Apparently, this year they are making one scenario about Israeli checkpoints in Palestine. A student wrote in and complained about it. I quote her letter below in its entirety. Following the letter will be my reply, one that first outlines problems in this letter, and then explains exactly what checkpoints are, how they affect Palestinian lives, and why it is not one-sided. Here is the letter:

I am a senior at Boise State majoring in Business. I am writing this letter as a response to the proposed theme of this year’s “Tunnel of Oppression” that is put on yearly at BSU by your students. I am an Observant Jew and not only a supporter of the State of Israel but also of the proposed Palestinian State. The Palestinian people have lived in the land of Israel for a very long time and deserve a sovereign nation of their own. I have studied both sides of the Israeli/Palestinian situation and feel that I can write this letter in complete confidence of my knowledge.

A reliable source contacted me and forwarded me both the Youtube video entitled “Pregnant Palestinian Stopped at an Israeli Checkpoint!” which was apparently shown to the students in your class, and the proposed outline for the ‘Checkpoint’ scene in your tunnel. After reading the proposed idea and viewing the Youtube clip, I felt alarmed at the blatant one-sidedness and appalling misinformation that is portrayed by your project. You are portraying an Israel that only exists in western (and eastern – the blood libel has reappeared recently in Arab newspapers) media, the great “Zionist oppressor” that only the likes of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad talk about. (I have personal friends that are Israeli and have served with pride in the Israel Defense Forces and they would be the first to tell you that none of it is true. I have personal friends that have lived in and visit Israel regularly and who are equally comfortable around Israelis and Palestinians.)

You are forgetting the other side of the story. Why don’t you tell your students to imagine Idaho being hit by several thousand rockets fired by a fringe-group of extremists from Canada? Why don’t you tell them the truth, which is that the checkpoints exist only because they must? There is a reason that every mall, Synagogue, school, and Mosque requires armed guards; it’s not because Israelis like being searched at every destination, it is due to the very real, everyday threat of terrorist attacks funded and supported by Islamist fanaticism. Why don’t you tell your students to imagine being killed by a suicide bomber during Christmas dinner at a local hotel? You’re forgetting that part. You also fail to mention that the Palestinians are regularly cared for at Israeli hospitals by staffs that comprise of both Jews and Muslims that work together seamlessly on a daily basis, treating peoples of all races, religions, creeds, and political affiliations. But I don’t need to mention any more because there is no truth to the portrayal of Israel and Israelis suggested for this farce.

This presentation is not only one-sided but also blatantly anti-Semitic. The representation of American Christians as being duped by a hidden cabal of Shylock-esque Israelis is clear. The Muslims are clearly supposed to be the helpless victims in this caricature, the Christians clueless but well-meaning, and the Jews are left to be characterized as bloodthirsty thugs “aroused by the sudden chaos” into beating civilians at random. I believe any Jew would be offended by this.

I have already made Boise’s small but very close-knit Jewish community aware of this atrocity along with the Idaho Statesman and the Arbiter. If you decide to allow this presentation to continue as it is written, I will contact the Anti-Defamation League and the ACLU for blatant Anti-Semitism on a college campus. I am in the process of forming a group of Israelis, American Jews, and fellow supporters of Israel of all faiths to protest your Tunnel of Oppression and hand out fliers from standwithus.org that show in plain fact, the truth in the Holy Land.

Dear Comrades,

The first claim this student makes is that Palestinians have lived "on the land of Israel" for a "very long time." Actually, Palestinians have always lived in Palestine NOT Israel; Israel did not exist before 1948. These Palestinians have been and are Muslims, Christians, and Jews. In fact, the city of Nablus, where I now live, is home to a community of Jews called Samaritans. These Jews identify as Palestinian Jews and when the state of Israel was created, they refused to move to the other side of the Green Line (the 1949 Armistice Line also known as the pre-1967 border). The Jewish Zionists who came to Palestine, starting in the late 19th century to colonize the land were European, also known as Ashkenazi Jews. They use the language of "return" to suggest that they were originally from here. But Israeli historian Shlomo Sand makes it clear that this is a myth; these Jews who colonized Palestine and ethnically cleansed the land of 750,000 Palestinians in 1948 were Jews who converted to Judaism in Russia and Europe.

Second, the student argues that the Tunnel is only presenting one side of the story. I think what s/he really means is not that it's one-sided, but rather that it is not the side that s/he wishes to have at the forefront. The fact of the matter is: if you live in the U.S. and you breathe you get the other side of the the story on a daily basis. If you watch the presidential and vice presidential debates you not only hear the word Israel numerous times, you also hear the candidates' profession of love for Israel. In contradistinction, the word Palestine or Palestinian is never mentioned. That, my dear comrades, is one sided. The reason that some of us who do work in the U.S. trying to educate people about Palestine do not tell the so-called other side of the story is that we are working to bring to bear a side that is not represented, that is vigorously silenced. The only way one can understand the issue of sides is to think about the fact that the two sides are of colonizer and colonized. Of occupier and occupied. Imagine, for instant, that we wanted to present a narrative of slavery in the U.S. Would we (meaning those who oppose human rights violations, oppression) tell that story from the point of view of the slave owner? Or what if we wanted to tell a story about what happened in to gay people, Jehovah's Witnesses, handicapped people, and Jews in Nazi Germany--would we tell that story through the eyes of Adolf Hitler? Or if we wanted to talk about violence against Mexicans crossing the U.S. border would we use Chris Simcox of the Minute Men to tell that story? Or if we wanted to narrate a piece about the Native American genocide would we rely upon the words of those who conquered and colonized the Americas? I think you get my point.

The analogy s/he tries to draw with a made-up scenario of Canadians firing rockets into the U.S. doesn't quite work. One would have to tweak the scenario a bit. It would work as an analogy if about 60 years before the rockets started firing Americans had invaded, stolen and conquered Canada. If Americans massacred thousands of Canadians. If Americans made 750,000 Canadians refugees for 60 years. If throughout that time Americans stole Canadian homes, water, agricultural lands, murdered innocent civilians on a daily basis, built a 20 foot high concrete wall to confiscate more land and water and displace more people. If Americans set up a system of controlling Canadians through over 650 checkpoints on a daily basis. If Americans invaded Canadian homes, villages, and refugee camps every day, killing civilians and kidnapping them to warehouse 11,000 Canadians in American jails. If all of these things--and so much more--were true, then we would understand, I think, why Canadians would be firing rockets on to American soil. They would be using armed resistance and they would be legally allowed to do so under international law. (Oh, and by the way, there are no rockets being fired by Palestinians in the West Bank, where all 650 checkpoints are into Israel.) Moreover, armed resistance in Palestine has only in recent years had become Islamic. Over the course of Palestinian resistance for the last few decades it has been predominantly secular, and oftentimes Communist. The rise of Hamas after the first intifada had a lot to do with the state of Israel itself bolstering Hamas as a way to weaken the then-stronger Fatah movement. This should come as no surprise as colonial regimes have always relied upon the tactic of divide and rule. The latest phase of this meddling in Hamas-Fatah politics, including U.S. involvement, was revealed in an article in Vanity Fair last year.

