project as "dead".

Graham Lovett, for Nakheel, said the project was not dead but admitted it was "in a coma".

"This is a ten-year project which has slowed down," he said. "This is a project which will be completed."

He said Penguin would make money eventually. "That's the price Penguin makes to stay in the game," he said. "They have the potential to earn millions."

The tribunal found for Nakheel on Thursday, saying it would give full reasoning later.

A spokesman for Nakheel insisted the islands were not sinking. "Our periodical monitoring survey over the past three years didn't observe any substantial erosion that requires sand nourishment," a statement said.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/dubai/8271643/The-World-is-sinking-Dubai-islands-falling-into-the-sea.html

As American commanders meet this week for the Afghanistan review, Obama is hiring military contractors at a rate that would make Bush blush.

Top U.S. commanders are meeting this week to plan for the next phase of the Afghanistan war. In Iraq, meanwhile, gains are tentative and in danger of unraveling.

[Eric Prince, the founder of the private security firm formerly known as Blackwater International, has reached a deal to sell the company to a small group of investors with close ties to him, the New York Times reported Friday, December 17, 2010.]Eric Prince, the founder of the private security firm formerly known as Blackwater International, has reached a deal to sell the company to a small group of investors with close ties to him, the New York Times reported Friday, December 17, 2010.
Both wars have been fought with the help of private military and intelligence contractors. But despite the troubles of Blackwater in particular - charges of corruption and killing of civilians-and continuing controversy over military outsourcing in general, private sector armies are as involved as ever.

Without much notice or debate, the Obama administration has greatly expanded the outsourcing of key parts of the U.S.-led counterinsurgency wars in the Middle East and Africa, and as a result, for its secretive air war and special operations missions around the world, the U.S. has become increasingly reliant on a new breed of specialized companies that are virtually unknown to the American public, yet carry out vital U.S. missions abroad.

Companies such as Blackbird Technologies, Glevum Associates, K2 Solutions, and others have won hundreds of millions of dollars worth of military and intelligence contracts in recent years to provide technology, information on insurgents, Special Forces training, and personnel rescue. They win their work through the large, established prime contractors, but are tasked with missions only companies with specific skills and background in covert and counterinsurgency can accomplish.

Some observers fear that the widespread use of contractors for U.S. counterinsurgency efforts in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the Horn of Africa could deepen the secrecy surrounding the American presence in those regions, making it harder for Congress to provide proper oversight.

Even in Iraq, where the U.S. has ended combat operations, the government is "greatly expanding" its use of private security companies, creating "an entirely new role for contractors on the battlefield," Michael Thibault, the co-chairman of the federal Commission on Wartime Contracting, recently warned Congress.

Among the companies getting contracts is Blackbird, which is staffed by former CIA operatives, and is a key contractor in a highly classified program that sends secret teams into enemy territory to rescue downed or captured U.S. soldiers.

Glevum, meanwhile, fields a small army of analysts in Iraq and Afghanistan who provide the U.S. military with what the company opaquely describes as "information operations and influence activities."

And K2 is a highly sought-after subcontractor and trainer for the most secretive units of the U.S. Army Special Operations Command, including the SEAL team that rescued the crew of the Maersk Alabama from a gang of pirates last year. It is based near the Army's Special Forces headquarters in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and was founded by Lane Kjellsen, a former Special Forces soldier.

Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander of conventional and special forces in the war zones, is using contractors because "he wants an organization that reports directly to him," said a former top aide to the commander of the U.S. Special Operations Command, the umbrella organization for all Special Forces. "Everyone knows Petraeus can't execute his strategy without the private sector." The former aide spoke on the condition that he not be identified, saying his career could be jeopardized if he went public. The International Security Assistance Force, the general's home command, did not respond to a request for comment.

The use of contractors could become a serious problem if controversies about them are not addressed, a senior British official warned during a recent visit to Washington. Pauline Neville-Jones, the U.K.'s minister of state for security and counterterrorism (and a former executive with QinetiQ PLC, a major intelligence contractor), told an audience at the Brookings Institution that "we have something of a crisis in Afghanistan" partly because of the "largely unregulated private sector security companies performing important roles" there.

