Thank you Canada, thank you Mr. Stephen Harper. Perhaps you can teach our officials some sense of humility in the face of truth.

On January 26, 2007, the Canadian Prime Minister, Mr. Stephen Harper took the very courageous decision and personally and formally issued an apology to Maher Arar, the Canadian citizen of Syrian origin for the wrongful imprisoned and torture. Mr. Arar, on a tip from the Royal Canadian Mountain Police was arrested by US authorities on September 26, 2002 while in transit at JFK and sent to Syria, via Jordan to be imprisoned and tortured on terror charges by the very professional and well experienced Syrian secret police. A year of torture that tells the story of Syria’s of the middle ages.
The case of Maher Arar shed a clear and shameful light on the behavior of both the US and Canadian authorities who became and continue to act and behave with contempt and without any due regards to human rights and without due regards to constitutional rights and international treaties. Syria does not give a damn about human rights in the first place.
Maher Arar, a wireless engineer was arrested on very flimsy evidence, perhaps no evidence, on terror related charges. It seems that both the Canadian and US authorities were desperate to file charges against people, who looked like and smelled like Arabs and Muslims. Maher was arrested in New York and was interrogated for over 8 hours and then was shackled and put away at the Metropolitan Detention Center. When asked for a lawyer, a representative of our US Injustice Department told him as Canadian he was not entitled to a lawyer. This story changed when a day later he was taken from his cell at 9 pm to see his lawyer. When he arrived at the meeting room, there were some dozen of terror and security experts , but no lawyer, who made arrangements for Maher to be deported via Jordan to Syria. Maher always insisted on his innocence but US security and terror experts where not interested in the truth nor the facts or evidence. They wanted numbers.
The decision to deport Maher Arar was taken at the highest level of the US Injustice Department by Secretary John Aschcroft, the very devout man with good and true Christian values and his deputy Larry Thompson. Secretary Aschcroft like all senior officers within the Chaney-Bush administration were desperate to show Americans and America that their war on terror was in full swing, to make up for the security screw up that allowed the hijackers to take over several civilian aircrafts killing and murdering over 3000 innocent Americans. Aschcroft declared that Arar was deported to protect America and that he has a right to do so.
Of course unlike the US, Canada seems to behave differently and has not been hijacked by the so-called national security, terror experts and think tanks, decided to open an inquiry into the case and the national commission headed by Dennis O’Connor concluded that Maher Arar was absolutely innocent and cleared him of any and all charges. The US as expected never admitted any wrongdoing and insists that its decision is based on classified information. Of course and unlike the US where officials who screw up in their job never get fired but get promoted and get awarded America’s highest medals like Paul Premer and George Tenet, the chief of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Giuliano Zaccardelli was forced to resign because of his contradictory (lies) testimony to the House of Common Committee on Public Safety and National Security. The Canadian Prime Minister by personally appearing and issuing his public apologies showed that he was not only a statesman, but a man of courage and represents the true democratic and human values that made our friends to the north a model state in North America.
Now to Syria. Every day we hear from the Chaney-Bush administration about how bad Syria is, and that its government supports terrorism and support torture and its kills and murder its citizens. Well, why would a country with such a reputation (it is true) be the choice for the US to subcontract the torture of Maher Arar to? Because, Syria is an excellent model of a criminal state and it is a state that for over 60 years, and especially under the Assad dynasty and the Ba’athis Party have been committing murder left and right and is well known in the Arab world as one of the worst countries, there are several of them, when it comes to torture and human rights abuse. I am sure Syria’s prison walls have tens of thousands of stories to tell about the torture and killing of innocent people, false charged with violating Syria national security.
By selecting Syria as the subcontractor for the torture of Maher Arar, the US could not have done any better. Of course, the US Constitution forbids such torture and to over come this clear constitutional prohibition, US security officials decided to go over seas and seek the truth. Of course the truth was always there, Maher Arar was no terrorist. Thank you Canada and than you Mr. Stephen Harper. Perhaps you can teach some of our officials some sense of humility in the face of truth.

Hamas, time to call it quit and call for a new election. It is time to end the Israeli Occupation not to repeat the Fatah legacy

Let me state from the very start that Hamas engagement in suicide bombing within Israel of 67 was not only morally wrong, but was a disaster for Hamas and for the Palestinian people and cause. As a former soldier, I always believe in the rights of the Palestinians in fighting the occupation using military means. However, I never accepted the idea of killing and murdering innocent civilians and never understood let alone believe in the fairy tales of 70 virgins waiting for those who commit simple murder of innocent people.
One year have passed since Hamas won a fair and square elections, perhaps the most open and closely watched elections in any part of the Arab world. Of course, if one is to look into the backgrounds of such election, one can see that the Palestinians voted for Hamas, not because Hamas want to liberate Palestine from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River, but because the people were sick and tired of Fatah, and its long time dominance of Palestinian politics and decision making process. More importantly, the Palestinians by voting Hamas in, where voting Fatah, the corrupt to the core organization out of office. It is an open secret that Fatah not only robbed the country blind but also was fleecing every one and every company, not to mention the collusion of some of its leadership with the Israeli Occupation, let alone entering into business with the Israeli Occupation in building the Wall and Israeli settlements.
Too bad that Fatah colluding with Israel, the US and the EC did not give Hamas a chance to show what they can do and to meet their commitments to clean a corrupt government. Hamas was virtually isolated and boycotted by key countries and by the Palestinian leadership from the very start. As such it is very difficult to make a judgment on Hamas performance as a government. It simply did not have a chance to do any thing. More over, Fatah and its partisan civil service Fatah cronies (reminds me of the days of the late Richard Daley and Chicago) making sure that Hamas got itself in a hole with worries about meeting the payroll for Fatah employees and never have the chance to implement and carry out any of its reforms and clean the government and bring charges against those who simply fleeced the people, let alone end the occupation.
During its first year of office, Hamas have failed at all fronts. It failed at meeting the payroll, failed at keeping law, order and security, and of course failed at ending the occupation and made a mess of the Israeli evacuation from Gaza. However one must not put all of the blames on Fatah and its leadership. Hamas and its leadership should also share the blames. Hamas simply failed to understand the need to reach out to the world and to reach out to the Arab countries, especially King Abdallah of Saudi Arabia and enlist his support for the Arab Peace Plan. Hamas acted as if it is living in a vacuum, with the elected leadership waiving its rights to make decisions for the people, giving such rights to the un-elected leadership in Damascus. Hamas failed to inform the people who elected it to power, and tell them that Khalid Mishal has a veto power over any thing and every thing, and that the voters are beholding to the decisions from Damascus. Hamas never acted like a government.
Hamas leadership proved itself as incompetent as that of Fatah, putting the interest and priorities of people on the back burners while putting its own selfish interest first. So far, Hamas did not come up with an alternative to President Mahmoud Abbas election platform. Meanwhile, Hamas and Fatah by supporting kidnapping and killing of each other and of innocent people proved they are unfit and are incapable of leading the struggle to end the Israeli Occupation. The Palestinian people and especially leading intellectuals and businessmen such as Dr. Mustafa Bargouthi, and Dr. Haider Abdul-Shafi share the responsibility for not mobilizing the people to have an alternative leadership to the old and failed, incompetent and corrupt Fatah and provide an alternative to Hamas which proved it is not yet ready for prime time and certainly does not have the world view needed to gain the support of the Arab and world community to end the Israeli Occupation.
Too bad for the people of Palestine, Hamas and Fatah have moved away from the main mission, which is ending the Israeli Occupation and focusing on their own narrow and selfish interests, while exposing the people and the country to the risk of civil war. It seems that the Palestinian people are unwilling to learn from the past and are incapable to rise up to the occasion. The Palestinian leadership for the last 100 years or so has been nothing but a disgrace, full of selfish interest and incompetent to lead to independence and freedom. Hamas leadership is behaving in the same way as Fatah leadership, of course absence the corruption and fleecing of the people, but never the less as incompetent as Fatah. Those responsible for the killing in Gaza should be brought to trial, but then there was never an independent system of justice and court system. The absence of the rule of law, was supported by the US and Israel and Europe during the days of Arafat, when his preventive security organizations where arresting people left and right and were committing acts of torture, not to mention acts of murder. All this was ok with the US and Israel as long as Arafat was meeting his contractual security commitment to Israel. Khalid Mishal, why are you making the decisions, when you were never elected by any one, and never appeared on the ballot? If the Palestinian people wanted to have a government run from Damascus, they would say so. Mr. Ismail Haniyah, you are a decent man, but you do not have the leadership and the will power to lead and make decisions on your own. As for Fatah it is a lost cause, there is nothing that could be done, not even $500 million from the US could ever fix and repair such an organization. One would think with Arafat death the idea of Arab trusteeship is over, however Hamas proved us wrong. If Damascus is unable to liberate the Golan Heights how can Hamas believe Damascus is able to liberate the Palestinians from the Israeli Occupation?

Again, our Congress is for sale. The Israeli lobby is able to achieve a 2000% rate of return. Of course congress votes away our money.

It is a well known fact that our congress, the US Congress is for sale. And the Israeli lobby is the biggest stock holder in our Congress, trading, buying and selling members left and right, and in many cases, even staff the offices of members of congress. For the $ 50 millions or so, the Israeli lobby invest in congress, every election cycle, members of congress vote, aned award, Israel and the lobby some $10 billions. A retun on invesment of some 2000% not a bad return on investment. Even the most savy of investors on Wall Street could never achieve such a return. The sad thing for America and for Israel is that such an investment in congress is against the long term interest of the US and also of Israel. The lobby is not doing members of congress or the US any favor. the money invested allows members of congress to waive their rights and duties to vote on the issue and make the decisions, allowing their staff members to make such decisions for an on behalf of members of congress. One need to wonder how many schools and hospitals a $10 billions every election cycle could do for us, the tax payers. There must be a way to make sure the congress is not for sale.
Sami Jadallah


The Christian Science Monitor from the January 26, 2007 edition

The hidden cost of free congressional trips to Israel Branded as 'educational,' these trips offer Israeli propagandists an opportunity to expose members of Congress to only their side of the story.