A third point the student brings up is about Antisemitism. S/he compares creating a scene about Israeli checkpoints in Palestine to blood libel. First, blood libel is certainly anti-Semitic; it involves a mythology about Jews using the blood of children for their matzah during their holiday Passover. The mythology is just that. Anti-Semitism actually refers to prejudice directed at any of the three peoples who speak or spoke one of the three Semitic languages: Aramaic, Hebrew, and Arabic. But over the course of the last century--and more specifically, since World War II--Jews have worked to dislodge the original meaning of the word to only mean anti-Jewish. But even if we take this Zionist definition of the word at face value, through this student's logic being anti-Jewish is the same as being anti-Israeli or anti-Zionist. These are three distinct categories. I think the first is self explanatory. The second, being anti-Israel, means critiquing the state of Israel and its policies. It is no different than critiquing the U.S. for its policies. But because the state of Israel is a Jewish state by definition (legally speaking there is no Israeli nationality; on Israeli Jews' identity cards it reads "Jewish" and some Israelis have tried to change this in court without success) some people choose to conflate the two. Importantly, there are many Palestinians who also live inside what is now Israel, all of whom are subjected to a set of laws that resemble Jim Crow segregation in the U.S. One must be Jewish to have equal rights in the state of Israel. The third term, Zionism, is an ideology. People who believe in Zionism believe that Jews have a right to conquer and settle a land even though that land, Palestine, belongs to an indigenous population, the Palestinians. This ideology began as a secular one, though there are of course religious Zionists today, many living in illegal settlements in the West Bank. One of the primary tactics used to silence people who wish to speak about the reality here in Palestine is to call them anti-Semitic in order to get them to shut up. It is worth noting that this tactic is especially used by the Israel lobby (organizations like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee [AIPAC] as well as the Anti-Defamation League [ADL] this student refers to in her/his letter) to force politicians to submit to unconditional support of Israel. Barack Obama is a perfect example of this as before he ran for office he had strong personal and political relationships with Palestinian Americans in Illinois. In any case, those of us who are committed to justice and human rights for Palestinians and all oppressed people around the world, the issue is not bashing a state. Rather, it is asking that state to comply with international law and uphold human rights; when a state violates these codes it deserves to be critiqued and challenged at the very least. The organizations this student is working with in the threats directed at you are Zionist organizations of the worst order. The ADL and Stand With Us disguise work that they do as upholding human rights. In fact, these organizations are stealth. In Congress and on American university campuses alike they work on a number of levels to ensure that nothing negative is ever said about the state of Israel. They work to silence student activism on the subject and by equal measure they work to fire or make sure faculty are not tenured if they conduct research on Palestine or are critical of Israel. Just following the ADL's campaign against Jimmy Carter for writing Palestine, Peace Not Apartheid, which was in many ways very tame and did not go far enough to explain the horrors that Israel unleashes on Palestinians every day and you may get a sense of what I mean. These organizations try to work with people of color in the U.S. united under some kind of "we're all oppressed" banner; but the reality is that most Jews in the U.S. are white folks like me. They have white privilege and use it to their advantage. I'll give you an example. The "Tunnel of Oppression" originated at the Simon Wiesenthal Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles. I went there a few years ago thinking that it would be a museum highlighting the oppression of all peoples. I was horrified to see that in fact 90% of it was about a history of anti-Jewish persecution and the remaining 10% about African Americans and Native Americans; this is especially appalling when you measure the number of indigenous people who suffered genocide under the hands of brutal European colonialism. No other genocide in history can quite match this. For me what this is all about is a kind of Jewish supremacy (I use this term with a nod to white supremacy). What I mean by this is that such organizations like the ADL which feign interest in the suffering of other people always do so with an eye towards making sure that no one ever compares their suffering to what happened to Jews during World War II. Take a look, too, at the Washington DC Holocaust Museum. They have a genocide watch page which tracks more recent genocide around the world. But they are very clear that the world holocaust can never be used again to describe the suffering of any other people. And it is worth asking the question: why is it that we have a museum about something that happened in Europe in Washington DC? This museum was erected before the Native American museum was built and we still have no such museum about slavery or the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. But you don't have to go that far to see how this works. The Idaho Human Rights Education Center chose to build an Anne Frank memorial. Why is that exactly? The land on which Boise as a city, or the monument more specifically, is land that once belonged to tribes who were forcibly removed, ethnically cleansed, massacred, and who now live on reservations in Idaho. Why is it that we are not looking at those human rights violations? And on the adjacent memorial wall, why are there no quotes by any Arabs or Muslims?

So the checkpoints. From the letter I gather that you all chose to do a scene this year about the checkpoints here in Palestine. The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) released a report this week updating the number of checkpoints in the West Bank. As of this week there are 630 such military checkpoints. These checkpoints take various forms. One is a permanent structure that is like a land border crossing as if you are crossing an international border. Right now, as far as I know, these only exist if you are going to Jerusalem, but Jerusalem is part of Palestine (however the Annexation Wall has annexed Jerusalem in such a way that if you want to go there you must cross through one of these checkpoints. If you are on foot, you walk through a maze of steel turnstiles, each one locking you inside the next space (there are several such spaces you must walk through in order to pass). The first one checks your ID card (Palestinians have several kinds of IDs: 1) if you live in 1948 or what is now known as Israel; 2) if you live in Jerusalem; 3) if you live in the West Bank; 4) if you live in Gaza. Depending on your ID you may or may not be allowed to cross. And even if you have proper papers, you still may not be allowed to pass (sometimes even if you have legitimate papers from an embassy or from a hospital in Israel the soldiers will most often turn you away). After the double ID check you are locked into an area where it resembles an airport as you are required to walk through a metal detector and then put your bag on a metal detection machine. Only here in some of these checkpoints there are armed soldiers pointing guns at you from planks above as you do this. Then there is yet another hoop at the end where you must put your hand on a computer-generated hand print machine before you may pass. And even then, you still may not be able to pass. Everything is at the whim of the soldiers. There are not any laws here; even Israeli laws do not apply to the West Bank. The law is basically the whim of a soldier on a particular day.

A couple of examples. A few years ago I was taking a friend to the American consulate in Jerusalem because she was going to study in the U.S. We had all the proper papers and an appointment at the consulate. She was 19 years old at the time. We went to the checkpoint, but they refused to let us go through to Jerusalem from Bethlehem. Another example, from a couple of years ago: I was with a couple of girlfriends in a rented car driving from Ramallah to Bethlehem. We drove through a checkpoint, known as the Container Checkpoint, which is in a neighborhood of Jerusalem called Abu Dies. We were told we could not pass because I there was a foreigner in the car with Palestinians. On that night--it was around 9 PM--we were told that it's illegal for foreigners and Palestinians to be in the same car. Another example: a few weeks ago a student invited me home for iftar (breaking the fast during Ramadan). The checkpoint near Nablus (the city I live in) is called Huwarra. By all accounts it is the worst (meaning the soldiers are the most lethal and violent with the people and are least likely to allow you to pass in either direction) checkpoint in the West Bank. This checkpoint is outdoors like the old ones used to be when you would go to Jerusalem. You just stand in line and wait for hours, especially if you are a Palestinian man, and this waiting is entirely a form of harassment. Most of the time we stand and watch the soldiers laughing, talking on the phone, eating, hanging out, even playing cards, rather than allow us to cross. This checkpoint, by the way, is deep inside the West Bank. It is nowhere near the Green Line or the Israeli-imposed border. Crossing Huwarra means crossing from one Palestinian area to another--which is the case for at least 80% of these checkpoints. On this day the soldiers were standing on the railing above us, threatening to shoot us. One of the women in line asked me to go speak to the soldier. I did, though I lost my cool, and called him a name he didn't like. He told me that my choices were either to go to prison or home.

There is another kinds of checkpoint, too. This is called a "flying checkpoint." These are checkpoints that move from place to place every day and you never know where they will be. They are always in a different location. If you would like to have more of a context for checkpoints in general, there are reports on the Israeli human rights organization B'tselem's website.

