One Child Seriously Injured as Israeli Forces Attack Various Parts of the West Bank

20 October 2007

by Nisreen Qumsieh

One Palestinian child, Rania Mar'ey, 8, from Tulkarem, sustianed critical injuries after being shot by Israeli fire on Saturday.

Security sources reported that the military randomly opened fire during an invasion of Tulkarem, seriously wounding the child. The girl was transferred to a local hospital, where her condition remains criticial.

In related news, Israeli military forces invaded several houses and stores in the northern West Bank city of Jenin in the early hours of Saturday morning, ransacking homes and detaining residents.

Elsewhere, one Palestinain man was injured near Husam village, located near the southern West Bank city of Bethlehem, after being attacked by Israeli settlers.

Security sources reported that a group from the Bitar settlement attacked Ameen Hamamra, 33, as he passed the settlement.

IOF Troops on Rampage in the W. Bank

WEST BANK, Palestine, October 18, 2007 (IPC+WAFA) - - Israeli occupation forces attacked Thursday morning. Several cities and towns of the West Bank, in which the IOF soldiers attacked the civilians, swept their houses and abducted several in the village of Beit Fajar, near the West Bank city of Bethlehem, a house was attacked.

Palestinians Security sources reported that a number of military vehicles, backed by reinforcements, confined the village to tight security measures and positioned themselves in the center, from where they attacked a dwelling. No abductions were reported.

In a separate attack, Israeli occupation forces invaded the village of Tayaser, near the northern West Bank city of Tubas. IOF troops carried out house-to-house searches.

In another part of the West Bank, Israeli occupation forces invaded the city of Al Bireh and the village of Qarawat Bani Zaid, near the central West Bank city of Ramallah.

Palestinian security sources reported that IOF troops invaded the village of Qarawat Bani Zaid, searched homes and issued warrants summoning local people to Israeli intelligence for questioning.

A Palestinian from the town was kidnapped and several houses were damaged as soldiers launched a wide-scale search in several parts of the town center.

Witnesses in Yatta reported that Israeli soldiers backed up by seven military patrols and an ambulance invaded parts of the town center and began a campaign of ransacking. Several houses were attacked and Issa Sanayda, 31 was kidnapped.

The same source described the attack as very aggressive with soldiers causing huge damage to houses, terrifying local people and subjecting them to interrogation.

Qabatiya, in the district of Jenin, the army kidnapped four Palestinians.

Witnesses reported that troops invaded the area, conducted a sweep in the houses in the area and kidnapped Yasser Zakarneh,25, Mou'tasem Zakarneh, 24, Aysar Zakarneh, 22 and Omar Araby, 22.

In Tulkarem, Two Palestinians were kidnapped and taken to an unidentified detention center by the IOF troops. The men were identified as Bilal Rajab, 30 and Abed Al Naser Suwees,48.

Earlier, on Wednesday in a number of attacks in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, the Israeli army abducted at least 25 Palestinians.

Israeli military forces invaded the northern West Bank city of Nablus and the surrounding areas in the early hours of Thursday morning, carrying out attacks and a wide-ranging search of the area.

Eyewitnesses reported that the Israeli army invaded several areas in Nablus, including the Balata refugee camp, searching for wanted Palestinians.

Local sources reported that the army abducted at least seven Palestinians who were later identified as Sayef Al Nejmy,16 Ali Al Taweel,23, Raed Abu Rmeilla,27 and the brothers Ihab and Ihsan Al Mathbouh, Khalil Al Khalili, Mohammad Ayash.

"Let's Go Fishin'," Bush's Favorite Pastime

For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
October 19, 2007

Audio

THE PRESIDENT: Good morning. This weekend, I will join millions of Americans in one of our favorite national pastimes: fishing. I'm going to be on the Chesapeake Bay. For those who love fishing, the most important thing is not the size of your catch but the enjoyment of the great outdoors. Every year, millions of Americans grab their tackle boxes and head out to their favorite fishing holes. No matter where they drop their lines, they build memories that last a lifetime. And in the process, they contribute billions of dollars to our economy.

My Administration is committed to protecting the environment that our sportsmen depend on. We believe that to meet the environmental challenges of the 21st century, we must bring together conservationists, fishermen, sportsmen, local leaders, and Federal, State, and tribal officials in a spirit of cooperation. I call this "cooperative conservation." Instead of the old environmental debates that pit one group against another, we're moving our country toward a system where citizens and government can come together to achieve meaningful results for our environment

One way we are practicing cooperative conservation is through our efforts to preserve our fisheries. Almost three years ago, I announced an ocean action plan to promote an ethic of responsible stewardship that will make our waterways cleaner, healthier, and more productive. Last year, I was proud to establish a marine conservation area in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. This is the single largest conservation area in the history of our Nation -- and the largest protected marine area in the world. We're also working to clean up marine debris and to address harmful fishing practices in international waters that destroy corals and other vital habitats. Earlier this year, I signed a law that will help end overfishing and create market-based regulations to replenish our fish stocks so we can keep them strong for generations to come.

Prior to my fishing trip I am signing an Executive Order that will preserve two of our Nation's most popular recreational fish -- striped bass and red drum. These two species were once abundant in American waters, but their stocks have been overfished. The Executive Order I sign will protect striped bass and red drum caught in Federal waters by moving to prohibit their commercial sale. It will promote more accurate scientific records about fish population levels. And it will help the Federal Government work with State and local officials to find innovative ways to ensure these two species are conserved for future generations.

As we work to protect our Nation's fisheries, we're also working to help migratory birds thrive. Each year, more than 800 species of birds make their way south for the winter, and then return home to their breeding grounds the following spring. Their ability to survive these long journeys depends on stopover habitat. Unfortunately, some of the areas where birds once stopped and rested on their great migrations have been lost to development. So we're working to protect these species by restoring or replacing their stopover habitats.

One key way we're doing this is by expanding our National Wildlife Refuges, creating new ones, and restoring and improving hundreds of thousands of acres of habitat for migratory birds. At the same time, we're bringing together Federal, State, and tribal agencies to work with private groups and corporations to improve habitat on private lands. The Department of the Interior is also working with cities across our Nation to build stopover habitats in urban areas. And this weekend I'm announcing new policies -- including new efforts with Mexico to foster greater habitat conservation for the migratory birds.

America's national parks also play a vital role in our conservation efforts. Earlier this week, Laura spoke at the first-ever Leadership Summit of the National Park Foundation. She discussed the National Parks Centennial Initiative -- a public-private partnership to raise funds for the park system's 100th anniversary in 2016. This initiative will support many vital projects to improve habitats for local wildlife -- including some that will directly benefit birds.

As Americans, we've been given a beautiful country to live in, and we have an obligation to be good stewards of the environment. With the cooperative conservation policies we have put in place, we show our commitment to preserving our Nation's heritage. By making responsible choices today, we will ensure that our children and grandchildren will enjoy a cleaner and more vibrant environment.

Thank you for listening.

END

Ahmadinejad: US Officials Should take Lessons from Events

18 October 2007

Tehran-President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Thursday that certain powers, US in particular, should take lessons from the current events.

Making the remarks in the third round of nationwide assembly of municipal councils, he said that otherwise the US officials will be driven to isolation.

Pointing to the fact that Iranian nation is in state of defense, he said that thanks to the national perseverance, Iran will defend its integrity and independence.

"According to experience, whenever the nation has resisted pressures and threats, no power can harm their might and interests." He said that certain powers should know that the era of bombardment, jet fighters and bullying other nations have ended adding that Iran does not like to see a certain country is suffering in desperation, and even can overlook the hostility the US has done in the past against Iran.

Addressing the European countries, Ahmadinejad said, "You should make an appropriate decision and stop following US lead."

"What benefit have you obtained so far, because the US called you a partner in losses, we are sorry for that."

He said that certain states are subject to losses thanks to weakness of their leadership adding that the US has established missile bases in Europe, and posed threat to the European peace and security.

He said that Iran enjoys good relations with other countries citing the successful outcome of Summit of leaders of the Caspian states held in Tehran on October 16.