By Jim Abourezk SIOUX FALL, S.D.

- Democrats in Congress have moved quickly – and commendably – to strengthen ethics rules. But truly groundbreaking reform was prevented, in part, because of the efforts of the pro-Israel lobby to preserve one of its most critical functions: taking members of Congress on free "educational" trips to Israel. The pro-Israel lobby does most of its work without publicity. But every member of Congress and every would-be candidate for Congress comes to quickly understand a basic lesson. Money needed to run for office can come with great ease from supporters of Israel, provided that the candidate makes certain promises, in writing, to vote favorably on issues considered important to Israel. What drives much of congressional support for Israel is fear – fear that the pro-Israel lobby will either withhold campaign contributions or give money to one's opponent. In my own experience as a US senator in the 1970s, I saw how the lobby tries to humiliate or embarrass members who do not toe the line. Pro-Israel groups worked vigorously to ensure that the new reforms would allow them to keep hosting members of Congress on trips to Israel. According to the Jewish Daily Forward newspaper, congressional filings show Israel as the top foreign destination for privately sponsored trips. Nearly 10 percent of overseas congressional trips taken between 2000 and 2005 were to Israel. Most are paid for by the American Israel Education Foundation, a sister organization of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the major pro-Israel lobby group. New rules require all trips to be pre-approved by the House Ethics Committee, but Rep. Barney Frank (D) of Massachusetts says this setup will guarantee that tours of Israel continue. Ron Kampeas of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported consensus among Jewish groups that "the new legislation would be an inconvenience, but wouldn't seriously hamper the trips to Israel that are considered a critical component of congressional support for Israel." These trips are defended as "educational." In reality, as I know from my many colleagues in the House and Senate who participated in them, they offer Israeli propagandists an opportunity to expose members of Congress to only their side of the story. The Israeli narrative of how the nation was created, and Israeli justifications for its brutal policies omit important truths about the Israeli takeover and occupation of the Palestinian territories. What the pro-Israel lobby reaps for its investment in these tours is congressional support for Israeli desires. For years, Israel has relied on billions of dollars in US taxpayer money. Shutting off this government funding would seriously impair Israel's harsh occupation. One wonders what policies Congress might support toward Israel and the Palestinians absent the distorting influence of these Israel trips – or if more members toured Palestinian lands. America sent troops to Europe to prevent the killing of civilians in the former Yugoslavia. But when it comes to flagrant human rights violations committed by Israel, the US sends more money and shields Israel from criticism. Congress regularly passes resolutions lauding Israel, even when its actions are deplorable, providing it political cover. Meanwhile, polls suggest most Americans want the Bush administration to steer a middle course in working for peace between Israelis and the Palestinians. Consider, too, how the Israel lobby twists US foreign policy into a dangerous double standard regarding nuclear issues. The US rattles its sabers at Iran for its nuclear energy ambitions – and alleged pursuit of nuclear arms – while remaining silent about Israel's nuclear-weapons arsenal. Members of Congress may not be aware just how damaging their automatic support for Israel is to America's interest. At a minimum, US policies toward Israel have cost it valuable allies in the Middle East and other parts of the Muslim world. If Congress is serious about ethics reform, it should not protect the Israel lobby from the consequences. A totally taxpayer-funded travel budget for members to take foreign fact-finding trips, with authorization to be made by committee heads, would be an important first step toward a foreign policy that genuinely serves America.
• Jim Abourezk is a former Democratic senator from South Dakota.

The biggest danger to American tourists in Morocco, is not terror attacks, but reckless and dangerous Moroccan drivers

Few days ago, while having breakfast at a café on the Corniche in Tangier, looking to Spain in the not far distance, I read a short story in one of the Moroccan newspapers, announcing that on the suggestions of authorities in the US, American tour operators are planning to assign security officers to groups traveling to Morocco. With the conclusion that American tourists traveling to Morocco need American security officers to protect them against terror attacks. Not so sure what kind of weapons they will carry!
This very short story prompted me to write this posting raising questions about the basis for such decisions. To me it seems the decision is made along the same line as that of George Bush and his weapons of mass destructions in Iraq.
These days, it seems that war on terror has taking a life of itself, creating a business, unlike any other business, where so called “security” experts, first scare the hell out of people, then tries to play on the fear of citizens and try to raise that fear in order to fill the need that arise out of such fear. Like the Chaney-Bush, they try to scare the hell out of people, and once they feel the people are scared, they try to increase the degree of fear, and then they come up with nothing but mumpo-jumop slogan and offers of security for the people, wasting hundreds of billions on the war on terror.
This business of security from terror is nothing more than a racket, a business, perpetuated by the Chaney-Bush administrations for the benefits of their friends and of course every Tom, Dick and Harry, not to mention, Shlomo, Avi, and Natan. Even lovers of certain governor where hired as “security and terror experts”.
The disturbing thing about this story is that the false needs for such security and terror experts to accompany tourists traveling in Morocco. I have been traveling to Morocco for over 20 years and I travel to the country almost every month and I travel by car, alone all over Morocco and all I can say, the country is much safer than New Orleans, Washington DC, not to mention Chicago, Detroit and Miami.
Few years back a number of British and German tourists where attacked and killed while on their way from Miami International Airport to Miami and North Miami. No one in the state of Florida and in Miami decided to arrange for armed security officers to accompany these tourists. It seems that the idea of arranging for security details to accompany American tourists traveling within Morocco is much more than a simple security concerns for the lives of American tourists. It has every thing to do with a political and self serving reason to show Americans traveling in Morocco instilling fear and of course telling they have every reason to be concerned and they should fear terror attacks and of course with raising the fears, comes the offer to fill the gab, and of course, finding jobs to the many retired police and military personal. American tourists are more safe in Morocco than back at home and there are no real or imagined reasons for allowing such security details to accompany these tourists. Of course the biggest danger to American tourists not terror, but dangerous and reckless Moroccan drivers who are danger to themselves and danger to the people at large. More tourists’ die from reckless drivers than from terror attack. Some 13 years ago, some Algerians terrorist shot and killed few Spanish tourists in Marrakech and in 2002 some home grown Moroccan terrorists killed a score of Moroccans. I was here in May when this terrorist’s attack took place and I was out on the streets watching as hundreds of thousands of Moroccans took to the streets to denounce these terrorists and their supporters. One has to give due credit to the Moroccan security organizations that were able to seek and arrest members of these terrorist organization. Morocco may have some problems, but terror toward American tourists is not one of them. It is so unfortunate for Morocco and especially to American tourists that the Chaney-Bush administration continues to promote fear for self-serving certain political and ideological reasons. Americans are by and large some of the most decent tourists, very good and humble attitude, curious, generous, and very caring. I think the people in Morocco have a much understanding of world politics and worldview than the experts’ sittings in the White House. Drop the idea it is a stupid idea.

In Israel it is "targeted assasinations" in the US it is "character assasinations" victimes are liquidated

In Israel, it is called "targeted assasinations" where subjects are killed and murdered. In the US, it is not targetted assasinations, but "character assasinations" where any one, even if percieved to be critical of Israel let alone questions any of its actions is targeted and while not physically killed or murder they are assasinated never the less. In Israel they can debate any thing and every thing, even Israel and its actions and behavior. In the US, the lobby makes sure they we do not enjoy the same privileges they enjoy in Israel, the freedom of speech. Perhaps Congress need to reconsider our First Amendement Rights and reconsider the appointment of the lobby as a trustee of our rights to free speech.
Sami Jadallah

