Jordan Complains of Iraqi Refugees: Jul 26, 8:57 AM (ET) | By DALE GAVLAK
AMMAN, Jordan (AP) - Jordan pleaded for international help Thursday to deal with hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who have fled here to avoid the violence at home, saying they cost the kingdom $1 billion a year in basic services.
The influx of 750,000 Iraqi refugees into Jordan has strained infrastructure and brought the threat of violence to the country, Jordanian Interior Ministry Secretary-General Mukheimar Abu-Jamous said on the opening day of a conference on the issue.
"The prevailing security situation in Iraq, which prompted an influx of refugees to Jordan, has led to increased security challenges in our country," he said. "Our security bill has peaked."
He did not specify the security problems, but Jordan has shown concern over a possible spread of Iraq's sectarian violence onto its soil as well as potential criminal problems from Iraqis who have few steady job prospects in exile.
The one-day conference is looking into ways to ease the burden of countries hosting the more than 2.5 million Iraqis who have fled their home. Among the participants were representatives from Iraq, Syria, Egypt, the Arab League and U.N. relief organizations.
The U.S., Turkey, Iran, Russia and Japan were also attending as observers.
Besides the influx into Jordan, some 1.5 million Iraqis have fled to Syria, while Egypt and Lebanon have more than 200,000 each. Under pressure to take in refugees, the United States has said it will accept some 7,000 Iraqis by the end of September.
According to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, about 50,000 people continue to flee Iraq every month, mostly to neighboring Jordan and Syria. The two countries have repeatedly warned that the influx was exhausting their limited resources, burdening their health care and education systems and causing a sharp rise in inflation and real estate.
Another 2 million Iraqis are believed to be displaced within Iraq, many taking refuge in the Kurdish north, which has largely been spared violence, or in the Shiite heartland in the south. ...
Thursday, July 26, 2007
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
[British tourists to US] fallen a quarter since 2000 ... rude and borderline racist attitudes ... Treated like common criminals: fingerprinted, ...
Coming to America? | By Guardian Unlimited Travel / News 03:11pm
With a weak dollar, America is like a half-price sale. So, how come you're all staying away, asks Joshua Stein
Whether due to stringent security measures long lines or general distaste for our elected officials, British tourists are staying away from American soil just as that moment they should be most ready to pounce on it.
The number of Britons travelling to the US has fallen a quarter since 2000 just as the pound is proclaiming its dominance of the dollar. In fact, with current exchange rates (£1 to $2.06), America is a virtual half-price sale. "Everything must go!" reads the sign under the Statue of Liberty.
...
If you put any money into the US economy, their government will just waste a fair proportion of it on bombs and bullets, in the name of US imperialism.
So, as soon as the neo-cons are gone, I will buy some US products. But until then, they can go to hell.
Sometimes, you just have to be cruel, to be kind!
...
American is a beautiful country with some lovely people. However, visitors are made to feel very much less than welcome at immigration. Treated like common criminals: fingerprinted, photographed and regarded as lesser mortals by uncommonly unpleasant immigration officials. Little wonder that some people choose not to undergo this humiliating treatment too often. Why is it that most other countries can make you feel so welcome on entry but not our closest ally?
...
I don't think it's possible to underestimate the impact that the various security measures which the USA have introduced in the past few years have had on people's willingness to travel there.
The combination of long queues, rude and borderline racist attitudes of US immigration staff, the requirement to submit masses of personal data, the intransigence of still having to travel to the US embassy in person to get a visa, and all that just to be photographed and fingerprinted like a common criminal on arrival at the other end - who the hell wants to go through that? I suggest the figures are proving it.
...
Every set of actions has a consequence. Could it be that the vitreol in this line of Blogs is a direct consequence of US foreign and immigration policy? Being a good neighbour evokes warmth. Being a bully evokes tirades of abuse that, although not all that sharp (screechy voices for example), is indicative of a new general feeling. US citizens need to realise that their country has become reviled as a consequence of recent actions. Change your ways and we might just like you again. ...
With a weak dollar, America is like a half-price sale. So, how come you're all staying away, asks Joshua Stein
Whether due to stringent security measures long lines or general distaste for our elected officials, British tourists are staying away from American soil just as that moment they should be most ready to pounce on it.
The number of Britons travelling to the US has fallen a quarter since 2000 just as the pound is proclaiming its dominance of the dollar. In fact, with current exchange rates (£1 to $2.06), America is a virtual half-price sale. "Everything must go!" reads the sign under the Statue of Liberty.
