Sabbah Report » UAE

Michael Gillespie – Dubai Investigation Exposes Israeli Ops in USA

SR Editor — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 06:58:15 +0000

By Michael Gillespie* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

An ongoing investigation by the Dubai Police force into the assassination of a high-level Hamas official in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in January has drawn back the curtains of secrecy and deception to reveal yet again the contours of Israel's massive and ever-expanding espionage operations in the United States.

The murder of Mahmoud Al Mabhouh in his room at the Al Bustan Rotana, a 275-room five-star luxury hotel, in Dubai on January 19 has been widely perceived to be a Mossad operation involving, by the most recent count, 27 suspects traveling on fraudulently obtained and falsified European or Australian passports. In late February and early March, the plot thickened suddenly and significantly when major US media outlet reports connected the crime and many of those involved in it to the USA and to corporations based in the USA and Israel and revealed that some of the suspected assassins, apparently members of a Mossad kidon team, had entered the USA after leaving Dubai.

ABC News reported on February 24 that Dubai police had identified 15 new suspects as part of a ring that killed Al Mabhouh.

"Fourteen of the suspects purportedly used credit cards from META Bank, a regional American bank, to pay for hotel rooms and travel arrangements. ... Dubai police linked META Bank to a New York-based company called Payoneer, which provided prepaid MasterCard credit cards issued by META Bank. According to its Web site, Payoneer has a research and development center in Tel Aviv," reported ABC.

The TV network report noted that some of the additional suspects played a central role in the crime while others were accused of "'providing prior logistical support and preparations to facilitate,' making a series of trips to Dubai in advance" of the assassination.

The New York Times reported on March 1 that, "At least two suspects in the killing of a Hamas official in a hotel here in January traveled to the United States afterward, according to a person familiar with the investigation."

"One suspect traveling on a British passport arrived in the United States on Feb. 14; the other used an Irish passport and arrived on Jan. 21, said the person, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the case. He did not say where the men entered the country, and added that there was no known record of their leaving," wrote Robert F. Worth in a story filed from Dubai.

Worth's report noted that if the suspected assassins who entered the U.S. presented foreign passports, they would have been photographed and finger printed upon arrival.

The Wall Street Journal's Chip Cummins filed a similar report from Dubai on the same day attributing the information to "people familiar with the situation" and "records shared between international investigators." In many previous news reports from Dubai information about the investigation had been attributed to Dubai's Police Chief Lt. Gen. Dhahi Khalfan Tamim.

Neither report explored the rather remarkable news that the suspect carrying a British passport in the name Roy Allan Cannon was confident enough to travel on the falsified document more than three weeks after the assassination and to present it upon arrival in the USA, where passport controls are generally assumed to be most stringent.

"At one time it was possible to produce false identity documents with little or no regard for what is referred to as backstopping as data bases at national points of entry were unsophisticated and were generally unlinked to any central sources of information. That has all changed in the past eight years. European and American passports in particular can all be verified from central data bases that include information that is also drawn from other public record sources," wrote former CIA officer Philip Giraldi in a February 25 column for Antiwar.com.

On March 3, Al Jazeera TV reported that Tamim, "said he would ask the Dubai prosecutor to issue arrest warrants for [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu and the head of Mossad [Meir Degan]."

Tamim's investigation, which has been described by Interpol Secretary General Ronald Noble as "thorough," has seriously inconvenienced and embarrassed the Israeli government and its espionage organization.

The Money Trail

The Independent Monitor contacted MetaBank's corporate headquarters in Storm Lake, IA to ask why an Iowa bank would provide credit cards to 14 suspected members of a death squad.

MetaBank's Lisa Binder, Vice President for Investor Relations and Corporate Communications responded via telephone and e-mail with a statement saying, in part, "The Meta cards in question were issued in conjunction with a Meta Payment Systems program, not at a retail bank location. Meta Payment Systems, which has issued more than 150 million prepaid cards, markets its payroll cards through various Program Managers─in this case, Payoneer─to offer reputable US companies network branded payroll cards with which American companies can pay expatriates, employees and contractors of their company who live in the US and in foreign countries. The cards in question were 'loaded' by the companies using direct deposit for payroll, disbursements, and other compensation."

The Independent Monitor attempted to contact Payoneer offices at 410 Park Avenue in New York City but found that the only phone answered at Payoneer headquarters was a customer support line for Payoneer's Birthright Israel customers.

Birthright Israel provides first time educational trips to Israel for Jewish young adults ages 18 to 26. The program sends "thousands of young Jewish adults from all over the world to Israel as a gift in order to diminish the growing division between Israel and Jewish communities around the world; to strengthen the sense of solidarity among world Jewry; and to strengthen participants' personal Jewish identity and connection to the Jewish people," according to the organization's website.

Funding for Birthright Israel is "provided by our partners: private philanthropists through The Birthright Israel Foundation; the people of Israel through the Government of Israel; and Jewish communities around the world (North American Jewish Federations, Keren Hayesod and the Jewish Agency for Israel). ...

