Republicans Get Selective In Backing Bush Agenda

Analysis

GOP Members Focused On Surviving Elections


By Peter Baker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, June 25, 2006; Page A01

With elections barely four months away and their majorities at risk, Republicans on Capitol Hill say they are making calculations based on survival, not loyalty. President Bush has convinced them that sticking with him on Iraq and casting critics as soft on terrorism is a winning strategy despite public unease. But he has failed to convince them that his approach to immigration is good politics.

The result may be a third election campaign in a row focused on national security, yet it also may mean a second year in a row for the president without a signature victory in domestic policy. Just as Bush invested much of 2005 in pushing a Social Security plan that went nowhere, he has thrown his weight in 2006 behind an immigration proposal that increasingly appears doomed for the year.

The president's failure to bring along conservative allies on immigration tracks his continued weakness in opinion polls. Despite a modest rebound in approval ratings in recent weeks, many in his party see Bush as a drag in their districts, particularly on the border issue. At the same time, they agree with White House strategists that distancing themselves from Bush on the war would throw away a proven trump card -- the argument that the GOP is strong on security and Democrats are not -- just as U.S. forces have killed al-Qaeda's leader in Iraq.

"Republicans feel politically that we have a window of opportunity to reestablish support for the war, or at least reduce the opposition," said Rep. Peter T. King (R-N.Y.). "Democrats are going to throw it at us anyway, so at least now we can fight it on our terms." As for immigration, "our polling shows that it's definitely to our advantage to oppose" the bill favored by Bush.

Although congressional Republicans strongly backed Bush throughout his first term, they face their own political imperatives now, while his name presumably will never be on a ballot again. Joe Gaylord, who was chief adviser to then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), called it "the every-man-for-himself feeling that comes in the sixth year" of a presidency.

"Five years of overwhelming support is kind of loosening in the sixth-year, second-term election," he said. "There is wide separation on where we are right now. Everyone hopes for the White House to get its political antenna back up and working. But the guys who are up this fall are scared as hell."

Bush has been working hard to repair the rift with congressional Republicans, exposed perhaps most virulently during the spring confrontation over a Dubai company's plans to take over management of several U.S. ports. And many Republicans say he has met with some success. But with their individual fates on the line, the relationship only means so much.

"I actually think it's better now than it has been, particularly post-Dubai when the criticism was great," said Candida Wolff, the White House legislative director. "I think we're now at a more comfortable position. But members are focused on the election, not necessarily focused on what we want. They're focused on, 'What do I need for the election immediately?' "

After the collapse of his Social Security plan last year, Bush and his staff recognized that his influence on Capitol Hill was tapering. Except for immigration, he laid out a modest domestic agenda for this year, focused mainly on enhancing U.S. competitiveness, finding alternative energy sources and expanding health-care tax breaks. He appears on track to winning approval for many of those proposals, although most of them are spending items that are unlikely to be passed until after the election.

Even in these low-controversy areas, though, Bush will not get all he wants. On competitiveness, lawmakers support boosting research funding, but have balked at making the business research and development tax credit permanent, instead favoring just a two-year extension. His plan to expand health savings accounts looks likely to pass the House but not the Senate.

Likewise, Bush's request for line-item veto authority to trim individual spending projects and a proposal cutting the estate tax for wealthy families both passed the House this week, yet face an uphill fight in the Senate. Just to get this far, sponsors had to scale back the estate tax bill, cutting the levy rather than eliminating it outright.

In another move defying Bush, House Republicans this week rebelled against extending the Voting Rights Act. And five months after his State of the Union address, Bush has been unable to simply create a bipartisan commission to explore ways of solving Social Security and Medicare fiscal problems, nor is any commission likely before the election.

Bush has had some victories he can plug on the campaign trail. He signed legislation extending many of his first-term tax cuts and, in perhaps a more important test of his political muscle, he stared down Congress when it tried to pack a special spending bill for war and hurricane relief with billions of dollars of unrelated items.

Yet those may not move the electorate. "I would argue they don't have any significant accomplishment that is going to really redound with voters," said Steve Elmendorf, who was chief of staff to then-House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.). "They have a list of things they tout off, but I don't think most of them have resonance with voters in swing districts."

Once considered dismissive of the legislative branch, Bush in recent months has assiduously courted Republican leaders with private briefings and plied backbenchers at White House cocktail parties. New White House Chief of Staff Joshua B. Bolten has devoted much time to wooing disenchanted Hill allies.

Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fla.), who has fought the White House on immigration and other issues, said he has noticed a distinct change since Bolten took over in April. Before, Foley said, "there was a bunker mentality, a hunkering-down." He found himself screened by aides, unable to reach the president. "I thought, 'What am I filtering through you for?' " he recalled.

Now, Foley said, he is no longer filtered. Bolten invited him and other Republican lawmakers to his West Wing office recently just to talk, with no special agenda. And Bush invited him as part of another group to the White House residence. "He said, 'Let me show you the Lincoln Bedroom, let me show you my private office,' " Foley said. "It was almost like he was a docent. Here was a new Bush, more comfortable, more relaxed, frank in the discussion of the topics of the day."

King, who led the fight against Bush on the Dubai port deal, has seen the same change. After telling House Republican leaders that he was undecided or leaning against voting for the line-item veto, King received a telephone call from Bush on Thursday as the president was flying aboard Air Force One back from a European trip. "That's never happened before," said King, who ended up voting for the bill.

But none of that means Republicans will bend to Bush's will if they decide electoral odds tilt the other way. "I think members feel we're communicating more effectively," Wolff said. "Does that mean it's easy to get things through? No. It's a tough political environment and a tough political situation, and these are complex issues."

New American Privacy Rights?

Has Bush's Credit Card reached its Limit? Americans Pull in Your Belt!

Bush presses for more power to rein in spending


President George W. Bush leaves the parliament
building in Budapest June 22, 2006.
(Karoly Arvai/Reuters)

By Jeremy Pelofsky

June 24, 2006

By Jeremy Pelofsky

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -President Bush on Saturday pressed Congress for expanded veto power to rein in spending, which has exploded during his tenure to $2.7 trillion to the anger of his fiscal conservative supporters.

Government spending was about $1.9 trillion when Bush took office in 2001 but outlays on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, a new government prescription drug plan, and lawmakers' pet projects have boosted the total.

Bush, who has not vetoed a single spending bill passed by Congress, has pledged to reduce the budget gap significantly by 2009.

"A line-item veto would allow the president to remove wasteful spending from a bill while preserving the rest of the legislation," Bush said in his weekly radio address.

He argued that all but seven of the 50 state governors have the authority to eliminate individual spending provisions from legislation and similar presidential authority would encourage lawmakers to avoid extra earmarks for their pet projects.

"A line-item veto would reduce the incentive for Congress to spend wastefully because when lawmakers know their pet projects will be held up to public scrutiny, they will be less likely to suggest them in the first place," Bush said.

Democrats have seen the large budget deficits, at least $300 billion a year since 2003, as an issue that could resonate with voters and help them regain control of Congress in the November elections.

However, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives earlier this week approved a measure, largely along party lines, that would empower the president to ask lawmakers to delete specific spending or tax measures in larger bills.

Bush praised the vote and called on the Senate to do the same with a similar bill pending there. However, it was unclear whether it would pass.

"I call on the Senate to show a bipartisan commitment to fiscal discipline by passing the line-item veto so we can work together to cut wasteful spending, reduce the deficit, and save money for American taxpayers," Bush said.