Why do the checkpoints exist? The student who wrote to you would have it that they exist for "security" reasons. But for whose security? United Nations Security Council Resolution 242, written at the end of the 1967 war in which Israel conquered and annexed Gaza and the West Bank, it was made clear that:

Emphasizing the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war and the need to work for a just and lasting peace in which every State in the area can live in security,

UN Resolution 242 has been the main document used in all negotiations between the state of Israel and Palestinians. However, since 1967 the state of Israel has been in direct violation of this UN Resolution, as well as a host of others (most importantly UN Resolution 194, which states that Palestinian refugees have a right to return to their homes, and which UN Resolution 242 upholds later in the document). One of the ways it has violated this resolution is by building illegal settlements. These settlements, or colonies, are illegal because they violate UN Resolution 242. It is also illegal because it violates the Fourth Geneva Convention which states:

The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.

The real reason for these checkpoints, which also prevent Palestinians from driving on Jewish-only roads, is to protect their illegal settlements. These settlements help to create facts on the ground; what this means is by continuing to build them and offer tremendous savings to Israelis who wish to live there (most who live in them do so because they can purchase houses for half the price of those inside the Green Line; the other population living in these settlements are religious Zionists who believe that it is their God-given right to occupy and control all of historic Palestine by force). There are also what is known as illegal "outposts" which are basically a group of mobile home units. Israelis come into the West Bank, plop them down, and presto, you have the beginning of an illegal settlement in the making. To give you a sense of what these facts on the ground mean in terms of checkpoints and the related military infrastructure here is a description of what Jeff Halper of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions calls the "Matrix of Control":

A second set of controls derives from Israel's policy of "creating facts on the ground" - virtually all of them in violation of international law (including the Fourth Geneva Convention signed by Israel itself). These include:

* Massive expropriation of Palestinian land;

* Construction of more than 200 settlements and the transfer of 400,000 Israelis across the 1967 boundaries: about 200,000 in the West Bank, 200,000 in East Jerusalem and 6000 in Gaza (the latter occupying a fourth of the land, including most of the coastline);

* Carving the Occupied Territories into areas -- Areas "A," "B," "C," "D" in the West Bank; "H-1" and "H-2" in Hebron; Yellow, Green, Blue and White Areas in Gaza; nature reserves; closed military areas, security zones, and "open green spaces" of restricted housing over more than half of Palestinian East Jerusalem - which confine the Palestinians to some 190 islands all surrounded by Israeli settlements, roads and checkpoints;

* Carving the Occupied Territories into areas -- Areas "A," "B," "C," "D" in the West Bank; "H-1" and "H-2" in Hebron; Yellow, Green, Blue and White Areas in Gaza; nature reserves; closed military areas, security zones, and "open green spaces" of restricted housing over more than half of Palestinian East Jerusalem - which confine the Palestinians to some 190 islands all surrounded by Israeli settlements, roads and checkpoints;

* A massive system of highways and by-pass roads designed to link settlements, to create barriers between Palestinian areas and to incorporate the West Bank into Israel proper;

* Imposing severe controls on Palestinian movement;

* Construction of seven industrial parks that give new life to isolated settlements, exploit cheap Palestinian labor while denying it access to Israel, rob Palestinian cities of their economic vitality, control key locations and ensure Israel's ability to continue dumping its industrial wastes onto the West Bank;

* Maintaining control over aquifers and other vital natural resources;

* Exploiting holy places (Rachel's Tomb in Bethlehem, the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron and others in and around Jerusalem) as pretexts for maintaining a "security presence," and hence military control.

This carving up of the Palestinian landscape is done with the Jewish-only roads, the illegal settlements, and, of course, the checkpoints. You can't isolate one from the other. For instance, because it is a Jewish holiday right now we are under what is called "closure." This means everyone who lives in the West Bank is sealed up and everyone basically becomes a prisoner of their own village or city.

There is violence that targets Palestinians every day. Some of it comes from these illegal Israeli settlers that the Israeli army is here to protect. Some of it comes from the army itself. Here are some recent links about the checkpoints and also about its context.

The Israeli army forces Palestinian men to remove their cloths at a checkpoint near Jenin city

Palestinian toddler almost dies due to Israeli checkpoint

World Bank: Israeli siege is strangling Palestinian economy

Three Palestinian residents wounded by Israeli army fire at a Nablus checkpoint

UN facing increased delays at Israeli checkpoints

Settlers increase attacks on Palestinians as olive picking season begins

UN says number of West Bank checkpoints on the rise

Gaza patients continue painful wait for urgent medical treatment

Weekly Report: On Israeli Human Rights Violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territory 25 Sep. 08 Oct. 2008

Rights org: Eight years of intifada, international failure

I hope this offers you some context and I hope it gives you some tools to fight the silencing work of Zionist students on campus.

In solidarity,
Marcy

[caption id="attachment_1368" align="alignleft" width="500" caption="Israeli Checkpoints in the West Bank"][/caption] [caption id="attachment_1369" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Qalandia Checkpoint, summer 2005"][/caption] [caption id="attachment_1370" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Qalandia Checkpoint, summer 2005"][/caption] [caption id="attachment_1371" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Flying Checkpoint, Abu Dis (summer 2005)"][/caption] [caption id="attachment_1372" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Flying Checkpoint, Abu Dis (summer 2005)"][/caption] [caption id="attachment_1373" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Approaching Checkpoint sign, Jerusalem (summer 2005)"][/caption] [caption id="attachment_1374" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Jerusalem Checkpoint (summer 2005)"][/caption] [caption id="attachment_1375" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Bethlehem Checkpoint (fall 2005)"][/caption] [caption id="attachment_1376" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Flying Checkpoint, Abu Dis (fall 2005)"][/caption] [caption id="attachment_1377" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Qalandia Checkpoint (fall 2005)"][/caption] [caption id="attachment_1378" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Qalandia Checkpoint (fall 2005)"][/caption] [caption id="attachment_1379" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Hebron Checkpoint, inside the Old City (fall 2005)"][/caption] [caption id="attachment_1380" align="alignnone" width="225" caption="Hebron Checkpoint (inside the old city) (fall 2005)"][/caption] [caption id="attachment_1381" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Beit Jala Checkpoint (fall 2005)"][/caption] [caption id="attachment_1382" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Bethlehem Checkpoint (fall 2005)"][/caption] [caption id="attachment_1383" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Flying Checkpoint, Beit Sahour (fall 2005)"][/caption] [caption id="attachment_1384" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Flying Checkpiont, Beit Sahour (fall 2005)"][/caption] [caption id="attachment_1385" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="New Bethlehem Checkpoint (winter 2006)"][/caption] [caption id="attachment_1386" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="New Bethlehem Checkpoint (winter 2006)"][/caption] [caption id="attachment_1387" align="alignnone" width="225" caption="New Bethlehem Checkpoint (winter 2006)"][/caption] [caption id="attachment_1388" align="alignnone" width="225" caption="New Bethlehem Checkpoint (winter 2006)"][/caption] [caption id="attachment_1389" align="alignnone" width="225" caption="New Bethlehem Checkpoint (winter 2006)"][/caption] [caption id="attachment_1390" align="alignnone" width="225" caption="New Bethlehem Checkpoint (winter 2006)"][/caption] [caption id="attachment_1391" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="New Bethelehem Checkpoint (winter 2006)"][/caption] [caption id="attachment_1392" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="New Bethlehem Checkpoint (winter 2006)"][/caption] [caption id="attachment_1393" align="alignnone" width="225" caption="New Bethlehem Checkpoint"][/caption] [caption id="attachment_1394" align="alignnone" width="225" caption="New Bethlehem Checkpoint (winter 2006)"][/caption] [caption id="attachment_1395" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="New Bethlehem Checkpoint (winter 2006)"][/caption] [caption id="attachment_1396" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="New Qalandia Checkpoint (winter 2006)"][/caption] [caption id="attachment_1397" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="New Qalandia Checkpoint (winter 2006)"][/caption] [caption id="attachment_1398" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="New Qalandia Checkpoint (winter 2006)"][/caption] [caption id="attachment_1399" align="alignnone" width="225" caption="New Qalandia Checkpont (winter 2006)"][/caption] [caption id="attachment_1400" align="alignnone" width="225" caption="New Qalandia Checkpoint (winter 2006)"][/caption] [caption id="attachment_1401" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="New Qalandia Checkpoint (winter 2006)"][/caption] [caption id="attachment_1402" align="alignnone" width="225" caption="New Qalandia Checkpoint (winter 2006)"][/caption] [caption id="attachment_1403" align="alignnone" width="225" caption="New Qalandia Checkpoint (winter 2006)"][/caption] [caption id="attachment_1404" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="New Qalandia Checkpoint (winter 2006)"][/caption] [caption id="attachment_1405" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="New Bethlehem Checkpoint (winter 2006)"][/caption] [caption id="attachment_1406" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="New Bethlehem Checkpoint (summer 2006)"][/caption] [caption id="attachment_1407" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Handprint Detector, Bethlehem Checkpoint (fall 2007)"][/caption] [caption id="attachment_1408" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Flying Checkpoint, Jenin (fall 2007)"][/caption] [caption id="attachment_1409" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Flying Checkpoint, Jenin (fall 2007)"][/caption] [caption id="attachment_1410" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Beit Hanina Checkpoint (fall 2007)"][/caption] [caption id="attachment_1411" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Huwwara Checkpoint, Nablus (fall 2008)"][/caption] [caption id="attachment_1412" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Huwwara Checkpoint, Nablus (fall 2008)"][/caption] [caption id="attachment_1413" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="New Huwwara Checkpoint under construction, Nablus (fall 2008)"][/caption] [caption id="attachment_1414" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Huwwara Checkpoint, Nablus (fall 2008)"][/caption] [caption id="attachment_1415" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="New Huwwara Checkpoint Under Construction, Nablus (fall 2008)"][/caption] ]]> http://zionofascism.wordpress.com/?p=375 Wed, 08 Oct 2008 17:34:59 +0000 anarchore http://zionofascism.pt.wordpress.com/2008/10/08/holocaust-doctrine-and-the-hypocrisy-of-western-values/ The Holocaust is more 'holy' than God in Western Culture, says Ahmadinejad