He noted that certain powers had attempted to create obstacles for Russian president to visit Iran, but their attempt was foiled by the Russian leadership.

"We've never taken reciprocal action to certain European countries rhetoric toward Iran and only give them advice to come to terms with Iran," Ahmadinejad said, adding, "If certain states decide to inflict economic losses on Iran, we will stop economic cooperation with them."

The Hour of (Doomsday)

Narrated Abu Hurayra:

While the Prophet (PBUH) was saying something during a gathering, a Bedouin came and asked him, “When will the Hour of (Doomsday) take place?”

Allah’s Apostle (PBUH) continued his talk, some people said that Allah’s Apostle (PBUH) had not heard the question, but did not like what the Bedouin had asked. Some said that Allah’s Apostle (PBUH) had not heard it.

When the Prophet (PBUH) finished his speech, he said, “Where is the questioner that asked about the Hour of (Doomsday)?”

The Bedouin said, “I am here, O Allah’s Apostle.”

Then the Prophet (PBUH) said, “When honesty is lost then wait for the Hour of (Doomsday).”

The Bedouin said, “How will that be Lost?”

The Prophet (PBUH) said, “When the power of authority comes into the hands of unfit people, then wait for the Hour of (Doomsday).

Volume 1, Book 3, Number 56 (Hadith Translation by Sahih Bukhari)

Israeli Forces Demolish Electricity Transformer in Northern Gaza

20 October 2007

Gaza – Ma'an – Israeli forces completely demolished the main electricity transformer in the northern Gaza Strip on Friday evening.

Local residents of northern Gaza reported spending Friday night completely immersed in darkness after the destruction of the transformer which supplies power to the area.

Eyewitnesses stated that an Israeli tank launched a shell towards the transformer located near the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Hanoun.

The attack followed an Israeli invasion of the industrial zone, in southern Beit Hanoun, and the neighbouring village of Beit Lahiya.

The area of Beit Lahiya was also subjected to Israeli gunfire and has had a suspension of electricity.

Israeli Forces Withdraw from Southern Gaza

20 October 2007

Rafah – Ma'an – The Israeli forces on Saturday morning withdrew from the area of the defunct Gaza International Airport east of Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip.

Israeli military vehicles and undercover units invaded the area on Friday.

Palestinian resistance fighters launched several mortar shells and homemade projectiles towards the invading forces.

Fighting erupted between invading forces and resistance fighters, no casualties were reported.

The area of the disused airport is frequently invaded by Israeli forces, which have also bulldozed agricultural land in the region and raided Palestinian homes.

The Qassam Brigades of Hamas claimed responsibility for launching six mortar shells towards the invading Israeli forces.

The military wing of the Popular Resistance Committees, An-Nasser Salah Addin Brigades, on Saturday told Ma'an that its fighters clashed with Israeli infantry forces which invaded Shuka village, east of Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip.

The brigades alleged that the Israeli troops were forced to retreat.

Iraqi Journalist Working for the Washington Post Killed

15 October 2007

by Jeff Severns Guntzel

An Iraqi journalist employed by the Washington Post has been killed.

From the Post's article on his death:

On Sunday afternoon, Salih Saif Aldin set out for one of Baghdad's most dangerous neighborhoods. He knew exactly where to go. He nodded, smiled, grabbed his camera. There was nothing he needed to say.

Saif Aldin always came back -- from death threats, from beatings, from kidnappings, from detentions by American soldiers, from the country's most notorious and deadly terrain -- but on Sunday he didn't. The 32-year-old Iraqi reporter in The Washington Post's Baghdad bureau was shot once in the forehead in the southwestern neighborhood of Sadiyah. He was the latest in a long line of reporters, most of them Iraqis, to be killed while covering the Iraq war. He was the first for The Washington Post.

Iraqi police officers said they believed Saif Aldin was killed by Sunni men belonging to the nascent organization known as the Awakening Council, a tribal organization aligned with the U.S. military that started in the western province of Anbar and has spread to parts of Baghdad. Iraqi government officials have accused these Sunni tribesmen of abusing their partnership with the Americans to kill and kidnap residents.

Saif Aldin's death adds to a list of at least 118 journalists who have been killed in Iraq while on duty, nearly 100 of whom were Iraqis, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. Michael Kelly, a columnist for The Post, was killed in April 2003 in Iraq when a Humvee he was traveling in drove into a canal.

Formalizing Apartheid Packaged as Peace Initiative

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas meets with US President George Bush in New York, September 2007. (POOL/Omar Rashidi/MaanImages)

16 October 2007

by Neta Golan and Mohammed Khatib

Next month the US plans to host a regional meeting to discuss peace in the Middle East, or at least peace between Israel and the Palestinians. The maneuvering, deal making and negotiating about what will be on the table has been going on for some time. But the details of the agreement being discussed have been a well-guarded secret but for the steady flow of leaks and trial balloons. Deciphering this information combined with facts on the ground, one can put together a clear outline of Israel's "next generous offer."

Political maneuvers can be spun to sound good if the details are kept vague, but when held to scrutiny it becomes obvious that the upcoming Israeli offer is not so generous. Like the Oslo Accords and the "disengagement" from Gaza, the peace process being cooked now is a move to consolidate Israeli control of all of historic Palestine while taking a large portion of the Palestinian population off Israel's hands. The devil is in the details that follow.

The agreement on the table offers Palestinians what Israel's president Shimon Peres calls "the equivalent of 100 percent of the territory occupied in 1967." According to Peres, Israel will retain its major West Bank population centers, also known as settlement blocs, which Peres claims make up only five percent of the West Bank. In exchange Israel will offer to give the Palestinians the same amount of territory elsewhere. According to Peres, Israel will exchange land in Israel populated by Palestinians who hold Israeli citizenship. This will allow Israel to remove some of its Palestinian Arab population, whom most Jewish Israelis perceive as "demographic threat" to the nature of the Jewish state.

When Israeli politicians like Peres talk about retaining five percent of the West Bank, they do not include occupied East Jerusalem. Israel illegally and unilaterally annexed East Jerusalem in 1967-68. Hence, Israeli sources claim there are 250,000 Israeli settlers in the West Bank, completely discounting the estimated additional 250,000 settlers in occupied East Jerusalem.

Israel's settlement blocs are being created and built as you read these words. For years Israel has been creating settlement blocs on strategic land that will carve the West Bank into disconnected islands, maintain Israeli access to the West Bank water resources and surround and strangle Arab Jerusalem. The de facto annexation of this strategic 9.5 percent of the West Bank's land behind Israel's apartheid wall has already taken place. The "peace" process will simply make it official.

In March 2006 the newly formed Kadima party was elected to implement Ariel Sharon's "convergence plan." According to this plan, the non-strategic settlements outside of the settlement blocs would be dismantled. The evacuated settlers would be resettled in the "blocs" behind the wall that would in turn be annexed by Israel.

On 14 April 2004, President Bush wrote to then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, "In light of new realities on the ground, including already existing population centers it is unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949 ..." This letter was subsequently ratified in both US Houses of Congress.

Israel took this as a green light from the US to keep whatever areas they can fill with settlers. Therefore, despite the Road Map requirement that Israel freeze settlement expansion, Israel accelerated the creation of so-called "existing" settlement blocs in strategically important areas.

In the same letter to Sharon, Bush also stated, "It seems clear that an agreed, just, fair and realistic framework for a solution to the Palestinian refugee issue as part of any final status agreement will need to be found through the establishment of a Palestinian state, and the settling of Palestinian refugees there, rather than in Israel." Consequently, in the offer to be made by Israel, Palestinian refugees will be allowed the right to return, not to their homes, but to small, non-contiguous parts of their original homeland, divided into disconnected territorial units, with no chance of maintaining a sustainable economy and with no control over water, power, or other necessary resources. They will be allowed to return to a cage, with Israel manning every door.

Israeli plans, backed by these US guarantees, create an unlivable apartheid situation for Palestinians. But Palestinians are not even likely to receive such a "generous" apartheid offer in November.