...
If you put any money into the US economy, their government will just waste a fair proportion of it on bombs and bullets, in the name of US imperialism.
So, as soon as the neo-cons are gone, I will buy some US products. But until then, they can go to hell.
Sometimes, you just have to be cruel, to be kind!
...
American is a beautiful country with some lovely people. However, visitors are made to feel very much less than welcome at immigration. Treated like common criminals: fingerprinted, photographed and regarded as lesser mortals by uncommonly unpleasant immigration officials. Little wonder that some people choose not to undergo this humiliating treatment too often. Why is it that most other countries can make you feel so welcome on entry but not our closest ally?
...
I don't think it's possible to underestimate the impact that the various security measures which the USA have introduced in the past few years have had on people's willingness to travel there.
The combination of long queues, rude and borderline racist attitudes of US immigration staff, the requirement to submit masses of personal data, the intransigence of still having to travel to the US embassy in person to get a visa, and all that just to be photographed and fingerprinted like a common criminal on arrival at the other end - who the hell wants to go through that? I suggest the figures are proving it.
...
Every set of actions has a consequence. Could it be that the vitreol in this line of Blogs is a direct consequence of US foreign and immigration policy? Being a good neighbour evokes warmth. Being a bully evokes tirades of abuse that, although not all that sharp (screechy voices for example), is indicative of a new general feeling. US citizens need to realise that their country has become reviled as a consequence of recent actions. Change your ways and we might just like you again. ...
Thursday, July 19, 2007
now in light of the rebellion in Gaza, Israel intends to use that money to blackmail The West Bank, and starve survivors in Gaza ...
The Mask of Imperial Power is DyingBy Jim Kirwan
06/20/07 "ICH" -- -- The charade is over in Palestine. The farce that tried to pass itself off as a pathway to peace has clearly ended. The ‘West’ led by Israel and the US has finally begun to show the world the duplicity of their joint criminality as that has most recently been underscored in “Gaza vs. The West Bank.”
After Israel illegally seized the Palestinian taxes raised, from the starving and beleaguered Palestinians, to deny those people the means to achieve a functioning state: now in light of the rebellion in Gaza, Israel intends to use that money to blackmail The West Bank, and starve survivors in Gaza. This surpasses what the Nazis did to those they occupied by a factor of at least ten-fold: Given that the Nazi reign lasted only twelve years – while Israel and the US have controlled the people of Palestine for over fifty years.
Israel’s claims that Hamas wants to destroy the State of Israel are true: yet it is equally true that Israel wants to exterminate the Palestinian people. Unfortunately Americans seldom hear both sides of these charges: only Israel’s claims are routinely reported, each and every time the name of Hamas is mentioned.
Neither is it mentioned here, that Israel had its military severely beaten in Lebanon, which was not supposed to happen. Israel was behind the bombing that killed the very popular pro-Lebanese leader that was then blamed on Syria—in order to pave the way for an Israeli invasion of Lebanon. This is the same murder that the UN has now been coerced into holding an international trial for. The bomb signature was the same as the bomb used on the 241 US Marines, in Beirut, during Ronnie’s reign, and the only nation capable of making such bombs was and is Israel. ...
06/20/07 "ICH" -- -- The charade is over in Palestine. The farce that tried to pass itself off as a pathway to peace has clearly ended. The ‘West’ led by Israel and the US has finally begun to show the world the duplicity of their joint criminality as that has most recently been underscored in “Gaza vs. The West Bank.”
After Israel illegally seized the Palestinian taxes raised, from the starving and beleaguered Palestinians, to deny those people the means to achieve a functioning state: now in light of the rebellion in Gaza, Israel intends to use that money to blackmail The West Bank, and starve survivors in Gaza. This surpasses what the Nazis did to those they occupied by a factor of at least ten-fold: Given that the Nazi reign lasted only twelve years – while Israel and the US have controlled the people of Palestine for over fifty years.
Israel’s claims that Hamas wants to destroy the State of Israel are true: yet it is equally true that Israel wants to exterminate the Palestinian people. Unfortunately Americans seldom hear both sides of these charges: only Israel’s claims are routinely reported, each and every time the name of Hamas is mentioned.