Subject: Very Good! Counterpunch: Alex Cockburn "First Bomb Carter; Then Nuke Iran!"
Weekend EditionJanuary 20/21 2007
First Bomb Carter; Then Nuke Iran!
The Israel Lobby Trips and Tilts
By ALEXANDER COCKBURN
http://www.counterpunch.org/
Suppose the movers and shakers in the Israel lobby here -- Abe Foxman, Alan Dershowitz and the rest of the crew -- had simply decided to leave Jimmy Carter’s Palestine Peace Not Apartheid alone. How long before the book would have been gathering dust on the remainder shelves? Suppose even that Dershowitz had rounded up his unacknowledged co-authors in all their tens of thousands and sallied forth to buy up every copy of Carter’s book and toss each one into the Charles River, would not that have been a more successful suppressor than the blitzkrieg strategy they did adopt?
Of course it would. For weeks now the lobby has hurled its legions into battle against Carter. He has been stigmatized as an anti-Semite, a Holocaust denier, a patron of former concentration camp killers, a Christian madman, a pawn of the Arabs who “flatly condones mass murder” of Israeli Jews. (This last was from Murdoch’s New York Post editorial, relayed to its mailing list by the Zionist Organization of America.)
Any day now I expect some janitors at the Carter Center to resign, declaring that they can no longer in all conscience mop bathrooms that might have been used by the former President, their letter of protest duly front-paged by the New York Times, just like the famous fourteen members of the Carter Center’s Board of Councilors. Actually there were, at the time of resignations, 224 people on this board, where membership is mostly a thank you for a financial donation to the center. So the headlines could be saying, “Nearly 95 per cent of Carter Center Board Members Back Former President.”
But the assault on Carter is all to no avail. With each gust of abuse, Carter’s book soars higher and higher on the bestseller lists, reaching number 4 on Amazon itself. This doesn’t prove the lobby has no power. It proves the lobby can be dumb. Adroit lobbying consists in preventing unpleasing material reaching the light of day. Lobbying thrives in furtive darkness: slipping language into a bill at the last moment, threatening to back a campaign opponent, making quiet phone calls to the Polish embassy. Pressure is now being exerted on Farrar, Straus and Giroux to abandon its impending publication of Mearsheimer and Walt’s attack on the lobby.
The Israel lobby retains its grip inside the Beltway, but it’s starting to lose its hold on the broader public debate. Why? You can’t brutalize the Palestinian people in the full light of day, decade after decade, without claims that Israel is a light among the nations getting more than a few serious dents. In the old days, Mearsheimer and Walt’s tract would have been deep-sixed by the University of Chicago and the Kennedy School long before it reached its final draft, and Farrar, Straus and Giroux wouldn’t have considered offering a six-figure advance for it. Simon & Schuster would have told President Carter that his manuscript had run into insurmountable objections from a distinguished board of internal reviewers. But once a book by a former president with weighty humanitarian credentials makes it into bookstores, it’s hard to shoot it down with volleys of wild abuse.
The trouble with the lobby and the Christian zealots who act as its echo chamber is that they believe their own propaganda about Israel’s equitable social arrangements and immaculate political and legal record in its relations with the Palestinians. Use the word apartheid and they howl with indignation. The shock is about thirty years out of date. Israeli writers have used the word apartheid to describe arrangements in the occupied territories for years. Hundreds of prominent South African Jews issued a statement six years ago making the same link.
As in so many things, conventional elite opinion lives in a bubble, believing mere assertion and ranting about anti-Semitism will carry the day. The New York Times featured a spectacularly disingenuous hatchet job by its deputy foreign editor, Ethan Bronner, and another assault by former Clinton-era Middle East negotiator Dennis Ross. The latter rolled out the ritual accusations about Arafat’s rejection of Clinton’s proposals in December 2000, which is nonsense, as Ross surely knows. Clinton himself acknowledged in 2001 what later historians have substantiated, that both sides accepted his proposals in principle, while filing reservations. (Israel’s amounted to 20 single-spaced pages.)
The Times’ attacks were matched in the Washington Post by Jeffrey Goldberg, formerly of the IDF and a notorious trafficker in fictions, such as the supposed terror ties between Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. Amazon ran his vulgar ravings under the “Editorial Reviews” heading—a space usually reserved for short blurbs from Publishers Weekly and the like.
But if the lobby is fighting rearguard and increasingly futile actions to suppress all discussion here of what Israel is doing to Palestinians, it continues to exercise very serious clout in such enclaves of timidity as the U.S. Congress. Bush was not foolish in singling out Iran for threats in his January 10 address. The Democratic reaction to Bush’s escalation against Iraq and Iran has mostly been confined to nervous talk of “symbolic votes.” This temperate posture is surely not unconnected to the fact that the lobby’s prime foreign policy task, joined by Israeli hawks like Bibi Netanyahu, has been to rally support for an assault on Iran.
What an irony! Desperate for an end to the war, the voters hand Congress to the Democrats. Barely more than two months later Bush is kidnapping Iranian diplomats from in their consulate in Irbil, Iraq -- a calculated provocation arousing scant tumult here. Bush is also deploying a larger naval force to the Persian Gulf, as Israel plants stories about its possible recourse to nuclear weapons. Some provocation, maybe a seizure by the U.S. of an Iranian tanker, is easy to imagine in February. In the Congress, there’s barely a whimper out of the Democrats amid these terrifying prospects. It may have made a mess of its war against Carter’s book, but as a ferryman across the Styx toward Armageddon the lobby is doing a competent job.

Too bad for the country, George W. Bush does not reach to the council of elders within his father administration.

The article listed appeared in the NYT editorial page on January 4th. President George H.W.Bush has some great leaders and thinkers within his circles of advisors unlike his son who does not have one single person that can rise to a serious intellectual, let alone a thinker or a philosopher with a vision for the future. Too bad for America first and too bad for President George W. Bush that he did not reach to his father for help, instead relied on "stupid" think tanks in Washington to get him in the mess in the first place and to keep him in the mess when he needed to get out. More disgusting is the photo posting in todays electronic Haaretz, the Israeli paper, of Secretary Roce smiling next to that racist, facist Maldovian Jew, Avigdor Lieberman, who not only advocate the expulsion and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their home land of Palestine, but who also advocate the wholesale murder and assasination of Palestinians and of course, with the objective of stealing their lands. Standing and smiling with that racist Jew, Perhaps Secretary Rice has some message to the Palestininans. I wonder what someone as racists as Avigdor Lieberman thinks of Blacks?
Sami Jadallah

From the New York Times
January 4, 2007
Op-Ed Contributor

Getting the Middle East Back on Our Side
By BRENT SCOWCROFT
Washington

THE Iraq Study Group report was released into a sea of unrealistic
expectations. Inevitably, it disappointed hopes for a clear path through the
morass of Iraq, because there is no "silver bullet" solution to the
difficulties in which we find ourselves.

But the report accomplished a great deal. It brought together some of
America's best minds across party lines, and it outlined with clarity and
precision the key factors at issue in Iraq. In doing so, it helped catalyze
the debate about our Iraq policy and crystallize the choices we face. Above
all, it emphasized the importance of focusing on American national
interests, not only in Iraq but in the region.

However, the report, which calls the situation in Iraq "grave and
deteriorating," does not focus on what could be the most likely outcome of
its analysis. Should the Iraqis be unable or unwilling to play the role
required of them, the report implies that we would have no choice but to
withdraw, and then blame our withdrawal on Iraqi failures. But here the
report essentially stops.

An American withdrawal before Iraq can, in the words of the president,
"govern itself, sustain itself, and defend itself" would be a strategic
defeat for American interests, with potentially catastrophic consequences
both in the region and beyond. Our opponents would be hugely emboldened, our
friends deeply demoralized.

Iran, heady with the withdrawal of its principal adversary, would expand its
influence through Hezbollah and Hamas more deeply into Syria, Lebanon, the
Palestinian territories and Jordan. Our Arab friends would rightly feel we
had abandoned them to face alone a radicalism that has been greatly inflamed
by American actions in the region and which could pose a serious threat to
their own governments.

The effects would not be confined to Iraq and the Middle East. Energy
resources and transit choke points vital to the global economy would be
subjected to greatly increased risk. Terrorists and extremists elsewhere
would be emboldened. And the perception, worldwide, would be that the
American colossus had stumbled, was losing its resolve and could no longer
be considered a reliable ally or friend — or the guarantor of peace and
stability in this critical region.

To avoid these dire consequences, we need to secure the support of the
countries of the region themselves. It is greatly in their self-interest to
give that support, just as they did in the 1991 Persian Gulf conflict.
Unfortunately, in recent years they have come to see it as dangerous to
identify with the United States, and so they have largely stood on the
sidelines.

A vigorously renewed effort to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict could
fundamentally change both the dynamics in the region and the strategic
calculus of key leaders. Real progress would push Iran into a more defensive
posture. Hezbollah and Hamas would lose their rallying principle. American
allies like Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the gulf states would be liberated to
assist in stabilizing Iraq. And Iraq would finally be seen by all as a key
country that had to be set right in the pursuit of regional security.

Arab leaders are now keen to resolve the 50-year-old dispute. Prime Minister
Ehud Olmert of Israel may be as well. His nation's long-term security can
only be assured by resolving this issue once and for all. However, only the
American president can bring them to the same table.

Resuming the Arab-Israeli peace process is not a matter of forcing
concessions from Israel or dragooning the Palestinians into surrender. Most
of the elements of a settlement are already agreed as a result of the
negotiations of 2000 and the "road map" of 2002. What is required is to
summon the will of Arab and Israeli leaders, led by a determined American
president, to forge the various elements into a conclusion that all parties
have already publicly accepted in principle.

As for Syria and Iran, we should not be afraid of opening channels of
communication, but neither should we rush to engage them as negotiating
"partners." Moreover, these two countries have differing interests,
expectations and points of leverage and should not be treated as though they
are indistinguishable.

Syria cannot be comfortable clutched solely in the embrace of Iran, and thus
prying it away may be possible. Syria also has much to gain from a
settlement with Israel and internal problems that such a deal might greatly
ease. If we can make progress on the Palestinian front before adding Syria
to the mix, it would both avoid overloading Israel's negotiating capacity
and increase the incentives for Damascus to negotiate seriously.

Iran is different. It may not be wise to make Iran integral to the regional
strategy at the outset. And the nuclear issue should be dealt with on a
separate track. In its present state of euphoria, Iran has little interest
in making things easier for us. If, however, we make clear our
determination, and if the other regional states become more engaged in
stabilizing Iraq, the Iranians might grow more inclined to negotiate
seriously.

WHILE negotiations on the Arab-Israel peace process are under way, we should
establish some political parameters inside Iraq that encourage moves toward
reconciliation and unified government in Iraq. Other suggested options, such
as an "80 percent solution" that excludes the Sunnis, or the division of the
country into three parts, are not only inconsistent with reconciliation but
would almost certainly pave the way to broader regional conflict and must be
avoided.

American combat troops should be gradually redeployed away from intervening
in sectarian conflict. That necessarily is a task for Iraqi troops, however
poorly prepared they may be. Our troops should be redirected toward training
the Iraqi Army, providing support and backup, combating insurgents,
attenuating outside intervention and assisting in major infrastructure
protection.

That does not mean the American presence should be reduced. Indeed, in the
immediate future, the opposite may be true, though any increase in troop
strength should be directed at accomplishing specific, defined missions. A
generalized increase would be unlikely to demonstrably change the situation
and, consequently, could result in increased clamor for withdrawal. But the
central point is that withdrawing combat forces should not be a policy
objective, but rather, the result of changes in our strategy and success in
our efforts.

As we work our way through this seemingly intractable problem in Iraq, we
must constantly remember that this is not just a troublesome issue from
which we can walk away if it seems too costly to continue. What is at stake
is not only Iraq and the stability of the Middle East, but the global
perception of the reliability of the United States as a partner in a deeply
troubled world. We cannot afford to fail that test.
-------------------------
* Brent Scowcroft was national security adviser to Presidents Gerald R. Ford
and George H. W. Bush. He is now president of the Forum for International
Policy.

Robert Fisk, perhaps the best journalist anywhere.