The proposed measure is weaker than one signed into law in 1996, which allowed the president to strike specific provisions with a line-item veto. However, after then-President Bill Clinton used it 82 times, it was struck down as unconstitutional in 1998.

Meanwhile, Back With The Middle Class...

FBI: Suspects Sought Help From al-Qaida

U.S. Attorney R. Alexander Acosta of the Southern District of Florida speaks, left, during a news conference as Special Agent in Charge of the FBI's Miami Field Office, Jonathan I. Solomon, right looks on Friday, June 23, 2006 in Miami. Seven men were arrested Thursday in an alleged plot to bomb the Sears Tower in Chicago and a federal building in Miami. (AP Photo/J. Pat Carter)

June 24, 2006

By CURT ANDERSON
Associated Press Writer

Video

MIAMI (AP) -- A plan hatched by seven men to blow up Chicago's Sears Tower and other buildings was "more aspirational than operational," FBI officials said.

The group of men, who were arrested Thursday when authorities busted their alleged hide-out in a Miami warehouse, had no explosives and lacked adequate funding. Their only link to al-Qaida was through an FBI informant fronting as a member of the terrorist group, authorities said Friday.

But U.S. Attorney R. Alexander Acosta said it was exactly the right time to dismantle the group, before it was able to execute a plan that one member said he hoped would be "as good or greater than 9/11."

"You want to go and disrupt cells like this before they acquire the means to accomplish their goals," Acosta said.

Investigators said all members of the alleged plot were in custody on conspiracy charges.

Five of the defendants, including alleged ringleader Narseal Batiste, appeared in federal court in Miami on Friday under heavy security. They were brought in and out in single file, chained together at the wrists and wearing ankle chains.

"This group was more aspirational than operational," FBI Deputy Director John Pistole said. But Attorney General Alberto Gonzales described the men as "homegrown terrorists" who "view their home country as the enemy."

The FBI learned of the plot from someone the defendants tried to recruit, authorities said.

In February, Batiste told the informant that he and his five soldiers wanted to attend al-Qaida training and planned a "full ground war" against the United States in order to "kill all the devils we can," according to the indictment.

Batiste and a co-defendant provided the informant with photographs of the FBI building in North Miami Beach, as well as video footage of other Miami government buildings, and discussed a plot to bomb the FBI building, the indictment said.

Neighbors who watched the men's vigorous exercise regime said the group appeared to be training for something. One of its members was always standing guard outside the small, windowless warehouse in the blighted Liberty City neighborhood.

Relatives described the defendants as deeply religious people who studied the Bible and took classes in Islam. Joseph Phanor, the father of defendant Stanley Grant Phanor, said his son went to classes on Islam with a friend but that he read the Bible at his father's house.

Phanor's brother Michael said his brother owned a construction company and had been friends with this group for about a year. He said they were trying to do community service in the area where they grew up, studying martial arts to keep in shape and setting a good example for neighborhood kids.

A sixth defendant, Lyglenson Lemorin, was arrested in Atlanta and made a court appearance there. Phanor did not appear in court. He was in custody on what authorities said was an unrelated state charge.

The other defendants were identified as Patrick Abraham, Naudimar Herrera, Burson Augustin and Rotschild Augustine.

The men, who range in age from 22 to 32, include a legal immigrant from Haiti and a Haitian who is in the United States illegally. Five are U.S. citizens.

No pleas were entered during the court hearings.

Officials at the 110-floor Sears Tower said it was business as usual Friday. The building, the tallest skyscraper in North America, has received numerous threats since Sept. 11, but officials said they have never found evidence of a credible threat that went beyond criminal discussions.

Muslim Genocide

IRAQ PALESTINE JIHAD

Israel Terrorism, American Genocide and Jihad in Iraq and Palestine

Abbas, Haniya in new bid to end standoff

A Palestinian boy waits at the gates of
the Rafah border crossing in the Gaza
Strip yesterday

24 June, 2006

GAZA: Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniya of Hamas and President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah said yesterday they would try to resolve their differences face-to-face over a statehood proposal that implicitly recognises Israel.

Haniya said few sticking points remained over the document penned by Palestinian prisoners in an Israeli jail, but a Fatah spokesman sought to lower expectations for a breakthrough at a meeting between the leaders later yesterday or today in Gaza.

Haniya made clear that Hamas, which is sworn to Israel’s destruction, would not abandon its stance on the Jewish state. While expressing hope for a deal, which could lead to a unity government, Abbas said he would push ahead with a July 26 referendum on the proposal if an agreement could not be reached.

Tensions have escalated between Fatah and Hamas since Abbas set the referendum on the proposal, which calls for a Palestinian state in all the West Bank and Gaza Strip, land captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war.

Some fear the power struggle between Fatah and Hamas could lead to civil war. Hamas has branded the referendum an attempt to overthrow its three-month-old government.

Haniya and Abbas last met face-to-face more than a week ago. Since then, top Hamas and Fatah negotiators have been trying to resolve their differences.

Haniya said negotiators “had come a long distance and what (differences) remain are few.”

But when asked if Hamas was prepared to accept a two-state solution to the conflict, as called for under the prisoners’ document, Haniya said: “There was no dramatic change on the positions of the factions, including Hamas.”

Fatah spokesman Tawfiq Abu Khoussa was cautious “despite the positive atmosphere and the good intentions,” adding: “The points of differences have remained unresolved.”

Hamas has said it wants the proposal to explicitly reject recognition of Israel. Abbas, a moderate who favours peace talks with the Jewish state, is unlikely to agree to such wording.

Differences also remain over who would handle any negotiations with Israel, and over the make-up of any unity government. Some in Fatah are pushing for a government of technocrats, a demand rejected by Hamas, which has insisted on leading any coalition cabinet.

The Bush administration has said it would curtail contacts with Fatah and other parties if they joined a government led by Hamas.

The factions are also divided over whether militants should be asked to limit their attacks to inside the occupied West Bank.

Some in Fatah see the referendum as a way to oust the government and reverse a Western aid embargo that has brought the Palestinian Authority to the brink of collapse.

The West imposed sanctions after Hamas refused to recognise Israel, renounce violence and accept past peace accords.

But in a blow to Abbas, a leading pollster said on Monday that Palestinians might not pass the referendum even though they support the proposal because they are unhappy with the president’s power struggle with the government. - Reuters

A Pack with Shaytaan?

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas shake hands during a meeting at the second conference of Nobel laureates in Petra in this picture released June 22, 2006 by the Israeli Government Press Office.
REUTERS/Moshe Milner/GPO/Handout

Israeli, Palestinian embrace in bid for talks

Bank Data Is Sifted by U.S. In Secret to Block Terror

By ERIC LICHTBLAU
and JAMES RISEN-New York Times

WASHINGTON, June 22 — Under a secret Bush administration program initiated weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks, counter terrorism officials have gained access to financial records from a vast international database and examined banking transactions involving thousands of Americans and others in the United States, according to government and industry officials.

The program is limited, government officials say, to tracing transactions of people suspected of having ties to Al Qaeda by reviewing records from the nerve center of the global banking industry, a Belgian cooperative that routes about $6 trillion daily between banks, brokerages, stock exchanges and other institutions. The records mostly involve wire transfers and other methods of moving money overseas and into and out of the United States. Most routine financial transactions confined to this country are not in the database.

