U.N. adopts resolution against N. Korea

North Korean leader Kim Jong-II

October 14, 2006

UNITED NATIONS - The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously on Saturday to impose punishing sanctions on North Korea for its claimed nuclear test, declaring that its action posed "a clear threat to international peace and security."

The vote came after the United States, Britain and France overcame last-minute differences with Russia and China.

The resolution demands North Korea eliminate all its nuclear weapons but expressly rules out military action against the country — a demand by the Russians and Chinese. The Americans also eliminated a complete ban on the sale of conventional weapons; instead, the resolution limits the embargo to major hardware such as tanks, warships, combat aircraft and missiles.

___________________

Pyongyang rejects UN resolution

Bolton said the UN was sending a strong message to N Korea

15 October 2006

The UN Security Council has voted unanimously to impose financial and weapons sanctions on North Korea for its claimed nuclear test in a resolution that Pyongyang immediately rejected.


The US-drafted resolution, which said the communist state's action was a "clear threat to international peace and security," allows nations to stop cargo going to and from North Korea to check for weapons of mass destruction or related supplies.

The resolution bars trade with North Korea in dangerous weapons. It also imposes bans on heavy conventional weapons and luxury goods and asks nations to freeze funds connected with North Korea's arms programmes.

Pak Gil Yon, North Korea's UN ambassador, walked out of the council after he spoke. He accused members of "gangster-like" action for adopting the resolution and ignoring the threat from the United States against his country.

Pak said Pyongyang considered any further US pressure a "declaration of war".

North Korea has issued similar statements before, but this time it was before a formal audience.

Enforcement will largely depend on whether those who have traded with North Korea honour the bans, which now also have the support of neighbouring China, the closest ally of North Korea, as well as Russia.

Concrete measures

A UN sanctions committee will distribute a list of which weapons and related supplies are banned.

George Bush, the US president, said the resolution showed "the world is united in our opposition to its nuclear weapons plans" and Taro Aso, Japan's foreign minister, said North Korea had to "take concrete measures to resolve the issue".

Prudent attitude

Wang Guangya, the Chinese UN ambassador, said: "China strongly urges the countries concerned to adopt a prudent and responsible attitude in this regard and refrain from taking any provocative steps that may intensify the tensions."

Most of Pyongyang's trade crosses through China, which fears a flood of refugees if the Pyongyang government collapses.

Kim Dae-jung, the former South Korean president, told Reuters in an e-mail interview: "North Korea is already very familiar with poverty.

"The country can also get support, at least in order to survive, from countries such as China."

Kim, the architect of South Korea's engagement policy with the North, blamed US policy in part for the nuclear crisis, which he said could only end if Washington held direct talks with Pyongyang, which the Bush administration rejects.

Serious repercussions

The Bush administration has been urged to talk to North Korea by Russia, China and some leading Democrats.

Kim said: "We have to talk not only with friends but also with enemies, if necessary."

John Bolton, the US ambassador to the UN, told the Security Council's 15 members: "Today we are sending a strong and clear message to North Korea and other would-be proliferators that there will be serious repercussions in continuing to pursue weapons of mass destruction."

Next week, the Security Council begins considering sanctions against Iran for its refusal to suspend its nuclear programme.

Iran's foreign ministry said on Saturday that threats of sanctions were "psychological war" and that it was more determined than ever to pursue "the peaceful use of nuclear energy".

Deliberations

Vitaly Churkin, Russia's UN ambassador, told reporters after the vote that deliberations were made more difficult because the United States had imposed unilateral sanctions on both North Korea and Iran.

But Bolton told reporters that he hoped Iran would pay attention to the North Korea resolution because deliberation on Tehran's actions would come next.

He said on Thursday: "I'm sure they're watching in Tehran what we do on this North Korea resolution and I hope they watch closely."


Links:

U.N. approves sanctions on North Korea

UN Slaps Tough Sanctions on North Korea

UN imposes sanctions on North Korea

Nuclear proliferation: The Axis of Anxiety

N. Korea apparently preparing nuke test

Blair devastated as Army chief savages his approach to Iraq

By Colin Brown, Terri Judd and Andrew Buncombe in Washington
Published: 14 October 2006


The authority of Tony Blair was left battered last night as he attempted to play down a rift with the head of the British Army over his unprecedented warning that the presence of foreign troops was "exacerbating" the security situation in Iraq

The devastating assessment by General Sir Richard Dannatt, the chief of the general staff, infuriated ministers and caused alarm in Washington.

However there was widespread backing across the Army yesterday as soldiers of every rank praised General Dannatt for standing up to the Government.

Within hours of his comments being made public, the Army's unofficial website was packed with hundreds of blogs from troops voicing their support. The messages included: "Can Tony Blair recover from this and justify British presence in Iraq, without using the words 'I was wrong ...?'" Another said: "Dannatt gets my vote! Anyone care to disagree with him? We were lied to when it all started and we are still lied to today!"

Other serving soldiers were also quick to voice their relief at the general's intervention.

One senior officer said: "It has been decades since someone senior actually stood up for us, the soldiers and their families.

"People need to take him seriously. This is not a man who is thinking about his career. This is a man who passionately and clearly believes he should tell the truth and represent all of us."

Last night the Prime Minister tried to minimise the damage, saying he had agreed with General Dannatt's later remarks in a series of "clarifying" interviews. Mr Blair said: "I have to say, I've read his transcript of his interview on the radio this morning, and I agree with every word of it."

As the Government launched a damage-limitation exercise, General Dannatt attempted to clarify his comments. Interviewed on the BBC's Today programme, he said: "I've got an army to look after which is going to be successful in current operations. But I want an army in five years' time and 10 years' time. Don't let's break it on this one. Let's keep an eye on time."

As General Dannatt insisted that there was no rift with the Government, his soldiers were in no mood to back down. Senior officers said he should be "saluted" for his honesty, and frontline soldiers praised him for "telling it how it is".

A non-commissioned officer said: "He has spoken the truth. I think many people feel that but nobody would say it. I agree we should try and get out as soon as we can. That is not to say we let them fight among themselves, but we have always said we would go when the job was done, and I hope it is sooner rather than later.

In his interview with the Daily Mail, General Dannatt said we should "get ourselves out sometime soon because our presence exacerbates security problems".

He also suggested that the Government's aim of creating a liberal democracy in Iraq was "naive" and should be scaled down. Britain had "effectively kicked the door in" when troops entered in 2003, he added.

"Whatever consent we may have had in the first place, may have turned to tolerance and has largely turned to intolerance," he said. "I don't say that the difficulties we are experiencing round the world are caused by our presence in Iraq but undoubtedly our presence in Iraq exacerbates them."

He said the effects of the conflict could be felt in Britain, where there was a "moral compass spinning" and the Islamist threat had to be faced up to.

White House officials made a series of calls to clarify the comments. President George Bush's spokesman, Tony Snow, said: "We did call [Downing Street] and say, what did he say? We've received transcripts, especially of this morning's interviews.

"What he said is that the comment was taken out of context, and his general point was that when your work is done, you hand over authority to the Iraqis."