Mr. Robert Fisk, is perhaps the best journalist any where. Lots of smarts, lots of guts, lots of courage and lots of vision. Perhaps congressional staff members, espcially Democrats, should make Mr. Fisk a required reading for their bosses. Both can learn a great deal and have a better insight into what is going on around the world. A whole lots of smart that Weekly Standard could never match.
Sami Jadallah

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/article2144057.ece

Robert Fisk: Bush's new strategy - the march of folly
So into the graveyard of Iraq, George Bush, commander-in-chief, is to send another 21,000 of his soldiers. The march of folly is to continue...
Published: 11 January 2007
There will be timetables, deadlines, benchmarks, goals for both America and its Iraqi satraps. But the war against terror can still be won. We shall prevail. Victory or death. And it shall be death.

President Bush's announcement early this morning tolled every bell. A billion dollars of extra aid for Iraq, a diary of future success as the Shia powers of Iraq ­ still to be referred to as the "democratically elected government" ­ march in lockstep with America's best men and women to restore order and strike fear into the hearts of al-Qa'ida. It will take time ­ oh, yes, it will take years, at least three in the words of Washington's top commander in the field, General Raymond Odierno this week ­ but the mission will be accomplished.

Mission accomplished. Wasn't that the refrain almost four years ago, on that lonely aircraft carrier off California, Bush striding the deck in his flying suit? And only a few months later, the President had a message for Osama bin Laden and the insurgents of Iraq. "Bring 'em on!" he shouted. And on they came. Few paid attention late last year when the Islamist leadership of this most ferocious of Arab rebellions proclaimed Bush a war criminal but asked him not to withdraw his troops. "We haven't yet killed enough of them," their videotaped statement announced.

Well, they will have their chance now. How ironic that it was the ghastly Saddam, dignified amid his lynch mob, who dared on the scaffold to tell the truth which Bush and Blair would not utter: that Iraq has become "hell" .

It is de rigueur, these days, to recall Vietnam, the false victories, the body counts, the torture and the murders ­ but history is littered with powerful men who thought they could batter their way to victory against the odds. Napoleon comes to mind; not the emperor who retreated from Moscow, but the man who believed the wild guerrilleros of French-occupied Spain could be liquidated. He tortured them, he executed them, he propped up a local Spanish administration of what we would now call Quislings, al-Malikis to a man. He rightly accused his enemies ­ Moore and Wellington ­ of supporting the insurgents. And when faced with defeat, Napoleon took the personal decision "to relaunch the machine" and advanced to recapture Madrid, just as Bush intends to recapture Baghdad. Of course, it ended in disaster. And George Bush is no Napoleon Bonaparte.

No, I would turn to another, less flamboyant, far more modern politician for prophecy, an American who understood, just before the 2003 launch of Bush's illegal invasion of Iraq, what would happen to the arrogance of power. For their relevance this morning, the words of the conservative politician Pat Buchanan deserve to be written in marble:

"We will soon launch an imperial war on Iraq with all the 'On to Berlin' bravado with which French poilus and British tommies marched in August 1914. But this invasion will not be the cakewalk neoconservatives predict ... For a militant Islam that holds in thrall scores of millions of true believers will never accept George Bush dictating the destiny of the Islamic world ...

"The one endeavour at which Islamic peoples excel is expelling imperial powers by terror and guerrilla war. They drove the Brits out of Palestine and Aden, the French out of Algeria, the Russians out of Afghanistan, the Americans out of Somalia and Beirut, the Israelis out of Lebanon... We have started up the road to empire and over the next hill we will meet those who went before."

But George Bush dare not see these armies of the past, their ghosts as palpable as the phantoms of the 3,000 Americans ­ let us forget the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis ­ already done to death in this obscene war, and those future spirits of the dead still living amid the 20,000 men and women whom Bush is now sending to Iraq. In Baghdad, they will move into both Sunni and Shia "insurgent strongholds" ­ as opposed to just the Sunni variety which they vainly invested in the autumn ­ because this time, and again I quote General Odierno, it is crucial the security plan be " evenhanded". This time, he said, "we have to have a believable approach, of going after Sunni and Shia extremists".

But a "believable approach" is what Bush does not have. The days of even-handed oppression disappeared in the aftermath of invasion.

"Democracy" should have been introduced at the start ­ not delayed until the Shias threatened to join the insurgency if Paul Bremer, America's second proconsul, did not hold elections ­ just as the American military should have prevented the anarchy of April 2003. The killing of 14 Sunni civilians by US paratroopers at Fallujah that spring set the seal on the insurgency. Yes, Syria and Iran could help George Bush. But Tehran was part of his toytown "Axis of Evil", Damascus a mere satellite. They were to be future prey, once Project Iraq proved successful. Then there came the shame of our torture, our murders, the mass ethnic cleansing in the land we said we had liberated.

And so more US troops must die, sacrificed for those who have already died. We cannot betray those who have been killed. It is a lie, of course. Every desperate man keeps gambling, preferably with other men's lives.

But the Bushes and Blairs have experienced war through television and Hollywood; this is both their illusion and their shield.

Historians will one day ask if the West did not plunge into its Middle East catastrophe so blithely because not one member of any Western government ­ except Colin Powell, and he has shuffled off stage ­ ever fought in a war. The Churchills have gone, used as a wardrobe for a prime minister who lied to his people and a president who, given the chance to fight for his country, felt his Vietnam mission was to defend the skies over Texas.

But still he talks of victory, as ignorant of the past as he is of the future.

Pat Buchanan ended his prophecy with imperishable words: "The only lesson we learn from history is that we do not learn from history."

The Bush plan, and the question of withdrawal

What Bush says

20,000 troops increase

Mistake of not sending sufficient troops must be rectified. Troops stabilise Baghdad and reinforce Anbar province, on condition that Iraqis take on Shia militias

$1bn reconstruction aid

Fresh funds will help create jobs and stimulate economy to show Iraqis there can be a peace dividend, and friendly Middle East states should help out too

Pullout

US commitment to Iraq is not open-ended but no timetable for troop withdrawal, even though US troops are expected to hand control to Iraqis by November

What Congress says

20,000 troops increase

Troop build-up is a mistake. House expected to vote on increase, Senate legislation forces Bush to seek congressional approval but neither move could block troop deployment

$1bn reconstruction aid

Don't throw good money after bad. US has squandered billions since the invasion and Democrats plan investigation. Millions of dollars 'overpaid' by Pentagon to Iraq contractors

Pullout

Bush has not learnt the lesson of November's mid-term elections which gave Democrats control of the House and Senate on the platform of a phased withdrawal from Iraq

What Baker says

20,000 troops increase

Up to 20,000 military trainers and troops embedded into and supporting Iraqi army, while combat troops drawn down to avoid increase in total numbers

$1bn reconstruction aid

US economic assistance should be boosted to $5bn per year. US should take anti-corruption measures by posting oil contracts on the internet for outside scrutiny

Pullout

All US combat troops not needed for force protection should be out of Iraq by the first quarter of 2008

Likely outcome

20,000 troops increase

Escalation of conflict

Money will be wasted, with official corruption in Iraq said to drain $7bn a year

Pullout

Troop surge could disguise 'cut and run' depending on the circumstances in both Iraq and America

The Bush White House, lacking the brain power, has to go outside for it, without an open bid.

The neocons got Mr. Bush and got America into this big mess called Iraq, through lies, fraud and misrepresentations, costing the lives of thousands of Americans and Iraqis. Instead of reaching out to the best and brightest in the nation to help him and us get out of this big mess, Mr. Bush decides again, and wrongly reach out to the neocons who made a mess of this nation and of our foreign policy. The neocons are taking the country and its resouces down the drain. The Democrats better come up with a bold answer to Mr. Bush. Let us not repeat Vietnam all over again.
Sami Jadallah

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/printer_011107J.shtml
The Architect of Mr. Bush's Plan
By Jason Leopold
t r u t h o u t Report

Thursday 11 January 2007

One of the key architects of President Bush's disastrous Iraq war policy was responsible for writing the president's new plan calling for an increase in US troops in the region.

By relying on the recommendations of neoconservative scholar Frederick Kagan, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, on what steps the White House should take to address the civil war between Sunnis and Shiites in Iraq, President Bush has once again ignored the advice of career military officials and even some Republican lawmakers - many of whom in recent weeks have urged Bush to resist implementing a policy that would result in escalating the war - and instead has chosen to rely on the proposals drafted by hawkish, think-tank intellectuals that could very well backfire and end up embroiling the United States in an even bloodier conflict.

Perhaps the most alarming element of Bush's "new" plan for stabilizing Iraq is how much it relies upon the recommendations of individuals who have never set foot on a battlefield. Much of what the president outlined in a prime-time speech Wednesday evening - specifically, sending more than 20,000 additional soldiers into Iraq - was culled from the white paper, "Choosing Victory: A Plan for Success in Iraq," written by Kagan last month.

Some of the key points of Kagan's proposal include:

We must change our focus from training Iraqi soldiers to securing the Iraqi population and containing the rising violence. Securing the population has never been the primary mission of the US military effort in Iraq, and now it must become the first priority.
We must send more American combat forces into Iraq, and especially into Baghdad, to support this operation. A surge of seven Army brigades and Marine regiments to support clear-and-hold operations starting in the spring of 2007 is necessary, possible, and will be sufficient.
These forces, partnered with Iraqi units, will clear critical Sunni and mixed Sunni-Shia neighborhoods, primarily on the west side of the city.
After the neighborhoods have been cleared, US soldiers and Marines, again partnered with Iraqis, will remain behind to maintain security.
As security is established, reconstruction aid will help to reestablish normal life and, working through Iraqi officials, will strengthen Iraqi local government.
But these recommendations itself aren't new. In fact, this "new" plan has actually been collecting dust for two years.

In January 2005, Kagan, who at the time was associated with the controversial Project for the New American Century, signed a letter sent to Democratic and Republican leaders in the House and Senate urging lawmakers to deploy an additional 25,000 US troops to Iraq, not so much to quell the violence between Sunni and Shiite factions as to intimidate Iraq's neighbors in the Middle East by maintaining bases. Kagan, his brother Robert, and PNAC founder and Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol wrote that the Bush administration had ignored its suggestions, and chose to stick with a plan drafted by former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who said the Iraq war could be won with fewer ground forces and superior air power.