The Holocaust Doctrine and the Hypocrisy of Western Values:Grubach

http://www.mehrnews.com/en/NewsDetail.aspx?NewsID=761339

TEHRAN, Oct. 7 (MNA) - An American Revisionist defends an Australian holocaust researcher Frederick Toben on his London case, where he was arrested at Heathrow airport last week on charge of publishing and distributing anti-Zionist material and Holocaust Issue.

A Commentary on the Case of Frederick Toben: Paul Grubach* writes to Mehr news,

Ahmadinejad’s Insightful Statement

In reference to political Zionism, certain Western governments and the Jewish Holocaust story, the President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, was claimed to have said in late 2005: "They have fabricated a legend under the name of Massacre of the Jews, and they hold it higher than God himself, religion itself and the prophets themselves. If somebody in their country questions God, nobody says anything, but if somebody denies the myth of the massacre of the Jews, the Zionist loudspeakers and the governments in the pay of Zionism will start to scream."1

This was a statement "heard around the world." It sometimes takes an 'outsider' to a culture to bring to the world's attention the hypocrisy and cant that is corrupting the culture. By making the preceding statement, President Ahmadinejad has done a service to both Western society and the world at large, for he has exposed the hypocrisy and double standard that plagues Western society; a culture that claims it supports freedom of speech and has no state enforced religions.

The Holocaust Doctrine and the Hypocrisy of Western Values

In the late 1960s, British-Jewish intellectual Hugh Schonfield published a book entitled The Passover Plot, its thesis being that Christianity is one big, extravagant lie. According to Schonfield, Jesus Christ planned his own arrest, crucifixion and resurrection. He arranged to be drugged on the cross, simulating death so that he could later be safely removed and thus bear out the Messianic prophesies. 2

Schonfield was never censored by publishers, the mass media or publicly condemned by Western governments, nor was he deported from his home in London to a prison cell for his anti-Christian writings. His book was published by respected British and United States mainstream publishers, and sympathetically reviewed and discussed in respected mainstream British and US media outlets. 3

In the early 1970s, University of Manchester (Great Britain) intellectual John Allegro published his The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross. The book’s thesis is that Christianity is one big fraud, and the concept of the Christian God is a drug-induced hallucination. The man we know as Jesus Christ was the illusory personification of a fertility cult based on the use of a psychedelic drug. Allegro’s book was published by respected mainstream publishers in the United States and Great Britain, and discussed in respected US media outlets.4 Once again, Allegro was never publicly condemned by Western governments, censored by mainstream publishers, and then deported to a prison cell for his anti-Christian writings.

In 2006, the renowned British evolutionary biologist, Richard Dawkins, had his atheistic, anti-Christian and anti-Islamic book, The God Delusion, published by the respected and mainstream publishing houses, Houghton Mifflin and Bantam Press. The message of his book is very blunt: the concept of God is one big, dangerous delusion that we must work to discard. 5

Dawkins was given time to present his atheistic viewpoints to millions of listeners in his British Broadcasting Corporation documentary. His arguments were given serious consideration in the October 22, 2006, New York Times Book Review and Britain’s September 23, 2006, Guardian Unlimited . The book is openly promoted and sold at large book dealers throughout the US and Great Britain. Western government and mass media reaction were similar. Western governments were silent, and mainstream media sources promoted it.

In an attempted demonstration to the world of its commitment to the ideal of “freedom of speech” for controversial ideas, the British government granted knighthood to Salmon Rushdie, author of The Satanic Verses. This move sparked outrage in the Muslim world because the book is widely perceived as an insult to the Islamic religion. 6

Yet, the British government’s commitment to “freedom of speech” ends where the Jewish Holocaust doctrine begins. On October 2, 2008, Australian Holocaust revisionist historian Dr. Frederick Toben was placed under arrest in London by British authorities, where he faces possible deportation to Germany and up to five years in prison for “Holocaust denial.” The warrant alleges that Dr. Toben denies or plays down the alleged mass murder of Jews by German National Socialist rulers during WWII. 7

Clearly, as the cases of Shonfield, Allegro, Dawkins, Rushdie and Toben show, one has the right to publicly attack and violate the sacred beliefs of millions of Muslims and Christians, but one has almost no right to publicly question and repudiate the Holocaust doctrine, one of the most sacred beliefs of the powerful minority of Jewish-Zionists. This sacred belief and taboo of Jewish-Zionism is enshrined in law in Britain and throughout much of the Western world. 8

We repeat the statement of President Ahmadinejad: "If someone in their country denies God, nobody says anything. But if somebody rejects the Massacre of the Jews, the Zionist loudspeakers and the governments in the pay of Zionism start to scream."

The cases of Schonfield, Allegro, Dawkins, Rushdie and Toben vindicate President Ahmadinejad. If you reject the existence of God or attack the Islamic and Christian religions, you may end up a best selling author and the British government will remain silent or may even support you. However, if you repudiate the Holocaust story, the British government will erupt in indignation. Toben repudiates the traditional view of the Holocaust, and he faces possibly five years in a German prison.