Neither is it mentioned here, that Israel had its military severely beaten in Lebanon, which was not supposed to happen. Israel was behind the bombing that killed the very popular pro-Lebanese leader that was then blamed on Syria—in order to pave the way for an Israeli invasion of Lebanon. This is the same murder that the UN has now been coerced into holding an international trial for. The bomb signature was the same as the bomb used on the 241 US Marines, in Beirut, during Ronnie’s reign, and the only nation capable of making such bombs was and is Israel. ...
Americans are increasingly isolated and reviled in the world ... blissfully ignorant of culpability ... U.S. mismanaged and drained by the Iraq war
Monday, July 2, 2007 by TruthDig.com | A Declaration of Independence from Israel | by Chris Hedges
Israel, without the United States, would probably not exist. The country came perilously close to extinction during the October 1973 war when Egypt, trained and backed by the Soviet Union, crossed the Suez and the Syrians poured in over the Golan Heights. Huge American military transport planes came to the rescue. They began landing every half-hour to refit the battered Israeli army, which had lost most of its heavy armor. By the time the war was over, the United States had given Israel $2.2 billion in emergency military aid.
The intervention, which enraged the Arab world, triggered the OPEC oil embargo that for a time wreaked havoc on Western economies. This was perhaps the most dramatic example of the sustained life-support system the United States has provided to the Jewish state.
...
U.S. foreign policy, especially under the current Bush administration, has become little more than an extension of Israeli foreign policy. The United States since 1982 has vetoed 32 Security Council resolutions critical of Israel, more than the total number of vetoes cast by all the other Security Council members. It refuses to enforce the Security Council resolutions it claims to support. These resolutions call on Israel to withdraw from the occupied territories.
...
Americans are increasingly isolated and reviled in the world. They remain blissfully ignorant of their own culpability for this isolation. U.S. “spin” paints the rest of the world as unreasonable, but Israel, Americans are assured, will always be on our side.
Israel is reaping economic as well as political rewards from its lock-down apartheid state. In the “gated community” market it has begun to sell systems and techniques that allow the nation to cope with terrorism. Israel, in 2006, exported $3.4 billion in defense products—well over a billion dollars more than it received in American military aid. Israel has grown into the fourth largest arms dealer in the world. Most of this growth has come in the so-called homeland security sector.
“The key products and services,” as Naomi Klein wrote in The Nation, “are hi-tech fences, unmanned drones, biometric IDs, video and audio surveillance gear, air passenger profiling and prisoner interrogation systems—precisely the tools and technologies Israel has used to lock in the occupied territories. And that is why the chaos in Gaza and the rest of the region doesn’t threaten the bottom line in Tel Aviv, and may actually boost it. Israel has learned to turn endless war into a brand asset, pitching its uprooting, occupation and containment of the Palestinian people as a half-century head start in the ‘global war on terror.’ ”
...
... There is no longer any debate within the United States. This is evidenced by the obsequious nods to Israel by all the current presidential candidates with the exception of Dennis Kucinich. The political cost for those who challenge Israel is too high.
This means there will be no peaceful resolution of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. It means the incidents of Islamic terrorism against the U.S. and Israel will grow. It means that American power and prestige are on a steep, irreversible decline. And I fear it also means the ultimate end of the Jewish experiment in the Middle East.
The weakening of the United States, economically and militarily, is giving rise to new centers of power. The U.S. economy, mismanaged and drained by the Iraq war, is increasingly dependent on Chinese trade imports and on Chinese holdings of U.S. Treasury securities. China holds dollar reserves worth $825 billion. If Beijing decides to abandon the U.S. bond market, even in part, it would cause a free fall by the dollar. It would lead to the collapse of the $7-trillion U.S. real estate market. There would be a wave of U.S. bank failures and huge unemployment. ....
...
The future is ominous. Not only do Israel’s foreign policy objectives not coincide with American interests, they actively hurt them. ...
Israel, without the United States, would probably not exist. The country came perilously close to extinction during the October 1973 war when Egypt, trained and backed by the Soviet Union, crossed the Suez and the Syrians poured in over the Golan Heights. Huge American military transport planes came to the rescue. They began landing every half-hour to refit the battered Israeli army, which had lost most of its heavy armor. By the time the war was over, the United States had given Israel $2.2 billion in emergency military aid.
The intervention, which enraged the Arab world, triggered the OPEC oil embargo that for a time wreaked havoc on Western economies. This was perhaps the most dramatic example of the sustained life-support system the United States has provided to the Jewish state.
...