"Taglit-Birthright Israel requires that all participants pay their deposit through Payoneer. ... If you lose your Payoneer card while in Israel, it can be immediately blocked and will be replaced with a new card within 24 hours. ... You will not need to contact your bank back home or worry about making many calls. One call to our Customer Support center and you are all set," says the www.birthright.payoneer.com website.

Payoneer's Birthright customer support center declined to provide the Independent Monitor with contact information for Payoneer founder and CEO Yuval Tal or for Payoneer corporate communications/media relations personnel.

"Since the assassination, Tal has been shielded by a wall of public relations representatives and does not respond to media requests for comments. ... Tal's public relations representatives in New York have refused to comment on his past and relations with Israel's intelligence agency Mossad," wrote Abbas Al Lawati, a staff reporter for Gulf News.com on March 3.

"Tal is referred to by his associates in Israel as 'an outspoken Israeli patriot' despite having lived in New York for over ten years. In a 2006 Fox News interview about Israel's summer war on Lebanon, Tal was presented as a 'special ops commando' on Fox and Friends, and stated that 'this is a war Israel cannot (afford to) lose,'" wrote Al Lawati.

Payoneer's website proclaims that the company is "a registered MasterCard Merchant Service Provider (MSP), and partner with MetaBank or Choice Bank Limited to deliver our services. Privately held, our funding partners include Greylock Partners, Carmel Ventures, and Crossbar Capital."

The Independent Monitor found that all three of Payoneer's funding partners are venture capital firms that have offices in or strong connections to Israel.

Charlie Federman, Managing Partner of Crossbar Capital, previously co-founded BRM Capital in 1999, headed its New York office, and served as a Managing Director of the Israel and New York based fund until 2007. BRM Group, headquartered in Herzliya was founded by Nir Barkat, mayor of occupied Jerusalem.

Carmel Ventures is also headquartered Herzliya. Greylock Partners, founded in 1965, "operates in a number of global centers of innovation, including Boston, China (Beijing), India (Bangalore), Israel (Herzliya) and Silicon Valley. ... Current Greylock portfolio companies include Data Robotics, Digg, Facebook, Imperva, LinkedIn, Palo Alto Networks, Pandora, Picarro, Redfin, Workday and ZipCar," according to the firm's website. Greylock's investment activities in Israel were launched in 2002 by partner Moshe Mor, who "served six years in the Israeli Army as a Captain in the Military Intelligence branch."

Tal almost certainly possess information that could be of value to U.S. law enforcement and counter-intelligence investigators, but whether their political masters, many of whom have been effectively co-opted by Israel, will allow U.S. investigators to pursue any sort of meaningful investigation is an open question. Thus far there has been little to indicate that U.S. officials are seriously interested in investigating the funding of travel expenses and hotel accommodations of suspected Israeli assassins through U.S. corporations, despite the reported entry of at least two of the suspects into the U.S. on fraudulent, falsified passports.

When the Independent Monitor contacted the Department of State (DoS) for comment about the news reports, a DoS press officer declined to comment and referred questions to the Department of Justice (DoJ) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) press offices. A DoJ press officer also declined to comment and referred questions to a DHS press officer who has not responded to an e-mail message sent on March 5.

The Sayanim Network

Any substantive U.S. investigation of the suspected Dubai killers' connections to the USA would likely focus on members of the Mossad's worldwide network of sayanim, diaspora Jews who provide a wide variety of services to the Israeli intelligence and special operations agency. In his books, By Way of Deception (1990) and The Other Side of Deception (1994), former Mossad field officer or katsa Victor Ostrovsky described the sayanim network.

"Sayanim─assistants─must be 100 percent Jewish," wrote Ostrovsky in 1990.

The Mossad's helpers, chosen because they are well placed, willing, and able to provide valuable assistance to Israeli agents, are businessmen, doctors, lawyers, judges, prosecutors, police officers, intelligence officers, politicians, government bureaucrats, university professors and administrators, media professionals, information technology specialists, any occupation, profession, or position in which a sayan might prove useful in support of Israeli espionage operations.

Though they do not live in Israel, their first loyalty is to Israel. They do whatever Mossad officials, field officers, or assassins ask of them in behalf of Israel against the enemies of Israel or those who are seen as opposed to Israeli policies.

"Often the loyalty of sayanim is abused by katsas who take advantage of the available help for their own personal use. There is no way for the sayan to check this," wrote Ostrovsky.

"The one problem with the [sayanim] system is that the Mossad does not seem to care how devastating it could be to the status of the Jewish people in the diaspora if it was known. The answer you get if you ask is: 'So what's the worst that could happen to those Jews? They'd all come to Israel? Great,'" wrote Ostrovsky.

"A sayan will rent a car or pass money to a kidon with no questions asked," said Gordon Thomas, author of Gideon's Spies: The Secret History of the Mossad (1999) in a report by Alun Palmer of the Mirror (UK) on February 18. Thomas, who has estimated that there are at least 20,000 sayanim in the US and Great Britain, writes that all Mossad assassinations are authorized by the office of the prime minister of Israel.