Now, with less than sixteen months left in the Bush administration, Ehud Olmert lacks the political clout to carry out Israel's end of the deal. Israeli Minister of Defense Ehud Barak recently stated his opposition to what he called "withdrawal from Israeli principles that have stood for 40 years, merely to gain favor in the eyes of an American president who is leaving office in a year." Therefore, at the Olmert's administration's insistence, the goals of the regional meeting have been watered down to a joint statement that will outline the basis of the future agreement. Olmert is demanding that the joint declaration include a reference to Bush's April 2004 letter to Sharon and to the Road Map.

Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni's stated objective is to declare a "transitional" Palestinian state with "provisional" borders, an option that appears in the second phase of the Road Map. When Israel accepted the Road Map in March 2003 it attached "14 reservations." Israel considers these reservations as integral parts of the Road Map. Israel's fifth reservation states: "The provisional state will have provisional borders and certain aspects of sovereignty, be fully demilitarized ... be without the authority to undertake defense alliances or military cooperation, and Israeli control over the entry and exit of all persons and cargo, as well as of its air space and electromagnetic spectrum." Such a state would be squeezed between the separation wall, Israel's "demographic border," and the Jordan Valley, Israel's "security border" with Jordan. With the Jordan Valley making up approximately 30 percent of the West Bank, under this scenario Israel would likely retain more than 40 percent of the West Bank. This transitional Palestinian state would consist of a series of isolated Bantustans, or as Sharon, who fathered the plan, preferred to refer to them, "cantons."

In the past the Palestinians have pressed to have this option of the temporary state removed from the Road Map, since the history of Israel's occupation shows that "temporary measures" are almost always permanent. However, Palestinian negotiators now accept the possibility of a temporary state on the condition that they receive international assurances that the third and final phase of the Road Map, that includes a permanent settlement, will be implemented within six months. Israel has no intention of accepting this condition.

It is questionable whether Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas will be able to accept this offer without a timeframe for a permanent settlement. But perhaps he is not even meant to accept. For if Abbas refuses another Israeli-American "generous offer" his rejection could be presented to the world as more proof that there is no Palestinian "partner for peace." Israel would then be "justified" in implementing its convergence plan unilaterally.

Unilateral "convergence" will make it possible to create a situation in the West Bank similar to what unilateral "disengagement" has created in the Gaza. Gaza's residents, 70 percent of whom are refugees from what is now Israel, are currently isolated, starving and under total Israeli blockade from land, air and sea.

Olmert, Bush, Blair and their accomplices in the "Quartet" have vast, sophisticated and boundlessly resourced PR machinery that, through unlimited access to an uncritical media, can put a compelling "peace spin" on an apartheid process. During the November meeting they will assure the world of their commitment to a Palestinian state (with the appropriate Abbas/Olmert/Bush photo ops). They will promise to commit millions of dollars, funding Palestinian "institution building" and humanitarian aid and arming troops in order to "keep the peace" inside the Bantustans. Arab states will normalize relations with Israel, strengthening the "moderates" of the entire region, thus softening the Arab street as a prerequisite for an American-led strike on Iran.

If we, the peace and justice community, manage to expose this latest maneuver for what it really is, Israel could be forced into fair negotiations for the first time.

For this to happen we must mobilize immediately. It is our job to educate the rest of the world about what these talks really mean and the truth about what is happening. The writing is literally on the wall and on the ground. It took many months if not years to expose the ugly truth behind the first "generous offer." Let's not make that mistake again.

Neta Golan is an Israeli peace with justice activist living in Ramallah and a founder of the Internaitonal Solidarity Movement. Mohammed Khatib is a leading member of Bil'in's Popular Committee Against the Wall and the secretary of Bil'in's Village Council. For more information see: http://www.apartheidmasked.org/

George W., Knight of Eulogia

A rare look inside Skull and Bones, the Yale secret society and sometime haunt of the presumptive Republican nominee for President

by Alexandra Robbins

ON High Street, in the middle of the Yale University campus, stands a cold-looking, nearly windowless Greco-Egyptian building with padlocked iron doors. This is the home of Yale's most famous secret society, Skull and Bones, and it is also, in a sense, one of the many homes of the family of George W. Bush, Yale '68.

Bush men have been Yale men and Bonesmen for generations. Prescott Bush, George W.'s grandfather, Yale '17, was a legendary Bonesman; he was a member of the band that stole for the society what became one of its most treasured artifacts: a skull that was said to be that of the Apache chief Geronimo. Prescott Bush, one of a great many Bonesmen who went on to lives of power and renown, became a U.S. senator. George Herbert Walker Bush, George W.'s father, Yale '48, was also a Bonesman, and he, too, made a conspicuous success of himself. Inside the temple on High Street hang paintings of some of Skull and Bones's more illustrious members; the painting of George Bush, the most recently installed, is five feet high.

There were other Bush Bonesmen, a proud line of them stretching from great uncle George Herbert Walker Jr. to uncle Jonathan Bush to cousins George Herbert Walker IIIand Ray Walker. So when George W. was "tapped" for Skull and Bones, at the end of his junior year, he, too, naturally became a Bonesman -- but, it seems, a somewhat ambivalent one.

New members of Skull and Bones are assigned secret names, by which fellow Bonesmen will forever know them. Some Bonesmen receive traditional names, denoting function or existential status; others are the chosen beneficiaries of names that their Bones predecessors wish to pass on. The leftover initiates choose their own names. The name Long Devil is assigned to the tallest member; Boaz (short for Beelzebub) goes to any member who is a varsity football captain. Many of the chosen names are drawn from literature (Hamlet, Uncle Remus), from religion, and from myth. The banker Lewis Lapham passed on his name, Sancho Panza, to the political adviser Tex McCrary. Averell Harriman was Thor, Henry Luce was Baal, McGeorge Bundy was Odin. The name Magog is traditionally assigned to the incoming Bonesman deemed to have had the most sexual experience, and Gog goes to the new member with the least sexual experience. William Howard Taft and Robert Taft were Magogs. So, interestingly, was George Bush.

George W. was not assigned a name but invited to choose one. According to one report, nothing came to mind, so he was given the name Temporary, which, it is said, he never bothered to replace; Temporary is how Bush's fellow Bonesmen know him today. (In recent interviews I asked a number of Bush's Bonesmen classmates about the name and elicited no denials.)

The junior George's diffidence in the matter of his secret name seems to reflect a larger ambivalence toward Yale and its select, the most elite of whom are the members of Skull and Bones. The elder George holds his fellow Yalies -- particularly his Bones brethren -- in great esteem, and over the years has often gone to them for advice. George W., in contrast, has publicly made a point of his disdain for the elite northeastern connections that shaped his father's world and, to some extent, his own. Fay Vincent, the former commissioner of baseball, who is a Bush family friend and himself the son of a Bonesman, says, "Young George is as unlikely a Bonesperson as I've ever met." Young George has not attended a Yale reunion since he graduated.

Bush's dismissal of Yale and all it stands for may be a response to the repeated charges of political opponents that he is not much more than a papa's boy. Kent Hance, who trounced Bush in his 1978 congressional race, insinuated that Bush was not a true Texan and accused him of "riding his daddy's coattails."

If George W. truly wanted to detach himself from his father and from the traditions of a long line of ancestors, he chose a curious path -- in effect, retracing his father's footsteps.

SKULL and Bones is the oldest of Yale's secret societies and by far the most determinedly secretive. As such, it has long been an inspiration for speculation and imagination. It still is. The society is, of course, the inspiration for the new Universal Pictures thriller The Skulls, about a nefarious secret society at an Ivy League school in New Haven. In 1968, when George W. Bush was in Skull and Bones, there were eight "abovegrounds," or societies that met in their own "tombs," and as many as ten "undergrounds," which held meetings in rented rooms. In an article in the 1968 Yale yearbook Lanny Davis, a 1967 Yale graduate and a secret-society member who would go on to become a White House special counsel in the Clinton Administration, described how Bones, famous for its distinguished list of members, held more sway than the others.