Viewed by the Bush administration as a vital tool, the program has played a hidden role in domestic and foreign terrorism investigations since 2001 and helped in the capture of the most wanted Qaeda figure in Southeast Asia, the officials said.

The program, run out of the Central Intelligence Agency and overseen by the Treasury Department, "has provided us with a unique and powerful window into the operations of terrorist networks and is, without doubt, a legal and proper use of our authorities," Stuart Levey, an under secretary at the Treasury Department, said in an interview on Thursday. Read more...

Is he another of the Goldas?

June 24,2006

Haartez

By Doron Rosenblum

It would not be Israeli civilization as we know it if Prime Minister Ehud Olmert had done the obvious and met with Mahmoud Abbas right after his government was approved by the Knesset. But since the self-evident is precisely what occurs to nobody on our side, Olmert did not depart an inch from the paths of his predecessors: Upon taking office, he leaped into action and immediately flew to Bush, Blair, Chirac, Mubarak and Abdullah. In short, to every leader in the world except the Palestinian president - in order to explain to them why conditions are not ripe right now for talking with the Palestinians without preconditions. Only with evident unwillingness did Olmert manage not to avoid a semi-meeting with Abbas this week, and that only out of respect for King Abdullah - and besides, it was "a meeting for etiquette's sake," as sources on our side made sure to explain.

If that sounds familiar, it is because the Israeli planet is revolving on the same rusty axis as always, as if there has been no election - as is usual after every election. At least at the beginning of his term, every new prime minister immediately reverts to the failed default behavior of his predecessor, and regards it as "perfect behavior." Like them, the new premier will always start by flexing a military muscle; after all, the war option is always the most readily available default. The only easier default is sending money to the settlements.

Thus elections or not, the assassinations and the regrettable misses are resumed in all their glory, with all the usual self-righteousness and self-congratulation about our "purity of arms" and demands for exclusivity in the feeling of being the victim, while the inertia of "settlement" continues to plug along in secret like an uncontrollable tic.

As for Olmert, within two months, he has managed to fill the entire quota of cliches that his predecessors needed full terms to produce. He has managed to declare that "the Israel Defense Forces is the most moral army in the world," without checking or confirming, just saying it, as one of the habits of a prime minister. He has already demanded that "all the Jews immigrate to Israel" (to where? Sderot?) All that is missing is for him to say that Sderot residents "aren't nice," or that "we will never forgive the Arabs for making us kill them," and we would immediately be able to identify the syndrome that has attacked every new Israeli prime minister since Golda Meir: It is the horrific "Golda Syndrome."

Of course, it is premature to judge Olmert as a prime minister, but it is never too early to warn him of the horrors of this syndrome, whose symptoms are clear and unequivocal. The most outstanding of them are: arrogance toward and patronization of the Middle Eastern environment; an uncontrollable urge to be didactic; a blind spot that makes a Palestinian political presence completely invisible; and primarily endless self-righteousness, which sees everything in black and white - we are always right, the evil is entirely our enemy's, and everything is a justification for maintaining the status quo.

So virulent is this syndrome that even bold premiers, who began their terms with revolutionary and vigorous spirits, cannot fight it off. Nearly all turn into Goldas shortly after the start of their terms and find it difficult to escape the mold. Most waste the first two-thirds of their terms in arrogant and comfortable glibness, full of self-satisfaction and prejudice, out of the conviction that there is nothing to do and nobody to talk to and "we have no alternative" other than the one offered by the army's chief of staff. The last third of their terms they spend in jerky, spasmodic motion, suddenly enlightened and desperately trying to do something historic and bold. But by then, they have run out of steam, and the term comes to an end.

Will Olmert be saved from the syndrome? As a prophylactic measure, one can advise him to try to turn the conventional Israeli timetable upside down. That could be a truly revolutionary change: to try enlightenment, change and a sense of urgency at the beginning of the term, and comfort, pretension and glibness only at its end.

Link:

Meeting among Thieves

Ancient shells found in Israel may be humanity's oldest jewelry

June 24, 2006

By The Associated Press

Ancient beads that may represent the oldest attempt by people at self-decoration have been identified from sites in Israel and Algeria, according to a report published in a scientific journal Friday.

The beads, made from shells with holes bored into them, date to around 100,000 years ago, some 25,000 years older than similar beads discovered two years ago in South Africa, researchers report in the journal Science.

"Our paper supports the scenario that modern humans in Africa developed behaviors that are considered modern quite early in time, so that in fact these people were probably not just biologically modern but also culturally and cognitively modern, at least to some degree," said study co-author Francesco d'Errico of the National Center for Scientific Research in Talence, France.

The new find involves just three shells, two from Skhul in northern Israel, which the researchers said were about 100,000 years old and one from Oued Djebbana, Algeria, estimated to be 90,000 years old. The researchers said the shells were found many miles from the sea, indicating they were brought to those locations deliberately, most likely for beadworking.

Alison Brooks, head of the anthropology department at George Washington University, agreed, adding that the shells are too small to have had any food value. "I think we're looking at symbolic value.... It's very exciting," she said.

The newly identified shells were found in a study of museum collections.

The shells from Skhul were excavated in the 1930s. The researchers were able to date them by comparing sediment stuck to one of them with layers containing human skeletons that were 100,000 or more years old. The Algerian site was excavated in the 1940s and the researchers said the date of 90,000 years is based on the technology and style of the stone tools found there.

Brooks said the new find reinforces that people developed behaviors gradually. That this find is older than the beads uncovered in South Africa "does not surprise me," she said in a telephone interview. "There were no revolutions in human behavior, there was a gradual accumulation of behaviors."

The perforated shells from Blombos in South Africa and those now coming to light are of the same genus, Nassarius, she noted.

"So, the question is, is this a single cultural tradition? Probably not," she concluded. "Clearly it's learned behavior."

By the time people were populating Europe, behavior had continued to develop and beads were being made from teeth, bone, stone, "every sort of material," said Brooks, who was not part of the research team. "It just is improbable that that sprang from nothing, and this is a logical antecedent."

In the past some researchers have argued that the ability to use symbolism did not develop until people had migrated to Europe some 35,000 to 40,000 years ago.

D'Errico had been part of the group that found the earlier perforated shells at Blombos and he and other scientists were trying to find similar beads in other locations.

The research was funded by the European Science Foundation, the French Ministry of Research and the Fyssen Foundation.

Popeye the Sailor

Known the World Over

This is another character from youth, known the world over and even to this day many can say the name, “Popeye.”

Private Eye Popeye
(1954)





1929-

Popeye is an independent sailor with a unique way of speaking, muscular forearms with two (sometimes one) anchors tattooed on them, and an ever-present corncob pipe.

Ex-Pink Floyd Frontman Roger Waters Say's the (Apartied) Wall has to go

Ex-Pink Floyd frontman demands Israel tear down 'wall'



Former Pink Floyd frontman Roger Waters, who performed a one-off concert in Neve Shalom on June 22, has called on the government to tear down its controversial separation barrier in the occupied West Bank.(AFP/David Furst)

June 23, 2006

JERUSALEM (AFP) -Former Pink Floyd frontman Roger Waters, who performed a one-off concert in Israel on Thursday, has called on the government to tear down its controversial separation barrier in the occupied West Bank.

"I believe we need this generation of Israelis to tear down the walls and make peace with their neighbours," the aging British rocker told the crowd of around 50,000 fans in the mixed Arab-Jewish town of Neveh Shalom.