The illegal use of U.S. banks and credit card companies to fund the movements and other expenses of a Mossad death squad in the Middle East indicates an alarming expansion of Israeli espionage operations on US soil and reveals to an unprecedented extent the foreign intelligence agency's penetration of major U.S. financial institutions, developments that limn the breadth, depth, and success of the Mossad's desperate efforts to expand and consolidate Israel's malignant influence over the Washington foreign policy establishment and sway within a broad range of U.S. institutions, despite growing popular opposition to Israel's the brutal and patently illegal occupation of Palestine and the punishing siege of Gaza.

The Myth, Cult, and Culture of Redemptive Violence

The supposed clash of civilizations, the conflict between the putatively modern Western Judeo-Christian tradition and radical Islam, the Bush administration's Global War on Terrorism later rebranded by the Obama administration as Overseas Contingency Operations, and the suppurating wound that is Israel's long-running illegal occupation and systematic ethnic cleansing of Palestine are evidence of a retrograde social and political dynamic that now threatens the continued progress and future of human civilization. That dynamic is epitomized by the myth, cult, and culture of redemptive violence.

"The myth of redemptive violence defends the belief that violence saves, that war brings peace. It is one of the oldest stories in the world. It misappropriates the language, symbols and scriptures of Christianity. Its God is the tribal God worshipped as an idol. Its offer is not forgiveness but victory. Its good news is not unconditional love of enemies but their elimination. Its salvation is not a new heart but a successful foreign policy. It is blasphemous. It is idolatrous. And it is immensely popular," writes Dr. Walter Wink, Professor Emeritus of Biblical Interpretation at Auburn Theological Seminary in New York City.

Wink might have added that while Christian scripture is tainted by the myth of redemptive violence, the Hebrew Old Testament scriptures, attached at the spine of the Holy Bible to the New Testament, are Christianity's primary source of the pernicious mythology of redemptive violence. Only about 10 percent of the New Testament is devoted to Jesus' teachings about the brotherhood of man and the fatherhood of God, the kingdom of Heaven, the happiness of peacemakers, and forgiveness and mercy as moral and spiritual imperatives.

True religion opposes violence as a technique of social evolution, but many Christians have been and are today all too willing and ready to embrace Hebrew Old Testament teachings that glorify war and the wholesale slaughter of innocents and ascribe such acts to the commands of a wrathful God that is both vengeful and violent. The popularity of the myth of redemptive violence in the West and the attitudes and policies it engenders in political and economic spheres of activity severely undercuts the supposed moral superiority of Western modernity and culture in relation to other traditions and cultures.

U.S. leaders often attempt to justify their wars with self-serving declarations that they are fighting for peace.

"One day the Iraqi people will understand that we came in peace," averred Secretary of State Colin Powell in March 2003 as U.S. troops advanced on Baghdad after a devastating and enormously destructive "Shock and Awe" air assault on the city.

If the status of a civilization can be accurately gauged by the fairness of its courts and the integrity of its judges, resort by national leaders to extra-judicial killings conducted by intelligence agency death squads is emblematic of the West's glorification of war and ruinous reversion to militarism─autocratic, cruel, and savage. Rigidly ultranationalistic Israel, more an army and an espionage agency with a country than a country with an army and an espionage agency, clearly intends to be the West's model and instructor in this regard.

A feature article by Associated Press reporter Matti Friedman published in the Washington Post on March 4 quoted Jonna Mendez, who worked for the CIA for 27 years and became the agency's chief of disguise. Mendez "believes the Dubai perpetrators took the fallout into account, all of it: the TV footage, the blown aliases and the head shots. The agents, she said, clearly knew they were under surveillance─they had simply decided it was unavoidable and a price worth paying.

"'You can be sure they knew they were being surveilled. Likewise, they would assume that the documents they were using would be made available after the fact,' said Mendez. 'What does this mean? It means it didn't matter. The faces and the documents that were captured by the cameras will probably never be seen again.'

"The fact that the perpetrators had to take the identities of real people rather than simply invent false identities is a symptom of the new world facing modern-day spies, one of databases and traceable passport information, she said.

"The real agents likely don't resemble the faces in the photos, she said ... And if they do, plastic surgery, dental implants and hair grafts can ensure they are unrecognizable afterward.

"'Steal the identity, disguise the participants, be ready on the other side with another set of identities and documents, and embrace and conceal the protagonists on their return,' she said.

"'With that goal in mind this may, in fact, be the operation of the future,'" wrote Friedman.

Thinking Americans have an increasingly clear choice.

They can join the cult of redemptive violence, kneel before a Zionist tribal God of vengeance, and watch their country and its culture revert to the law of nature as militarism runs amok and Israeli spies and assassins, protected by corrupt and co-opted political leaders, roam America at will.

Or they can embrace and actively support not the savagery of assassins but the rule of law. They can cultivate the wisdom, insight, and foresight that are indispensable to the endurance of nations. They can persevere in their efforts to elect honest, wise, and progressive leaders. And they can continue to strive to live up and into the noblest ideals of their religions.