U.S. foreign policy, especially under the current Bush administration, has become little more than an extension of Israeli foreign policy. The United States since 1982 has vetoed 32 Security Council resolutions critical of Israel, more than the total number of vetoes cast by all the other Security Council members. It refuses to enforce the Security Council resolutions it claims to support. These resolutions call on Israel to withdraw from the occupied territories.
...
Americans are increasingly isolated and reviled in the world. They remain blissfully ignorant of their own culpability for this isolation. U.S. “spin” paints the rest of the world as unreasonable, but Israel, Americans are assured, will always be on our side.
Israel is reaping economic as well as political rewards from its lock-down apartheid state. In the “gated community” market it has begun to sell systems and techniques that allow the nation to cope with terrorism. Israel, in 2006, exported $3.4 billion in defense products—well over a billion dollars more than it received in American military aid. Israel has grown into the fourth largest arms dealer in the world. Most of this growth has come in the so-called homeland security sector.
“The key products and services,” as Naomi Klein wrote in The Nation, “are hi-tech fences, unmanned drones, biometric IDs, video and audio surveillance gear, air passenger profiling and prisoner interrogation systems—precisely the tools and technologies Israel has used to lock in the occupied territories. And that is why the chaos in Gaza and the rest of the region doesn’t threaten the bottom line in Tel Aviv, and may actually boost it. Israel has learned to turn endless war into a brand asset, pitching its uprooting, occupation and containment of the Palestinian people as a half-century head start in the ‘global war on terror.’ ”
...
... There is no longer any debate within the United States. This is evidenced by the obsequious nods to Israel by all the current presidential candidates with the exception of Dennis Kucinich. The political cost for those who challenge Israel is too high.
This means there will be no peaceful resolution of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. It means the incidents of Islamic terrorism against the U.S. and Israel will grow. It means that American power and prestige are on a steep, irreversible decline. And I fear it also means the ultimate end of the Jewish experiment in the Middle East.
The weakening of the United States, economically and militarily, is giving rise to new centers of power. The U.S. economy, mismanaged and drained by the Iraq war, is increasingly dependent on Chinese trade imports and on Chinese holdings of U.S. Treasury securities. China holds dollar reserves worth $825 billion. If Beijing decides to abandon the U.S. bond market, even in part, it would cause a free fall by the dollar. It would lead to the collapse of the $7-trillion U.S. real estate market. There would be a wave of U.S. bank failures and huge unemployment. ....
...
The future is ominous. Not only do Israel’s foreign policy objectives not coincide with American interests, they actively hurt them. ...
Has God sent a reminder to ... [Bush] I feel God's words coming to me, 'Go get the Palestinians their state and get the Israelis their security,
Bush's new faith-based strategy | July 18, 2007 5:00 PM | Printable version
President Bush says he wants a new mideast peace conference, but he needs to tell Israel to return to its legal boundaries in exchange for a military guarantee.
Has God sent a reminder to the amnesiac president of the United States? How else to account for George Bush's sudden and belated announcement of an international peace conference on the Middle East? It was back in 2003 that the US President reported an even earlier divine directive as told to the Palestinian leaders Abu Mazen and Nabil Shaath:
I'm driven with a mission from God. God would tell me, 'George, go and fight those terrorists in Afghanistan.' And I did, and then God would tell me, 'George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq ...'. And I did. And now, again, I feel God's words coming to me, 'Go get the Palestinians their state and get the Israelis their security, and get peace in the Middle East'. And by God I'm gonna do it.
Presumably Jehovah, operating on an eternal time scale, thought that half a decade or so of indolence on the Israel/Palestine file would not make a difference.
So when Bush announced the conference I did not know whether to be relieved that it was taking his customarily single-track mind off any divine directives to bomb Iran, or to be horrified that someone of such demonstrable ignorance and prejudice about the region was about to embark on such a perilous venture.
The fatal flaw is the usual one: complete, one-sided support for Israel. While boasting of the $190m of US aid for the Abbas regime in return for ousting Hamas, the elected victors of the free and democratic elections that Bush boasts of in his speech, there is no hint of any conditionality on the billions of dollars of aid and assistance going to Israel, not to mention the implicit guarantee of unconditional American military and diplomatic assistance. ...
President Bush says he wants a new mideast peace conference, but he needs to tell Israel to return to its legal boundaries in exchange for a military guarantee.