He added: "His general argument is, number one, there's no difference between him and the Blair government or between the Brits and the United States. Number two, this is not an injunction to leave, that somehow everything is getting worse."

General Dannatt earlier issued a clarifying statement, saying Britain would stand "shoulder to shoulder" with the Americans adding: "I'm a soldier. We don't do surrender. We don't pull down white flags."

Mr Blair will face a fresh challenge in the Commons next week over Iraq, following the general's intervention. The Commons Select Committee on Defence, which highlighted the threat to morale in Iraq last July, will publish the Government's response. They are expected to summon General Dannatt to expand on his concerns.

The Prime Minister's growing number of critics will be emboldened by the challenge to his authority by the general. Mr Blair's allies are worried where the next challenge will come from. "It's the end of an era," said one minister.

Reg Keys, whose son Thomas was killed in Iraq along with five fellow Royal Military Police officers in 2003, said he agreed "100 per cent" with the general.

Mr Keys said: "He is a strong character who is prepared to speak his mind and not be a spin doctor for the Prime Minister."

However the Tory former foreign secretary Sir Malcolm Rifkind said Sir Richard had not been "playing politics" but should be sacked if he strayed into politics again. He said: "These are perfectly legitimate views for the rest of the nation but serving officers are not, I'm afraid, able to have that kind of freedom."

The SNP's leader, Alex Salmond, told delegates at the party's conference in Perth: "Today the head of the Army - the head of the Army - has said that in his professional opinion our continued presence in Iraq exacerbates the security position in Iraq and elsewhere. Finally the truth."

Links:

Tough week gets worse for embattled Prime Minister

Army chief says British troops should be pulled out of Iraq

UK Army Chief Wants Boys Out of Iraq

"You're Either With Us or You're Dead"

Can We Call It Genocide Now?

October 12, 2006

By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

When does "collateral damage" so dwarf combatant deaths that war becomes genocide?

Bush's illegal invasion of Iraq has cost 655,000 Iraqis their lives. That is the conclusion of a study financed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Center for International Studies and conducted by physicians under the direction of Johns Hopkins University epidemiologists. These are deaths over and above the pre-invasion mortality rate. Bush's illegal invasion raised Iraq's mortality rate from 5.5 deaths per 1,000 people per year to 13.3 deaths per 1,000 people per year. The study is published by the distinguished British medical journal, The Lancet, and is available on the journal's online site (October 11).

The study uses a scientific method known as "cluster sampling." In 87% of the deaths, the researchers requested death certificates, and more than 90% of the surveyed households produced the death certificates. Violence accounted for 601,000 deaths and disease and destruction of civilian infrastructure accounted for 54,000 deaths. The violent deaths are attributed to gunshot wounds, coalition air strikes, and car bombs.

Johns Hopkins University epidemiologist Gilbert Burnham says, "We're very confident with the results." Columbia University epidemiologist Ronald Waldman says the survey method used is "tried and true" and that "this is the best estimate of mortality we have."

When asked about the report, President Bush stated: "I don't consider it a credible report." Bush, of course, is not reality-based, and he knows that any unfavorable news is "enemy propaganda." That's what the neocons who pull his strings tell him, and that is what he believes.

What percentage of these 655,000 deaths were insurgents or "terrorists"? Probably 1% and no more than 2%. Bush's "war on terror" is, in fact, a war on Iraqi civilians.

Bush's invasion has also spawned sectarian conflict or civil war, although the Bush regime denies it. Even Bush is smart enough to know that "bringing freedom and democracy to Iraq" is not compatible with setting off a civil war in Iraq. Since Bush, the faith-based, believes that he is bringing "freedom and democracy to Iraq," he cannot accept the fact that he has started a civil war.

Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians are not the only innocent victims of Bush's illegal aggression. The New York Times (October 11) reports that Department of Veterans Affairs documents show that about one in five US soldiers who have served in Iraq or Afghanistan have suffered at least partial disability.

To date more than 100,000 US troops who are veterans of these wars have been granted disability compensation. Although the US cannot put on the ground in Iraq more than 150,000 troops at one time, 1.5 million troops have served so far and 567,000 have been discharged of which 100,000 are receiving disability payments.

Paul Sullivan, director of programs for Veterans for America, says that the current rate of injuries will produce 400,000 American veterans suffering 30% to 100% disability. Apparently, one of the severe forms of disability is post-traumatic stress, which does not count as a physical wound.

What is America's reward for Bush's illegal wars that have killed 655,000 Iraqis, an uncounted number of Afghanis, and disabled as many as 400,000 US troops?

According to the US National Intelligence Estimate and to practically every Middle East expert, Bush's invasions have radicalized the Muslim Middle East, created legions of recruits for extremists, undermined America's puppet rulers, imperiled Israel, and destroyed America's reputation.

We are talking about over one million casualties that have no other cause than blatant lies by Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, the bloodthirsty neoconservative cabal that occupies Bush's subcabinet, and their corporate media propagandists, especially The Weekly Standard, Fox News, National Review, CNN, and the Wall Street Journal editorial page. The Bush regime deceived America and the world with its lies that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction that would be turned against the West by terrorists. By giving speeches that continually mentioned Iraq in the same context as 9/11, the Bush regime created the widespread impression, still prevalent among Americans, that Iraq was responsible for 9/11.

What kind of government would destroy the lives through death or disability of over one million people for no valid reason?

The same kind of government that fires its own lawyers for doing their constitutional duty. Navy lawyer Lt. Cmdr. Charles Swift was assigned the task of bringing Salim Hamdan to a guilty plea before the unconstitutional military tribunal that President Bush created for Guantanamo detainees. Instead, Cmdr. Swift did his duty and defended his client, winning in the US Supreme Court. The Bush administration retaliated by blocking Cmdr. Swift's promotion, which killed his military career and sent the chilling message to all US military and government attorneys that constitutional scruples are career-enders in the Bush regime. Anyone who stands for the US Constitution is against Bush and his neocon regime.

The Bush regime is proceeding exactly as the Nazi regime proceeded. First, eliminate every person of conscience and integrity from the government. Second, redefine duty as service to the leader: "You are with us or against us"--a formulation that leaves no place for duty to the US Constitution. Patriotism is redefined from loyalty to country and Constitution to loyalty to the government's leader.

Americans are too inattentive and distracted to be aware of the grave danger that the neoconservative Bush regime presents to American liberty and to world stability. The neoconservative drive to achieve hegemony over the American people and the entire world is similar to Hitler's drive for hegemony. Hitler used racial superiority to justify Germany's right to ride roughshod over other peoples and the right of the Nazi elite to rule over the German people. Neoconservatives use "American exceptionalism" and "the war on terror." There is no practical difference. Hitler cared no more about the peoples he mowed down in his drive for supremacy than the neoconservatives care about 655,000 dead Iraqis, 100,000 disabled American soldiers and 2,747 dead ones.

When Bush, the Decider, claims unconstitutional powers and uses "signing statements" to negate US law whenever he feels the rule of law is in the way of his leadership, he is remarkably similar to Hitler, the Fuhrer, who told the Reichstag on February 20, 1938: "A man who feels it his duty at such an hour to assume the leadership of his people is not responsible to the laws of parliamentary usage or to a particular democratic conception, but solely to the mission placed upon him. And anyone who interferes with this mission is an enemy of the people."