* Michael Gillespie, in addition to his regular freelance work for Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, is also a contributing editor and the Des Moines, IA correspondent for The Independent Monitor, the national newspaper of Arab Americans, published by Sami Mashney in Anaheim, CA.

Source: DV

James Petras – Mossad Comes to America: Death Squads by Invitation

James Petras — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 11:12:45 +0000

By James Petras* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

The principle propaganda mouthpiece of the Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations (PMAJO), the Daily Alert (DA), has come out in full support for Israel's practice of extra-judicial, extra-territorial assassination.

In the face of world-wide governmental condemnation (except from the Zionist-occupied White House and US Congress), the PMAJO slavishly backs any brutal murder committed by the Israeli secret police anywhere in the world and at anytime. The recent assassination of Hamas leader, Mahmoud Mabhouh, in Dubai is a case in point. The PMAJO has defended all of Mossad's criminal actions leading up to the murder, including extensive identity theft and the stealing or falsification of passports and official documents from several European countries, presumably allied to the Zionist state. Among the Mossad agents who entered Dubai to kill Mabhouh, twelve agents used stolen or forged British passports, three Australian, three French, one German and six Irish. These agents assumed the identity of European citizens in order to commit murder in a sovereign nation.

Once again the PMAJO demonstrate that its first loyalty is to the Israeli secret police, even when they violate the sovereignty of major US allies. No doubt the PMAJO would readily support the Israeli Mossad, even if it were shown to have used U.S. documents to assassinate Mabhouh. In fact, two of the 26 Israeli assassins, carrying fake Irish and fake British passports, are known to have entered the United States after the killing and may still be here.

The position adopted by the Daily Alert and the PMAJO in defense of Israel's international terrorist act followed several lines of attack, which will be discussed below. These include: (1) blaming the victim, (2) claiming that extra-judicial, extra territorial murders are legal, (3) minimizing the murder of ‘one' individual, (4) deflecting attention from the Zionists by blaming ‘other Arab's, (5) favorably comparing Mossad assassinations to US killings in Afghanistan, (6) trivializing and relativizing world condemnation, (7) citing "self-defense", (8) praising the high tech ‘operational details' of the assassination and (9) discrediting the Dubai police investigators rather than the Israeli perpetrators.

Abridged articles, cited in the Daily Alert, have appeared in the op-ed pages of several US, UK, Canadian and Israeli newspapers, as well as in rightwing magazines like Forbes and Commentary. The mainline Zionist propaganda technique is to avoid any discussion of Israel's egregious crimes against sovereignty, due process, international law and the personal security of individuals. In doing so, the Daily Alert adopts the propaganda techniques common to all totalitarian regimes practicing state terrorism.

(1) Blaming the Victim

On February 22, the Daily Alert (DA) headlined two articles, which were entitled: "Killed Hamas Official betrayed by Associates says Dubai Police Chief" and "Hamas: Assassinated Operative put Himself at Risk". The DA forgot to mention that Israeli secret police had been tracking their prey for over a month (having failed to assassinate him on six previous attempts) and that the Dubai Police Chief was not blaming Hamas officials but was in the process of accumulating evidence, witness statements, videos and documents proving the Israeli identities of the assassins. Needless to say, if we were to accept the American Zionists' argument that any leading opponent of Israel, who travels without an army of bodyguards, is "putting himself at risk", then we must acknowledge that ours is a lawless world where Israeli hit squads are free to commit murder anywhere, any time.

(2) Extra-Judicial, Extra territorial Murder is "Legal" (At least if the killers are Mossad)

The February 22 and February 24 issues of the DA include two articles arguing that Israel's practice of extra-judicial, extra-territorial murder is legal. One article is entitled, "The Legality of Killing of Hamas Mahmoud al Mabhoud" and the other, "The Proportionate Killing of Mahmoud al Mabhoud". These avoid any reference to international law, which emphatically rejects cross-border, state-sponsored murders. Legality, for the PMAJO, is whatever the Israel's secret police apparatus deems expedient in pursuit of its goal of eliminating leaders who oppose its colonial occupation and expropriation of Palestinian lands. If Israel's extra-judicial, extra-territorial murder of an adversary in Dubai is legal, why not assassinate opponents in the US, Canada, England or any other country where they might travel, live, work or write? What if the critics and opponents of Israel decided that it was now "legal" to murder Israel's supporters wherever they lived citing the Daily Alert's definition of legality? We would then find ourselves in a lawless world of "legal" murder and totalitarian cross-border surveillance.

(3) Minimizing the Murder

The Feb 22, 24, and 25 issues of the Daily Alert deflect attention from the Mossad murder by making comparison to the hundreds of Afghan civilians killed by US drone attacks. The claim is that "targeting individuals" is less a crime than mass killings. The problem with this argument is that for decades Mossad has "targeted" scores of opponents overseas and killed thousands of Palestinians in the occupied territories (where they work with the domestic secret police, Shin Bet, and the military, IDF). Moreover, this argument linking Israel's extra judicial assassinations with US colonial killing of Afghans is hardly a defense of either. By implicating the US in its defense of state terror, Israel is holding up the worst aspects of American imperialism as a standard for its own political behavior. One state's crimes are no justification for another's.