Has God sent a reminder to the amnesiac president of the United States? How else to account for George Bush's sudden and belated announcement of an international peace conference on the Middle East? It was back in 2003 that the US President reported an even earlier divine directive as told to the Palestinian leaders Abu Mazen and Nabil Shaath:
I'm driven with a mission from God. God would tell me, 'George, go and fight those terrorists in Afghanistan.' And I did, and then God would tell me, 'George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq ...'. And I did. And now, again, I feel God's words coming to me, 'Go get the Palestinians their state and get the Israelis their security, and get peace in the Middle East'. And by God I'm gonna do it.
Presumably Jehovah, operating on an eternal time scale, thought that half a decade or so of indolence on the Israel/Palestine file would not make a difference.
So when Bush announced the conference I did not know whether to be relieved that it was taking his customarily single-track mind off any divine directives to bomb Iran, or to be horrified that someone of such demonstrable ignorance and prejudice about the region was about to embark on such a perilous venture.
The fatal flaw is the usual one: complete, one-sided support for Israel. While boasting of the $190m of US aid for the Abbas regime in return for ousting Hamas, the elected victors of the free and democratic elections that Bush boasts of in his speech, there is no hint of any conditionality on the billions of dollars of aid and assistance going to Israel, not to mention the implicit guarantee of unconditional American military and diplomatic assistance. ...
John McCain told Christian evangelical supporters of Israel ... stabilizing Iraq could help ensure the safety of Israel and the Middle East
McCain supports war in speech to evangelical supporters | 10:04 AM MST on Wednesday, July 18, 2007
WASHINGTON (AP) -- John McCain told Christian evangelical supporters of Israel that withdrawing troops from Iraq now would be "one of the most catastrophic and consequential disasters for this nation."
The Republican presidential contender addressed Christians United for Israel as the Senate began debate on a measure that would require the U.S. to bring troops home this fall.
McCain said backing the Democratic-sponsored measure and withdrawing would be to "declare defeat and allow al-Qaida to obtain victory." Staying and stabilizing Iraq could help ensure the safety of Israel and the Middle East, he said, winning loud applause. ...
WASHINGTON (AP) -- John McCain told Christian evangelical supporters of Israel that withdrawing troops from Iraq now would be "one of the most catastrophic and consequential disasters for this nation."
The Republican presidential contender addressed Christians United for Israel as the Senate began debate on a measure that would require the U.S. to bring troops home this fall.
McCain said backing the Democratic-sponsored measure and withdrawing would be to "declare defeat and allow al-Qaida to obtain victory." Staying and stabilizing Iraq could help ensure the safety of Israel and the Middle East, he said, winning loud applause. ...
Monday, July 16, 2007
From 50 percent (Britain and South Africa) to 93 percent (PT) in 43 of 47 countries said the U.S. should withdraw ...
POLITICS: U.S. Image Abroad Still Sinking | By Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON, Jun 27 (IPS) - Consistent with its performance since at least 2002, the global image of the United States sank further over the past year, particularly among predominantly Muslim countries in the Middle East and Asia, according to the latest Pew Global Attitudes Project (GAP) survey released here Wednesday.
The survey, which included more than 45,000 respondents interviewed in 46 countries and the Palestinian Territories (PT) during April and early May, found that the U.S. retains great popularity (roughly two-thirds or more rate it favourably) only in Israel and most of sub-Saharan Africa.
But its standing among its western European allies, most of Central and Eastern Europe, Latin America, as well as the Islamic world and most Asia, including China, has continued to fall, particularly compared to five years ago on the eve of its invasion of Iraq, according to the survey.
At the same time, the latest survey, the sixth undertaken by Pew since 2000, found that global attitudes towards other major powers, particularly Russia, and, to a somewhat lesser extent, China, have also become more negative. ...
...
From 50 percent (Britain and South Africa) to 93 percent (PT) in 43 of 47 countries said the U.S. should withdraw its troops from Iraq, while majorities in 32 countries, including of 80 percent or more in Argentina, Egypt, PT, Bangladesh, Indonesia, and China, said NATO should leave Afghanistan. ...
WASHINGTON, Jun 27 (IPS) - Consistent with its performance since at least 2002, the global image of the United States sank further over the past year, particularly among predominantly Muslim countries in the Middle East and Asia, according to the latest Pew Global Attitudes Project (GAP) survey released here Wednesday.
The survey, which included more than 45,000 respondents interviewed in 46 countries and the Palestinian Territories (PT) during April and early May, found that the U.S. retains great popularity (roughly two-thirds or more rate it favourably) only in Israel and most of sub-Saharan Africa.