Come "Tap Day" ... if you're a junior, despite the fact that you've banged your fist at the lunch table and said, "This is 1968," and have loudly denounced societies as anachronisms, when the captain of the football team is standing by your door and when the tower clock strikes eight he rushes in and claps your shoulder and shouts, "Skull and Bones, accept or reject?" you almost always scream out, "Accept!" and you never, never, pound your fist at the lunch table, not for that reason ever again.

Fewer than a tenth of Yale's 1,400 seniors are members of the university's secret societies, which many undergraduates view as self-serving vehicles for real and aspiring aristocrats. Certainly this view seems to have some validity when it comes to Bonesmen. Until 1992, when it became one of the last two secret societies to admit women, Skull and Bones had a history of picking the same kinds of people over and over. Davis's yearbook article explained,

If the society had a good year, this is what the "ideal" group will consist of: a football captain; a Chairman of the Yale Daily News; a conspicuous radical; a Whiffenpoof; a swimming captain; a notorious drunk with a 94 average; a film-maker; a political columnist; a religious group leader; a Chairman of the Lit; a foreigner; a ladies' man with two motorcycles; an ex-service man; a negro, if there are enough to go around; a guy nobody else in the group had heard of, ever.

Indeed, George W.'s 1968 brethren slip easily into the desired slots: among them were the Olympic swimmer and gold medalist Don Schollander; a future Harvard Medical School surgeon, Gregory Gallico; a future Rhodes scholar, Robert McCallum; the Whiffenpoofs' pitch, Robert Birge; Donald Etra, an Orthodox Jew; Muhammed Saleh, a Jordanian; a future deputy director of the National Institute of Mental Health, Rex Cowdry; and the black soccer captain Roy Austin. Only George W. himself fell into none of the aforementioned categories. He was generally regarded as a legacy tap.

Given the society's history as an incubator and meeting point for rising generational elites, it is not surprising that an especially susceptible kind of "barbarian" -- the Bones term for a nonmember -- has long seen the society as a locus of mystery, wealth, and conspiracy. One doesn't need to scratch deeply to uncover accusations of sinister ties with the CIA, the Trilateral Commission, the Illuminati, the Council on Foreign Relations, even the Nazis. It turns out that the Yale admissions committee that voted to admit George W., despite his poor record at Andover, included three members (out of seven) who were Bonesmen; those seeking evidence of malign influence will surely raise an eyebrow. (For the conspiracy-minded, the most useful omnium gatherum is the British writer Antony C. Sutton's feverish 1983 tract An Introduction to the Order.) World domination aside, the most pervasive rumors about Bones are that initiates must masturbate in a coffin while recounting their sexual exploits, and that their candor is ultimately rewarded with a no-strings-attached gift of $15,000. Bonesmen, who are sworn to secrecy at initiation, have not publicly denied or confirmed these rumors; they have usually made a point of refusing to speak to the press about the society at all. As The Skulls was about to be released, and as George W.'s quest for the Republican presidential nomination looked increasingly certain to succeed, the society sent all members a memo reminding them of their vow of silence. Still, as I recently discovered in the course of looking into Skull and Bones, not all Bonesmen see the necessity of remaining tight-lipped about a society whose biggest secret may be that its secrets are essentially trivial.

THE story of Skull and Bones begins in December of 1832. Upset (according to one account) by changes in the Phi Beta Kappa election process, a Yale senior named William Russell and a group of classmates decided to form the Eulogian Club as an American chapter of a German student organization. The club paid obeisance to Eulogia, the goddess of eloquence, who took her place in the pantheon upon the death of the orator Demosthenes, in 322 B.C., and who is said to have returned in a kind of Second Coming on the occasion of the society's inception. The Yale society fastened a picture of its symbol -- a skull and crossbones -- to the door of the chapel where it met. Today the number 322, recalling the date of Demosthenes' death, appears on society stationery. The number has such mystical overtones that in 1967 a graduate student with no ties to Skull and Bones donated $322,000 to the society.

(The number 322 has also been a particular favorite of conspiracy-minded hunters for evidence of Skull and Bones's global connections. It was the combination to Averell Harriman's briefcase when he carried classified dispatches between London and Moscow during World War II. Antony C. Sutton claims that 322 doubles as a reminder of the society's mother organization in Germany; the American group, founded in 1832, is the second chapter -- thus 32-2.)

In 1856 Daniel Coit Gilman, who went on to become the founding president of Johns Hopkins University, officially incorporated the society as the Russell Trust Association, and Skull and Bones moved into the space it still occupies. The Bones tomb is forbidding only on the outside. Marina Moscovici, a Connecticut conservator who recently spent six years restoring fifteen paintings from the Skull and Bones building, describes the atmosphere inside as "funny spooky." She says, "Sort of like the Addams Family, it's campy in an old British men's-smoking-club way. It's not glamorous by any means."

"Bones is like a college dorm room," a 1980s Bonesman told me. "Ours was a place that used to be really nice but felt kind of beat up, lived in. There were socks underneath the couch, old half-deflated soccer balls lying around." Dozens of skeletons and skulls, human and animal, dangle from the walls, on which German and Latin phrases have been chiseled ("Whether poor or rich, all are equal in death"), among moose heads, sconces, medieval armor, antlers, boating flags, manuscripts, statuettes of Demosthenes, and a pair of boots that one member wore throughout his active duty with American forces in France during World War II. The gravestone of Elihu Yale, the eponymous eighteenth-century merchant, was stolen years ago from its proper setting in Wrexham, Wales, and is displayed in a glass case, in a room with purple walls.

As noted, for many years the society has possessed a skull that members call Geronimo. In the 1980s, under pressure from Ned Anderson, a former Apache tribal chairman in Arizona, the society produced the skull in question. The skull didn't match Anderson's records, and it was returned to the society's tomb. Anderson wasn't finished. He reportedly took the issue up with his congressman, John McCain; McCain tried to arrange a meeting between Anderson and George Bush, who was then the Vice President. Bush wasn't interested, and the matter was dropped. "We still call it Geronimo anyway," a Bonesman says. The issue of Geronimo's skull never surfaced in the public record during the bitter contest between McCain and George W. for the Republican nomination.

The most private room in the building, known as the Inner Temple, or (this will be no surprise) Room 322, is approximately fourteen feet square and guarded by a locked iron door. Inside, a case contains a skeleton that Bonesmen refer to as Madame Pompadour. Compartments in the case guard the society's cherished manuscripts, including the secrecy oath and instructions for conducting an initiation.
The initiation ceremony, held in April, involves as many alumni, or "patriarchs," as possible, one of whom in each instance serves as the supervisor, known as Uncle Toby. The Inner Temple is cleared of furniture except for two chairs and a table, and Bonesmen past and present assemble: Uncle Toby in a robe; the shortest senior, or "Little Devil," in a satanic costume; a Bonesman with a deep voice in a Don Quixote costume; one in papal vestments; another dressed as Elihu Yale; four of the brawniest in the role of "shakers"; and a crew of extras wearing skeleton costumes and carrying noisemakers. According to the initiation script, Uncle Toby "sounds like the only sane person in the room."

As an initiate enters the room, patriarchs standing outside the Inner Temple shout, "Who is it?" The shakers bellow the initiate's name, which the patriarchs echo. The shakers push the initiate toward the table, where the secrecy oath has been placed, and he is enjoined to "Read! Read! Read!" The shakers then half-carry the initiate to a picture of Eulogia, and the Bonesmen shriek, "Eulogia! Eulogia! Eulogia!" After another trip to the oath, the shakers fire the initiate toward a picture of a woman that Bonesmen call Connubial Bliss.

Rituals along these lines go on for quite some time, recalling a cross between haunted-house antics and a human pinball game -- "like something from a Harry Potter novel," in the words of one Bonesman, now an engineer. It is perhaps worth noting, in light of George W.'s controversial episode at Bob Jones University and the specter of anti-Catholicism, that at one point in the proceedings every initiate kisses the slippered toe of the "Pope." At last the initiate is formally dubbed a Knight of Eulogia. Amid more raucous ritual he is cast from the room into the waiting arms of the patriarchs.