"We write to ask you and your colleagues in the legislative branch to take the steps necessary to increase substantially the size of the active duty Army and Marine Corps," states the January 28, 2005, letter sent to Senators Bill Frist and Harry Reid, Congressman Dennis Hastert, and Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi. "While estimates vary about just how large an increase is required, and Congress will make its own determination as to size and structure, it is our judgment that we should aim for an increase in the active duty Army and Marine Corps, together, of at least 25,000 troops each year over the next several years. The administration has been reluctant to adapt to this new reality."

As US casualties piled up, Kagan publicly criticized Rumsfeld's plan for post-war Iraq and began to peddle his ideas for a substantial increase in US troops.

"The secretary of defense simply chose to prioritize preparing America's military for future conventional conflict rather than for the current mission," Kagan wrote in the January 17, 2005, issue of the Weekly Standard. "That position, based on the hope that the current mission would be of short duration and the recognition that the future may arrive at any moment, is understandable. It just turns out to have been wrong."

The lack of soldiers on the ground has been a hot-button issue since the start of the March 2003 invasion. Career military officials believe that is the reason the war hasn't been a "cakewalk." They blame former secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld for designing a flawed war plan that has resulted in the deaths of more than 3,000 US soldiers and led to deep divisions between senior military officials and the defense secretary.

In Wednesday's speech, but without identifying him by name, Bush put the responsibility for the quagmire squarely on Rumsfeld's shoulders. But the president also lauded Rumsfeld's war plan. In a televised news conference last year, Bush said there was no need to send additional troops into Iraq.

The Genesis of the Iraq War Plan

In October 2002, Rumsfeld ordered the military's regional commanders to rewrite all of their war plans to capitalize on precision weapons, better intelligence, and speedier deployment in the event the United States decided to invade Iraq.

The goal was to use fewer ground troops, a move that caused dismay among some in the military who said concern for the troops requires overwhelming numerical superiority to assure victory.

Several longtime military officers said they viewed Rumsfeld's approach as injecting too much risk into war planning and said it could result in US casualties that might be prevented by amassing larger forces. Those predictions have been borne out over the past 33 months.

Still, Rumsfeld refused to listen to his military commanders, saying that his plan would allow "the military to begin combat operations on less notice and with far fewer troops than thought possible - or thought wise - before the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks," the New York Times reported in its October 13, 2002, edition.

"Looking at what was overwhelming force a decade or two decades ago, today you can have overwhelming force, conceivably, with lesser numbers because the lethality is equal to or greater than before," Rumsfeld told the Times.

Rumsfeld said too many of the military plans on the shelves of the regional war-fighting commanders were freighted with outdated assumptions and military requirements, which have changed with the advent of new weapons and doctrines.

It has been a mistake, he said, to measure the quantity of forces required for a mission and "fail to look at lethality, where you end up with precision-guided munitions, which can give you 10 times the lethality that a dumb weapon might, as an example," the Times reported.

Through a combination of pre-deployments, faster cargo ships and a larger fleet of transport aircraft, the military would be able to deliver "fewer troops but in a faster time that would allow you to have concentrated power that would have the same effect as waiting longer with what a bigger force might have," Rumsfeld said.

Critics in the military said there were several reasons to deploy a force of overwhelming numbers before starting any offensive with Iraq. Large numbers illustrate US resolve and can intimidate Iraqi forces into laying down their arms or even turning against Hussein's government.

According to Defense Department sources, Rumsfeld at first insisted that our vast air superiority and a degraded Iraqi military would enable 75,000 US troops to win the war. General Tommy Franks, the theater commander in chief, convinced Rumsfeld to send 250,000 (augmented by 45,000 British). However, the Army would have preferred a much deeper force.

Kagan Reemerges

Kagan resurfaced in early December with another column in the Weekly Standard, "We Can Put More Forces in Iraq," which suggested sending more troops to the region and continuing to fight the war for up to two years.

"A study of post-conflict operations in the Balkans, Afghanistan, and elsewhere conducted by Ambassador James Dobbins showed that success in those operations - characterized by severe ethnic and sectarian violence - required force ratios of 1 soldier per 100 inhabitants," Kagan wrote. "Iraq poses challenges that are in some respects more severe, at the moment, but it also offers its own rules of thumb. Successful clear-and-hold operations in Tal Afar required a force ratio of around 1 soldier (counting both US and Iraqi troops) for every 40 inhabitants. On the other hand, in 2004, Major General Peter Chiarelli suppressed a widespread uprising in Sadr City (an area inhabited by about 2.5 million Shiites) with fewer than 20,000 US soldiers - a ratio of about 1 to 125."

Following the publication of Kagan's column, Vice President Dick Cheney and senior members of Bush's cabinet began to enter into a dialogue with Kagan to draft an alternative plan for dealing with the violence in Iraq. The move was orchestrated so the White House could avoid adopting the proposals set forth that week by the Iraq Study Group, led by longtime Bush family confidante James A. Baker III, that called for entering into a dialogue with Iran and Syria and redeploying troops in 2008.

Two weeks later, Kagan published "Choosing Victory: A Plan for Success in Iraq," the AEI white paper that recycled his public statements and columns from 2005 that were highly critical of Rumsfeld's post-war planning. Like the January 28, 2005, letter he sent to Congress and the Senate, the 47-page report called for sending more troops into the region to combat the violence between Sunnis and Shiites - which ultimately would ensure the war would continue to rage for at least two years.

Ultimately, President Bush agreed with Kagan, and used the key recommendations of his study as the foundation for his new Iraq policy - a policy that even some staunch pro-war Republicans have distanced themselves from.

Hamas and Fatah, you shame all Palestinians

What is going on in the Israel’s occupied Palestine, no doubt shame all Palestinians. The on going fight between Fatah and Hamas and their respective militias and thugs and the ongoing killing and counter killing and murder of Palestinians by Palestinian hands does not make any Palestinian whether living under Israeli Occupation or living in the Diaspora any proud let alone hopeful that one day, the Israeli Occupation will end and the Palestinian people will be the LAST free people on this planet.
While some people did not expect the Palestinians would shed their own blood with their own hands, this was expected, ever since Arafat returned to the Occupied Territories with thousands of armed men, and of course with the build up of the many different and competing security agencies authorized and funded. It was bound to happen.
Arafat promoting competing services sawed the seed for such a civil conflict, and with his preventive securities abusing so many people sawed the seed for the present armed conflict. The issue is no longer one of liberation and independence from Israel and is no longer one of securing funding for the many unpaid employees, but to prevent expansion of the armed fight between Hamas and Fatah and of course their respective militias and thugs.
Hamas and Fatah have turned Palestine into a pool of blood, not one for liberation but one of competing selfish interests. Who said the Palestinians need over some 70,000-armed militias and need so many different security organizations. Beside Israel, these competing militias are the biggest source of threat for Palestinians, they are now the main source of insecurity the Palestinians feel these days. The respective leadership of both Fatah and Hamas do not see that the people have other worries and they are acting as if the people do not have worry with the daily raids and daily killings committed by Israeli soldiers? What is the hell wrong with these people and what is the hell wrong with the leadership of both Fatah and Hamas? What is the hell wrong with the Palestinian street for accepting such reckless behavior?
The leadership of both Hamas and Fatah are acting with reckless disregard for the welfare of the people they pretend to represent; they are acting with so much maleous toward each other and toward the general public at large, that they lost any legitimacy to represent the people. Hamas and Fatah and their leadership are nothing more than armed militias and are not political parties with constituencies at large, with agendas for liberations and independence. They are getting even with each other and the people are paying the price. Fatah want to get back in power to sit at the cash register.
Instead of working together in ending one of the longest occupations in the 20th century, they are fighting each other for “crump of the occupations” for money and dollars. Fatah and Hamas are nothing more than mafias now and are acting like mafias putting the people at risk and cooperating if not darn helping and assisting the Israeli Occupation.
At one time, some times ago, before Arafat and his thugs returned to Palestine, and before Hamas wanted to populate heaven, the Palestinians used to be very proud of their education. The ambition of young students where admission to some of the best schools and universities. Now the ambitions of young men is to join the different armed militias and carry a loaded gun, putting their lives at risk and putting the lives of the people at risk. Never one imagined that the Palestinians people will one-day reach this low. However, for those who forgot, thousands of Palestinians died in internal fighting even during the heydays of the PLO in Beirut. Fatah have engaged in internal fights before and have engaged in armed fights with other “militias” members of the PLO. What is happening now is an extension of the lawless mentality that the PLO and Fatah have instilled in the people. Hamas within a short time, have proven it is no better than Fatah, perhaps less corrupt, but equally guilty of reckless disregard for the national interest and has proven that its priorities are not liberation but power and whatever comes with power.
I only have these words to both Hamas and Fatah and their respective leadership, you shame all Palestinians. Work together to end the Occupation, stupid!

Israeli Jewish settlers are not grateful to G-d, how do we expect them to be grateful to Teddy Kollek?