But its standing among its western European allies, most of Central and Eastern Europe, Latin America, as well as the Islamic world and most Asia, including China, has continued to fall, particularly compared to five years ago on the eve of its invasion of Iraq, according to the survey.
At the same time, the latest survey, the sixth undertaken by Pew since 2000, found that global attitudes towards other major powers, particularly Russia, and, to a somewhat lesser extent, China, have also become more negative. ...
...
From 50 percent (Britain and South Africa) to 93 percent (PT) in 43 of 47 countries said the U.S. should withdraw its troops from Iraq, while majorities in 32 countries, including of 80 percent or more in Argentina, Egypt, PT, Bangladesh, Indonesia, and China, said NATO should leave Afghanistan. ...
Global poll shows wide distrust of United States
Global poll shows wide distrust of United States | By Meg Bortin | Published: June 27, 2007 | PARIS:
Distrust of the United States has intensified across the world, but overall views of America remain very or somewhat favorable among majorities in 25 of 47 countries surveyed in a major international opinion poll, the Pew Research Center reported Wednesday.
"Anti-Americanism since 2002 has deepened, but it hasn't really widened," said Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Global Attitudes Project. "It has worsened among America's European allies and is very, very bad in the Muslim world. But there is still a favorable view of the United States in many African countries, as well as in 'New Europe' and the Far East."
Nonetheless, majorities in many countries reject the main planks of current U.S. foreign policy and express distaste for American-style democracy, the survey found.
...
Over the last five years, favorable ratings of the United States have decreased "in 26 of the 33 countries for which trends are available," Pew said. ...
Distrust of the United States has intensified across the world, but overall views of America remain very or somewhat favorable among majorities in 25 of 47 countries surveyed in a major international opinion poll, the Pew Research Center reported Wednesday.
"Anti-Americanism since 2002 has deepened, but it hasn't really widened," said Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Global Attitudes Project. "It has worsened among America's European allies and is very, very bad in the Muslim world. But there is still a favorable view of the United States in many African countries, as well as in 'New Europe' and the Far East."
Nonetheless, majorities in many countries reject the main planks of current U.S. foreign policy and express distaste for American-style democracy, the survey found.
...
Over the last five years, favorable ratings of the United States have decreased "in 26 of the 33 countries for which trends are available," Pew said. ...
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Unless something is done soon, the 'wreck' of Palestine will lead to continually growing radicalisation throughout the Arab world ...
2007-07-05, Last Updated 2007-07-05 08:29:07 Palestine Wrecked
Unless something is done soon, the 'wreck' of Palestine will lead to continually growing radicalisation throughout the Arab world, a disaster for Israel and all the Middle East, says Alain Gresh.
The United States and Europe have unblocked aid to the Palestinian Authority after the eviction of Hamas. But since the Oslo peace process ground to a halt, the key question remains: Is Israel prepared to withdraw from the territory it occupied in 1967 and allow the creation of an independent Palestinian state? There seems little ground for optimism.
The international community has decided in a rare display of unity that it must save President Mahmoud Abbas. It has offered to resume aid to the Palestinian Authority (PA), relieve the suffering of civilians, and reopen talks to strengthen the position of moderate Palestinians. Even the Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, suddenly thinks Abbas might be a partner for peace.
After ignoring years of reports on the bad situation in Gaza and the West Bank from organisations as diverse as the World Bank, Amnesty International and the World Health Organisation, have the United States and the European Union finally awaken?
It has taken an overwhelming victory by Hamas in Gaza to end the torpor.
The United States and Israel had not stinted their provision of military assistance to Fatah, authorising the import of weapons for the presidential guard and security forces. But to no avail. The flight of most of Fatah’s military leaders -- Muhammad Dahlan, Rashid Abu Shabak and Samir Masharawi -- who took refuge in the West Bank or Egypt rather than stand by their troops, is only one factor in the shattering defeat. Another is Fatah’s inability to reform itself, give up its status as the party of state in a non-existent state, and become a conventional political force. Nepotism, corruption and clan loyalties still blight the organisation founded by Yasser Arafat. ...
It was likely to be controversial for Bush to set out Israel as a model for a Muslim Middle Eastern nation.
June 29, 2007 Bush touts Israel as yardstick for Iraq By Jennifer Loven Associated Press
NEWPORT, R.I. -- President Bush held up Israel as a model for defining success in Iraq on Thursday, saying the U.S. goal there is not to eliminate attacks but to enable a democracy that can function despite violence.