"You are with us or against us."

Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.

Thoughts of War

From Peace Posters

The Value of Words

Every word we utter is being recorded by the angels and one day we will have to stand accountable for all this record.

“Whoever believes in Allah and the Last Day should say something good or keep quiet.” [Bukhari, Hadith 5994]

The famous companion, Sayyidna Muadh ibn Jabal (RA) once asked the Prophet (Pbuh), “Tell me about an act that will cause me to enter Paradise and be protected from the Fire.” “You have indeed asked something profound,” responded the Prophet. “But it will be easy on whom Allah makes it easy. Worship Allah and do not associate any partners with Him. Establish regular salat, pay zakat, fast during Ramadan, and perform Hajj.” Then he asked, “Shall I not tell you about the doors of good? Fast is a shield (against sins and against Hell-fire); charity extinguishes sins like water extinguishes fire; and the midnight salat (the voluntary Tahajjud salat).” Then he recited this verse:

“They slip quietly away from their beds to appeal to their Lord in fear and anticipation and spend (charitably) whatever We have provided them with.” (As-Sajda, 32:16).

Then he continued: “Shall I tell you about the beginning, the mainstay and the high point of this? The beginning is (acceptance of) Islam; its mainstay is salat; its highest point is jihad.”

Then the Prophet asked: “Shall I tell you about the thing on which all this depends?” He, then held his tongue and said “Guard this.” Sayyidna Muadh ibn Jabal asked: “Shall we be questioned about our utterances?” On this, the Prophet said, “Most people will be thrown into Hell—face down—because of the transgressions of their tongues. (Tirmidhi, Hadith 2541).

The ability to speak and express themselves separates human beings from animals. The proper use of this great gift—or its absence—separates the good and successful people from the bad and unsuccessful ones.

Sayyidna Muadh’s question was about eternal success. In response, the Hadith mentions both mandatory and voluntary good deeds that cover a person’s entire life. But then we are reminded that the outcome of all these depends upon guarding our tongue. In other words carelessness with the tongue can poke holes in all of our good deeds.

“Sometimes a person says something pleasing to Allah, the Great and Almighty, but he does not realise how far his words will go. Yet it earns him the pleasure of Allah until the Day of Judgement. On the other hand, sometimes a person says something displeasing to Allah, although he does not realise how far his words will go. Yet it earns him the wrath of Allah until the Day of Judgement.” (Musnad Ahmed, Hadith 15291).

The pre-Islamic Arab society was a very vocal society. While reading and writing were not that common, people did pride themselves in their facility with words — both prose and poetry. A person commanded respect based on his command over words. Using power of words only, they could sink reputations, start wars, and impact life in a similar fashion as the modern media has come to demonstrate on a much larger scale. Then, as now, it was raw power like the power of the beasts of the jungle.

Islam tamed this beast. It reminded us that each and every word we utter is being recorded by the angels and one day we will have to stand accountable for all this record. It reminded that a person’s greatness lies not in how powerful he is with words, but in how careful is he with them. It reminded that it is better to keep silent than to say something bad. And it is better to say something good than to keep quiet.

The social revolution it engendered was unprecedented. It produced a people who truly understood the value of words and who were as pious with them as they had been powerful. Their silence was the silence of quiet reflection. And they spoke only when they could improve the silence. Is it any wonder that even their extempore statements were pearls of wisdom.

Today, everywhere there are schools that can teach one how to read, write, and speak a language. But their students will never learn how to civilize this raw power; to use it only in promoting truth and spreading virtue; to never use it for promoting falsehood or spreading evil. There is a lot of unlearning we have to do if we want to get out of this. It is a costly mistake for a believer to think that talk is cheap, that you can say whatever is expedient without any concern for any consequences beyond the immediate ones.

Such attitudes, prevalent today, lead to all kinds of sins: vain pursuits, gossip, dishonesty, insincerity, arrogance, belittling others, back-biting, spreading scandals and corruption, telling lies. Each of these has been clearly defined as a deadly sin by the Qur’an and Hadith. The treatment for each of these sins begins with learning the responsible use of the tongue.

Modern communication technologies have made it possible for messages to be transmitted instantaneously all over the globe. But as the world marvels at these achievements, it continues to confuse the speed of a message with its quality and value. We pride ourselves on the ability to spread trash around the world at the speed of light. Witness the rubbish that continues to dominate the Internet alone. We are amazed by the sophisticated techniques of telling lies in a convincing manner. The “Information Age” is begging for the moral guidance of Islam.

Democracy at a Price

14, October, 2006

Tariq A. Al-Maeena, Arab News

President George Bush is telling everybody who cares to listen and believe in him that he is promoting democracy in Iraq. That was his reason for invading Iraq, to rid it of a brutal dictator. And he intends to occupy Iraq until he achieves that goal. This is the current spin.

For the easily gullible, it sounds like a wise plan. The skeptics though will recall those drumbeats of over three years ago interlaced with the ominous threats of WMDs that were to strike at the heart of America. Then, there was no talk of democracy. Only that America was facing a direct threat from Iraq’s mighty arsenal of weaponry that would have reduced Kansas City or Detroit to shambles. And his constituents greedily sucked it in, hook, line and sinker!

Newer approaches to their war strategies allowed the current US administration to maintain this sham for quite some time. Embedded reporters, or those discreetly on the government’s payroll allowed this deception of the masses to fester. The invasion would be welcomed en mass by a downtrodden Iraqi people, the people were told. The weapons of mass destruction would be seized and destroyed before they had a chance to make their way across the Atlantic and strike at the heartland of America. The marching troops would be welcomed in with singing and dancing in the streets, and those infamous “garlands of flowers”.

But it wasn’t long before we heard of the resistance to this unlawful invasion by Iraqis who were quickly dubbed as insurgents. “Insurgents” who have since graduated to “militants”, and later “terrorists” by the same media that continued to promote and participate in this façade, and that has consistently downplayed the human cost of this aggression.

But according to a scientific study recently concluded, an estimated 655,000 people have died in Iraq as a result of Bush’s war. That is well above 2.5 percent of the entire Iraqi population, and the death tolls under the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein literally pale in comparison when placed alongside these figures.

Gilbert Burnham and associates at Johns Hopkins University in the US, and Al Mustansiriya University in Baghdad jointly conducted the study.

Now anything coming out of John Hopkins is something I would deem more credible than the Pentagon paid-for press dispatches flowing out of Iraq. Critics may quickly term those involved in the research as being Democrats with an axe to grind, but rest assured, their fellow-associates at the university in Baghdad do not hold any US party affiliations.

In their findings using scientific evaluation of their survey in all but 2 of Iraq’s governorates, they found that the death rate prior to the invasion was a consistent 5.5 per thousand people per year. Since March 2003, when Bush’s grand adventure into Iraq began, the death rate started rising steadily every year, this year reaching an ominous 19.8 per thousand people, almost 400 percent over levels that prevailed prior to the invasion.