The Pentagon's Central Command had nearly 225,000 contractors working in Iraq and Afghanistan and other areas at last count, doing tasks ranging from providing security to base support. Intelligence agencies such as the CIA and the National Security Agency field thousands more under classified contracts that are not publicly disclosed, but extend into every U.S. military command around the world. (According to reports in The Nation and elsewhere, Blackwater, which is now known as Xe, has contracted to send personnel into Pakistan to fight with the Joint Special Operations Command, although a command spokesman said the reports were "totally wrong.")

More at source : http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/12/19

Peace process interrupted by Israeli bulldozers - East Jerusalem

Israeli bulldozers have destroyed six buildings in occupied East Jerusalem, resuming the demolition of Palestinian property after a halt aimed at encouraging peace talks, provoking Palestinian anger and US "concern".
Tuesday's demolitions were the first since a halt in October aimed at encouraging so-called peace talks, and Palestinians said they proved the Israeli government was not committed to the negotiations. The demolitions come just a week after Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, pledged to take "concrete steps that could be done now - in the coming days, in the coming weeks - to move the peace process further along in a very robust way" after meeting Barack Obama, the US president, at the White House.
Obama had called for direct negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians to be restarted before the partial suspension on the construction of Israeli settlements on Palestinian land expires in September.
"My hope is that once direct talks have begun, well before the moratorium [on settlements] has expired, that that will create a climate in which everybody feels a greater investment in success," Obama had said last Tuesday, adding that he hoped mutual confidence-building moves would pave the way to negotiations.
The White House meeting had come as Obama and Netanyahu tried to downplay recent tensions between their countries over Israel's continuing construction of settlements, which is illegal under international law.
US opposes 'unilateral actions'
But on Tuesday the latest demolitions threatened to turn ties frosty again, with the US joining the EU and UN in expressing concern over them.
PJ Crowley, a spokesman for the US state department, urged Israel to refrain from actions that could undermine negotiations with Palestinian leaders.
"Obviously we are concerned about reports today of a number of buildings in East Jerusalem being demolished," he said at a news briefing on Tuesday.
"The US has made it clear that it disagrees with some government of Israel actions in Jerusalem that affect Palestinians in areas such as housing, including home demolitions, and has urged all parties to avoid actions that could undermine trust.
"We continue to oppose and we will make clear to the government of Israel that we oppose unilateral actions that prejudge negotiations.
"The status of Jerusalem and all other permanent status issues must be resolved by the parties through negotiations," he said.
Volatile issue
Jerusalem demolitions are a volatile issue because of conflicting Israeli and Palestinian claims to the city's eastern sector.
Israel, which captured the sector in the 1967 Middle East war, sees it as part of its capital city, while Palestinians want it returned for the capital of their future state.
Israel says it is only enforcing the law against building violations, but Palestinians say discriminatory planning practices make it impossible for them to get permits, leaving them no choice but to build illegally and risk demolition.
About a third of Jerusalem's 750,000 residents are Palestinian. They have residency status in Jerusalem and receive Israeli social benefits, but do not hold Israeli citizenship.
Tuesday's bulldozing of the buildings was carried out by a court order, none of the structures razed were homes and all had been illegally built and uninhabited, the Jerusalem municipality said in a statement.
But Palestinians disputed those claims, saying three of the demolished structures were homes and one was a warehouse.
Two daybeds and bags crammed with children's clothing and kitchen utensils were strewn outside one of the buildings.
Basem Isawi, 48, an unemployed contractor, stood stony-faced amid the rubble of his unfinished home, forbidding his six children to come out of the nearby house where they currently live to see what had happened to it.
Isawi said he built the almost-finished home illegally for about $25,000 because he was convinced the municipality would deny him a permit.
He had been notified of the impending demolition but did not know when it was set to happen, he said. Read More