(4) Blaming the Arabs: Deflecting Attention from Israel

The DA Feb. 22 article entitled "The Assassination Heard Around the World" insinuates that the murder was a "result of a Hamas power struggle" or by one of "many Arab groups who loathes the Islamist Hamas".

In other words, all the forged or stolen European passports of Israeli dual citizens, and the Dubai security videos of Mossad operatives in various costumes, not to mention the jubilant affirmation by top Israeli leaders of the killing, was in reality ‘Arab tricks'. This crude propaganda ploy by the most prominent Jewish American organization reveals their own descent into a fantasy land of self-delusion, possible only in the closed world of US Zionist politics.

(5) Technical Proficiency

The DA published several articles praising the technical details of the Mossad assassination in Dubai, an aspect of the operation, with which few Israel security experts would agree. The Feb. 24 DA article entitled, "Assassination Shows Skillful Planning" chastises Israel's critics for not recognizing the high quality of the "operational aspects" of the killings and recommends its "lessons for all intelligence services around the world". Like sociopaths and serial killers, US Zionists openly promote Israeli death squad techniques to all fellow state terrorists. In the DA, professional techniques of assassination are far more important than universal moral repugnance of political murders.

(6) Discrediting the Investigators While Defending the Perpetrators

The DA on Feb. 25 cited a long and tendentious attack on the Dubai police, published in Forbes Magazine, which ridiculed their meticulous investigations uncovering Mossad's roles in the murder. In this article, the Dubai authorities were condemned for uncovering Israeli involvement while not investigating the source of the murder victims' ... Iraqi passport! Instead of encouraging the Dubai police pursuit of justice, the Daily Alert published a long diatribe implicating Dubai in the attacks of 9/11/2001, its continued trade with Iran, its ‘involvement' in international terrorism etc. There was no mention of Dubai's relatively friendly position to Israel and Israelis prior to Mossad's blatant violation of its sovereignty.

Conclusion

The American Zionist propaganda campaign in defense of Israeli state terror and, specifically, Mossad's murder of a Hamas leader in Dubai, relies on lies, evasions and specious legal arguments. This "defense" violates all precepts of a civilized society as well as the most recent American federal laws prohibiting all forms of support for international terrorism. The PMAJO can pursue its defense of Mossad's acts of international terrorism with impunity in the US because of its power over the US Congress, the Obama White House and the American mass media. This ensures that only its version of events, its definition of legality and its lies will be heard by legislators, echoed by Zionist activists and embellished by its solemn defenders in academic and journalistic circles. To counter the American Zionist defense of Israel's practice of extra-territorial, extra-judicial executions by the Mossad, we need American writers and academics to step forward. It is time to expose their flimsy arguments, bold-face lies and audacious immorality. It is time to speak out against their impunity, before another Israeli secret police murder takes place, possibly inside the USA itself and with the shameless complicity of Zionist accomplices.

The authorities in Dubai have found clear evidence that the Mossad assassination team received support from European Zionists. The hotels, air tickets and expenses were paid with credit cards issued in the US. Two of the killers may be in the US now. Will a time come when American Zionists, who are unconditional public defenders of Mossad killings, cross the line between propaganda for the deed to become accomplices of the deed? The robust American Zionist defense of Mossad's overseas assassinations does not augur well for the security of Americans in the face of Israel's willing U.S. accomplices.

* James Petras is a retired Bartle Professor (Emeritus) of Sociology at Binghamton University, SUNY, New York, U.S., and adjunct professor at Saint Mary's University, Halifax, Nova Scotia. He is the author of 62 books and over 560 articles. He has published over 2000 articles in nonprofessional journals such as the New York Times, the Guardian, the Nation, Christian Science Monitor, Foreign Policy, New Left Review, Temps Moderne, Le Monde Diplomatique, and his commentary is widely carried on the internet. He is winner of a Life Time Career Award of the American Sociology Association, Marxist Section.

Note: James Petras' latest books, Global Depression and Regional Wars (Atlanta, Clarity Press, 2009) is the third in a series, including Zionism, Militarism and the Decline of US Power (Atlanta, Clarity Press 2008) and The Power of Israel in the United States (Atlanta, Clarity Press 2006), analyzing the influence of militarism and Zionism in American foreign policy.

Cut the ambiguity, Ambassador, or pack your bags

Stuart Littlewood — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 10:57:57 +0000

Illustration by Carlos Latuff

By Stuart Littlewood* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

Hey, Mr Foreign Secretary Miliband...

Let me tell you something. If I were the British foreign secretary there would be no more "friendly chats". The Israeli ambassador would have 24 hours to find a cure for his "ambiguity" or pack his bags. How dare that lawless, racist regime smugly sit in its London offices and keep us guessing whether or not they have abused our sovereignty and hijacked our passport system?