The veteran musician enjoys a strong following in the region where Pink Floyd's 1979 hit Another Brick in the Wall has become an anthem of resistance to the separation barrier Israel is building across the West Bank.

But his comments incited a maelstrom of criticism, with the online edition of liberal newspaper Haaretz bombarded by nearly 300 comments, most of them angry and peppered with insults such as "idiot", "immoral", "moron" and "fool".

"So he'd have armies of suicide vermin... march into Israel blowing themselves and little children up every day? I presume that's what he wants," wrote one critic from New York State in the "Talkback" section.

"He never got on an Israeli bus, never had his car shot at, never stared down a Qassam (Palestinian rocket). Bye Roger, go do a concert in Saudi Arabia, then tell us about repression," said another respondent called "Ron".

Prior to the concert, the 63-year-old Waters visited the barrier, which the Jewish state says is vital to prevent militant attacks and which the Palestinians denounce as a land grab.

He scrawled the Pink Floyd lyrics "Tear down the wall" on the barrier and signed his initials, alongside graffiti left by hundreds of other protestors.

Waters had switched the concert venue from Tel Aviv to Neveh Shalom, close to Jerusalem, in an expression of support for co-existence after Palestinians living under occupation criticised his decision to perform in Israel.

Local fans who are opposed to Israel's separation barrier have adapted the lyrics of Another Brick in the Wall to read: "We don't need no occupation. We don't need no racist wall."

Waters split acrimoniously from Pink Floyd in the 1980s but rejoined the band for a one-off Live-8 concert last summer.

The concert provoked grid-locked traffic jams in all directions between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Thirty-one concert goers fainted owing to the heat and three young people dressed up as security guards were arrested.

Links:

Another Brick in the Wall Lyrics

Roger Waters calls on audience to 'tear down the walls'

Tear down the wall!

virtual wall online

Pink Floyd's Roger Waters urges Israel to 'tear down the wall'

The Wall-Febuary 2005

Say, "NO," to Haraam(sin)

by Housewife4Palestine

I ponder the fact of how many people in the world as morality keeps taking a nose dive, that to many people speak and act in a manner that is contrary to being polite and respectful to anyone that is different then you.

We as a people in this world should turn our faces back to Allah (God) and His teachings; stop forgetting that we have to answer Allah (God) after we are dead. We are not on this earth to do every kind of Haraam (sin) we think we can get away with, for you not only hurt yourself; you hurt the whole world and this world in the 21 century has a big enough load with the corruption, poverty and war without us trying to destroy what threat of creditability we have left.

In the last couple of years as I walk a long the road of life, I am seeing way to many people that are living like there is no tomorrow and they do not care if they see hell; while there is still a few of us that do.

So it is about time you pull up your pants, wash out your mouth and starting doing a lot more praying and get back on the right road yourself.

Remember, there are still people that do not share the filth!

What is News Propaganda?

Just Brain Washing in hiding!

New American Military Equipment for Iraq?

I wonder how good the gas mileage is?

Running Machine

I think we all have had days like this, just hope not this bad. Enjoy!

Key Al-Qaeda Leader Killed in Iraq

June 23, 2006

Video

On Friday, June 16, a key Al-Qaeda in Iraq leader, Mansur Sulayman Mansur Khalif, also known as Sheikh Mansur, was killed by Coalition Forces, south of Yusifiyah.

Also killed was Abu Tariq, an Al-Qaeda leader and foreign fighter facilitator who operated around Yusifiyah.

Coalition Forces initially targeted a vehicle with three Al-Qaeda members, including Sheik Mansur. The vehicle attempted to flee immediately after noticing security forces approaching. Coalition forces then engaged and killed the three.

Two others were detained in the area without resistance. Sheikh Mansur was a key Iraqi leader in Al-Qaeda in Iraq with excellent religious, military, and leadership credentials within the network. He was tied to senior leadership, including Abu Musab Al- Zarqawi and Abu Ayyub Al-Masri.

The U.S. Department of Defense believes his death will significantly impact Al-Qaeda in Iraq’s ability to re-organize.

Survey highlights Islam-West rift

Deep mutual suspicions exist between the Muslim world and the West, a survey of global opinion suggests.


Some saw the cartoon row as sign
of a "clash of civilisations"

DID ARABS CARRY OUT 9/11?

British Muslims: 56% No
French Muslims: 46% No
Indonesia: 65% No
Egypt: 59% No
Turkey: 59% No
Jordan: 53% No
(Source: Pew Center)

Many Westerners see Muslims as fanatical, violent and intolerant, according to the study by the Pew Research Center in Washington.

Muslims, for their part, tend to view the West as selfish, immoral, and greedy - as well as fanatical and violent - the survey says.

The researchers canvassed the opinions of 14,000 people in 13 countries.

BBC Islamic affairs analyst Roger Hardy says a string of events, from last year's London bombings to the more recent row over cartoons satirising the Prophet Muhammad, appear to have taken their toll on relations between Islam and the West.

The Pew Research Center's survey, published on Thursday, speaks of a "great divide" between the two.

It says that Muslims and Westerners blame each other for deteriorating relations.

Muslim people "have an aggrieved view of the West" and are "much more likely than Americans or Western Europeans to blame Western policies for their own lack of prosperity", the authors contend.

By contrast Western publics say Muslims are held back by "government corruption, lack of education and Islamic fundamentalism", they add.

Hopeful signs?

The report says the "chasm" between Muslims and the West is also seen in judgements about how the other side treats women.

Westerners, by large margins, do not regard Muslims as "respectful of women", while majorities in four of the five Muslim countries said the same about the West.

Despite the divide, attitudes are not uniformly negative.

Solid majorities in France, the US and Britain retain overall favourable opinions of Muslims, while positive views of Muslims have declined sharply in Spain (from 46% to 29%), the survey notes.

It says about eight in 10 people in both Spain and Germany associate Islam with fanaticism - a view that is less prevalent in France (50%), Britain (48%) and the US (43%).
Likewise, Muslim opinion is far from uniform, with Muslim minorities in Europe often attributing positive attributes to Westerners - including tolerance, generosity, and respect for women.

On the other hand, in Muslim countries in the Middle East and Asia large majorities describe the West as "selfish", "arrogant", and "violent".

Muslims and Al-Qaeda

In one of the survey's most striking findings, majorities in Indonesia, Turkey, Egypt, and Jordan said they did not believe Arabs carried out the attacks on the US on 11 September 2001.

The report says this attitude is not limited to Muslims in Muslim-dominated countries - 56% of British Muslims said the same.

The survey cited a dramatic drop in support for Osama Bin Laden in Jordan as a sign of falling support for terrorism in Muslim countries.

Less than 1% of respondents in the country - hit by triple hotel bombings last November - expressed confidence in Bin Laden, down from a quarter last year.

Confidence in the al-Qaeda leader had also fallen in Pakistan, where 38% of people expressed some confidence in him, down from 51%.

However 61% of Nigerian Muslims had at least some confidence in bin Laden, a sharp rise from 44% in May 2003.

Israel has Vowed to Continue Air Attacks in the Gaza Strip

Israel to continue Gaza raids despite botched strikes


A portrait of the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat is seen as security officers stand by, watching Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas (not seen) arrive at the Muqataa in the West Bank town of Ramallah. Israel vowed to continue air attacks in the Gaza Strip despite global outcry over the killing of civilians in botched raids.(AFP/Abbas Momani)


by Jean-Luc Renaudie

Jun 23, 2006

JERUSALEM (AFP) -Israel has vowed to continue air attacks in the Gaza Strip despite a global outcry over the killing of civilians in botched raids.