WITHIN the tomb students run on Skull and Bones time, which is five minutes ahead of the time in the rest of the world. "It was to encourage you to think that being in the building was so different from the outside world that you'd let your guard down," a Bonesman ('72) explains. At 6:30 on Thursdays and Sundays the Bonesmen gather in the Firefly Room for supper. The room is dim and intimate; light shines through the gaping eyeholes of fixtures shaped like skulls. Bonesmen drink various refreshments from skull-shaped cups, but never alcohol. The dry-society rule, fervently enforced, was designed to keep members level-headed for discussions -- a change of pace for George W., who drank heavily during his college years.

At 7:55 barbarian time Uncle Toby rings a bell to summon the members to the session. When the knights are seated, they sing two sacred anthems before the Hearing of Excuses, during which members are assessed fines for errors, such as arriving late or using a society name outside the tomb. Uncle Toby then draws debate topics and an order of speakers from the Yorick, a skull divided into compartments. The ninety-minute period of debate can be frivolous or grave.

One of the standard pieces of lore about Skull and Bones is that each member must at some point give an account of his sexual history, known as the CB (for "Connubial Bliss"). "After the first one or two times it's like guys listing their conquests, and that gets old," one young Bonesman told me recently. "There's just not that much to talk about" -- and so CBs have evolved into relationship discussions. "It's the kind of stuff a lot of guys do with their teammates," says another Bonesman ('83). "There was nothing perverse or surreal or prurient -- just an open exchange. It's like TV's Ricki Lake -- there's now a national mania for purging thoughts at large. This is a way of doing it in a very private, non-sensationalist way that benefits the people who are listening and the people who are telling."

By mid-autumn, after each member has presented a CB, the time slot shifts to Life Histories, when Bonesmen spend one or more nights giving their autobiographies. George Bush's autobiography focused on his military service but also looked ahead, a 1948 member told me. "He was talking about the future, first about his family and then about being able to have an impact in public service." George W., in contrast, spoke often about his father. George W.'s fellow Bonesmen have been unwilling to elaborate.

WHEN U.S. News & World Report asked President Bush in 1989 why he had chosen to attend Yale, he replied, "My family had a major Yale tradition." Today George W. Bush distances himself from Yale (although supporters cite his alma mater to combat charges that he is a lightweight). He has criticized its "intellectual snobbery" and has maintained that the school epitomizes "a certain East Coast attitude" and an "intellectual arrogance." George W.'s attitude toward Yale extends to its most elite society. Whereas George Bush returned to the tomb in 1998 to be the dinner speaker at the annual Skull and Bones commencement party, George W. has stayed away. In his 1999 campaign autobiography, A Charge to Keep, George W. Bush mentions his membership in Skull and Bones only in passing: "My senior year I joined Skull and Bones, a secret society, so secret I can't say anything more."

Yet Skull and Bones was not relegated entirely to George W.'s past after he graduated. In 1971, having been rejected by the University of Texas Law School and needing a job, Bush called a Bonesman, Robert H. Gow. Gow, who later told The Washington Post that his Houston-based agricultural company had not been looking for anyone at the time, hired Bush as a management trainee. In 1977, when Bush formed Arbusto Energy, his first company, he once again applied to Skull and Bones for financial aid. With assistance from his uncle Jonathan Bush (Bones '53), he lined up $565,000 from twenty-eight investors. One of them contributed $93,000 -- the California venture capitalist William H. Draper III (Bones '50). Twelve Bonesmen (including family members)and the son of a patriarch gave a total of $35,500 to Bush's 1998 gubernatorial campaign. At least forty-six Bonesmen or sons of patriarchs have given approximately $1,000 apiece to his presidential campaign -- the maximum allowed by law.

Not surprisingly, loyalty often flows in the other direction. In 1984 Bush flew to Tennessee to accompany the Republican Senate nominee and Bonesman ('67) Victor Ashe on a seven-city tour. Ashe lost to Al Gore.

That George W. keeps his Skull and Bones connections in repair is hardly a sign of anything insidious; it's just business as usual in America. Compared with his family connections and his family's Yale connections, the Skull and Bones network is just a sideshow. But in the eyes of the conspiracy-minded, interconnections of any kind, especially when cloaked in mystery and ritual, constitute virtual proof of dark doings. Skull and Bones will probably never rid itself of innuendo -- innuendo that has not helped the Bonesmen Bushes in the pursuit of politics.

Conspiracy theories, which George W. has called "the kind of connect-the-random-dots charges that are virtually impossible to refute," contributed to Bush's defeat in his 1978 congressional campaign. Bill Minutaglio, in his biography of Bush, First Son, recalls an afternoon debate moderated by the radio talk-show host Mel Turner:

Turner ... wanted to know if the young Bush was a tool of some shadow government; it was the same thing people had confronted his father with when they had called him a "tool of the eastern kingmakers."

"Are you involved in, or do you know anybody involved in, one-world government or the Trilateral Commission?"

Bush, who had been telling people he was tired of being hammered for having "connections" through his father to the eastern establishment, was fuming. "I won't be persuaded by anyone, including my father," he said, with a biting tone in his voice.

On the way out of the restaurant, Bush was still livid. He refused to shake hands with Turner. "You asshole," Turner heard him hiss as he walked by.

George W.'s father has certainly felt that membership in Skull and Bones damaged him politically. When Fay Vincent made a consolation call to Bush after his 1980 loss of the Republican presidential nomination to Ronald Reagan, the weary candidate said, "Fay, let me tell you something. If you ever decide to run for office, don't forget that coming from Andover, Yale, Skull and Bones, and the Trilateral Commission is a big handicap. People don't know what they are, so they don't know where you're coming from. It's really a big, big problem."

In The Skulls, members of the secret society murder a student journalist who is attempting to probe its mysteries. Real-life journalists have not met the same fate, so far as we know, although Ron Rosenbaum, the author of a 1977 Esquire article on Skull and Bones, wrote that a Bonesman warned him not to get too close: "The alumni still care," the source warned.

"Don't laugh. They don't like people tampering and prying. The power of Bones is incredible. They've got their hands on every lever of power in the country. You'll see -- it's like trying to look into the Mafia."

When I read this excerpt to one young Bonesman, he laughed and said, "I really don't think I'd be working nights as a paralegal while trying to be an actor if I had access to some golden key."

SKULL and Bones doesn't own an opulent island hideaway like the one depicted in The Skulls. It does own an island on the St. Lawrence River -- Deer Island, in Alexandria Bay. The forty-acre retreat is intended to give Bonesmen an opportunity to "get together and rekindle old friendships." A century ago the island sported tennis courts and its softball fields were surrounded by rhubarb plants and gooseberry bushes. Catboats waited on the lake. Stewards catered elegant meals. But although each new Skull and Bones member still visits Deer Island, the place leaves something to be desired. "Now it is just a bunch of burned-out stone buildings," a patriarch sighs. "It's basically ruins." Another Bonesman says that to call the island "rustic" would be to glorify it. "It's a dump, but it's beautiful."

The fading of Deer Island exemplifies the dwindling finances of Skull and Bones, which can no longer claim the largest society endowment at Yale. Unlike members of other societies, Bonesmen pay no dues, though patriarchs receive an annual letter requesting a "voluntary contribution to the Russell Trust Association." In truth, Skull and Bones has never been wealthy.

The society's accounts are much fatter in the ineffables department. A Skull and Bones document states,

The experience we have come to value in our society depends on privacy, and we are unwilling to jeopardize that life in order to solicit new members. The life which we invite you to share in our society is based on such intangible factors that we cannot meaningfully convey to you either its nature or quality.

Hardly a tool of Hades, but rather a staid wayside for students, its heyday past, its glory faded, Skull and Bones may have little more than this to conceal.

As for the $15,000 graduation gift, George W.'s contemporary Rex Cowdry says, "I'm still waiting for mine."

Alexandra Robbins, a 1998 graduate of Yale University, is on the staff of The New Yorker's Washington bureau.