Britain is far too cosy with the Israelis. Given their thieving, power-crazed ambitions in the Middle East (and beyond), how reliable is the intelligence they are said to share with us anyway?

Our government is riddled with Zionist sympathisers right up to the top. Our most important security bodies – the Intelligence & Security Committee, Foreign Affairs Committee and Defence Committee – are all chaired by Israel flag-wavers. Whose bright idea was that?

Blair and Brown are patrons of the Jewish National Fund, an organisation that acquires stolen Palestinian lands and helps fund illegal settlements in the occupied territories. Are they mad?

When Labour bites the dust in the elections in May, we can expect no better from the Conservatives who are waiting in the wings, if the findings of Peter Oborne's recent C4 Dispatches programme are anything to go by. Cameron has declared himself a Zionist and is also a patron of the JNF, as are the Israeli ambassador and the Chief Rabbi. So there'll be a seamless transfer of Zionist influence to our new government and business as usual with that pseudo-democracy (yes, you can drop the pretense; everyone knows it's an ethnocracy with apartheid knobs on).

The Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission reports that your "true friend" Israel has a nuclear arsenal numbering in the hundreds, possibly larger than our own. It has a plutonium production reactor and reprocessing facility, and possibly a uranium enrichment capability.

You'll also know that Israel is the only state in the region not to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, nor has it signed the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention. It has signed but not ratified the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty, similarly the Chemical Weapons Convention.

Nevertheless the rogue regime and its stooges screech their eagerness to obliterate Iran and involve us in their dirty work, even though the Islamic state as yet has no nuclear capability... unless Tehran managed to get their hands on one of the warheads rumoured mislaid by the US. Is that why everyone is wetting their pants?

Back to the extra-judicial assassination in Dubai. Given all the amazing intelligence we're supposed to receive from our "trusted allies", any foreign secretary worth his salt would at least know if and how Britain was implicated in the crime, which, according to The Sunday Times, was OK'd by your good buddy the Israeli PM.

Or are you seriously telling us you haven't a clue?

Talking of atrocities, you know perfectly well that we are solemnly obligated - and rightly so - to seek and prosecute all who have allegedly committed war crimes. Your enthusiasm for changing the law of universal jurisdiction and turning the UK into a safe house for Israelis psychopaths to freely walk the streets of London, makes our country and particularly yourself a laughing stock in the civilised world.

Yes, we've been well and truly stitched up at government level. But here at street level we're not so stupid.

* Stuart Littlewood is author of the book Radio Free Palestine, which tells the plight of the Palestinians under occupation. Read other articles by Stuart, or visit Stuart's website.

Getting Away With Murder

Aijaz Zaka Syed — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 10:43:25 +0000

Illustration by Carlos Latuff

By Aijaz Zaka Syed* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

Check this out. Here's a story of two countries from the Middle East. One is an ancient civilization with a rich history that goes back five thousand years.

It's a functioning democracy with free elections held at regular intervals. It's a huge country of 70 million people. It has remained within its borders and hasn't attacked any country in the last 100 years. It is pursuing a nuclear power programme, which it insists is for  peaceful purposes.

Second country also claims to be a democracy. In this democracy though you get citizenship and voting rights not on the basis of your origins even if you were born in this land but on your ancestry. This country was founded on the land stolen and forcibly taken from its original inhabitants. It has fought at least three wars and is locked in permanent conflict with its neighbors on all sides. It has a huge arsenal of nuclear weapons and other state-of-the-art killing machines. It pursues assassination as a state policy and regularly sends death squads around the world to take out people it doesn't like.

Which country do you think is a real threat to world peace? The first country that has no history of aggression or the second state that has killed tens of thousands of innocent people in wars of aggression against neighbors and in coldblooded executions?

And no prizes, dear readers, for guessing that the two countries in question are Iran and Israel.

If anyone had any doubts about the evil and criminal nature of the State of Israel, they should have been cleared after what happened in Dubai.

Sending death squads into a five-star hotel in posh and peaceful Dubai using European passports and IDs – the whole business reads like a John Le Carre or Robert Ludlum potboiler. But, as they say, reality is more interesting than fiction. International media and diplomatic circles are buzzing with stories and theories about how the Israelis planned the whole thing and executed with professional precision.

Typically, the entire European press has been obsessing over the forged passports and fake IDs, totally ignoring the real issue at the heart of this unfolding crisis: Another coldblooded murder of a top Palestinian leader by Israel.

The UAE authorities, especially Dubai Police, therefore deserve a pat on the back for not only cracking the murder but having built a solid case against the Israelis with credible and irrefutable evidence. They caught the killers with blood on their hands, thanks to their solid security structure in place. It was this watertight case that forced the British, Irish, German and French authorities to summon Israeli envoys to "explain."