So who would you rather believe? Respected researchers using real data in a scientific study, or an administration that has been consistent in its fabrication of evidence and the truth, as countless instances over the past three years have proven. It shouldn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that one out.

655,000 people including over 3,300 American boys in uniform are an enormous and tragic number!

And there are many many more who today remain alive but brutally maimed and in perpetual physical discomfort in Iraq. And while the death toll continues unabated every day, Bush parades around with his “promotion of democracy” line.

Is Bush’s warped vision of democracy worth over half a million members of the human race, now deceased?

Iraqis have indeed discovered the weapons of mass destruction.

They are in the guise of Bush and his administration. Just who will weep for those lost souls? And just who shall be held accountable for it?

Israeli Missiles Kill More Palestinians

GAZA CITY (Arab News), 14 October 2006 — Israel pressed forward with a stepped-up offensive in the Gaza Strip yesterday, killing at least four people in a pair of attacks in the coastal area.

The fighting brought the death toll in the offensive to 13 Palestinians, including a young girl, since Thursday.

Yesterday, an Israeli aircraft fired missiles at a car in the northern Gaza Strip, killing three Hamas fighters, including a local commander, the group said. Witnesses said the force of the blast ripped the white sedan into two.

The army confirmed the strike.

In the southern Gaza Strip, Israeli troops shot a 29-year-old woman outside her house in the village of Abassan, Palestinian hospital officials said. The army said it had no information about a woman being shot. It reported killing an armed person and wounding another in the same area around the same time.

The latest Israeli activity has been focused in the Abassan area, near the southern city of Khan Younis. Israeli airstrikes on Thursday killed eight people, including a boy and a girl.

Meanwhile, Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh said yesterday that Hamas will never recognize Israel’s right to exist, rejecting a key demand of the international community and signaling further deadlock in efforts to forge a Palestinian coalition government.

Haniyeh’s declaration was likely to increase tensions with President Mahmoud Abbas, who has been urging Hamas to recognize Israel as a way to ending Western sanctions against the Palestinians. Hamas has refused, and talks over forming a power-sharing government with Abbas’ Fatah movement have stalled over the issue.

“Israel might have secured the recognition of some of our people, and some in the Arab world and in the international community. It is now seeking another recognition, Islamic recognition, “ Haniyeh said in a sermon during Friday prayers in Khan Younis. “I say we will not give it this card.”

Hamas will not recognize Israel “no matter for how long,” he said, adding that the group will not give up its armed struggle against the Jewish state. “Resistance is a legitimate right... We will not give up our right to defend ourselves.”

Love the World You Live In

Stop all the Hate and Violence!!!

Instead of Kicking Dirt

by Housewife4Palestine

Peace can take just a smile
A simple task of kindness
Knowing what is good and just
Carrying goodwill for all.

Today may be in darkness
But tomorrow is another day
We do not have to crawl in squalor
Or hate a living soul.

Love can mend a lot of sorrow
A simple, How are you?”
Can make the sun seem brighter?
Even an old worn hand in kindness, can melt stone.

Instead of kicking dirt along the road of life
Hold your head up
And do what is right?

Palestinian Holocaust

A film portraying the awful truth of Palestine.

This film shows how Palestinians are being mistreated every single day. And it also shows who really the terrorist in this world is.

*contains graphic pictures*

by Arya Aminrazavi

Shine a Light

Israeli troops prevent hundreds of Palestinians from entering Jerusalem on Friday with batons, tear gas, sound grenades

Clashes in Bethlehem and Qalandia Friday (MaanImages)

October 13, 2006

Ma'an - Israeli troops prevented hundreds of Palestinian Muslims from entering the holy city of Jerusalem for Friday prayers at the Al Aqsa Mosque on 13 October, the third Friday in the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.

Israeli soldiers confronted the crowds of Palestinians - including elderly men, women and children - at a number of checkpoints and barriers around the city of Jerusalem.

At the Qalandia checkpoint between the West Bank city of Ramallah and Jerusalem, Israeli jeeps and soldiers took up position on Friday morning and used water cannons to prevent scores of Muslims from passing. Reports also indicate that the Israeli soldiers used tear gas and fired rubber and electric bullets in an attempt to disperse the crowds. Electric bullets are a recent addition to the occupation forces' arsenal; on contact, the bullet gives the recipient an electric shock. The Israeli soldiers are also reported to have used sticks to beat the crowds away.

Reports from the scene say that at least twenty Palestinians were suffering from the effects of tear gas and a number had been injured. At least half of the potential worshippers were not allowed to cross the checkpoint into Jerusalem.

Similar scenes were witnessed at the main checkpoint between the West Bank city of Bethlehem and Jerusalem. The Israeli soldiers beat the crowds back with sticks and threw sound grenades into the middle of the waiting Palestinians. One sound grenade landed at the feet of a small child. The grenade exploded in his face, causing him slight burns and shock. Many others suffered burns from the sound grenades.

Despite Israeli media reports that Palestinians had been throwing stones at the Israeli soldiers at the checkpoints, there were no reports of Palestinians throwing stones at either the Bethlehem or Qalandia checkpoints. Rather, in the crush at the Bethlehem checkpoint, many tried to run away and in the stampede, an elderly woman was trampled. A Palestinian ambulance was on the scene treating the injured.

Apparantly at random, a number of men - if aged over 45 - were eventually allowed through the Bethlehem checkpoint into Jerusalem. At the checkpoint near the village of Anata, a few elderly men were allowed to pass only. Hundreds were held back.

It is reported that tens of thousands of Palestinians were hoping to enter Jerusalem on Friday in order to pray at the Al Aqsa Mosque in the Old City of Jerusalem. The Al Aqsa Mosque is considered the third holiest Islamic site in the world after Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia.

What Happens if an Insect Falls into a Cup of Coffee?

The British: will throw the cup into the street and leave the coffee shop for good.

The American: will get the insect out and drink the coffee.

The Chinese: will eat the insect and drink the coffee.

The Israeli will:

1. Sell the coffee to the American and the insect to the Chinese.

2. Cry on all media channels that he feels insecure.

3. Accuse the Palestinians, Hezbollah, Syria and Iran of using germ-weapons.

4. Keep on crying about anti-Semitism and violations of human rights.

5. Ask the Palestinian President to stop planting insects in the cups of coffee.

6. Re-occupy the West Bank, Gaza Strip.

7. Demolish houses, confiscate lands, cut water and electricity from Palestinian houses and randomly shoot Palestinians.

8. Ask the United States for urgent military support and a loan of one million dollars in order to buy a new cup of coffee.

9. Ask the United Nations to punish the coffee-shop owner by making him offer free coffee to him till the end of the century.

10. Last but not least, accuse the whole world to be standing still, not even sympathizing with the Israeli Nation.

Ramadan in "Liberated" Iraq

Israel Kills Eight Gazans

13, October, 2006
Hisham Abu Taha, Arab News

GAZA CITY, 13 October 2006 — At least eight Palestinians, two of them children, were killed in Israeli missile attacks in the Gaza Strip yesterday.

Israeli helicopters fired two missiles at a crowd of Palestinians in the early hours yesterday, killing six people including a boy. The missiles were fired during an Israeli incursion of troops and tanks, backed by bulldozers, drones and military helicopters, into the Al-Farheen area of the Gaza Strip. Among the dead were three members of the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades.