2001 News Report about Skull and Bones Ritual

Blair’s State of Insanity?

Blair accuses Iran of backing terrorism

19 October 2007

New York: Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair has accused Iran of backing terrorism and warned the world faces a situation he likened to "rising fascism in the 1920s".

Speaking at a charity event in New York, Blair said Iran was prepared to destabilise peaceful countries and urged complete vigilance by the US, Britain and their allies in fighting the threat of extremism.

In his first major speech since stepping down, Blair, now an envoy for the Middle East Quartet, also took the opportunity to further defend his decision to go to war in Iraq.

Speaking on what he called an extremist Islamic ideology, Blair said, "This ideology now has a state - Iran - that is prepared to back and finance terror in the pursuit of destabilising countries whose people wish to live in peace."

"There is a tendency even now, even in some of our own circles, to believe that they are as they are because we have provoked them and if we left them alone they would leave us alone.

"I fear this is mistaken. They have no intention of leaving us alone."

The former PM warned against being "forced into retreat" as the world faced a situation similar to "rising fascism in the 1920s".

Blair also stressed the shared values that he believes unite Britain and the US. He said, "America and Europe should not be divided, we should stand up together."

Blind Following the Blind

On Israeli Human Rights Violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territory

11 - 17 Oct. 2007

The suffering of Palestinian civilians at Israeli military checkpoints continues


Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) Continue Systematic Attacks on Palestinian Civilians and Property in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT)


5 Palestinians, including an old man, were killed by IOF.

2 of the victims were extra-judicially executed by IOF.

31 Palestinians, including 8 children, 2 women and a journalist, were wounded by IOF.

IOF conducted 34 incursions into Palestinian communities in the West Bank and 5 ones into the Gaza Strip.

IOF arrested 54 Palestinian civilians in the West Bank and 3 others in the Gaza Strip.

IOF arrested 4 Palestinian fishermen opposite to Rafah seashore.

IOF razed at least 163 donums[1] of agricultural land and demolished a house in the Gaza Strip.

IOF destroyed an under-construction house in Qalqilya.

IOF transformed a number of houses into military sites.

IOF have continued to impose a total siege on the OPT.

IOF have isolated the Gaza Strip from the outside world and a humanitarian crisis has emerged.

Palestinian civilians from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip have been denied access to Jerusalem.

IOF troops arrested 5 Palestinian civilians at checkpoints in the West Bank.

IOF have continued settlement activities in the West Bank and Israeli settlers have continued to attacks Palestinian civilians and property.

Summary

1967: Israel cannot make peace alone

We must pursue a comprehensive solution with energy and vision, writes Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert

Wednesday June 6, 2007
The Guardian

Six days, 40 years ago. Looking back to the weeks preceding the war, it may be difficult for you to imagine just how desperate life seemed for Israelis, ringed by peoples whose armies pointed their weapons towards us, whose leaders daily promised the imminent destruction of our state and whose newspapers carried crude cartoons of Jews being kicked off the face of the earth. As we consecrated mass graves in expectation of the worst, we were once again people facing annihilation. We had no alternative but to defend ourselves, no strategic allies to ensure our survival. We stood alone.

Our victory in those six days in June 1967 - swift, complete and totally unexpected - showed us and the world we were not going to be wiped off the map that easily. Israel fought an unwanted war to defend her very existence, and today there are still leaders who call for Israel to be wiped off the map. But there is a danger that that will be forgotten, overtaken by a re-reading of history. Our survival in 1967 is now, in the eyes of the world and, with worrying consequences in the UK, the original sin of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Our opponents argue against the ongoing "occupation" as if it were the Gordian knot of the conflict. If only we were to leave the territories the conflict would end. And they threaten international isolation if we do not.

If only the conflict were so simple; if only the answer were so simple. Over the last 15 years, successive Israeli governments have initiated talks with the Palestinians in every conceivable permutation in an attempt to reach a settlement. In the 1990s, Israel withdrew from all the Palestinian cities in the West Bank, handing its affairs over to a Palestinian Authority. Nearly two years ago, Israel withdrew its troops and civilians from Gaza, with no preconditions. Last year my Kadima party came to power on an agenda promising further withdrawals. In the face of concessions that have threatened our own domestic consensus, the constant refrain has been the Palestinian refusal to end its violent attacks on our citizens.

Palestinian violence is not a response to the capture of the West Bank and Gaza. Palestinian nationalism's roots are not so shallow. From the emergence of the Zionist movement over 100 years ago, Arabs have opposed our claim to independence on our historic homeland, often violently. Our conflict is not territorial, it is national.

The only way we can resolve the conflict is by establishing secure and recognised boundaries for the peoples of the region. It was on that basis we were able to conclude a peace treaty with Egypt, exchanging land for a peace that has endured for nearly 30 years. We did the same with Jordan. It is on the same basis that we will, I hope, be able to resolve our conflict with the Palestinians, with two peoples living in two states. Jerusalem, our eternal capital, can then be a city that represents peace rather than discord, a city for all its residents that does not distinguish between race, religion or class. Those are the principles that I myself implemented as mayor of the city for 10 years.

As a young politician I voted against the return of Sinai and peace with Egypt. I was mistaken. We will not hesitate to take bold initiatives to advance peace, even if they require heavy concessions. The legacies of Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat, of Yitzhak Rabin and King Hussein, stand as an inspiration for all who work for peace.

We need such political maturity from our Palestinian partners now if they are to stop the internecine fighting that is tearing apart their society, exposing our citizens to a daily barrage of deadly rocketfire and preventing any progress on peace talks. Israel will not tolerate violence against its citizens, and my government will act decisively to protect them. But I also know that we will not resolve the crisis through military means alone. I will continue to meet Mahmoud Abbas, and discuss ways in which the Palestinian Authority can fight against lawlessness and extremism, and urge him to control the violence emanating from Gaza.

In the wider Arab world, there is ever greater recognition that Israel will not disappear from the map. I take the offer of full normalisation of relations between Israel and the Arab world seriously; and I am ready to discuss the Arab peace initiative in an open and sincere manner. Working with our Jordanian and Egyptian partners, and hopefully other Arab states, we must pursue a comprehensive peace with energy and vision. I look forward to being able to discuss this with our other neighbours. But the talks must be a discussion, not an ultimatum.

Israel is prepared to make painful concessions to pay the price for a lasting and just peace that will allow the people of the Middle East to live in dignity and security. But as strong and resourceful as Israelis are, we cannot make peace alone.

· Ehud Olmert is prime minister of Israel

What's Up With Olmert?

19 October 2007

By Yossi Verter

Ehud Olmert's aides were at great pains this week to get the message across: The prime minister did not change his schedule by one iota. He held meetings, oversaw the deal with Hezbollah, visited the army, dealt with the budget, met (twice) with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice for talks about the agenda of the Annapolis conference, spent hours in the Knesset, wrapped up the problem of the allocations to Holocaust survivors - and then flew off urgently to Russia for a meeting with President Vladimir Putin. Precisely during a week like this, any reasonable person who found himself burdened by yet more police investigations, which involve weighty issues of a different kind, would have wanted only to hide under the blanket, but Olmert showed up for work as though nothing had happened.

The results are also visible: This week he was again photographed at a press conference looking exhausted, his head seemingly about to slump, his eyes exuding weariness. Maybe the abnormal workload he creates for himself helps him forget his private troubles. "A great deal of work is done in Olmert's bureau," a person close to the prime minister said this week. "There is a lot of doing, but no joy in doing. The joy has been taken from us."

Who took away that joy, the confidant was asked. "The circumstances," he replied, cautiously.

Still, the confidant was asked, there are four police investigations under way - that has to affect a person's job performance. "Olmert is a character," the man said. "He is not daydreaming emotionally. He does not bemoan his bitter fate to those around him. He listens to the reports and keeps going. From our point of view, from his point of view, it was another week in the office."