But is that enough? Imagine if such a thing had happened in any other city or country and the finger of suspicion had pointed at an Arab or Muslim country, not Israel. All hell would have broken loose and ambassadors of the concerned country would have been thrown out within 12 hours.

In fact, as the Guardian's Seumas Milne argued in a brilliant piece this week, imagine what would have happened if it was not Israel but Iran that had sent in the killers and the assassination had taken place in a Western country using the passports and IDs of Western citizens?

By now the US and NATO jets would have bombed Iran back to the Stone age, just as they did in the neighboring Iraq, with the UN and its movers and shakers passing a dozen resolutions against the Islamic republic.

But, mind you, we are talking about the almighty Israel. And when it comes to Israel, there are different laws and rules of engagement. It can get away with anything – even with murder. And it repeatedly has. This isn't the first time Israel has sent killer squads to take out its detractors and individuals who refuse to accept its tyranny and stand and stare while it kills at will a helpless and defenceless people.

Steven Spielberg's Munich, a glorified version of Mossad's murderous operations against Palestinian officials in 1972, is only one chapter out of Israel's long history of crimes against Palestinian people and its Arab neighbors.

How can we forget what happened in Lebanon in the 1980s and as early as 2006? What about the carnage in Sabra and Shatila, Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon that killed at least 3,000 Palestinians? And what about  Gaza 2008-2009?

Israel has gotten away with all that. And in all likelihood it will get away with the murder in Dubai as well no matter how forcefully the UAE authorities demand the arrest of Mossad chief and action against the killers.

Hillary Clinton was in the Middle East when this whole thing blew up in Israel's face last week.

However, the top US diplomat who would have been president remained focused on Iran's ayatollahs. She repeatedly warned the Arabs against the "clear and present danger" presented by Iran, accusing Tehran of building nuclear weapons and "sponsoring terrorism" in the Middle East, a new charge to the long litany of charges against the Islamic republic. But we have been here before – and not very long ago – in Iraq.

And of course there was no reference to the threat Israel poses to its Arab neighbors. Nary a reference to its continuing persecution of Palestinians and the blaze it fuels across the  Muslim world.

Madam Secretary couldn't have chosen a more appropriate platform to launch the offensive against Iran. She chose the US-Islam dialogue forum in Doha to strike at Tehran, concluding it rather nicely in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. It's Iran, she warned the Arabs ad nauseam, not Israel that poses a grave threat to peace and security of  the Middle East.

So what if Israel is still squatting on Palestinian and Arab land! So what if Israel continues to send killer squads into Arab cities! So what if Iran hasn't attacked any Arab or Muslim neighbour in a long, long time. The Shia Iran must be a threat to Sunni Arabs because the US, Israel and their Western allies say so. If this is a breathtaking example of hypocrisy and double standards, so be it! No matter what ordinary Arabs and people across the Muslim world think. What matters is what Israel wants and how far the West will bend over backwards to humour it.

If this isn't true, let Israel's friends prove it. I would love to get corrected. The Sunday Times has disclosed that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had personally visited the Mossad headquarters in Tel Aviv to give his blessings for the Dubai operation. Just as his predecessors had blessed the killing of other Palestinian leaders including Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and, very possibly, Yasser Arafat, the tallest  Palestinian leader.

The question is how long will Israel get away with murder? And how long will its Western friends and allies protect it because of their own so-called historical guilt or whatever?

Why do we have two sets of laws and standards for Israel and its Arab and Muslim neighbors?

Secretary Clinton was confronted with these questions during a Q&A session with Arab students in Doha. Not surprisingly, Madam Clinton had no answers to offer. Instead she introduced her audience to new US envoys to the OIC and Muslim world, Rashad Hussein and Farah Pandit, both  Indian Americans.

Why is it so hard for Washington to see that it's not cosmetic gestures like this but real justice that can bridge the widening gulf with the Islamic world?

* Aijaz Zaka Syed is Opinion Editor of Khaleej Times and can be reached at aijaz@khaleejtimes.com

Dubai False Promise: Leviev Alive!

Haitham Sabbah — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 17:42:55 +0000

Despite Ban, Leviev to Sell Jewelry at Grand Opening of Atlantis Hotel in Dubai
Unconfirmed Report says Leviev to Attend Atlantis Opening

Adalah-NY has learned that the jewelry of Israeli billionaire and settlement-builder Lev Leviev will be on sale at this week's gala opening of the luxury hotel Atlantis, The Palm in Dubai. Despite Leviev's on-going construction of Israeli settlements and claims by United Arab Emirates officials that Leviev would receive no license to sell his jewelry there, the New York-based human rights coalition Adalah-NY has confirmed that Leviev's jewelry will be on sale at the Atlantis branch of the Levant Jewelry chain on the fabled Palm Jumeirah island.

Adalah-NY has also heard from a Dubai source that Leviev will attend the grand opening events in person, but the group has been unable to corroborate this report. A press release on the Atlantis web site claims that the opening gala, set for November 20-21st, "will culminate in a giant fireworks display," and that guests will include "prominent CEO's, business leaders, politicians, actors and musicians and members of the Dubai Royal family."