Five of those killed belonged to the same family — bystanders 13-year-old Suheib Iqdah and his 40-year-old father Adel, and the three Al-Qassam Brigades fighters.

After nightfall, an Israeli drone fired a missile at a building in the crowded Shajaiyeh neighborhood of Gaza City, killing a girl and a fighter. The airstrike targeted a house of a Hamas commander. Doctors said the dead girl was 10 years old. Seven people were wounded, including children, doctors said.

The Israeli military confirmed the earlier airstrike and the launch of a ground operation targeting “tunnels and other terror infrastructure” in the Khan Younis area, saying its troops were periodically coming under fire.

Since June 28, Israel has waged a prolonged offensive in Gaza with the stated goals of retrieving a soldier captured by Palestinians and stopping rocket attacks on its territory. A UN special envoy for human rights, John Dugard, has accused Israel of unleashing “collective punishment” in the territory, declaring last month that some 260 Palestinians had been killed and 800 injured in the operation.

The exiled political leader of Hamas, meanwhile, accused Israel of refusing to free Arab prisoners in exchange for the release of the captured soldier, according to remarks published yesterday. “The idea is to free (Israeli soldier Gilad) Shalit and that Israel would then release detainees in a political context,” Khaled Meshaal said in an interview with the Al-Hayat newspaper.

Meshaal said Hamas wants the release of 1,000 detainees including women and children and that Israel had “refused the principle of an exchange.” The Hamas leader, who lives in exile in Syria, also accused Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of “hindering the agreement.”

Shalit was captured June 25 by three groups of Palestinian militants, including Hamas, during a cross-border raid between Israel and the Gaza Strip. The captors have demanded that Israel free Arab prisoners in exchange for his return. Shalit’s seizure sparked a massive Israeli military offensive in Gaza, and was followed in July by the separate capture of two more Israeli soldiers by Lebanese Hezbollah group.

Israeli officials have said Meshaal is a marked man for allegedly ordering Shalit’s capture.

Coroner: US troops killed journalist

Lloyd was killed by US forces in Iraq, the coroner said

13 October 2006

Aljazeera

A British coroner has ruled that a television journalist was unlawfully killed by US forces in Iraq in 2003.

Andrew Walker said on Friday he would ask the British director of public prosecutions to bring those responsible for the death of Terry Lloyd to justice.

He said: "Terry Lloyd died following a gunshot wound to the head. The evidence this bullet was fired by the Americans is overwhelming."

Lloyd, a reporter for the ITN network; Lebanese interpreter Hussein Osman; and French cameraman Fred Nerac were killed outside Basra on March 22 2003, the coroner said.

The veteran correspondent was first shot in the back in a crossfire between US and Iraqi forces and then shot in the head by US troops as he was taken away in a minibus for treatment.

"There is no doubt that the minibus presented no threat to the American forces. There is no doubt it was an unlawful act of fire upon the minibus," Walker said. Since the start of the Iraq war in March 2003, 118 journalists and media assistants have been killed, according to Paris-based Reporters sans Frontieres.

Fifty-one have been abducted, of which five are currently being held hostage.

According to figures compiled by the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), 2006 has been the deadliest year for the media in the conflict so far with 25 deaths, compared with 22 last year and 24 in 2004.

We Are Not Bad People

This is a painting I did, that shows that Muslims are not bad people.-Wearn Hamed, Palestine.

Rice and Olmert need fresh ideas

Illustration by Noora Altannak/Gulf News

By George S. Hishmeh, Special to Gulf News

Why did the US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visit the Arab world and Israel earlier this month and during these crucial times if she were not planning to undertake a serious effort to revive the moribund Palestinian-Israeli peace talks?

The media in the region, Arab and Israeli, appeared disappointed, if not critical, of her fruitless trip. The Bush administration seemed attempting an election-eve ploy to divert attention from its growing unpopularity as a result of its failed policies in Iraq, the ruinous disclosures made by Bob Woodward in his explosive book, State of Denial, and the sordid sex scandal of a key Republican Congressman.

There were recent rumours, circulated by some high officials in Washington, that US President George W. Bush was planning a pace-setting gesture vis-a-vis the Middle East after the mid-term election, a Madrid II summit.

But whether he would go through with these ideas may now be far-fetched since the Republicans are not so sure of maintaining control of either the US House of Representatives or the Senate or even both legislatures.

The Congressman's sexually explicit e-mail messages to former pages are casting a black cloud over some senior Republican Congressmen for not taking early disciplinary or legal action and thus avoid hurting the party's standing. Even Bush's approval rating is now in the 30s.

However, it is Rice's actions of late that are more perplexing here. She had declared that she was going to the region to help in shoring up the leadership of the beleaguered Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, raising high expectations that something is in the offing.

Abbas's party lost the parliamentary elections earlier this year and now has to deal with Hamas, the popular but recalcitrant Islamist movement, which took over the government of the Palestinian National Authority.

Coalition

But on arriving in the region, in Saudi Arabia as a matter of fact, her first action was to seek a coalition of "moderate" Arab states in a bid to stand up against Iran and its ambitious nuclear programme.

Her meeting later in the week with the Palestinian president proved undramatic - simply no original ideas - only promising to press the Israelis to relax the crossing points into Egypt and Israel and some additional financial assistance.

(US officials like to remind everyone that the US is the highest donor to the Palestinian people, but not the Hamas-led government.)

This US wishy-washy stance of refusing to find a way to deal with the democratically elected Hamas may compel Abbas to dismiss the Palestinian government and thereby precipitate a much-feared civil war in the region. There is no doubt that the brunt of this devastating development will be blamed on the Bush administration.

It is strange that the Bush administration does not pay more attention to James A. Baker, III, the much-respected American statesman who served the former president George H. W. Bush and is now the Republican co-chairman of a bipartisan panel reassessing Iraqi strategy for this Bush administration.

In a television interview last Sunday, he underlined that he believes in "talking to your enemy", pointing out that he had made 15 trips to Damascus while serving as secretary of state for the elder Bush. "You do not give away anything, but in my view, it's not appeasement to talk to your enemies."

The Bush administration, or more directly, Rice, will have to make clear America's priority in the Middle East: Is it an Arab-Israeli settlement or cutting down Iran to size?

It is extremely doubtful that any Arab country would jump on the American bandwagon to disarm Iran, a conflict that they can ill-afford especially that these states marked time while their citizens were cheering the Hezbollah forces in their 34-day battle with Israel.

Short of much-needed fresh ideas from Rice, who last night was scheduled to address for the first time an Arab-American group, the American Task Force on Palestine, there is the likelihood that Ehud Olmert, the weakened Israeli prime minister who wants to beef up his coalition to stem continued criticism against his government, may be tempted to meet with Abbas, as is expected, to come up with a face-saving formula.

Both Olmert and Abbas are in a quandary and their tenure may, in the end, depend on their ability to find a decent settlement on their own.

George Hishmeh is a Washington-based columnist.