The ultimate question is: Why the double standard? Why is socially and morally acceptable in Great Britain and elsewhere in the West to attack and lampoon the Christian and Islamic religions, yet it is the ultimate “mortal sin” to repudiate the Jewish Holocaust story?

In his classic work, Ideology and Utopia, political philosopher Karl Mannheim noted that in any society a large part of the “moral” judgments reflect the interests of that society’s power elites and controlling elements.9 One of the most powerful and influential of these elements in British society is the Jewish-Zionist establishment.

In an insightful study, Janine Roberts showed the enormous influence the Israeli lobby wields over the British government.10 In the case of Dr. Toben, the Zionist/Israeli lobby is apparently trying to enforce its “moral” double standard on the British government.

What is to be done?

It is now time for Western society to own up to the fact that we are plagued with a hypocritical double standard in regard the Jewish Holocaust story. We preach to the world the ideal of “freedom of speech for unpopular ideas.” Yet, we destroy and violate this value when it comes to the phony religion of the Jewish Holocaust. All throughout the Western world people are prosecuted and persecuted for rejecting this Holocaust doctrine. The courageous Revisionist scholar Frederick Toben is the latest victim of this hypocrisy.

The behavior of the British government only serves to vindicate the truth of Dr. Toben’s Holocaust revisionism. They cannot defeat it with reason, evidence and science. They can only attempt to silence it with oppression and prison sentences.

The government of Great Britain should live up to its commitment to the ideal of “freedom of speech.” They should release Dr. Toben and engage him in peaceful, democratic debate on the Holocaust issue.

Footnotes

1. "President reiterates that Holocaust is ‘myth.’ Reuters News release, 14 December 2005.

2. Hugh J. Schonfield, The Passover Plot: New Light on the Life and Death of Jesus (Bantam, 1967). The book was also published by Bernard Geis Associates in 1966.

3. According to the blurbs on the book’s cover (Bantam edition), it was discussed in Publishers’ Weekly, Saturday Review, The Queen Magazine, Chicago Tribune, King Features Syndicate, and The Christian Herald.

4. John M. Allegro, The Sacred Cross and the Mushroom: A Study of the nature and origins of Christianity within the fertility cults of the ancient Near East (Bantam, 1971).

5. Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion (Houghton Mifflin Company, 2006).

6. See “Change in UK relations not on Iran agenda,” Press TV, 25 August 2008. Online: http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=67538&sectionid=351020101

7. “Historian Toben faces extradition,” NEWS.com.au, 2 October 20008. Online: http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,24434500-23109,00.html

8. See Mark Weber, “’Holocaust Denial’ Laws are Disgraceful,” Institute for Historical Review, 27 November 2005. Online: http://www.ihr.org/news/112705HoloDenial.html

9. Ideology and Utopia (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1936).

10. Janine Roberts, “The Influence of Israel in Westminster,” The Palestine Chronicle, 24 May 2008. Online: http://www.palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id=13821

* Paul Grubach is a Holocaust revisionist and researcher who holds an Associate Arts degree in liberal arts, and a Bachelor of Science degree in physics, with a concentration in chemistry and minor in history, from John Carroll University (Ohio).

08 October 2008

After eliminating Ahmadinejad's name and adding names such as Mohammad Bagher Kharrazi, ‎Seyyed Hassan Khomeini, Hassan Rohani, Qalibaf, Mohsen Rezaei and Hossein Kanani-‎Moghaddam to its list of presidential candidates, the organization known as "Hezbollah Iran," ‎published a new list suggesting ministers for the tenth administration, ranking Ahmadinejad as ‎the third choice to head the ministry of roads! ‎

Coinciding with Ahmad Jannati's remarks about the forthcoming presidential elections in June ‎‎2009, the Hezbollah coalition, which is headed by Mohammad Bagher Kharrazi, yesterday ‎published a list which, according to the organization's officials, includes the names of possible ‎ministers in the tenth (next) administration. ‎

According to the organization's slate, the most suitable candidate for the tenth presidential ‎election in Iran is none other than the organization's secretary general, Mohammad Bagher ‎Kharrazi and, as reported by the Fararu news website, Seyyed Hassan Khomeini and Hassan ‎Rowhani are listed as the second and third choices for presidency. In addition, Qalibaf, Mohsen ‎Rezaei and Hossein Kanani-Moghaddam (secretary general of Hezbollah Iran) are listed as the ‎first to third choices for vice presidency. ‎

Another interesting point of the slate provided by Hezbollah is the mixture of various figures in ‎the tenth administration's cabinet, such that members of the country's various political factions ‎are present on the slate. ‎

Although nine months remain until the tenth presidential election, discussions among ‎Principalists (Osoolgarayan) on who should run for presidency are heating up and, although it is ‎expected that Ahmadinejad would be a major candidate of the faction, conflicting and at times ‎negative reports and remarks have been heard in recent days regarding his participation. ‎

Noting that Ahmadinejad is not the organization's candidate, Hossein Kanani-Moghaddam ‎announced on Monday, "The Hezbollah coalition strategic council's grassroots advice to Mr. ‎Ahmadinejad is not to run in the tenth presidential election." ‎

The head of Hezbollah coalition strategic council noted scandals associated with the ninth ‎administration, particularly in the past year, as reasons for the Hezbollah coalition strategic ‎council's decision not to include Ahmadinejad on its slate, adding, "Events that took place ‎toward the end of ninth administration's tenure, particularly in economic issues, central bank, ‎interior ministry, removal of certain individuals from cabinet and entrance of new individuals, ‎and issues arising especially with respect to the Palestinian issue are among controversies that ‎caused the strategic council not to consider the country's incumbent president as a candidate in ‎the tenth presidential election." ‎

Shirey: Senator, as a retired Navy chief, my thoughts are often with those who serve our country. I know both candidates, both of you, expressed support for Israel.

If, despite your best diplomatic efforts, Iran attacks Israel, would you be willing to commit U.S. troops in support and defense of Israel? Or would you wait on approval from the U.N. Security Council?

McCain: Well, thank you, Terry (ph). And thank you for your service to the country.

I want to say, everything I ever learned about leadership I learned from a chief petty officer. And I thank you, and I thank you, my friend. Thanks for serving.

Let -- let -- let me say that we obviously would not wait for the United Nations Security Council. I think the realities are that both Russia and China would probably pose significant obstacles.

And our challenge right now is the Iranians continue on the path to acquiring nuclear weapons, and it's a great threat. It's not just a threat -- threat to the state of Israel. It's a threat to the stability of the entire Middle East.

If Iran acquires nuclear weapons, all the other countries will acquire them, too. The tensions will be ratcheted up.

What would you do if you were the Israelis and the president of a country says that they are -- they are determined to wipe you off the map, calls your country a stinking corpse?

Now, Sen. Obama without precondition wants to sit down and negotiate with them, without preconditions. That's what he stated, again, a matter of record.

I want to make sure that the Iranians are put enough -- that we put enough pressure on the Iranians by joining with our allies, imposing significant, tough sanctions to modify their behavior. And I think we can do that.

I think, joining with our allies and friends in a league of democracies, that we can effectively abridge their behavior, and hopefully they would abandon this quest that they are on for nuclear weapons.

But, at the end of the day, my friend, I have to tell you again, and you know what it's like to serve, and you know what it's like to sacrifice, but we can never allow a second Holocaust to take place.

Brokaw: Sen. Obama?

Obama: Well, Terry, first of all, we honor your service, and we're grateful for it.