...
It was likely to be controversial for Bush to set out Israel as a model for a Muslim Middle Eastern nation. Israel has been locked for decades in a dispute with Palestinians in the neighboring occupied territories. ...
...................................................................................
Israel - The 'Functioning Democracy'By Mary Sparrowdancer©.2007 All Rights Reserved7-2-7
For those of us who have been wondering what, exactly, "Israel" is, and why the US has been funneling billions of our tax dollars into Israel in support of this increasingly belligerent, unaccountable, terrorist state, president Bush recently clarified matters in a speech given at the Naval War College, in Newport, R.I.. There, he held Israel up as a shining example of a "functioning democracy" that other countries in the Middle East should emulate.
It is not clear what Bush's definition of a "democracy" is, but if it describes a sort of racially biased, elitist state in which only certain, select, members of the state have all rights, and the rest of the inhabitants are considered subhuman with no rights whatsoever, then the word, "democracy," is currently undergoing a change in meaning. The above is a fairly good description of Nazi, Germany, and strangely enough, it now also describes Israel. It appears that the "democracy" word these days is popularly used to suggest any cause that one wants to portray as "noble" and "just" rather than actually describing the carnage that is reality. The word, "democracy" is now a sales tool. Anyone with a progressive agenda will want to use this word these days, but unfortunately, the word now more correctly describes Communism, which is a word that is no longer popular.
In Palestine, the Palestinians are not recognized as citizens by Israel and they have no individual rights at all. They have no right even to their own personal property, and the loss of such rights is the telling marker of a communist takeover. Israel has been taking Palestinian rights and lands since 1948, when Zionists announced its new state within Palestine. In order to better understand the horrifying situation that the Palestinians have been enduring for over sixty years, one must first understand the meanings of various other sales tool words such as "settlements," and "occupation." Like "democracy," they mean something other than what they imply.
Picture, if you will, a map of Israel. For those of us who are unsure of what the "State of Israel" actually looks like, find instead a 1948 map of Palestine. Then, back up twenty paces and fire a shotgun loaded with buckshot at the map. The result will be a big hole in the heart of Palestine, surrounded by hundreds of tiny, scattered buckshot holes throughout the rest of the map. All of these large and small holes punched throughout the map of Palestine make up the map of the "State of Israel." The hundreds of small holes scattered throughout the map are Israeli "settlements." In order for Israeli "settlements" to be built, the Palestinians are first violently driven off their ancestral lands by the Israeli army. Then, the Palestinian homes are bulldozed, mortared by tanks, bombed and leveled. When the land is cleared, the "Israeli settlements" are then constructed for the new, incoming immigrants who have just received Israeli citizenship in the "promised land" as well as other cash incentives. The Palestinians are, of course, left homeless after each of these "settlements" is created on their land, but this is of no concern to the "functioning democracy" in the Middle East known as Israel.
According to the documentary film, Peace, Propaganda and the Promised Land, "Amnesty International has regularly documented serious human rights violations by Israeli military forces in the 'occupied' territories, including unlawful killings, torture and ill-treatment of prisoners, wanton destruction of homes with residents still inside, the blocking of ambulances, denial of humanitarian assistance, and the use of Palestinian civilians as human shields." (1)
...
According to The Washington Report, the total cost to US taxpayers for aid to Zionist Israel from 1949 through 1997 was "$134,791,507,200." The total cost to US taxpayers per Israeli citizen is $23,240, but these figures are ten years old and would be substantially higher in 2007. (4)
According to the Palestinian group, MIFTAH, "Three quarters of the military aid to Israel goes for importing US-made military equipment such as F-16 and Apache attack helicopters.
This creates a job market for US citizens and transforms Palestine into a test ground for US made weaponry, used daily against Palestinians." Medical sources have also stated that depleted uranium is being used against Palestinians. (5) (6) ...
NEWPORT, R.I. -- President Bush held up Israel as a model for defining success in Iraq on Thursday, saying the U.S. goal there is not to eliminate attacks but to enable a democracy that can function despite violence.
...
It was likely to be controversial for Bush to set out Israel as a model for a Muslim Middle Eastern nation. Israel has been locked for decades in a dispute with Palestinians in the neighboring occupied territories. ...