"The Israeli government that I lead will continue raids against the terrorists," Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was quoted by Israeli public radio as telling an economic forum at Cesarea in northern Israel late Thursday.

"I regret the lives of innocent (Palestinians), but those of the Israeli inhabitants of Sderot count no less in my eyes," he said.

Fourteen Palestinian civilians, including five children, have been killed in air strikes over Gaza in nine days, following an upsurge in cross-border violence that has seen nearly 150 rockets fired at Israel in two weeks.

Two air attacks carried out in the past two days missed their targets of presumed Palestinian militants and instead killed three children on Tuesday and another two civilians on Wednesday, one of them a pregnant woman.

In addition, a Palestinian police intelligence officer was shot dead by Israeli soldiers who came to arrest him in the West Bank city of Ramallah on Thursday, a Palestinian security source said.

Against the backdrop of violence, Olmert and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas met informally in Jordan in the first top-level contact between the two sides for a year.

Palestinian prime minister Ismail Haniya, head of the Hamas-led government, demanded that Israel immediately halt its "killings and bombings".

"We have always expressed our willingness to establish calm and stability in the region. For us to do that, the Israeli side has to stop the blind killings and bombings of civilians and children," Haniya told reporters.

The United States, United Nations, Russia, France, Jordan, Syria and Egypt were among those expressing shock and condemnation over the Israeli strikes that resulted in civilian casualties.

But Israeli air force commander General Eliezer Shkedi vowed that air strikes would continue as the most effective weapon against militants, albeit while counseling extreme caution to ensure that civilians were not harmed.

"In the current circumstances, it is the most efficient tactic against terrorists who fire rockets at Israel," he told army radio.

Israel withdrew all its ground troops from Gaza in September last year after a 38-year occupation. Shkedi said the air force had, since the beginning of 2006, carried out five times the number of air strikes as last year.

"We are acting with extreme caution... We have to make a very big effort to try everything possible to avoid harming those who are not involved," he said.

Meanwhile, Olmert and Abbas attended breakfast with Jordanian King Abdullah II and other guests in the World Heritage site of Petra on the margins of a Nobel laureates forum.

After the one-hour meal, both Abbas and Olmert pledged to meet again in a bid to revive the moribund peace process. The Palestinian leader said preparations for a new meeting would "begin next week."

The Israeli premier, who has vowed to use his four-year mandate to redraw the Jewish state's borders, declared that he was steadfast about working towards peace and withdrawing from some occupied Palestinian territory.

"I am ready to put on (the) line everything for one purpose, to achieve peace, to make compromise, to pull out of certain territories," he said.

Yet he also listed "non-negotiable conditions" to ensure the success of future meetings, namely: "total disarmament of terrorist organisations, full implementation of agreements and formal recognition of Israel," he said.

Governing Palestinian faction Hamas, which is blacklisted as a terrorist organisation in the West, has stubbornly refused to disarm, renounce violence, recognise Israel or abide by previous international agreements.

Its hardline stance, in opposition to Abbas's Fatah party, has brought the Palestinians to the brink of financial meltdown after the EU and US suspended direct aid in protest, helping to fuel a political crisis and deadly feuding.

In a bid to resolve the situation, Hamas and Fatah have been locked in talks focused on a proposed policy programme that implicitly recognises Israel's right to exist by calling for a Palestinian state on land conquered in 1967, an end to attacks in Israel and a national unity government.

Unless the initiative is accepted by all factions, Abbas will put it to a referendum, already set for July 26, a move that Hamas slammed as a bid to overthrow its democratically elected government.

Amid efforts to secure a last minute deal and avert a vote, however, Abbas said he would travel to Gaza on Friday to supervise the ongoing talks.

"Tomorrow I will go to Gaza and I hope that we are going to reach positive results. That will allow us to present the world with new ideas in order to end the siege imposed on us," Abbas told reporters on Thursday.

AN IDEA WHOSE TIME HAS COME?

Opinion

Jun 23, 2006

In 1938, the year of Anschluss and Munich, a perceptive British Catholic looked beyond the continent over which war clouds hung and saw another cloud forming.

"It has always seemed to me ... probable," wrote Hilaire Belloc, "that there would be a resurrection of Islam and that our sons or our grandsons would see the renewal of that tremendous struggle between the Christian culture and what has been for more than a thousand years its greatest opponent."

Belloc was prophetic. Even as Christianity seems to be dying in Europe, Islam is rising to shake the 21st century as it did so many previous centuries.

Indeed, as one watches U.S. armed forces struggle against Sunni insurgents, Shia militias and Jihadists in Iraq, and a resurgent Taliban, all invoking Allah, Victor Hugo's words return to mind: No army is so powerful as an idea whose time has come.

The idea for which our many of our adversaries fight is a compelling one. They believe there is but one God, Allah, that Muhammad is his prophet, that Islam, or submission to the Quran, is the only path to paradise and that a Godly society should be governed according to the Sharia, the law of Islam. Having tried other ways and failed, they are coming home to Islam.

What idea do we have to offer? Americans believe that freedom comports with human dignity, that only a democratic and free-market system can ensure the good life for all, as it has done in the West and is doing in Asia.

From Ataturk on, millions of Islamic peoples have embraced this Western alternative. But today, tens of millions of Muslims appear to be rejecting it, returning to their roots in a more pure Islam.

Indeed, the endurance of the Islamic faith is astonishing.

Islam survived two centuries of defeats and humiliations of the Ottoman Empire and Ataturk's abolition of the caliphate. It endured generations of Western rule. It outlasted the pro-Western monarchs in Egypt, Iraq, Libya, Ethiopia and Iran. Islam easily fended off communism, survived the rout of Nasserism in 1967 and has proven more enduring than the nationalism of Arafat or Saddam. Now, it is resisting the world's last superpower.

What occasioned this column was a jolting report in the June 20 Washington Times, by James Brandon, alerting us to a new front.

"Arrests Spark Fear of Armed Islamist Takeover" headlined the story about the arrest, since May, of 500 militants who had allegedly plotted the overthrow of the king of Morocco and establishment of an Islamic state that would sever all ties to the infidel West -- to end the poverty and corruption they blame on the West.

The arrests raised fears that Al Adl wa al Ihsane, or Justice and Charity, was preparing to take up arms to fulfill the predictions of the group's mystics that the monarchy would fall in 2006. Though illegal, Al Adl wa al Ihsane is Morocco's largest Islamic movement, which boycotts elections, but has hundreds of thousands of followers and has taken over the universities and is radicalizing the young.

Its founder is Sheik Abdessalam Yassine, who has declared its purpose is to reunite mosque and state: "Politics and spirituality have been kept apart by the Arab elites. And we have been able to reconnect these two aspects of Islam -- and that is why people fear us."

And, one might add, why people embrace them.

If Morocco is now in play in the struggle between militant Islam and the West, how looks the correlation of forces in June 2006?

Islamists are taking over in Somalia. They are in power in Sudan. The Muslim Brotherhood won 60 percent of the races it contested in Egypt. Hezbollah swept the board in southern Lebanon. Hamas seized power from Fatah on the West Bank and Gaza. The Shia parties who hearken to Ayatollah Sistani brushed aside our favorites, Chalabi and Iyad Allawi, in the Iraqi elections. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is the most admired Iranian leader since Khomeini. In Afghanistan, the Taliban is staging a comeback.