Many people - politicians, journalists, foreign diplomats - asked themselves this week what it will take to bring Olmert down. The Jerusalem issue at the Annapolis conference? The criminal investigations? The report of the Winograd Committee on the Second Lebanon War?

The answers are as varied and as numerous as the questions. In fact, there are more answers than questions and more scenarios than actual facts. In the meantime, no one knows what the outcome of the investigations will be. The fate of the Bank Leumi case is the closest to being decided upon by the police: a matter of weeks. In any event, the final decision rests with the state prosecutor, either the present one or his successor - it depends. Media and political confidants of the accountant general, Yaron Zelekha, who get their information mainly from him, are convinced beyond any doubt - and tell anyone willing to listen - that the Bank Leumi case will produce a serious indictment against Olmert.

On Monday morning the media dealt with the Olmert investigations. By the evening, no one was interested any longer. The deal with Hezbollah topped the agenda for two days, until the visit to Russia cropped up - and, in conjunction, U.S. President George W. Bush's comment about the need to stop Iran from becoming a nuclear power if World War III is to be prevented. Bush's remark was of interest not only to the Israeli defense establishment, but also to local politicians. If Bush has determined that 2008, his last year in office, will be the year of decision, that will have a direct impact on the state of the coalition. Israel will not go to the polls on the eve of an American strike on Iran, which could develop into a regional conflict, here in our neighborhood. In that case, something totally different might happen: In extreme circumstances, the Likud might join the government for a limited time, or at least support the government externally.

A hint in this vein was voiced by Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu, who told Olmert shortly before the prime minister departed for Moscow: "Tell President Putin that when it comes to the Iranian nuclear project, there is no opposition or coalition in Israel."

Sneh speaks

The automatic, knee-jerk reaction to the harsh comments Labor MK Ephraim Sneh makes here about the defense minister and chairman of his party, will be: "Well, of course. Sneh is embittered and frustrated because of the way Ehud Barak removed him from the position of deputy defense minister." No one knows what goes on in the heart of someone who feels hurt, or what induces him to say what he does. But it is easy to believe Sneh. He projects integrity, and in any case similar remarks can be heard from other Labor MKs, though not for the record.

Sneh thus breaks, openly and for the first time, the thunderous silence in Labor regarding Barak's political behavior on the eve of the Annapolis conference. There is no doubt that his is the fiercest attack on Labor's chairman "from inside the armored personnel carrier" (as Barak put it before the 1999 elections) since he was elected to the post. Not even the former party chair, Amir Peretz, dared to go so far, so bluntly.

"Barak is captive to an old paradigm," Sneh says. "He thinks that in order to be elected Israel's next prime minister, he, as chairman of Labor, has to be right-wing. That is no longer the case. He cannot be more right-wing than Olmert. The leader of the Labor Party cannot be an outside observer of the peace process. The defense minister has all the tools to ensure that this move will succeed, but he is not making use of them. Historically, the leader of Labor is the leader of the peace camp. If one behaves like Barak, one loses the moral validity to lead the peace camp."

According to Sneh, the Annapolis conference will succeed or fail over the small issues: Israel's behavior at West Bank checkpoints, the assistance granted to the soldiers of Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), aid allocated to Palestinian businesses and factories, and to the mayors - all issues that are within the exclusive purview of the defense minister. And that minister is acting with a heavy hand, says Sneh: "For Abu Mazen to be able to concede to us on the big issues, he has to bring his people sweets. There is only one person who is responsible for the sweets: the minister of defense. And instead of things being eased, land is being expropriated next to Abu Dis," adjacent to East Jerusalem.

The Labor Party "cannot stand aside when it comes to the Palestinian question," Sneh adds. "The problem is not that Barak is blocking things, the problem is that he is not helping. The Labor Party has not led any move since the Taba talks [winter 2001]. This is a party that is not taking the lead. We have lost our self-confidence. Since 2001, we have been dragged in the wake of others. We were dragged in [Ariel] Sharon's wake to the disengagement. Now, even though it is Olmert who is leading the move, we have to give him our full support, on the one hand, and on the other, be a crucial element in pushing the move ahead. We have a marvelous tool for that: the Defense Ministry."

Sneh does not understand Barak's political tactics. Let's say the conference fails, he says. Who stands to gain then? "[Iranian President] Ahmadinejad, [Hamas leader Khaled] Meshal, Netanyahu. They will rejoice. I will not allow the Labor Party to defect from the peace camp."

The MK dismisses the allegation that he is driven by personal bitterness. "I am not looking for quarrels, I am looking for results," he says. "True, I do not forget anything, but in matters of security I am on the level. If I have reason to be angry at Barak over the dismissal, I have even more reason to be angry with Olmert for preventing my appointment as deputy defense minister for eight months. But now I say wholeheartedly: The Labor Party must give Olmert all its support and backing."

On Monday, the Labor Party will hold a political debate for the first time since Barak's election. In the meantime, Sneh is collecting the required number of signatures to force Barak and party secretary-general Eitan Cabel to convene the central committee for a similar debate. The feeling is that the tectonic plates under Barak are beginning to shift. He is likely to come under criticism from his Knesset faction over his policy-related performance. Amir Peretz does not miss an opportunity to savage Barak over the budget. Ami Ayalon, the recently appointed minister without portfolio, is upset at the appointment of Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, the national infrastructures minister, as acting defense minister during Barak's absence from the country; Ayalon thought he would get that honor. And even in Barak's court itself, winds of dissatisfaction and anger are blowing.

Ben-Eliezer's supporters are threatening to demand that the central committee, which will convene in November, appoint him chair of the party's municipal election headquarters, as well as to anchor him in the No. 2 slot in the next Knesset elections. Barak does not want that; it will cause problems with Peretz and Ayalon. But Barak is caught in a trap: If the demand is raised, and a secret vote is held, he will have to take a stand. If he supports the move, he will get into trouble with Peretz and Ayalon; if he opposes it, he will cause a major rift with Ben-Eliezer, who helped him get elected.

It's a lose-lose situation for Barak. Both options signal the end of the period of quiet in the party, and the return of the Labor we all know and love.

Pooh-poohing pollsters

Ehud Olmert has chalked up no few precedents since becoming prime minister. Here's another one: He is the first prime minister in 15 years not to be assisted by a "house pollster." Actually, there seems to be one: Kalman Geier, the pollster of Olmert's Kadima party, who also worked with Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres and Ariel Sharon. Olmert inherited Geier from Sharon, but stopped using his services about five months ago. There is a complete professional divorce between them. And it's not that Olmert replaced Geier with another expert. Geier continues getting his salary from Kadima, and he is still carrying out surveys for the party's director general, MK Yohanan Plesner, and its cabinet ministers - Tzipi Livni, Roni Bar-On, Haim Ramon - just not for Olmert, the one who in effect pays him.

Geier is the last remnant of the "ranch forum," Sharon's group of advisers and spin doctors. The others - Reuven Adler, Eyal Arad, Lior Horev and Dov Weissglas - were shown the door by Olmert shortly after his election. Geier stayed around for another year or so. Now he, too, is gone. The common denominator of all the dropouts is the good relations each of them has with Foreign Minister Livni. Geier is particularly close to her. She often consults him and meets with him privately, both in her office and in her home in Tel Aviv.

Olmert's aides cite the Geier-Livni relationship as the main reason for the prime minister's decision to get rid of the polling services. Probably the last straw in the cooperation between Olmert and Geier came on May 1, when Livni called a press conference in the wake of the interim Winograd Committee report and advised Olmert to resign. Olmert's people found out that Geier had taken part in a meeting of Livni's closest confidants just minutes before the press conference. Worse: Before that, he had taken part in a similar meeting at the Prime Minister's Bureau. No sooner had the meeting with the prime minister ended than Geier left the building, crossed the road, climbed the hill and went to Livni. For Olmert - and, indeed, the same would have been the case with all of his predecessors - that was an unforgivable act.

An Olmert confidant cites another reason: Geier used to come to Olmert with advice, but no data. That irked the prime minister. Sources in Kadima say the tension between the two increased when Olmert declined to take Geier's advice on several issues, such as on the eve of his appointment of Peretz as defense minister. After the war, Geier thought that Peretz should be fired immediately. Olmert wanted to do that, but held back. And there were other problems, too.