We cannot allow Iran to get a nuclear weapon. It would be a game-changer in the region. Not only would it threaten Israel, our strongest ally in the region and one of our strongest allies in the world, but it would also create a possibility of nuclear weapons falling into the hands of terrorists.

And so it's unacceptable. And I will do everything that's required to prevent it.

And we will never take military options off the table. And it is important that we don't provide veto power to the United Nations or anyone else in acting in our interests.

It is important, though, for us to use all the tools at our disposal to prevent the scenario where we've got to make those kinds of choices.

And that's why I have consistently said that, if we can work more effectively with other countries diplomatically to tighten sanctions on Iran, if we can reduce our energy consumption through alternative energy, so that Iran has less money, if we can impose the kinds of sanctions that, say, for example, Iran right now imports gasoline, even though it's an oil-producer, because its oil infrastructure has broken down, if we can prevent them from importing the gasoline that they need and the refined petroleum products, that starts changing their cost-benefit analysis. That starts putting the squeeze on them.

Now, it is true, though, that I believe that we should have direct talks -- not just with our friends, but also with our enemies -- to deliver a tough, direct message to Iran that, if you don't change your behavior, then there will be dire consequences.

If you do change your behavior, then it is possible for you to re-join the community of nations.

Now, it may not work. But one of the things we've learned is, is that when we take that approach, whether it's in North Korea or in Iran, then we have a better chance at better outcomes.

When President Bush decided we're not going to talk to Iran, we're not going to talk to North Korea, you know what happened? Iran went from zero centrifuges to develop nuclear weapons to 4,000. North Korea quadrupled its nuclear capability.

We've got to try to have talks, understanding that we're not taking military options off the table.

While this wasn't the vapid race to profess love that we saw when Joe Biden and Sarah Palin debated, it was equally disturbing. It is disturbing that these would-be leaders think that it is Iran that is the threat to stability in the region. There was no instability in the region until Americans and Europeans invaded the region and unleashed their war machine on Iraq. The U.S. invaded Iraq by its hyperbolic warmongering and by spreading unfounded fears and deceptions masquerading as facts that made this possible. The same is true when they misquote Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's statement about the Zionist state's existence. Ahmadinejad has said two key things on the subject: one, that Palestinians should not have had to pay for a European problem (i.e., the Nazi holocaust) and two, that the state of Israel is a racist, colonial state that should not exist. That does not mean that he is calling for a second holocaust. Rather, it means the Zionist regime is illegal and illegitimate. As illegitimate as the French in Algeria or as the English in India. By not talking about Palestinians as indigenous people whose rights have been violated for over 120 years, since Zionist colonialism began in earnest, and by bandying about words like "second holocaust" they play right into the hands of the Israeli lobby. They are continuing in this grand tradition of using the Nazi holocaust as a weapon to push through billions of dollars in military aid to the Zionist regime. Interesting that with all these fears about the economy not one American at this town hall can make the connection between this obscene amount of aid--obscene in its amount and obscene in terms of how it murders Palestinians and Lebanese on a regular basis--granted to the state of Israel and the economic woes that face the U.S. today.

But I also find it disturbing and disingenuous that the U.S. is constantly haranguing Iran about nuclear weapons they may have in the future, when the state of Israel has them NOW:

Most estimates, many based on evidence leaked in 1986 by Israeli nuclear technician Mordechai Vanunu, put the number of Israeli nuclear weapons at between 100 and 200. But other experts have said the number is as low as 60 or as high as 400.

The United Nations or the world community must regulate nuclear proliferation--and this, of course applies to the U.S., the only nation to use them against another nation and its own citizens--in a way that maintains equality among all nations.

But back to the settler colonial Zionists who occupy Palestine illegally. I posted a review of a new book by an Israeli historian last year, which seems to be coming out in English later this year. This important book by Shlomo Sand argues that the Jews who colonized Palestine had no historical relationship to this land. Jonathan Cook has a new review of the book in today's National:

Dr Sand argues that the idea of a Jewish nation – whose need for a safe haven was originally used to justify the founding of the state of Israel – is a myth invented little more than a century ago.

An expert on European history at Tel Aviv University, Dr Sand drew on extensive historical and archaeological research to support not only this claim but several more – all equally controversial.

In addition, he argues that the Jews were never exiled from the Holy Land, that most of today’s Jews have no historical connection to the land called Israel and that the only political solution to the country’s conflict with the Palestinians is to abolish the Jewish state....

Dr Sand’s main argument is that until little more than a century ago, Jews thought of themselves as Jews only because they shared a common religion. At the turn of the 20th century, he said, Zionist Jews challenged this idea and started creating a national history by inventing the idea that Jews existed as a people separate from their religion.

Equally, the modern Zionist idea of Jews being obligated to return from exile to the Promised Land was entirely alien to Judaism, he added.

“Zionism changed the idea of Jerusalem. Before, the holy places were seen as places to long for, not to be lived in. For 2,000 years Jews stayed away from Jerusalem not because they could not return but because their religion forbade them from returning until the messiah came.”

The biggest surprise during his research came when he started looking at the archaeological evidence from the biblical era.

“I was not raised as a Zionist, but like all other Israelis I took it for granted that the Jews were a people living in Judea and that they were exiled by the Romans in 70AD.

“But once I started looking at the evidence, I discovered that the kingdoms of David and Solomon were legends. “Similarly with the exile. In fact, you can’t explain Jewishness without exile. But when I started to look for history books describing the events of this exile, I couldn’t find any. Not one.

“That was because the Romans did not exile people. In fact, Jews in Palestine were overwhelming peasants and all the evidence suggests they stayed on their lands.”

What Sand is saying is no different than Ahmadinejad. It's just coming from a different source. A source who has researched the subject extensively.

Starting tonight Jews will begin their Yom Kippur holiday. This is a holiday that asks Jews to atone for their sins. Let's examine some of them, shall we? Perhaps we can evaluate how the Jews of Israel are doing:

You shall not murder.

You shall not steal.

You shall not covet your neighbour’s house; you shall not covet your neighbour’s wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbour.

It seems to me that the foundation of the Zionist state violates these three commandments, those that I personally find the most valuable of the ten. The entire history of the state of Israel is dependent upon violating these very commandments. But it is not just history. It is present-day reality. Take, for example, what happened here in Nablus last night:

The Palestine News reported that dozens of soldiers, members of the under-cover units of the Israeli military, supported by a number of military vehicles invaded on Tuesday morning the Al Far’a refugee camp, near the northern West Bank city of Nablus, and surrounded a number of homes while firing at random, several residents were wounded; one seriously.

Or, we could go to the recent past to look at how much death and destruction the Israeli Terrorist Forces have unleashed on Palestine since the start of the Al Aqsa Intifada in September 2000:

Israeli forces have killed 5,526 Palestinians over the past eight years including 1,010 children under 18 and 340 women and girls, says a Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) International and National Relations Department report released recently.

The report was released in commemoration of the eighth anniversary of Al-Aqsa Intifada, the second uprising of Palestinians in the occupied territories. According to the report, 664 of the victims were school students and 11 were journalists.

Furthermore, 33,000 Palestinians were injured and 15,000 suffered from the inhalation of tear gas. More than 7,500 citizens were disabled including 3,600 who were “permanently handicapped.”

The report also highlighted that 247 Gazans died as they were denied travel outside the Gaza Strip for medical treatment.

With regards to demolition of houses, the PLO report recorded 8,300 demolitions including 900 houses in Jerusalem which Israeli authorities destroyed on the pretext that they were built without permits.

According to the report, over the past eight years, Israeli forces have detained more than 65,000 Palestinians, of whom 11,000 are still in Israeli jails. As a result of negligence and dire prison conditions, 76 prisoners died in custody since the beginning of the Intifada eight years ago.