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Israel - The 'Functioning Democracy'By Mary Sparrowdancer©.2007 All Rights Reserved7-2-7
For those of us who have been wondering what, exactly, "Israel" is, and why the US has been funneling billions of our tax dollars into Israel in support of this increasingly belligerent, unaccountable, terrorist state, president Bush recently clarified matters in a speech given at the Naval War College, in Newport, R.I.. There, he held Israel up as a shining example of a "functioning democracy" that other countries in the Middle East should emulate.
It is not clear what Bush's definition of a "democracy" is, but if it describes a sort of racially biased, elitist state in which only certain, select, members of the state have all rights, and the rest of the inhabitants are considered subhuman with no rights whatsoever, then the word, "democracy," is currently undergoing a change in meaning. The above is a fairly good description of Nazi, Germany, and strangely enough, it now also describes Israel. It appears that the "democracy" word these days is popularly used to suggest any cause that one wants to portray as "noble" and "just" rather than actually describing the carnage that is reality. The word, "democracy" is now a sales tool. Anyone with a progressive agenda will want to use this word these days, but unfortunately, the word now more correctly describes Communism, which is a word that is no longer popular.
In Palestine, the Palestinians are not recognized as citizens by Israel and they have no individual rights at all. They have no right even to their own personal property, and the loss of such rights is the telling marker of a communist takeover. Israel has been taking Palestinian rights and lands since 1948, when Zionists announced its new state within Palestine. In order to better understand the horrifying situation that the Palestinians have been enduring for over sixty years, one must first understand the meanings of various other sales tool words such as "settlements," and "occupation." Like "democracy," they mean something other than what they imply.
Picture, if you will, a map of Israel. For those of us who are unsure of what the "State of Israel" actually looks like, find instead a 1948 map of Palestine. Then, back up twenty paces and fire a shotgun loaded with buckshot at the map. The result will be a big hole in the heart of Palestine, surrounded by hundreds of tiny, scattered buckshot holes throughout the rest of the map. All of these large and small holes punched throughout the map of Palestine make up the map of the "State of Israel." The hundreds of small holes scattered throughout the map are Israeli "settlements." In order for Israeli "settlements" to be built, the Palestinians are first violently driven off their ancestral lands by the Israeli army. Then, the Palestinian homes are bulldozed, mortared by tanks, bombed and leveled. When the land is cleared, the "Israeli settlements" are then constructed for the new, incoming immigrants who have just received Israeli citizenship in the "promised land" as well as other cash incentives. The Palestinians are, of course, left homeless after each of these "settlements" is created on their land, but this is of no concern to the "functioning democracy" in the Middle East known as Israel.
According to the documentary film, Peace, Propaganda and the Promised Land, "Amnesty International has regularly documented serious human rights violations by Israeli military forces in the 'occupied' territories, including unlawful killings, torture and ill-treatment of prisoners, wanton destruction of homes with residents still inside, the blocking of ambulances, denial of humanitarian assistance, and the use of Palestinian civilians as human shields." (1)
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According to The Washington Report, the total cost to US taxpayers for aid to Zionist Israel from 1949 through 1997 was "$134,791,507,200." The total cost to US taxpayers per Israeli citizen is $23,240, but these figures are ten years old and would be substantially higher in 2007. (4)
According to the Palestinian group, MIFTAH, "Three quarters of the military aid to Israel goes for importing US-made military equipment such as F-16 and Apache attack helicopters.
This creates a job market for US citizens and transforms Palestine into a test ground for US made weaponry, used daily against Palestinians." Medical sources have also stated that depleted uranium is being used against Palestinians. (5) (6) ...
Europeans consistently regard the US as the biggest threat to world stability
Europeans see US as threat to peace By Daniel Dombey and Stanley Pignal in London Published: July 1 2007 18:09 Last updated: July 1 2007 18:09
Europeans consistently regard the US as the biggest threat to world stability, a new poll reveals on Monday.
A survey carried out in June by Harris Research for the Financial Times shows that 32 per cent of respondents in five European countries regard the US as a bigger threat than any other state.In the US itself, North Korea and Iran are seen as the biggest risks. However, the youngest US respondents share the Europeans’ view that theirs is the biggest threat, with 35 per cent of American 16- to 24-year-olds identifying it as the chief danger to stability.
The level of European concern about the US has remained broadly consistent over the past year. In 11 previous polls dating back to July 2006 the proportion of respondents considering the US a threat to stability has ranged between 28 per cent and 38 per cent. ...