This has all happened in the last year. And where are we winning?

What is the appeal of militant Islam? It is, first, its message: As all else has failed us, why not live the faith and law God gave us?

Second, it is the Muslim rage at the present condition where pro-Western regimes are seen as corruptly enriching themselves, while the poor suffer.

Third, it is a vast U.S. presence that Islamic peoples are taught is designed to steal their God-given resources and assist the Israelis in humiliating them and persecuting the Palestinians.

Lastly, Islamic militants are gaining credibility because they show a willingness to share the poverty of the poor and fight the Americans.

What America needs to understand is something unusual for us: From Morocco to Pakistan, we are no longer seen by the majority as the good guys.

If Islamic rule is an idea taking hold among the Islamic masses, how does even the best army on earth stop it? Do we not need a new policy?

To find out more about Patrick Buchanan, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com

Life is like Playing a Violin Solo

Information is pretty thin stuff, unless mixed with experience.

Life is like playing a violin solo in public and learning the instrument as one goes on.

9/11 No More Excessive Secrecy

Press Release Source: The Office of Rep. Martin O. Sabo; 9/11 Families United to Bankrupt

Rep. Sabo, 9/11 Families Urge Senate to Stop TSA's Excessive Secrecy

June 22, 2006

9/11 Families Launch Ad Campaign to Spur Senate Action

WASHINGTON, June 22 /PRNewswire/ -- Arguing that the truth is our most powerful weapon in the war on terrorism, Rep. Martin O. Sabo (D-Minn.) and the 9/11 Families United to Bankrupt Terrorism today urged the U.S. Senate to join the House in strengthening the law that requires the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to adopt procedures to release information that does not represent a risk of harm to the nation.

The U.S. House acted to end TSA's excessive secrecy when Reps. Sabo and Hal Rogers (R-Ky.), the ranking member and chairman, respectively, of the House Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee, included language in Section 525 of the fiscal year 2007 House DHS Appropriations bill (H.R. 5441) requiring TSA to strive for openness.

The 9/11 families charge that TSA is hiding documents that are of no use to terrorists but would reveal how and why 19 hijackers were allowed to board four airplanes on September 11, 2001. Now, they are urging the Senate Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee to take similar action.

"Americans expect open and transparent government, and these 9/11 families are depending on it," said Rep. Sabo. "Though it has made some changes, TSA still has very poor procedures for designating Sensitive Security Information. Section 525 in the House Homeland Security Appropriations bill would force TSA to balance legitimate security needs with our nation's commitment to due process and freedom of information."

It's time to end TSA's cover-up," said Allison Vadhan of Atlantic Beach, N.Y., whose mother, Kristin White-Gould, died on board United Flight 93. "This is not only an abuse of power, it's a threat to every American's security. My mother and her fellow passengers were able to stop the terrorists because they had one weapon -- knowledge. Denying Americans knowledge about 9/11 deprives us of the power to prevent future attacks."

"TSA is out of control and Congress must rein it in," said Michael Low of Batesville, Ark., father of Sara Low, a flight attendant on American Airlines Flight 11. "They are taking videos that were shown on national television, materials entered into the Congressional Record and documents long in the public domain and retroactively claiming they are top secret for no rational reason. They are claiming powers Congress never gave them and insisting they are accountable to no one. This is not how democracies work. Congressman Sabo and Chairman Rogers stood up for our democracy; now let's see the Senate show the same courage."

"Never have I seen more breathtaking arrogance than TSA has shown," said Ana Raley of Columbia, Md., who lost her husband Ian J. Gray, on American Airlines Flight 77. "In a desperate attempt to justify its excessive secrecy, TSA has the nerve to claim it can't release documents to 9/11 family members because we might turn them over to terrorists, the murderers of our loved ones! Yet the very same materials they deny to us, they provided to lawyers for a convicted terrorist, Zacarias Moussaoui. This begs the question, whose side is TSA on? I applaud the House for making TSA side with the American people and I urge the Senate to follow suit."

TSA's disorganized, unchecked and excessive designation of documents as Sensitive Security Information (SSI) has also earned the condemnation of respected jurists. In the Moussaoui death penalty trial, U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema said, "It's quite extraordinary that TSA has a tougher policy on disclosure than the CIA or the FBI or the NSA," and called the agency's behavior, "frustrating beyond belief." In 9/11 civil aviation litigation, U.S. District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein said that TSA's intransigence on secrecy is "cruel and inhuman to the people involved."

To end TSA's abuses, Section 525 of the House DHS Appropriations bill, passed on June 6, 2006, requires TSA to:

* Release all information that is more than three years old and not
incorporated in a current, active transportation security directive or
plan unless TSA demonstrates a compelling reason why it would present a
risk of harm to the nation;
* Standardize and justify its practices for classifying documents as
secret; and
* Turn over documents requested by a judge in a legal proceeding unless

TSA demonstrates a compelling reason why it would present a risk of
harm to the nation.

The Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security is now considering its version of the DHS Appropriations bill. With action pending, the 9/11 Families United to Bankrupt Terrorism launched an advertising campaign to pressure the Senate to adopt the House's Section 525 language, with print ads running in Roll Call and several daily newspapers.

The 9/11 Families United to Bankrupt Terrorism represents 6,161 survivors and family members of those who died in the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. The 9/11 Families are seeking to hold al Qaeda's financiers accountable for their central role in these atrocities and to make America safer by cutting off the financial pipeline fueling global terrorism.

SOURCE The Office of Rep. Martin O. Sabo; 9/11 Families United to Bankrupt Terrorism

------------------------------------

Source: The Office of Rep. Martin O. Sabo; 9/11 Families United to Bankrupt

The Worst Natural Disaster in American History

Hurricane Katrina Remembered





A True Story:


"How Could This Happen in America? "

by Housewife4Palestine

I happened to went to New Orleans, Louisiana a month and half before Hurricane Katrina to marry, the husband I have now. Just so you know my first husband had died from a devastating illness in 2003.

We had just finished furnishing our apartment three days before the hurricane, with the plans to always live in this city.

Day’s before the hurricane hit their kept being news reports on television for mandatory evacuation, with the people I knew when we looked outside to the beautiful warm summer day it was to hard to believe this was going to happen. I often think back that maybe this is partly why so many people did not leave, while I know many of the poor couldn’t.

While many people may not know New Orleans has had areas that suffered from severe poverty, it had been like this for generations.

That Sunday before the hurricane hit the following Monday, I was getting to feel their must be some truth to what I was hearing, especially when I decided to walk up to the Pharmacy and saw many stores either closed or boarded up. That particular Pharmacy was closed, so I walked back home and called my husband at work and asked him if maybe his cousin and him couldn't come home early; I was getting worried by then.

By three in the afternoon the cousin brought my husband home. At three fifteen a family friend called and told us to run. I asked them if they was leaving and funny enough after they finished dinner.

We packed what we could in the car by three thirty, which included some clothing, food and what other things we could pack in a hurry we thought was necessary to survive. We were told we would be able to return to our homes in a couple of days.

Like so many in heavy traffic we attempted to leave New Orleans with the hope of making it to Texas, but with the way the Contra plan was arranged we was turned by the Police and ended up heading towards Mississippi.

What we did not know at the time, we would see the edge of hurricane Katrina; to survive we ended up driving over power lines, dodging tree’s and every so often would have to stop because of the heavy rain the next after noon.