In any event, these days the prime minister is making do with polls that are published in the newspapers. From them he learns what the public thinks of him. Contrary to his predecessors, he does not treat the polls as helpful working tools, but as something that rains on his parade. As far as he is concerned, the fewer the better.

Realization for the Future Revisited

19 October 2007

by HRM Deborah

On the 17 of October, I wrote and open declaration to Ehud Olmert, to actually sit down with me and come up with an actual solution to the Israel/Palestinian war that with the hope we could all live with for now and the future.

In a phone conversation, I was told because he called one of my representatives’ that he was originally agreeable to speak with me along with a truce and to help the people in Gaza among other things.

Shortly after I wrote the declaration, George Bush in his press conference not only insulted me, Islam, but as far as I am concerned the whole of Palestine as well as the Middle East.

Shortly after the truce as far as I knew was to occur on Olmert’s part, their was the usual about face, instead we went under a full attack by the Zionist and the further idea’s that was made was also broken.

In a second breath from my understanding, Olmert decided to further go with Bush on his failing fall summit.

While I actually wish a peaceful solution to the 106-year war, apparently the Zionist and the American’s do not.

Instead, from what I got from Bush he would rather turn not only Palestine, but also the whole of the Middle East to more represent Iraq and its horror.

Furthermore, in my response if Olmert had been a man of his word, the wounds between the Palestinians and I hope the Zionist would have healed. I would have even offered to actually bring the olive branch of peace between us, but alas, this has died like the dove of peace apparently.

US arrogant attitudes pave way for 'World War III': Cleric

19 October 2007

Tehran-Tehran's substitute Friday prayers leader Ayatollah Seyyed Ahmad Khatami condemned recent remarks by US President George W.Bush and said the US arrogant attitudes, not Iran's peaceful nuclear activities, can pave the way for World War III President Bush, in his remarks on Wednesday, threatened that the world should convince Iran to abandon its nuclear activities to avoid World War III.

Addressing thousands of worshipers at Tehran University Campus, Ayatollah Khatami said,"If a danger threatens the world peace and security, it is the danger of US leaders' sheer greed and their arrogance and atomic arsenals."

"The world should know that Iran is just a pretext (for US) and if they do not stand against US greed, the whole world and especially those who have been indifferent to the issue will be the losers," the ayatollah said.

Quoting Iranian medieval philosopher Avicena saying "I fear a bull because it has horns but lacks common sense" Ayatollah Khatami said, "If there's a concern, it is from the US arrogant policies which interferes in all the world affairs and wants to be the world godfather which, by grace of Almighty God, would not happen."

Referring to the summit of the Caspian Sea Littoral States presidents in Tehran on Tuesday, Ayatollah Khatami said the successful meeting is one of the reasons of US anger.

"They're angry and they must be angry. They should die of their anger because they did whatever they could to prevent the successful holding of Tehran's Summit," the substitute leader of Friday prayers said.

Referring to US accusations that Iran is seeking atomic bombs, Ayatollah Khatami said, "We've said many times that A. bombs have no place in our defence doctrine."

"In our Islamic teachings, we have been ordered not to poison enemy's water in a war, not to kill enemy's women and children, and not even to cut their trees. These teachings do not let us have weapons of mass destruction," the ayatollah said.

"We don't need an atomic bomb. What is it for? for preventive measures? With grace of God, we have adequate manpower and battle capabilities and we are in such a position to be able to slap on the face of any enemy who dares to violate the Islamic Republic." Elsewhere in his sermon, Ayatollah Khatami appreciated President Ahmadinejad's government for successfully holding the Summit of the Caspian Sea Littoral States presidents in Tehran and said Iran's foreign policy is close cooperation with the neighbouring countries in political, economic, security and defensive fields.

"The summit proved that the Islamic Iran, in spite of US enormous efforts to isolate it, is present in the regional and international scenes to the point that (Russian President) Mr. Putin calls it a big regional and international power."

Ayatollah Khatami praised the summit's 25-article declaration and said," It was a good declaration. Especially the article 15 which stipulates that the five countries are committed not to permit other countries to use their territories for military operations against other sides."

On domestic issues, Ayatollah Khatami advised the officials from the three branches of government to welcome critical comments.

"A society without criticism is a dead one. A lively society needs criticism. But critics should be fair. They should see the good points and praise them and criticize the faults and present their solutions." Ayatollah Khatami concluded.

B'Tselem report: Hebron settlers out of control

19 October 2007

Bethlehem - Ma'an - Attacks by Israeli settlers and Israeli security forces on Palestinian residents in Hebron have increased exponentially, according to a new report published by the Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem.

The report said settler attacks often take place in full view of Israeli forces who do nothing to prevent them.

Many of the attacks take place around a new Israeli settlement that was established in the Palestinian neighborhood of Ar-Ras in March. According to B'Tselem, the colony has grown despite an order by the Israeli defense minister to evacuate the new outpost.

The new settlement is connected to the electricity grid and construction has continued at the site.

Since the establishment of the settlement, attacks on Palestinians have risen sharply. B'Tselem document numerous incidences of physical violence and verbal abuse perpetrated by both settlers and Israeli security forces.

These attacks included beatings, property damage, and the throwing of stones, eggs, and even bottles of urine.

American Religious Freedom?

Otherwise, spend time in Court, Prison
Threatened, Harassed or
Subject to a form of Segregation...

If your a good Muslim, you may be accused of "extremism;" not a good member to society.

Got A Question?

The Prize that Went Gone With the Wind

19 October 2007

by HRM Deborah

There is so much rhetoric lately about the Nobel Peace Prize this year and for me it is most interesting especially since two days before the award was announced to be given to Al Gore, my representative had gotten a call from the prize committee that I had won this prize.

It has been my understanding that two third’s of the world’s leaders of countries had nominated me for this prize, but while I am not saddened by not winning because while I do not feel quite equal to him, I am still in good company with Mahatma Gandhi who never won either.

Gandhi was trying to save his country, as well as real global peace and the people he loved. As I have been diligently striving for the same results not only for my country, but her people, the globe and Islam.

For first and foremost, people should always take the most concern in what is truly important in their life.

Till the last Drop of Our Blood

We as Palestinians, "till the last drop of our blood is on Palestinian land or Palestine is free."

The "Israeli" Soldiers Faced a Heavy Resistance in the Gaza Strip

18 October 2007

A Zionist soldier, Ben Kobani, 20, from Hadera, was killed during an attack in the Gaza Strip yesterday. The occupation forces faced a heavy resistance by the Palestinian factions as a big number of missiles and mortars were fired at the attacker soldiers.

The incident is not expected to affect the type of operations being conducted by the Zionist army in the Strip, at least until after the Annapolis summit scheduled for late November.

Kobani, of the Golani Brigade, was killed when his unit came under gunfire from close range during an operation east of Khan Yunis, supported by armor and military engineers.

The Occupation forces attacked the Gaza Strip several hours earlier and pushed about one kilometer into the Strip from the border fence. The haaretz newspaper " a Zionist newspaper on the internet" reported that the Zionist soldiers "faced heavy resistance."

During the exchanges of fire, the Golani unit managed to kill one of the Hamas gunmen and fired at him after firing anti-tank missile. The Qassam fighter killed the soldier and was killed by the Zionist soldiers.

Around noon, a Zionist attack helicopter fired missiles at a group of Palestinians , wounding some of them. Palestinian sources said 10 were injured, most of them are civilians.

Kobani is the second soldier to be killed this year for Battalion 51 of the Golani Brigade, which in recent months has carried out most of the offensive ground attacks in the Gaza Strip.

The Zionist operation in the Gaza Strip has been ended after having a heavy resistance from the Palestinian resistance factions. Surely the forces failed to achieve their goal to complete their attack. Palestinians expected to have a heavy attack after the killing of the Zionist soldier but they were astonished of their retreat after 12 hours of fight with the occupation forces.