As an American Arab with private property stolen by Jewish settlers, I am willing to give up any rights I have if these criminal thieves can prove in any US federal or state court that they have the rights to such property and that G-d gave it to them. These Israeli Jewish settlers are nothing but thieves and trespassers. Very interesting article by a very brave Israeli Jew. If only Tom Lantos and Nancy Pelosi knew what these people are doing, they will stop funding these criminal Jewish settlers.
Sami Jadallah

w w w . h a a r e t z . c o m
Last update - 09:40 07/01/2007
The greatest settler
By Gideon Levy
Among the many obituary notices published by various groups after the death of Teddy Kollek, one group's notice was conspicuous in its absence: the Yesha Council of Jewish Settlements. It is a bit difficult to comprehend this ingratitude by the settlers toward the person who brought approximately 200,000 Jews to the occupied territories - perhaps more than any other person. The settlement enterprise owes a great historic debt to Kollek. Neither Rabbi Moshe Levinger nor Hanan Porat nor Aharon Domb nor Ze'ev "Zambish" Hever are responsible for settling so many Israelis beyond the Green Line as Kollek, the enlightened Viennese liberal.
The fact that most of the eulogies for the former Jerusalem mayor left out this detail and that Yesha did not embrace the mega-settler Kollek is no coincidence. Israeli society has adopted sundry and strange codes to whitewash the settlement enterprise. The settlement of the occupied territories in Jerusalem has never been considered hitnahalut (the term used for Jewish settlement in the territories). And the gargantuan neighborhoods of the capital, which were built during Teddy's term and span extensive Palestinian territory, have never been considered a controversial issue.
The fact that almost no one in the world recognizes this enterprise and the new borders it charts does not change a thing: In our eyes, but only in our eyes, not every settlement is the same and each settlement has its own moral code. But this is a game we play with ourselves. Every home built beyond the Green Line - in Yitzhar or Itamar in the West Bank, in Nov in the Golan, or in French Hill in Jerusalem - is built on occupied land and all construction on occupied land is in violation of international law. Occupation is occupation. Not everything is legal, even if it is anchored in Israeli law, as in the case of the Golan Heights and Jerusalem.
The Israelis invent patents for themselves, but this sophisticated semantic laundering will not meet the legal and ethical test. The Ramot neighborhood is a settlement. There is no difference between the "neighborhood" of Pisgat Ze'ev and the "settlement" of Givat Ze'ev. This artificial distinction does not end with the Jerusalem region. In the West Bank, distinctions are also made between settlements and "illegal outposts," another virtuoso but groundless exercise in semantics with regard to an enterprise that is entirely illegal. There are also no settlements (hitnahaluyot) in the occupied Jordan Valley, but rather yishuvim, a generic word for settlements, unrelated to the 1967 borders. An ethical blemish has never been attached to the residents of these Jordan Valley settlements. Why? Because this is the way it was determined by Labor governments at the time, when they established moshavim and kibbutzim in the Jordan Valley - not "settlements."
Does this make any difference from the perspective of international law? Certainly not. Were the moshavim in the Jordan Valley not built on the land of residents who were disinherited? Have they not crushed the surrounding residents?
With regard to the Golan Heights, we went up another level in the word game we play with ourselves. There are no hitnahaluyot there at all. Why? Because we decided so. There are towns, kibbutzim and moshavim, just like in the Jezreel Valley. But no word game or Knesset legislation can alter the unequivocal fact that the Golan Heights is occupied Syrian land and all of its residents are settlers and that international law regards them as criminals.
This phenomenon reached its peak in Jerusalem, which will celebrate 40 years of its "unification" this year. This act of unification was an act of occupation and the fact that a charming and charismatic figure like Kollek presided over it does not change a thing. Kollek demolished a neighborhood in the Old City and built the new neighborhoods on Palestinian land for Jews only - apartheid at its worst - and this should also be remembered in the balance of his considerable achievements.
The Jerusalem mayor Kollek left behind is a divided and wounded city, despite and because of its enormous development, replete with explosives that will yet explode in our faces. In fact, it was never unified. Like any colonialist city, there is a dark backyard for the natives. To this day, most Israelis do not set foot in Palestinian neighborhoods and the Palestinians avoid Jewish neighborhoods. The city remains divided, despite all of the lofty words about its unification for eternity. Regarding equality, there is nothing to say of course. It is sufficient to travel to the Shuafat camp or even to Sheikh Jarrah to note the outrageous disparity between the services in the eastern and western parts of the city.
Societal neglect, piles of garbage, no playgrounds or community centers, no sidewalk and no streetlights. Gaza in Jerusalem, all on the basis of abominable ethnic discrimination. This did not begin with Ehud Olmert nor with Uri Lupolianski. This began with the wily Kollek. A city whose rule in the Palestinian section is conducted through the strength of arms, with surprise checkpoints and hundreds of violent Border Policemen routinely patrolling the streets, and whose residents are subject to prohibitions that violate their fundamental liberties, is not a "unified" city. Teddy is responsible for this.
The history of the occupation, which has already lasted more than twice the amount of time than the years the state existed without it, is full of "men of peace" from the "left" who are responsible for this injustice. What would the settlement enterprise be without Yigal Allon and Moshe Dayan, Golda Meir and Yisrael Galili and, of course, Shimon Peres? Kollek must now be added to them, belatedly. He brought the wide world to Jerusalem but only to its Jewish part. He loved his city very much, and built and developed it in an impressive way, but on the downtrodden back of half of its residents. Moshe Amirav wrote in his article on Thursday ("Division, where unification failed") that Kollek said to him in his waning years: "We failed to unify the city. Tell Ehud Barak that I support dividing it." Better late than never, but why did we not hear a word about this in the lofty eulogies?
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/810113.html

Congressman Tom Lantos has few things to learn from Israel

Congressman Tom Lantos, not known for his moral courage and honesty can learn few things from Israel. If they speak out in Israel why don't you have the courage to speak in the US.

Hebrew original: http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-3346283,00.html
Yediot Acharonot, Israel’s largest circulating newspaper
Indeed there is Apartheid in Israel
A new order issued by the GOC Central command bans the conveyance of Palestinians in Israeli vehicles. Such a blatant violation of the right to travel joins the long list of humans rights violations carried out by Israel in the [Occupied] Territories.
Shulamit Aloni
Jewish self-righteousness is taken for granted among ourselves to such an extent that we fail to see what’s right in front of our eyes. It’s simply inconceivable that the ultimate victims, the Jews, can carry out evil deeds. Nevertheless, the state of Israel practises its own, quite violent, form of Apartheid with the native Palestinian population.
The US Jewish Establishment’s onslaught on former President Jimmy Carter is based on him daring to tell the truth which is known to all: through its army, the government of Israel practises a brutal form of Apartheid in the territory it occupies. Its army has turned every Palestinian village and town into a fenced-in, or blocked-in, detention camp. All this is done in order to keep an eye on the population’s movements and to make its life difficult. Israel even imposes a total curfew whenever the settlers, who have illegally usurped the Palestinians’ land, celebrate their holidays or conduct their parades.
If that were not enough, the generals commanding the region frequently issue further orders, regulations, instructions and rules (let us not forget: they are the lords of the land). By now they have requisitioned further lands for the purpose of constructing “Jewish only” roads. Wonderful roads, wide roads, well-paved roads, brightly lit at night – all that on stolen land. When a Palestinian drives on such a road, his vehicle is confiscated and he is sent on his way.
On one occasion I witnessed such an encounter between a driver and a soldier who was taking down the details before confiscating the vehicle and sending its owner away. “Why?” I asked the soldier. “It’s an order – this is a Jews-only road”, he replied. I inquired as to where was the sign indicating this fact and instructing [other] drivers not to use it. His answer was nothing short of amazing. “It is his responsibility to know it, and besides, what do you want us to do, put up a sign here and let some antisemitic reporter or journalist take a photo so he that can show the world that Apartheid exists here?”
Indeed Apartheid does exist here. And our army is not “the most moral army in the world” as we are told by its commanders. Sufficient to mention that every town and every village has turned into a detention centre and that every entry and every exit has been closed, cutting it off from arterial traffic. If it were not enough that Palestinians are not allowed to travel on the roads paved ‘for Jews only’, on their land, the current GOC found it necessary to land an additional blow on the natives in their own land with an “ingenious proposal”.
Humanitarian activists cannot transport Palestinians either
Major-General Naveh, renowned for his superior patriotism, has issued a new order. Coming into affect on 19 January, it prohibits the conveyance of Palestinians without a permit. The order determines that Israelis are not allowed to transport Palestinians in an Israeli vehicle (one registered in Israel regardless of what kind of numberplate it carries) unless they have received explicit permission to do so. The permit relates to both the driver and the Palestinian passenger. Of course none of this applies to those whose labour serves the settlers. They and their employers will naturally receive the required permits so they can continue to serve the lords of the land, the settlers.
Did man of peace President Carter truly err in concluding that Israel is creating Apartheid? Did he exaggerate? Don’t the US Jewish community leaders recognise the International Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination of 7 March 1966, to which Israel is a signatory? Are the US Jews who launched the loud and abusive campaign against Carter for supposedly maligning Israel’s character and its democratic and humanist nature unfamiliar with the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid of 30 November 1973? Apartheid is defined therein as an international crime that among other things includes using different legal instruments to rule over different racial groups, thus depriving people of their human rights. Isn’t freedom of travel one of these rights?
In the past, the US Jewish community leaders were quite familiar with the meaning of those conventions. For some reason, however, they are convinced that Israel is allowed to contravene them. It’s OK to kill civilians, women and children, old people and parents with their children, deliberately or otherwise without accepting any responsibility. It’s permissible to rob people of their lands, destroy their crops, and cage them up like animals in the zoo. From now on, Israelis and International humanitarian organisations’ volunteers are prohibited from assisting a woman in labour by taking her to the hospital. [Israeli human rights group] Yesh Din volunteers cannot take a robbed and beaten-up Palestinian to the police station to lodge a complaint. (Police stations are located at the heart of the settlements.) Is there anyone who believes that this is not Apartheid?
Jimmy Carter does not need me to defend his reputation that has been sullied by Israelophile community officials. The trouble is that their love of Israel distorts their judgment and blinds them from seeing what’s in front of them. Israel is an occupying power that for 40 years has been oppressing an indigenous people, which is entitled to a sovereign and independent existence while living in peace with us. We should remember that we too used very violent terror against foreign rule because we wanted our own state. And the list of victims of terror is quite long and extensive.
We do limit ourselves to denying the [Palestinian] people human rights. We not only rob of them of their freedom, land and water. We apply collective punishment to millions of people and even, in revenge-driven frenzy, destroy the electricity supply for one and half million civilians. Let them “sit in the darkness” and “starve”.
Employees cannot be paid their wages because Israel is holding 500 million shekels that belong to the Palestinians. And after all that we remain “pure as the driven snow”. There are no moral blemishes on our actions. There is no racial separation. There is no Apartheid. It’s an invention of the enemies of Israel. Hooray for our brothers and sisters in the US! Your devotion is very much appreciated. You have truly removed a nasty stain from us. Now there can be an extra spring in our step as we confidently abuse the Palestinian population, using the “most moral army in the world”.
[Translated by Sol Salbe]

Nancy Pelosi and Tom Lantos need to have the courage and backbone needed. Don't let the "lobby"speak for you!