We did stay a little time during the major hit at a Christian church because this woman was worried about us when she found us. Not knowing how bad everything was, we decided to try and go back to New Orleans and this was how we ended up in that horrible situation of the roads.

We tried three times to go into New Orleans and all three times was turned around by some kind of Police. One service station we were parked at, we started getting news.

Between being in a shelter in Houma, Louisiana which we couldn’t sleep on the cement floor because it made us hurt, sleeping in the car where we could and finally with the help of a Police woman, which to this day I still thank in my heart who found a cousin with a safe place of a Masjid( Mosque) in Alexandria, Louisiana. We finally found in a little time a safe place to live. We stayed there about two days because I was exhausted and feeling some ill.

When we was at the Masjid the cousin that we found thanks to the Police woman, to survive had to wade through water and dead bodies for four days to be able to get out of New Orleans. To get through the bodies he had to push them away from him and just keep pushing forward. I am sure he was thankful he sent his family ahead to safety. He was so saddened due not only the lost of his business and home but the whole nature of this tragedy that he did not wish to ever see New Orleans again, he was moving to Michigan; where he is at the time of this writing.

We did go back on Tuesday, to see our home and it was damaged by water and wind a total loss is what the FEMA people told us.

While Allah protected us through so many dangers, I have to think back of how many people worried about missing loved one’s that I hope turned up and all those who died; even the ones who bodies many never be found.

New Orleans in time can be rebuilt, but for many survivors’ it will be hard to rebuild lives.

One thing that must come to mind, it was thought originally when we were in Houma; that 18,000 people was expected to yet die from hunger and thirst because they were still trapped within New Orleans.

The estimate at this writing is 13,000 dead.

One thing that must never be forgotten is the many citizens, either through their businesses or just their kind charity helped many like us who were refugees; because without their kindness many more would have died. Or still be homeless. May Allah bless each and every one of them!

Many other parts of our story could have been written here, but because so much happened in such a short period of time; our story in this context would be to long.

George Bush Prays for Katrina with Jon Stewart

Jon Stewart reveals the irresponsible, righteous, murderous indifference of George Bush. Rather than understanding the danger, preparing appropriately, and then acting effectively, our president acts insanely, i.e., by giving massive tax cuts to the wealthiest people in the world (who do NOT need them) and offering prayer to the most vulnerable people at their time of greatest need!

To consider the fuller extent of this issue (with additional videos featuring Bill Maher, Will Ferrell, & Stephen Colbert), see yoism.org

Live Life to the Fullest

WORK like you don’t need the money
LOVE like you've never been hurt
DANCE likes no bodies watching
SING like nobody is listening
LIVE like its Heaven on Earth

Al-Qaeda’s Number Two Calls on Afghans to Oust Coalition Forces

June 22, 2006

Video

A video was released by the media branch of al-Qaeda Wednesday in which the second in command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, calls for Afghans to rise up against coalition forces.

Zawahiri claimed to have recorded the message May 29, the day after deadly riots rocked Kabul.

In the video, which is only in Arabic, Zawahiri talks about what he calls "crimes against the Afghan people by the Americans" and calls on young men in Kabul "join in with the Mujahedeen forces in attacking the invaders and freeing Muslim Afghanistan."

Links:

Karzai calls for War on Terror rethink

Al-Qaida No. 2 calls on Afghans to rise up against U.S. forces

Another American Humvee Attacked This One in Ramadi

Resistance attack Humvee in Ramadi

June 22, 2006

Video

This video was posted Thursday on a website frequented by resistance, showing an attack on a Humvee in the Iraqi city Ramadi by the Jaami resistance group.

It is unclear exactly what weapon was used in the attack by it appears to be some sort of projectile. Based on recent videos released by this group, we believe it may be a modified, Russian made S-5K (C-5K) rocket. The S-5K is an unguided, 55 mm tube rocket originally developed in the 1950s by the Soviet Union to be used in air to ground applications within rocket pods carried on aircraft.

Gaza-Egypt Border: Israeli Government Should Play Wimbledon?

Gaza-Egypt border reopens after two days


Palestinian border guards close the gate of the Rafah border crossing in the southern in the Gaza Strip. The Gaza Strip border with Egypt was reopened after a two-day closure owing to an Israeli security alert.(AFP/Said Khatib)

Jun 22, 2006

GAZA CITY (AFP) - The Gaza Strip border with Egypt was reopened after a two-day closure owing to an Israeli security alert, officials said.

EU monitors who oversee the Rafah terminal -- Gaza's sole gateway to the world bypassing Israel -- had been unable to get to work for two days and a liaison office closed because of an ongoing alert at a separate crossing.

The monitors were finally able to travel to their jobs when the Israeli military opened the Kerem Shalom crossing to the EU representatives, and allowed an adjacent liaison office, which oversees Rafah, to reopen.

"The EU observers came and we have reopened," said Samir Abu Nahl, a security official at the Rafah terminal.

"The crossing is now operating again," confirmed EU monitors spokesman Nigel Milverton after the team of observers regained their posts.

An Israeli military spokesman confirmed that Kerem Shalom had been opened to the EU monitors.

Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas had petitioned Egyptian, EU, Jordanian and US officials in a bid to secure Rafah's reopening, a spokesman said.

The European Union has deployed observers at Rafah, at the request of the Palestinian Authority and Israel, to monitor agreements on border traffic.

Update:

Gaza-Egypt border closes again

Gaza's gateway to world re-opens

What is the Future for Palestine, if Israel is Recognised?

Hamas performs about-turn on Israeli state

· Document recognises Israel's right to exist
· Shift away from founding goal of an Islamic state

Chris McGreal in Jerusalem
Wednesday June 21, 2006
The Guardian

A bulldozer moves an Israeli army jeep after it was set ablaze by Palestinians during clashes in an army operation in Nablus. Photograph: Nasser Ishtayeh/AP

Hamas has made a major political climbdown by agreeing to sections of a document that recognise Israel's right to exist and a negotiated two-state solution, according to Palestinian leaders.

In a bitter struggle for power, Hamas is bowing to an ultimatum from the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, to endorse the document drawn up by Palestinian security prisoners in Israeli jails, or face a national referendum on the issue that could see the Islamist group stripped of power if it loses.

But final agreement on the paper, designed to end international sanctions against the Hamas government that have crippled the Palestinian economy, has been slowed by wrangling over a national unity administration and the question of who speaks for the Palestinians.

Yasser Abed Rabbo, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organisation's executive committee and a lead negotiator on the prisoners' document, said Hamas had agreed to sections which call for a negotiated and final agreement with Israel to establish a Palestinian state on the territories occupied in 1967, including East Jerusalem.

"Hamas is prepared to accept those parts of the document because they think it is a way to get rid of a lot of its problems with the international community. That's why it will accept all the document eventually," he said.

Hamas, facing a deep internal split over recognition of the Jewish state, declined to discuss the negotiations in detail. If it formally approves the entire document, it will represent a significant shift from its founding goal of replacing Israel with an Islamic state and its more recent position of agreeing a long-term ceasefire, over a generation or more, if a Palestinian state is formed on the occupied territories but without formally recognising the Jewish state.

Mr Abed Rabbo said he expected an agreement in the coming days, but that important differences still had to be settled, particularly over the document's call for the formation of a national unity government.

He described that as "the major issue that will determine the fate of two nations for decades" because a unity administration, built around a common policy of negotiations with Israel, would be the only way to combat its plans to unilaterally impose its final borders and annex parts of the occupied territories.