As for military checkpoints and roadblocks, the PLO report stated that since the beginning of Al-Aqsa Intifada, Israeli forces erected 93 checkpoints manned by Israeli soldiers and 537 roadblocks closing different routes across the West Bank using earth and rocks as well as huge cement blocks.

The report concluded with highlighting an escalation in assaults and harassments by Israeli settlers against Palestinian citizens, especially in Hebron in the southern West bank and Nablus in the north. According to the report, 167 Palestinians were killed at the hands of settlers since the beginning of Al-Aqsa Intifada.

These checkpoints, illegal settlements, and house demolitions exist because the Zionists covet this land and steal more of it each day. This is, of course, in addition to the widespread murder and theft of people into Israeli jails each day. It seems to me that if such a holiday mattered or of Jews took their religion seriously they would repent and leave or repent and dismantle their state and make it a democratic state for all who live here without special privileges for Jews.

Of course for those of us living in Palestine this holiday also means another closure, lock down in other words. But of course, you didn't hear any of this in that debate last night, did you?

Lipsa credinţei în Dumnezeu a dus la actuala criză financiară mondială, spune preşedintele iranian
Preşedintele iranian ultraconservator Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a spus miercuri că grava criză a pieţelor financiare occidentale este provocată de absenţa credinţei în Dumnezeu, relatează AFP.

Bursa de la Sibiu a suspendat doar tranzacţiile cu derivatele pe acţiuni, în urma deciziei BVB
Bursa din Sibiu a suspendat tranzacţiile cu derivatele pe acţiuni imediat după ce aceeaşi măsură a fost luată de Bursa de Valori Bucureşti (BVB), la ora 11:08, în schimb derivatele pe cursuri valutare se pot tranzacţiona încă, a declarat pentru NewsIn Darius Cipariu, directorul adjunct al Sibex.

Speaking of that illustrious nation, there's going to be a great lecture on Iran this month at the International Spy Museum, but I'm going to miss it because of work travel. Waaah! I think I'm going to write to the Spy Museum and ask them to make it available via podcast. This particular lecture would have been especially relevant to TSG since my fictional country of Darjikistan shares a border with Iran.

Probably the biggest reason TSG won't ever get published is because I am a non-Muslim, non-Middle Easterner writing about the Middle East. Although I steer clear of anything overtly religious in my story, I nevertheless delve deep into the plight of women living in some areas of the Middle East. Everything about that part of the world fascinates me—the religion, the culture, the people. The folks unlucky enough to kind enough to read TSG will probably question my expertise on the subject. While I don't feel like I have to defend myself just yet, and since detractors will be absolutely correct when they accuse of writing about a topic I know nothing about, I must confess to having just teeny-tiny bit of cred on the subject. My fascination with the Middle East started in college and I took every elective my schedule allowed on the subject. After college, my self-education continued in the form of books, periodicals, documentaries and movies. While I don't consider myself an expert by any stretch of the imagination, I'm no ignoramous slob either.

Eh, what am I worrying about? Only two people will probably ever read TSG—me and my lovely CP. Oh, and the one agent I will submit this to. Poor guy, I don't wanna be in the same room to see his what-the-holy-fuck reaction when he opens up the file.

For today's word count, let's do page numbers instead of number of words:
TSG PAGE NUMBERS: 199
GOAL FOR TONIGHT: 210

Ahamdinejad (Fars)06 October 2008

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad here on Sunday denounced the unjust and heinous action of the International Criminal Court at The Hague in indicting the Sudanese president.

The reputation of The Hague has been damaged through such actions and it has been proved that it not only fails to serve justice and uphold the rights of nations but it has also been turned into a mechanism for bullying powers to suppress other countries, he said.

President Ahmadinejad made the remarks in a meeting with new Sudanese Ambassador to Tehran Sulayman Abdut-Tawwab Az-Zain who submitted his credentials to him on Sunday, the Islamic republic news agency reported.

Ties between Tehran and Khartoum is very deep-rooted, Ahmadinejad said and called for consolidation of relations and resisting the obstacles created by corrupt powers in the world.

Iran and Sudan shoulder grave responsibility in mutual relations, regional and international developments, he said adding that such cooperation and relations should be further broadened and accelerated mainly in the fields of economy and agriculture.

"We are now witnessing extensive political and cultural inroads at the regional and international levels, he said adding that since these corrupt powers do not want even one developed and powerful Islamic country to come into existence, they continually try to create obstacles. Expansion of cooperation and solidarity nations and their resistance would put an end to their plots."

Corrupt powers are now at the end of the road and it is essential for countries worldwide and the people to resist them to get rid of these bullying powers, he said.

The new Sudanese ambassador, for his part, briefed President Ahmadinejad about the latest developments in his country and called for expansion of relations with the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Sudan attaches importance to Iran's significant role in regional developments and supports the country's principled stands on global issues, he said.

Ahmadinejad and Abdul Tavab al-Zin (Iran Daily)

06 October 2008

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Sunday said corrupt powers are on the decline and it is crucial that countries and nations join hands and resist the last vestiges of colonialism.

The president who was receiving Sudan’s new ambassador to Tehran, Abdul Tavab Al-Zin, stressed that the two nations shoulder heavy responsibility in terms of bilateral, regional and international ties, IRNA reported.

“Two-way cooperation should expand especially in key areas of economy and agriculture,“ he noted.

Ahmadinejad recalled that the recent move of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague regarding Sudan’s President Omar Al-Bashir is ugly and unfair.

“With that move the ICC discredited itself and also the value of its legal activities. It became clear that ICC is not at the service of justice and people’s rights, but a tool manipulated by hegemonic powers to exert pressure.“ The ICC recently filed charges against Bashir for allegedly waging a campaign of genocide and rape in the war-torn region of Darfur.

Ahmadinejad characterized Tehran-Khartoum bonds as deep and ideological and underlined the need to resist corrupt global powers.

He noted that both countries have been subject to extensive political and cultural onslaught.
“Since the corrupt global powers do not want (to see) even a single advanced and powerful Islamic state to exist in the world, they are preoccupied with creating impediments. Needless to say the key to thwarting plots is to expand cooperation and forge unity in our ranks,“ he said.

Al-Zin, for his part, presented a brief report on the internal conditions in his country and highlighted domains in which Iran and Sudan could further expand collaboration. He added that the African country as a matter of policy backs Iran’s principled stance toward key international issues.

Fed chief says, 'We did it. … very sorry, won't do it again'

By David Kupelian

Del.icio.us : BREAKING NEWS, BUSINESS, Barack Obama, Ben S. Bernanke, ECONOMY, Federal Reserve, Great Depression, IRAN, John McCain, LATEST NEWS, MAHMOUD AHMADINEJAD, NEW YORK, NEWS, NORTH KOREA, POLITICS, RELIGION, TOM TANCREDO, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, U.N, U.S.
Zooomr : BREAKING NEWS, BUSINESS, Barack Obama, Ben S. Bernanke, ECONOMY, Federal Reserve, Great Depression, IRAN, John McCain, LATEST NEWS, MAHMOUD AHMADINEJAD, NEW YORK, NEWS, NORTH KOREA, POLITICS, RELIGION, TOM TANCREDO, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, U.N, U.S.
Technorati : BREAKING NEWS, BUSINESS, Barack Obama, Ben S. Bernanke, ECONOMY, Federal Reserve, Great Depression, IRAN, John McCain, LATEST NEWS, MAHMOUD AHMADINEJAD, NEW YORK, NEWS, NORTH KOREA, POLITICS, RELIGION, TOM TANCREDO, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, U.N, U.S.
Flickr : BREAKING NEWS, BUSINESS, Barack Obama, Ben S. Bernanke, ECONOMY, Federal Reserve, Great Depression, IRAN, John McCain, LATEST NEWS, MAHMOUD AHMADINEJAD, NEW YORK, NEWS, NORTH KOREA, POLITICS, RELIGION, TOM TANCREDO, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, U.N, U.S.