North Korea Calls It ‘War’

Members of Korean Federation for Environmental Movement perform a skit during a rally denouncing North Korea’s nuclear test in Seoul on Wednesday. (AP)


Simon Martin, Agence France Presse

SEOUL, 12 October 2006 — A defiant North Korea warned yesterday that it would regard harsh sanctions over its nuclear test as a declaration of war and threatened further trials if the United States kept up its pressure.

But US President George W. Bush stood firm, warning that Pyongyang would face “serious repercussions” over its claim to have carried out a nuclear explosion.

As the UN Security Council weighed what action to take against the regime, Pyongyang’s No. 2 and its Foreign Ministry warned of “physical” measures if it was hit with the kind of sanctions proposed by Washington and Japan.

Hours later Bush told a press conference in the White House Rose Garden: “We are working with partners in the region and in the United Nations Security Council to ensure there are serious repercussions for the regime in Pyongyang.” The rhetoric underscored the standoff between the international community and the secretive nation, which sent shockwaves around the world Monday after announcing it had successfully tested an atom bomb for the first time.
The chance of sanctions grew after even the North’s main ally China said it would support punitive action.

“If the US continues to harass and put pressure on us, we will regard this as a declaration of war and will take a series of physical countermeasures,” said a Foreign Ministry statement carried by the North’s official Korean Central News Agency.

It did not elaborate on the measures, but insisted it was still ready for talks to improve security and stability on the Korean Peninsula. “We are ready for both dialogue and confrontation.”

Statements from the Foreign Ministry are seen as carrying more weight than comments on state media. It was the ministry which announced on Oct. 3 that Pyongyang planned a nuclear test.

The message was reinforced by Kim Yong Nam, who as head of the North Korean Supreme People’s Assembly is effectively the regime’s No. 2.

“If the United States continues to take a hostile attitude and apply pressure on us in various forms, we will have no choice but to take physical steps to deal with that,” he said in an interview with Japan’s Kyodo News.

He added: “The issue of future nuclear tests is linked to US policy toward our country.”

Japan meanwhile ramped up its bilateral sanctions on North Korea, slapping a complete ban on imports and shipping and barring almost all the communist country’s nationals.

“Considering the improving capability of North Korea’s missiles and its nuclear capability, Japan is the country that is most affected by the actions of North Korea in terms of security,” said Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

Abe, who rose to prominence as a hard-liner on North Korea, said the world had to take action even if the scale and nature of the test could not be confirmed.

“Even if it’s a failure, that means they attempted to conduct a nuclear test,” he told Parliament. “We have to take considerable measures.”

The Security Council was to meet in New York later yesterday to weigh a draft resolution imposing a series of sanctions, including inspection of all seaborne cargo to and from North Korea as well as financial restrictions.

It was not certain if China and Russia — which both have veto power, tend to oppose international sanctions and have close ties with Pyongyang — would back such measures.

“I think there have to be some punitive actions but also these actions have to be appropriate,” China’s UN ambassador, Wang Guangya, told reporters.

Wang said China wanted a resolution that included “some elements” of the UN Charter’s Chapter VII, which legally opens the door to mandatory sanctions to face down threats to international peace and security.

Just An Alley?

One of the alley ways of OLD Ayn Karim, little changed since Nakba, June 2002

The Zionist are great for saying Palestine was a desert with scattered Nomad’s before they came to Palestine, this Alley way of all places was here long before the idea of Zionism ever existed in Palestine.

So think about it, the Palestinian people where not Nomad’s nor were we living in a desert of no cities?

Do Palestinians Exists, or Don't They? That's The Question?

December 12,2001

BASED On Declassified Israeli Documents & Personal Diaries

From the inception of Zionism in the late 19th century and until the present day, the Zionist leaders have insisted that the Palestinians do not exist as either a people or a nation. This blind attitude was adopted to facilitate the usurpation and suppression of Palestinian political, economic, and human rights. As it will be demonstrated from the quotes below, it was often argued by most Zionists that Palestine was an empty and destitute place until Zionists decided to "redeem" it from the desert; and they also argued that the indigenous Palestinian people were backward, primitive, and mostly nomadic who did not deserve any political rights.

Related Links

• Zionist FAQ: Isn't it true that Palestine inhabitants were mostly a nomadic people? Why should they have a country of their own?
• 
  A scanned page from Ben-Gurion's book stating that Jews made up 12% of Palestine's population in 1914
• 
  Zionist FAQ: Since Palestinians NEVER had a state or distinct culture or language, why should they have a state?
• 
  Zionist FAQ: Isn't it true that Palestine was a destitute place until Israeli Jews made its desert bloom?

Famous Quotes

Why do Palestinians want to destroy Israel and drive Israeli Jews into the sea?

August 2, 2001

Palestine Remembered

This is the question asked most frequently by Israelis and Zionists. We will answer the question indirectly by asking the question below:

Are you aware that Israeli Zionists, during the 1948 war, pushed over 150,000 Palestinian refugees into the sea?

For a long time, Zionists have been propagating fear based propaganda to their followers, probably this picture can tell you a bit of the real story, click here for more details. It's misleading and unfair to focus on what Palestinians might allegedly do in the future, while the past and present of Palestinians are filled with Israeli war crimes. These types of accusations are meant to deflect and confuse the core issues of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The core issues of the conflict are the collective DISPOSSESSION and ETHNIC CLEANSING (compulsory population transfer) of the Palestinian people for the past five decades. It should be emphasized that the conflict would have been at the same level of intensity, even if both warring parties had been Muslims, Christians, or even Jewish.

Since the inception of Zionism, its leaders have been keen on creating a "Jewish State" based on a "Jewish majority" by mass immigration of Jews to Palestine, primarily European Jews fleeing from anti-Semitic Tsarist Russia and Nazi Germany. When a "Jewish majority" was impossible to achieve, based on Jewish immigration and natural growth, Zionist leaders (such as Ben Gurion, Moshe Sharett, Ze'ev Jabotinsky, and Chaim Weizmann) concluded that "population transfer" was the only solution to what they referred to as the "Arab Problem." Year after year, the plan to ethnically cleanse Palestine of its indigenous people became known as the "transfer solution". David Ben-Gurion, the first Israeli Prime Minister, eloquently articulated the "transfer solution" as the following:

• 
  In a joint meeting between the Jewish Agency Executive and Zionist Action Committee on June 12th, 1938:
• "With compulsory transfer we [would] have a vast area [for settlement] .... I support compulsory transfer. I don't see anything immoral in it." (Righteous Victims p. 144).
• 
  In a speech addressing the Central Committee of the Histadrut on December 30, 1947:"In the area allocated to the Jewish State there are not more than 520,000 Jews and about 350,000 non-Jews, mostly Arabs. Together with the Jews of Jerusalem, the total population of the Jewish State at the time of its establishment, will be about one million, including almost 40% non-Jews. such a [population] composition does not provide a stable basis for a Jewish State. This [demographic] fact must be viewed in all its clarity and acuteness. With such a [population] composition, there cannot even be absolute certainty that control will remain in the hands of the Jewish majority .... There can be no stable and strong Jewish state so long as it has a Jewish majority of only 60%." (Expulsion Of The Palestinians, p. 176 & Benny Morris p. 28)
• 
  And on February 8th, 1948 Ben-Gurion also stated to the Mapai Council:. "From your entry into Jerusalem, through Lifta, Romema [East Jerusalem Palestinian neighborhood]. . . there are no [Palestinian] Arabs. One hundred percent Jews. Since Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans, it has not been Jewish as it is now. In many [Palestinian] Arab neighborhoods in the west one sees not a single [Palestinian] Arab. I do not assume that this will change. . . . What had happened in Jerusalem. . . . is likely to happen in many parts of the country. . . in the six, eight, or ten months of the campaign there will certainly be great changes in the composition of the population in the country." (Expulsion Of The Palestinians, p. 180-181)
• 
  In a speech addressing the Zionist Action Committee on April 6th, 1948:. "We will not be able to win the war if we do not, during the war, populate upper and lower, eastern and western Galilee, the Negev and Jerusalem area ..... I believe that war will also bring in its wake a great change in the distribution of Arab population." (Expulsion Of The Palestinians, p. 181)
• 
  Click here for more "Transfer" (Ethnic Cleansing) quotes from Zionist leaders.

For Israelis and Zionists to excuse themselves from any war crimes, such as compulsory population transfer (Ethnic Cleansing) and dispossessing the Palestinian people, they've resorted to a myth that Palestinians left their homes, farms, businesses, banks, boats, cars, etc. based on their free will, click here to read our rebuttal of this concocted myth.

There is no denying the fact that some Palestinians think as many Zionists do (a Palestinian version of Zionism), and very possibly they do so because they were the victims of such treatment themselves. Regardless of whether it's right or wrong, you have to agree that it is human nature to respond to terror with terror, and to racism with racism, these are facts that all decent people must accept and deplore simultaneously. No matter what the circumstances are (such as the urge to seek vengeance, revenge, reprisals, etc.), targeting civilians to achieve political or military objectives, in either war or non-war situations, is terrorism. It should be noted that the Palestinian people have been on the receiving end of Israeli terrorism (the chief aspect of which are the collective DISPOSSESSION and ETHNIC CLEANSING of 8.5 million Palestinians) for the past five decades.

Finally, the Palestinian mainstream does not and will not condone massive ethnic cleansing such as that which Israelis and Zionists have perpetrated against to the Palestinian people. Palestinians, as Muslim and Arabs, have a long history and track record which proves exactly the opposite. Omar Ibn al-Khatab's and Saladin's conquest of Jerusalem are solid proof of how Arabs and Muslims treated their defeated subjects fairly during the Byzantines and the Crusades respectively. Ironically, many of today's Christian Palestinians trace their roots to the Crusades, such as the famous Rock family of Jaffa. In other words, if freeing Palestine would imply perpetrating war crimes similar to the ones perpetrated against the Palestinian people, Palestinians will wait for another Omar or Saladin to right the wrongs of the past. The Muslim Arabs have their history to prove their tolerance towards their subjects, however, the Israelis and Zionists have their track record to speak for them. Palestine Remembered has been explicitly built to expose and uncover Israeli war crimes and to AMPLIFY the voices of the Palestinian refugees.

Related Links

Zionist Quotes: LOOTING, Plunder, & Destruction
Zionist Quotes: Apartheid & Racist

Olmert wooing hard-line fascists to government

Analysis

By Khalid Amayreh
October 11, 2006

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has been holding talks with the extremist right-wing Israeli politician Avigdor Lieberman in an apparent effort to get him to join the government, substantially weakened by the recent war with Hizbullah.

Lieberman, a former cabinet minister and ally of former Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu, is the head of the Yisrael Beitenu ( Israel is our home) party , considered one of the most openly fascist political parties in Israel.

Israeli press sources have revealed that Olmert held talks with Lieberman on Friday, 6 October with the main topics centering on Lieberman’s demands for a substantial transformation of the Israeli political system.

The Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz reported that both Olmert and Lieberman agreed to back a bill to make changes in the Israeli political system when it will be submitted to the Knesset for a preliminary reading.

During the meeting, which reportedly was arranged at Olmert’s request, both viewed favorably the prospect of Lieberman’s party joining the government.

In recent weeks, it was widely rumored that Olmert might ask Lieberman to assume the portfolio of defense in case the Labor Party, headed by the current Defense Minister Amir Peretz, decided to quit the government.

Ha’aretz, quoting sources close to Kadima party (Olmert’s party) described Lieberman as an “attractive coalition partner” who is interested in joining the government.

Lieberman has been calling for the adoption of a “presidential system” that would very much look like America’s form of government. Lieberman also reportedly advocates a “constitution” that would sanction and institutionalize the official Israeli state policy of discrimination against non-Jews.

The possible inclusion of Lieberman’s party to the government indicates that Olmert is determined to keep up the present slow-motion genocide against the Palestinians as well as creating more “facts” in the West Bank by building more and more Jewish-only settlements in the territories occupied in 1967.

Israel has been barring Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and to a lesser extent in the West Bank from accessing food and work, resulting in the severest humanitarian crisis since 1967.

It also underscores Olmert’s half-declared intention to abandon the so-called “convergence plan,” the centerpiece of his election campaign.

The plan, which Olmert said following the recent war in Lebanon it was no longer a national priority, stipulated the removal of some small colonies in the West Bank in return for the consolidation and annexation into Israel of the largest settlement blocs.

Lieberman has a long record of adopting fascist, even Nazi-like, attitudes and positions vis-à-vis the Palestinians and other Arab and Muslim nations in the region.

While minister in the Israeli government of Ariel Sharon in 2002, he proposed carpet bombing for Palestinian streets, malls, banks and other public facilities in order to force as many people as possible to flee their homeland.

He also advocated the bombing of the Aswan High Dam in Egypt and Tehran . In recent weeks, he urged Israel to bombs Iran with nuclear weapons if necessary.

His party’s platform calls for the expulsion and disenfranchising of Palestinians, both from Israel and the occupied territories of 1967.

Lieberman’s views, which would readily qualify him as a neo-Nazi in any European country ( Austria ’s Jorge Haidar’s views seem so innocuous when compared to Lieberman’s), are non the less representative of the general ideological trends among the Israeli Jewish populace.

Last week, Amir Peretz admitted in a radio interview that the Israeli Jewish public was moving steadily toward right-wing chauvinism.

Olmert, substantially weakened by the recent war, is coming under mounting public pressure to form an official commission of inquiry to look into Israeli failures in the war with Hizbullah.

Olmert has been resisting demands to this effect, opting for superficial probes with no authority to sack officials.

It is likely that Olmert is feeling increasingly politically insecure in the absence of a clear political program and following the mediocre outcome of war with Hizbullah.

If so, the not-so unlikely inclusion of Lieberman’s party, the third largest in Israel , into the government would consolidate a safe parliamentary majority in the government’s favor.

However, the presence of Lieberman in the government would most certainly take it even farther to the right with the possibility of transforming it into the most extremist right-wing government in Israel ’s history.

Indeed, if Lieberman should become Defense Minister as he has been demanding, especially in the aftermath of the war with Hizbullah, wholesale massacres of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank wouldn’t be a far-fetched possibility.