With very few journalist, let alone politicians who dare to speak out on issues critical of Israel, there are those who have courage. Perhaps the new Democrtatic leadership will not let its blind loyalty to Israel stands in its way of having the 'backbone" to stand for what is right. Nancy Pelosi and Tom Lantos can learn something from Henry Siegman. Jimmy Carter have courage, when this courage will touch you?

The Nation
Hurricane Carter
by HENRY SIEGMAN
[from the January 22, 2007 issue]
Former President Jimmy Carter's new book, Palestine Peace Not Apartheid, provoked an uproar even before its publication. The reason for the controversy was the book's title more than its content, for it seemed to suggest that the avatar of democracy in the Middle East may be on its way to creating a political order that resembles South Africa's apartheid model of discrimination and repression, albeit on ethnic-religious rather than racial grounds.
Since the appearance of the book coincided with the recent Congressional elections, leaders of the Democratic Party went into near panic and fell over one another disassociating themselves from Carter's book and his criticisms of certain Israeli policies. Indeed, the panic was so intense that so independent-minded a man as Howard Dean, chair of the party, who in the past has had the courage to challenge the conventional wisdom of the party's establishment on a whole range of issues, joined the herd as well.
None of this, of course, is in the least surprising. In the face of overwhelming international criticism of President Bush for his failure to engage in the Middle East peace process and for his unbalanced support of Israel, the Democratic Party's Congressional leadership has managed to criticize Bush for being too soft on the Palestinians and not sufficiently supportive of Israel. So the criticism of President Carter is noteworthy only for what it reveals about the ignorance of the American political establishment, both Democrat and Republican, on the subject of the Israel-Palestine conflict.
I would challenge the incoming Democratic chair of the House International Relations Committee, Tom Lantos (not to mention the outgoing chair, Henry Hyde), to identify the author of the following comment, made at the time when Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir was about to bring Rehavam Ze'evi, head of Israel's Moledet Party, into his Cabinet. Ze'evi and his party were advocates of "transfer," a euphemism for the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in the West Bank and in other parts of "Greater Israel":
The transfer party's joining the government is a profound political, moral and social stain, a dangerous infection penetrating [Israel's] government. Anyone who includes the transfer [party] among the Zionist parties of the coalition is in effect confirming the UN Resolution that says Zionism is racism.
Had an American made such a statement, he would unquestionably have been accused of hostility to the State of Israel, if not anti-Semitism. If the person had been Jewish, he would have been branded a self-hating Jew.
In fact, the author of this statement was Benny Begin, the right-wing son of former Prime Minister Menachem Begin, a Likud "prince" who relentlessly attacked the Labor Party for recognizing the PLO, which he insisted, even after Oslo, was nothing more than a terrorist organization. And the man who was described at the time in the Jerusalem Post as "the most vociferous among the cabinet ministers opposing the appointment, saying it was inconceivable that a man with Ze'evi's ideology should serve as a minister," was none other than Ehud Olmert, another Likud prince.
When Olmert, as deputy prime minister in Ariel Sharon's government, proposed that Israel withdraw unilaterally from Gaza and parts of the West Bank, his justification was that given Palestinian demographics, a continuation of the occupation would sooner or later turn Israeli Jews into a minority. He warned that the Jewish State would then find itself under attack from American Jewish organizations that boycotted South Africa's apartheid regime.
Several months ago, the same Olmert who worried publicly about the stigma of apartheid appointed Avigdor Lieberman, a man of racist and antidemocratic convictions, as his deputy prime minister. Lieberman, who heads a right-wing party of mostly Russian immigrants, Yisrael Beiteinu, holds political views that would have made Rehavam Ze'evi sound like a charter member of the ACLU. Neither Jean-Marie Le Pen, leader of France's anti-immigrant National Front, nor Austria's neofascist Jörg Haider (whose role in forming an Austrian government provoked international outrage that led to a diplomatic boycott), has called for measures as outrageous as Lieberman. Lieberman advocates not only the ethnic cleansing of all Palestinians from the occupied territories but getting rid of Arabs who are Israeli citizens. He has urged that Arab members of Israel's Knesset be executed for having contacts with Hamas or for failing to celebrate Israel's Independence Day.
Lieberman was also appointed by Olmert as the minister in charge of responding to "strategic threats" to Israel. If Israel does indeed face an existential threat from Iran--and listening to Iran's Ahmadinejad's rantings at an obscene event he orchestrated in Tehran for Holocaust deniers, it is difficult not to take the threat seriously--it is hard to imagine a more effective way of trivializing that threat than with the appointment of Lieberman. Indeed, the decision is so reckless as to suggest it is Olmert and his government--including his Labor Party partners, who overwhelmingly approved Lieberman's appointment--who pose the existential threat to their country.
The appointment also raises the question of how a government whose deputy prime minister is a man who does not recognize the right of Palestinians to even one square inch of territory in Palestine can impose draconian sanctions on a Hamas government that will not recognize Israel's legitimacy. Talk about double standards!
Not the least of the ironies of the controversy generated by Carter's book, or by its title, is that on any day of the week, there appear in virtually all major Israeli newspapers and in its other media far more extreme criticisms of the policies of various Israeli governments than one finds anywhere in the United States. Most of Israel's adversarial editorializing would not be accepted in the op-ed pages of America's leading newspapers.
It is also worth noting how uninformed Democratic and Republican mavens are even about the voting patterns of American Jews. The panic aroused by Carter's book title was based on the belief of these mavens that American Jews share the hard-line right-wing views of organizations like the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and AIPAC, organizations that would go out of business if Israelis elected a government committed to a political solution rather than a military one. Indeed, when former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin came into office in 1992 and concluded that Israel's security would be far better served by a peace agreement that recognizes Palestinian rights than by beating the Palestinians into submission, both the Conference of Presidents and AIPAC went into institutional eclipse, from which they did not emerge until Benjamin Netanyahu came to power in 1996.
The uncritical pro-Israel advocacy of these organizations has never been an accurate barometer of the political thinking or behavior of American Jews. Surely there is something Republican and Democratic leaders can learn from the fact that after six years of the presidency of the man believed by Israelis and by the pro-Israel lobby in the United States to be "the best American president Israel ever had," 87 percent of American Jews voted for the Democratic Party, whose chair is seen by the pro-Israel lobby as untrustworthy at best.
To be sure, the overwhelming majority of American Jews care deeply about Israel's security and well-being. But that concern does not translate for most of them into mindless support for the policies of Israeli governments that seem to undermine Israel's security. Most American Jews understand how recklessly both Democratic and Republican politicians manipulate the Israel-Palestine issue to their own advantage, just as most Israelis understand the same about many of their own politicians.
Carter's book recapitulates the crucial role he played as convener of the Camp David summit meeting in 1978, which resulted in the landmark peace agreement between Israel and Egypt. His description of the two fascinating protagonists, Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat, makes for compelling reading no matter how familiar the story's general outline.
When President Sadat met Carter at the White House not long after Carter assumed the presidency in 1977, Carter was surprised by how "well developed" Sadat's determination to work with him on peace negotiations with Israel already was. Even more surprising was a letter Carter received from Sadat following this meeting, in which he urged that the President not do anything that would interfere with Sadat's determination to negotiate directly with the Israelis--in dramatic contrast to Sadat's fellow Arab leaders, for whom any contact with Israel, however indirect, was anathema.
Equally surprising was Carter's impression of Begin when the two first met in Washington. He found Begin to be a man of far less rigid views than widely believed to be the case, and open to the ideas Carter had discussed with Sadat.
The optimism sparked by these initial encounters, which were dramatically reinforced by Sadat's precedent-shattering visit to Jerusalem--a display of extraordinary political courage for which Sadat was soon to pay with his life--was seriously undermined by his deep disillusionment with Begin's return visit to Egypt, at which time Begin insisted that Israeli settlements remain in the Sinai. Sadat saw his conversations with Begin as a fatal setback to his peace initiative and planned to publicly condemn Begin as a betrayer of the peace process in a speech he had scheduled to deliver in the United States. He was persuaded to drop that idea only after intense efforts by Carter. The Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty was intended to bring about not only an end to the conflict between Israel and Egypt but a process that would grant autonomy--or "full autonomy," a term Begin oddly insisted on--to Palestinians, something the treaty did not deliver.
Under the terms of the Camp David agreement, Israel and the Egyptians established a joint committee to implement the treaty's provisions that dealt with Palestinian national rights and the creation of a self-governing Palestinian authority. Both Moshe Dayan and Ezer Weizman represented Israel on this committee, and both resigned when they realized that Begin was not serious about implementing those provisions. Begin replaced them with a more trustworthy member of his Cabinet, Dr. Joseph Burg, a venerable leader of the Mizrahi, the religious Zionist organization (and father of Abraham Burg, a former head of the Jewish Agency and Speaker of the Knesset).
The older Burg was a close friend of my family, and I often visited him when I was in Israel. I once saw him while he served on this joint Egyptian-Israeli committee and asked him what progress was being made. Burg, who was a marvelous raconteur, answered with a story. There is an old Jewish tale about a prince who asked a poor and simple Jew in the Pale of Settlement to teach his dog to speak and threatened to expel the Jews who lived within his princely domain if this Jew failed to do so within a year. When the Jew came home with the prince's dog and explained to his startled wife what had happened, she became hysterical. Her husband calmed her by saying that he had an entire year before the prince returned, and that by then "either the prince will die or the dog will die."
I told Burg I knew the story. "Then let me tell you the sequel," Burg said, which he had obviously made up himself. The prince returned a year later and summoned the Jew, who showed up without the dog. The prince angrily demanded that the Jew produce the dog immediately, but the Jew pleaded with the prince to allow him to explain the situation. He assured the prince that the dog had indeed learned to speak, but that once he did, the dog began telling embarrassing stories. "What kind of stories?" asked the alarmed prince. "Stories about where you regularly took him at night when you told your wife you were taking the dog for a long walk." The prince went into a panic and ordered the Jew to produce the dog immediately so that he could shoot him. "Don't worry," said the Jew. "I already did it for you, dear prince."
That, said Burg, is what has happened with the Israeli-Egyptian talks on Palestinian autonomy. We shot the dog.
Carter places the blame for Israel's failure to implement the provisions of the Camp David agreement for "full Palestinian autonomy" squarely on Begin because of his violation of a promise to freeze further settlement activity. Carter blames himself for not having obtained Begin's promise in writing, and sees that as "the most serious omission of the Camp David talks." In Carter's view, Begin saw the peace treaty with Egypt as providing him "renewed freedom to pursue the goals of a fervent and dedicated minority of [Israel's] citizens to confiscate, settle and fortify the occupied territories."
The destructive impact of Israel's continued confiscation of Palestinian land for its ever- expanding settlements on all subsequent efforts to end this conflict, and of the draconian regime imposed by Israel's army on the occupied territories--which today include well over 500 Israeli military checkpoints and hundreds of other physical obstacles that have utterly shattered Palestinian life--is the thread that runs through the various chapters in Carter's book, in which he reviews the Oslo agreement, the Camp David summit in 2000 and Clinton's peace proposals, the road map, the Geneva Accord of 2003 and Sharon's unilateral disengagement from Gaza, as well as the legislative elections won by Hamas, the war in Lebanon and the deteriorating situation in Gaza.
The recent cease-fire announced by Mahmoud Abbas and Ehud Olmert, and the conciliatory tone--if not the unremarkable content--of Olmert's latest speech in Sde Boker, led some to believe that a breakthrough in the long-stalled peace process was imminent. But these hopes were quickly dashed by Olmert's rejection of the Iraq Study Group's recommendation that President Bush re-engage vigorously in the Israel-Palestine peace process, not only to put an end to one of the world's longest-lasting conflicts but also because an Israeli-Palestinian agreement could significantly improve America's standing in the region and the ability of friendly Arab states to assist it in extricating itself from the Iraqi quagmire.
That a serious engagement in peacemaking by an American President who has been embarrassingly one-sided in his support of Israel's government would so frighten Olmert and his Cabinet tells us all we need to know about the sincerity of his search for a Palestinian peace partner. The avoidance of a bilateral process in order to set Israel's boundaries unilaterally has been the strategic objective of both Sharon's Likud government and now of Olmert's Kadima-Labor coalition government. It is a strategic goal that apparently remains unchanged despite Olmert's repeated promises to meet with Mahmoud Abbas, a meeting for which he had not been able to clear his calendar for almost a year. That meeting has finally taken place. Not surprisingly, Olmert used it to announce some limited humanitarian gestures and financial assistance to help strengthen Abbas's security forces in their confrontation with Hamas's forces. Olmert's own foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, noted dryly that these gestures (none of which have been implemented as of this writing) did nothing to bring a peace process any closer.
Indeed, whatever little good Olmert's gestures might have done was undone within forty-eight hours of the meeting, when Israel's government announced it had authorized the establishment of a new settlement in the Jordan Valley, well outside the so-called security fence it is building. And if that were not enough to discredit Abbas and vindicate Hamas, it was also revealed that various Israeli governmental ministries secretly collaborated in the construction of permanent new housing in illegal outposts that Olmert (and previously Sharon) had promised the United States would be dismantled.
Carter's harsh condemnation of Israeli policies in the occupied territories is not the consequence of ideology or of an anti-Israel bias. He expresses deep admiration for the Israeli people and their remarkable achievements and empathy for the suffering they have endured as a result of Palestinian suicide bombings, and warns Palestinians that terrorism is discrediting their national cause. Carter repeatedly cites three conditions that he believes are necessary for a resumption of the peace process and a resolution of the conflict, of which the first is guarantees for Israel's security, the second a complete end to Palestinian violence and terrorism, and the third recognition by Israel of the Palestinian right to statehood within pre- 1967 borders.
But Carter is equally empathetic to the suffering of the Palestinian people under occupation, which he has seen firsthand during his many visits there. For most Westerners, including most Israelis, the Palestinian ordeal is invisible and might as well be taking place on the far side of the moon for all they know or seem to care about it.
Accusations by Alan Dershowitz and others that Carter is indifferent to Israel's security only prove that no good deed goes unpunished. Arguably, the single most important contribution to Israel's security by far was the removal of Egypt--possessing the most powerful of the military forces in the Arab world--from the Arab axis that was intent on the destruction of the State of Israel in its early years. Egypt's peace agreement with Israel permanently removed the possibility of such a combined Arab assault against the Jewish State, something for which the late Syrian president Hafez Assad could not get himself to forgive Sadat, even after he was assassinated.
Assad's bitterness over Sadat's "betrayal" was a major theme of a four-hour meeting I had with him in 1994. He cited it as the reason he would not meet with Rabin or engage in other confidence-building measures that would help dispose Israelis to support the return of the Golan Heights, something I had urged him to do. He insisted that any concessions before an agreement is fully signed would be seen by the Syrian people as a repeat of Sadat's betrayal.
Carter's book provides an important reminder that the Camp David agreement not only created a durable peace between Egypt and Israel but served as a model for all of the major Israeli-Palestinian peace initiatives that were to follow. Oslo's concepts of a self-governing Palestinian Authority, of a five-year process that concludes with agreements on permanent- status issues, of negotiations on such issues that begin no later than in the third year of the agreement and of an armed Palestinian police force to maintain order are all spelled out in the Camp David agreement. And the outline of what an Israeli-Palestinian settlement would have to look like if an agreement is to be reached is also adumbrated in the Camp David accords of 1978, which included Begin's acceptance of Egypt's insistence on the return of all Egyptian territory held by Israel. The magnitude of that accomplishment places the pettiness of the critics of President Carter and his latest book in proper perspective.
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070122/siegman