More immediately this was also the only way to restore foreign aid. But Mr Abed Rabbo added it would be a mistake to see the approval of the prisoners' document as sufficient, in itself, to end international sanctions against the Palestinian Authority. "The document calls for the foundation of a national unity government as the basis of a new programme that will approach the world," he said.

"But the document is part of a package. It should be accompanied by an agreement on policies for a new government. The document won't change conditions and relations on its own."

Mr Abed Rabbo said the July 26 referendum would be called off if there was agreement on the document, but that a ballot could be held later if Hamas blocked the formation of a new government or failed to agree on a negotiations policy.

Abdullah Abdullah, a Fatah MP and chairman of the parliamentary political committee, said other differences remained over the document, including Fatah's insistence that the PLO continues to be recognised as the sole representative of the Palestinian people in negotiations with Israel, and that all existing agreements between the PLO and Israel be recognised.

Israel has dismissed the prisoners' document as changing little because, among other things, it advocates continued resistance. But a complete renunciation of violence is unlikely to come while Israeli attacks continue to claim the lives of innocent Palestinians.

Earlier today, a women was killed and six children injured in an Israeli missile attack in Gaza. On Tuesday, an Israeli air force rocket killed three children, two boys aged five and 16, and a seven-year-old girl. In both cases, Israel said it was targeting militants who escaped injury.

Israel has killed 13 civilians, most of them children, in four air strikes this month. It is also probably responsible for the killing of a family of seven during a shell barrage against a Gaza beach two weeks ago.

Link:

Israel can no longer rely on the support of Europe's Jews

Hamas U-turn on recognising Israel

Fallujah: The Hidden Massacre

Video

(Warning: video very graphic, not suitable for children.)

****************
US Forces 'Used Chemical Weapons' during Assault on City of Fallujah

By Peter Popham

The Independent UK

Tuesday 08 November 2005

Powerful new evidence emerged yesterday that the United States dropped massive quantities of white phosphorus on the Iraqi city of Fallujah during the attack on the city in November 2004, killing insurgents and civilians with the appalling burns that are the signature of this weapon.

Ever since the assault, which went unreported by any Western journalists, rumours have swirled that the Americans used chemical weapons on the city.

On 10 November last year, the Islam Online website wrote: "US troops are reportedly using chemical weapons and poisonous gas in its large-scale offensive on the Iraqi resistance bastion of Fallujah, a grim reminder of Saddam Hussein's alleged gassing of the Kurds in 1988."

The website quoted insurgent sources as saying: "The US occupation troops are gassing resistance fighters and confronting them with internationally banned chemical weapons."

In December the US government formally denied the reports, describing them as "widespread myths". "Some news accounts have claimed that US forces have used 'outlawed' phosphorus shells in Fallujah," the USinfo website said. "Phosphorus shells are not outlawed. US forces have used them very sparingly in Fallujah, for illumination purposes.

"They were fired into the air to illuminate enemy positions at night, not at enemy fighters."
But now new information has surfaced, including hideous photographs and videos and interviews with American soldiers who took part in the Fallujah attack, which provides graphic proof that phosphorus shells were widely deployed in the city as a weapon.

In a documentary to be broadcast by RAI, the Italian state broadcaster, this morning, a former American soldier who fought at Fallujah says: "I heard the order to pay attention because they were going to use white phosphorus on Fallujah. In military jargon it's known as Willy Pete."

"Phosphorus burns bodies, in fact it melts the flesh all the way down to the bone ... I saw the burned bodies of women and children. Phosphorus explodes and forms a cloud. Anyone within a radius of 150 metres is done for."

Photographs on the website of RaiTG24, the broadcaster's 24-hours news channel, www.rainews24.it, show exactly what the former soldier means. Provided by the Studies Centre of Human Rights in Fallujah, dozens of high-quality, colour close-ups show bodies of Fallujah residents, some still in their beds, whose clothes remain largely intact but whose skin has been dissolved or caramelised or turned the consistency of leather by the shells.

A biologist in Fallujah, Mohamad Tareq, interviewed for the film, says: "A rain of fire fell on the city, the people struck by this multi-coloured substance started to burn, we found people dead with strange wounds, the bodies burned but the clothes intact."

The documentary, entitled "Fallujah: the Hidden Massacre," also provides what it claims is clinching evidence that incendiary bombs known as Mark 77, a new, improved form of napalm, was used in the attack on Fallujah, in breach of the UN Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons of 1980, which only allows its use against military targets.

Meanwhile, five US soldiers from the elite 75th Ranger Regiment have been charged with kicking and punching detainees in Iraq.

The news came as a suicide car bomber killed four American soldiers at a checkpoint south of Baghdad yesterday.

Links:

Fallujah - The Hidden Massacre video

U.S. Broadcast Exclusive - "Fallujah: The Hidden Massacre"
on the U.S. Use of Napalm-Like White Phosphorus Bombs

Presbyterians ease Mideast divesting policy

Palestinians remove a damaged car after an explosion
near a Palestinian security forces building in Gaza city
June 21, 2006. REUTERS/Mohammed Salem

By Verna Gates

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama (Reuters) - The largest U.S. Presbyterian church on Wednesday backed away from a policy that ordered it to divest stock holdings in companies doing business with Israel that profit from the violence in the Middle East.

The 2.5 million-member Presbyterian Church U.S.A. voted at its biennial convention to replace an order of divestment adopted two years ago with a broader directive to employ its investments only for peaceful pursuits.

No money in its $8 billion portfolio had yet been divested, but the church could still take that step.

"If they do not change their behavior, then it could lead to a recommendation to the 2008 general assembly to divest," said the Rev. Leonard Bjorkman of New York.

He called the directive, approved by 94 percent of the delegates voting, a "softening" of the church's stance.

The issue had divided the church, where some members thought the divestment threat was anti-Jewish, and it damaged the church's relationship with Israel. Wednesday's vote was in part a reflection of those concerns.

Glenn Dickson, an elder from Gainsville, Florida, who helped write the request for divestment two years ago but supports the change, said the intent of the original action was to "spur the Jewish community in this country to reclaim their heritage of justice."

The church's 2004 meeting endorsed a "phased, selective divestment" of holdings in firms whose products, activities or services underpinned the conflict in Israel and Palestine.

FIVE COMPANIES TARGETED

A committee pursuing such divestment had singled out five companies -- Caterpillar Inc., Citigroup Inc., United Technologies Corp., Motorola Inc. and ITT Industries Inc. -- for "dialogue, shareholder resolutions and public pressure."

While other U.S. churches have explored similar divestments, none had taken it as far as the Presbyterians. How much the church has invested in those companies has not been disclosed.

"We are thrilled," said David Elcott, director of inter-religious affairs for the American Jewish Committee. "This validates our strategy of engagement and outreach over assault."

He called the action "courageous. ... This is a win-win situation not only for Jews and Christians.

Even more, it is a victory for Israelis and Palestinians and those committed to end the suffering."

Rabbi Jonathan Miller of Temple Emanuel in Birmingham, Alabama, told the convention: "I am grateful to all people who stuck with us to make right this mistake."

The resolution urged that "financial investments of the Presbyterian Church U.S.A. as they pertain to Israel, Gaza, East Jerusalem and the West Bank (be invested) in only peaceful pursuits" and continue the "customary corporate engagement process" to make that happen.