In this case, Shaul Mofaz and Amir Pertez, both of whom can be considered war criminals for their direct involvement in the murder of thousands of innocent Lebanese and Palestinians as well as the utter destruction of civilian infrastructure in Gaza and Lebanon, would look like scout boys in comparison to what Lieberman is capable of doing.

Lieberman could also embark on a real military adventure against Iran with or without American consent.

Israeli air raid levels home of Palestinian MP Farahat

October 11, 2006

Gaza - An American-made Israeli F-16 warplane leveled the three-story home of the renowned Palestinian MP Mariam Farahat in Shujaia suburb in Gaza city in a pre-dawn missile raid Wednesday.

Local sources said that the shelling, the second in three years, flattened the house and partially destroyed the nearby home of the MP's son Nidal, who was martyred at the hands of IOF forces, other than inflicting damage to scores of buildings in the neighborhood.

No casualties were reported in the powerful explosion, except spreading panic in lines of women and children.

The son of the MP Momen Farahat, 32, said that an Israeli intelligence officer told him over the phone that their home would be shelled only half an hour before the raid. Neighbors to the lawmaker's home received similar phone calls warning them of the shelling and asking them to leave their houses.

Civil defense squads rushed to the scene immediately after the raid and put off the resultant fire as hundreds of citizens headed to offer help.

The lawmaker's home was the target of Israeli artillery fire three years ago inflicting severe damage. Mariam Farahat, who lost three of her children as martyrs in the Aqsa intifada, is renowned for her patience in receiving news of their martyrdom and for encouraging them to resist Israeli occupation.

Hamas urges Palestinians to prepare for Israeli invasion

October 11, 2006

Gaza - The Hamas Movement has urged the Palestinian people to prepare for confronting the "Zionist enemy" that is preparing to invade the Gaza Strip and that is daily killing Palestinians and destroying their property.

The Movement, in a statement on Tuesday issued to commemorate Islamic victories in past Ramadan battles, asked the Palestinian masses to keep up confidence in "Almighty Allah's victory" and in "Our ability to expel occupation from our lands and holy shrines regardless of its military and technical supremacy or its ferocious war machine".

"We should deal with occupation on the basis of challenge and pride and not submission and humiliation," the statement elaborated.

Hamas stressed that resistance was the only means capable of repelling the Israeli enemy and subduing its arrogance, and warned that flexibility and dialogue with this enemy were of no use. Such negotiations rather encourage Israel to increase its aggression and terrorism, the statement underlined.

Fanatic Jewish group gears up for storming the Aqsa Mosque

October 11, 2006

Occupied Jerusalem - Israeli news websites have revealed that a Jewish fanatic group was gearing up to storm the Aqsa Mosque and defile it Wednesday two days after a similar step by an extremist Israeli MP.

The websites unveiled that Israeli right-wing politician Moshe Feiglin had invited his supporters to participate in his plan of storming the Aqsa Mosque, touring its plazas and then roaming the streets of the old town of the occupied city of Jerusalem.

But the invitation of Feiglin who was once a candidate to lead the rightist Israeli Likud Party, prompted the Aqsa foundation that caters for Muslim holy shrines in Palestine to appeal to the guards of the Mosque to remain vigilant against any such step, and called on Muslims in Jerusalem and those living in the 1948-occupeid lands to march to the Aqsa and defend it.

It further held the IOA fully responsible for any adverse repercussions that might follow that aggressive attempt.

Uri Ariel, head of the extremist Mifdal bloc in the Israeli Knesset (parliament), had desecrated the sanctity of the Aqsa Mosque on Monday, and said while touring its compound that it was about time for the Jewish people to control the Aqsa Mosque and pray in it.

Ariel's step was widely condemned by Palestinian religious leaders, including Sheikh Tayseer Al-Tamimi, chief justice in Palestine, who described the step as "flagrant insult" to feelings of Muslims worldwide.

Tamimi further reminded the IOA that the bloody Aqsa intifada erupted in the wake of the infamous sacrilegious visit of former Israeli premier Ariel Sharon to the Mosque in the year 2000.

Link:

Qaradhawi calls on Muslims to liberate Jerusalem and the Aqsa Mosque

Celebrities Adopting Children: Are they Doing Good?

LA’s most glamorous adoptive mother, Angelina Jolie, is frequently pictured with her Cambodian son Maddox, now five, and her Ethiopian daughter Zahara, one.

by Housewife4Palestine

I have always been one of those people in the background, that looks at the news and once in awhile turns on the television to be bombarded with these celebrities that seem to have a endless stream of adopted children from a country not their own.

I have often wondered if they actually are helping and underprivileged child or making themselves look good with said child hanging off their hip.

I really tend to wonder if these children grow up in a healthy happy home or just another celebrity helping make themselves look good with a child from a deprived poverty stricken country?

Something else I tend to notice, that these children are from countries that appear to have the easiest adoptions; you certainly do not hear of one of these people adopting from Palestine for example or some other Middle East country that may have tougher adoption laws; like America.

Something that has always been fearful to me, that these children from different cultures growing up in a foreign country and their real welfare being accounted for the horrors of Joan Crawford comes to mind, as “Mommy Dearest.”

I came across the following article and it really gives a person something to think about on the real welfare of these children:

Are they adopting the right attitude?

“Say, 'bring forth the Torah and read it if you are truthful'”

Excerpt:

As we know they are knowingly concealing the truth and obscuring it with falsehood.

If the justness of the cause is the spiritual foundation of the fighter, then the Torah does not merely prove that cause of the Zionist soldier is unjust, but that it is his duty to fight for the opposing side, and that the settler must understand that his coming to this land only serves to bring down the torment and wrath of Allah upon him. Thus, the least he can do is to depart, although we would love to see him rightly-guided to Allah's light and become our brother in Islam -which is the Faith of Abraham- and to share with us in the blessing of faith in all of Allah's scriptures and messengers without discriminating against any of them.

He should not delay his departure or his Islam until the day of wrath when he may lose the opportunity. It is my advice to every Jew in our occupied territories not to leave the Torah as the exclusive property of the Rabbis who receive free exclusion from the mandatory military service, while he must put his life on the line for it and them. I advise him to read it, but with his intelligence and awareness, not with the Rabbis glosses and interpretations, and he will discover the truth, which will soon be clearly seen by the whole world.

He should also understand that no matter what atrocities he commits against us, whether killing our children, or burning our crops, or corrupting our lives, we will only deal with him according to the law of Allah, not according to our desires. We want only for him, and for all mankind, to achieve Allah's pleasure and happiness in this life and the next.

The complete account and just sentence will only be given on the Day of Judgment before Allah Himself, who shall judge each of us according to the good or evil which we have done. At that time our claims will be to no avail:

“It is not according to your desires, nor the desires of the followers of the Bible. Whoever does evil will be requited for it, and he will find no supporter or helper besides Allah.”

This is a word of fairness to which we hold ourselves, and to which we hope our opponents will have the courage to hold themselves, or attempt to hold themselves.

T h e D A Y o f W R A T H
Is the Intifadha of Rajab only the Beginning?
By Safar Ibn `Abd Al-Rahman Al-Hawali