The "Arab Street" needs some serious mental help

Hanging Saddam brought some very strange reactions from the “Arab Street” especially in countries like Jordan, Palestine and Egypt where Saddam “mokhabarat” was very generous ‘buying’ the streets in Gaza, Ramallah, Amman and Cairo. These same streets that also cheered Saddam’s occupation of Kuwait that brought the forced expulsions of some 350,000 Palestinians and Jordanian who where making decent living in Kuwait and who lost some $14 billions as a result of Saddam occupation of Kuwait. These same streets that also cheered Saddam “Scud” missiles as they zipped trough the skies to land with a large thud in Tel-Aviv. Some 30 Scuds where fired on Tel-Aviv and did not result in a single Israeli death and for which Saddam end up paying Israel some $850 millions in damages.
I remember the 80’s when Saddam was waging his war against the Persian at the behest of the Reagan Administration killing and murdering over million of a very educated Iraqis and destroying his country so that he can fight the Persians on behalf of Ronald Reagan. With visits to Kuwait and Saudi Arabia and where so many people, average Arabs, where so impressed with Saddam and his war that he was their hero only to discover few years later his killing machines hitting their door steps and their neighbors.
In Egypt with thousands cheering Saddam on, forgetting that he killed and murdered several hundred Egyptians guest workers because they wanted to get paid. Both the government and people of Egypt where silent about these murder and accepted silence rather than face the wrath of Saddam, and his money.
While Saddam was killing and murdering both Iraqis and Persians, and destroying his country, the so called “Arab Streets” where cheering Saddam on, and his fight for Arab honor, whatever that is. The same Arab Street was cheering Saddam on even though his army was noting but total failure in the war with Iran having been routed out of the border with Iran and was very impressively routed during the war for the liberations of Kuwait. The same Arab Street was cheering Saddam on, even though they saw his army run away and surrender by the thousands. They cheered Saddam on even though they saw on television how poorly Saddam army was ill fed and ill equipped. The same Arab Street cheered Saddam on when millions of Iraqi children where facing imminent death because of lack of food and medicine while Saddam and his family where using and wasting billions of dollars on building palaces, buying fast cars and robbing the Iraqi treasury and where his sons where raping Iraqi women. The same Arab Street is now cheering for Qadafi decision to erect a monument in his memory even though Qadafi expelled tens of thousands of Palestinians leaving stranded in the no man zone on the border with Egypt, even though Qadafi is responsible for the cold blooded murder of innocent airline passengers.
The Arab Street never not rise against dictatorship and did not rise and go the streets demanding freedom for themselves and demanding accountability from governments that robbed them blind. The same Arab Streets cheered for so called nationalist leaders like Hafiz Assad even though he murdered over 25,000 of his citizens in Hamah and was too coward to even fire one single shot across the Golan Heights. The same Arab Street cheered for Yaser Arafat even though Arafat wasted billions of dollars on his friends and cronies and was responsible for some 200,000 dead as a result of his failed war of liberation and even though the man was giving tens of millions of the people money to his wife so she can live the good life in Paris while his people where starving in Gaza. No one should take the Arab Street seriously, it never amounted to any thing and it always supported wrong causes and supported so called nationalist dictatorship, the likes of Saddam, Assad, Arafat, Nasser and Qadafi. Never understood why the people of Poland, Hungry, Romania, Bulgaria can go out to the street forcing dictatorship out of power and taking their own liberation with their own hands while in the Arab world, the Arab Streets go out and cheer for a coward and a traitor like Saddam Hussein. I invited psychologists from around the world to study the phenomena that is the Arab Street and find out why they are always supporting and cheering on losers and dictators. The Arab Street needs some serious mental help.