Robert Fisk’s World: When it comes to Palestine and Israel, the US simply doesn't get it

Biden and Palin hid like rabbits from the centre of the Middle East earthquake

Saturday, 4 October 2008

Palestinians ceased to exist in the United States on Thursday night. Both Joe Biden and Sarah Palin managed to avoid the use of that poisonous word. "Palestine" and "Palestinians" – that most cancerous, slippery, dangerous concept – simply did not exist in the vice-presidential debate. The phrase "Israeli occupation" was mercifully left unused. Neither the words "Jewish colony" nor "Jewish settlement" – not even that cowardly old get-out clause of American journalism, "Jewish neighbourhood" – got a look-in. Nope.

Those bold contenders of the US vice-presidency, so keen to prove their mettle when it comes to "defence", hid like rabbits from the epicentre of the Middle East earthquake: the existence of a Palestinian people. Sure, there was talk of a "two-state" solution, but it would have mystified anyone who didn't understand the region.

There was even a Biden jibe at George Bush for pressing on with "elections" – again, the adjective "Palestinian" went missing – that produced a Hamas victory. But Hamas appeared to exist in never-never land, a vast landscape that gradually encompassed all the vast and black deserts that stretch, in the imagination of US politicians, from the Mediterranean to Pakistan.

"Pakistan's (nuclear) missiles can already hit Israel," Biden thundered. But what was he talking about? Pakistan has not threatened Israel. It's supposed to be on our side. Both vice-presidential candidates seemed to think that our ally in the "war on terror" was now turning into an ally of the axis of evil. Even Islam didn't get a run for its money.

Indeed, one of the funniest reports of the week, yet another investigation of Obama's education, came from the Associated Press news agency. The would-be president, the Associated Press announced, had attended a Muslim school but hadn't "practised" Islam.

What on earth did this mean, I asked myself? Would AP have reported, for example, that McCain had attended a Christian school but hadn't "practised" Christianity? Then I got it. Obama had smoked Islam but he hadn't inhaled!

Travelling across the US this week – from Seattle to Houston to Washington and then to New York – I kept bumping into the results of America's White House-induced terror. A well-educated, upper-middle-class lady at a lunch turned to me and expressed her fear that Islam "wanted to take over America". When I suggested that this was pushing things a bit, she informed me that "the Muslims have already taken over France".

How does one reply to this? It's a bit like being informed by a perfectly sane and rational person that Martians have just landed in Tennessee. So I used the old Fisk trick when confronted by ravers of the "admit George Bush did 9/11" school. I looked at my watch, adopted a shocked expression and shouted: "Gotta go!"

But seriously. There was Biden on Thursday night, telling us that along Pakistan's border with Afghanistan – he was referring, of course, to the old frontier drawn by Sir Mortimer Durrand which most Pushtuns (and thus all Taliban) regard as fictional – "there have been 7,000 madrassas built ... and that's where bin Laden lives and we will go at him if we have actually (sic) intelligence".

Seven thousand? Where on earth does this figure come from? Yes, there are thousands of religious schools in Pakistan – but they're not all on the border. In another extraordinary bit of myth-making, Obama's man told us that "we kicked the Hizbollah out of Lebanon" – which is totally untrue.

And, of course, Israel – a word that must be uttered, repeatedly, by all US candidates – became the compass point of the entire Middle East, this "peace-seeking nation ... our strongest and best ally in the Middle East" (quoth Palin) of whom "no one in the United States Senate has been a better friend...than Joe Biden" (quoth Biden).

Israel was "in jeopardy" if America talked to Iran, Palin revealed. "We have got to assure them that we will never allow a second Holocaust." Thus was the corpse of Hitler dug up yet again – just as McCain resurrected the shadow of the Second World War last week when he blathered on about Eisenhower's sense of responsibility before D-Day. That Israel can quite adequately defend herself with 264 nuclear warheads went, of course, unmentioned, because acknowledging Israel's real power undermines the image of a small and vulnerable country relying on America for its defence.

Israelis deserve security. But where were the promises of security for Palestinians? Or the sympathy which Americans would immediately grant any other occupied people? Absent, needless to say. For we must gird ourselves for the next struggle against world evil in Pakistan.

Biden actually demanded a "stable" government in Islamabad, which was a little bit hypocritical only a few days after US troops had crossed its sovereign border to shoot up a Pakistani house allegedly used by the Taliban. As General David Petraeus told The New York Times this week, "The trends in Afghanistan have been in the wrong direction ... wresting control of certain areas from the Taliban will be very difficult."

It's an odd situation. Obama and Biden want to close down Iraq and re-conquer Afghanistan. The Palin College of Clichés characterised this as "a white flag of surrender in Iraq" while continuing to warn of the dangers of Iran, the name of whose loony president – Ahmadinejad – defeated McCain three times in last week's pseudo-debate.

But it's the same old story. All we have learned in America these past two weeks, to quote Joan Littlewood's Oh! What a Lovely War, is that the war goes on.

To solve global problems we need global solutions, and we must work together even when there are differences in our political systems. - Jose Manuel Barroso, European Commission President speaking to the Chinese Communist Party Central School in Beijing on November 27, 2007

As the climb towards a world government continues, several things need to be done first, and one of them is centralization of all regulatory bodies, governments, and anything that affects our daily lives to even the smallest degree, the signs of which are too great to be ignored when reading on world events is done. 2008 seems to be the start of a turning point of this race for control, and those running things behind the scenes aren't pacing themselves to conserve energy anymore. So, I will concentrate here on what appears to me at the moment to be the three main things that that are in the beginning stages of or will soon be quickly centralized right now around the planet.

The Banks

So here it is. Everything I said three weeks ago before the crap really really started to hit the fan that about the banking and housing situation proved to be correct, unfortunately. I'll do a recap of the overall steps that have led the financial world to this point.

Banks and investment houses were lending out loans to people who clearly didn't have the income to pay. They could legally treat the cash flow from the loan itself as an asset and it seems the risk to them was so great since they were issuing so many of them, they combined them into packages called asset backed securities and collaterilized debt obligations, and then sold those to investors, who then traded them on the open market for profit.

This is basically what was being done all over the world, as is now public. The New York Times lends a hand here.

According to JPMorgan, there are about $1.5 trillion in global collateralized debt obligations, and about $500 billion to $600 billion in structured-finance C.D.O.’s, referring to those made up of bonds backed by subprime mortgages, slightly safer mortgages and commercial mortgage backed securities.

Many of the products have proved to be highly problematic as the underlying assets — the subprime mortgages — have gone bust, revealing dangerous amounts of leverage in the securities that few people could value. As a result, they have become like a potent computer virus, leaving many people fearful that they too will be affected.

“A lot of risk in the subprime asset-backed market is embedded in, and amplified by, C.D.O.’s,” said Rod Dubitsky, head of asset-backed research at Credit Suisse.

Weaknesses in the system were laid bare, including ratings that did not accurately reflect risk and faulty assumptions on how diversified pools with multiple layers of leverage would react.

They were laid bare by the Bear Stearns catastrophe. Out of Fortune Magazine:

Still, momentum was turning against the firm. That morning Goldman Sachs's credit derivatives group sent its hedge fund clients an e-mail announcing anot