Adalah-NY has obtained photos (see below) of Leviev jewelry prominently displayed in the windows of the Levant store at the Atlantis, with Leviev's name and logo prominently printed on display cases. Leviev's jewelry and logo are featured at the Levant store at the Al Qasr Hotel. Leviev notes Dubai as a store location on the front of his Madison Avenue boutique in New York, and in recent Leviev ads in the New York Times.

(Click image to enlarge)

Prior to an advocacy campaign by Adalah-NY and Jews Against the Occupation-NYC, Leviev had announced plans to open in Dubai two Leviev stores and sell his products in a third store in partnership with his local partner, Arif Ben-Khadra, who is of Palestinian-Moroccan origin. Subsequently, in an April 30 article in Dubai's Gulf News, Ali Ebrahim, Deputy Director General for Executive Affairs in Dubai, said Leviev would not be able to do business in Dubai. "We are aware of these reports and have not granted a trade licence to any business of this name. If such an application does come to us we will deal with it accordingly," said Ebrahim. Further, Ebrahim told the paper that Israeli citizens were not allowed to do business in Dubai, and that "precautionary measures" made sure of that. Ebrahim further implied Leviev would not be able to do business through a localpartner. "There are no loopholes," he said. "We check backgrounds of businesses that apply."

Leviev built his enormous fortune trading diamonds with Apartheid-era South Africa. His company mines diamonds in partnership with the repressive Angolan government. New York Magazine reported in 2007 that in Angola, "A security company contracted by Leviev was accused... of participating in practices of â€˜humiliation, whipping, torture, sexual abuse, and, in some cases, assassinations.'" Also, according to the diamond industry watchdog Partnership Africa Canada (PDF file), Angola and Leviev have failed to fully comply with the Kimberley Process.

In the West Bank, Leviev's companies build Israeli-only settlements such as Ma'aleh Adumim, Mattityahu East and Zufim on stolen Palestinian land. According to Stop the Wall, Leviev is currently expanding Zufim settlement by 45 housing units on land owned by the village of Jayyous (see photo). Jayyous continues to hold non-violent protests against the confiscation of their land. All Israeli settlements are illegal under international law. UNICEF and Oxfam have both rejected support from Leviev due to his human rights violations, and the British government is under pressure to pull put of a deal to rent their new Tel Aviv Embassy from him.

Daniel Lang/Levitsky of Adalah-NY stated that "Dubai claimed that it has closed all the loopholes, but we have seen that to be glaringly false. Leviev jewelry will be prominently displayed and sold at a major hotel in Dubai. By allowing such a blatant contravention of its own laws, Dubai has made a mockery of its promise to boycott Leviev. The villagers of Jayyous and Bil'in, on whose stolen land Leviev's settlements sit, will be saddened and outraged, as will be human rights advocates worldwide."

[Source: Adalah-NY]

Now, a kilometre-high tower in Dubai

Haitham Sabbah — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 20:01:25 +0000

Even as the Burj Dubai, touted to become the world's tallest building nears completion, plans have been announced for a new kilometre-high tower in Dubai - UAE. The project, inspired by Islamic design and geometry, will be located at the upcoming New Dubai development area near Jebel Ali.

At the core of the Nakheel Harbour & Tower development will come up a tower more than a kilometre high and the world's only inner city harbour. The development will cover an area of more than 270 hectares and become home to more than 55,000 people, a workplace for 45,000 more and attract millions of visitors each year.

Nakheel Tower will have four individual towers within a single structure. A distinctive crescent-shaped podium encircles the base and complements its remarkable height.

The Nakheel Tower is supposed to be finished in 10 years. Until then Dubai already has currently the tallest building with the Burj Dubai which reached 707m in September. It is still under construction.
More details on Nakheel site.

Dubai: Vertical City, 2.4 km (1.5 miles) Tall

Haitham Sabbah — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 16:21:34 +0000

If you think you have seen it all, think again and watch this.

The following article was published on Khaleej Times, 10th Sept.

Dubai - Stretching its six intertwining building components into a tower 2.4 kilometres high, Dubai City Tower is expected to be the latest architectural vision to capture the attention of citizens.

The â€˜Vertical City', as it is described, is an architect's proposal that began circulating in emails and at a skycraper forum last week, but its origins are yet to be determined.

The professional project pitch details 400 habitable stories, topped by a 400m energy-producing spire, making it 2.4km high.

By comparison, Emaar's Burj Dubai is largely predicted to be around 800m high and 160 floors.

A "mile-high tower" in Jeddah has been planned by Kingdom Holdings, while Nakheel is building Al Burj, which, according to project sources, will have a final height of 1.28km, although the developer is keeping the details under wraps.

Blueprint of the project (click thumbnail to enlarge):

But neither an architect nor a developer detailed on the plans for the Dubai City Tower. Major developers Emaar, Nakheel, Dubai Properties and Damac categorically denied to Khaleej Times any involvement or awareness of the project.

However, the proposal of such an engineering feat is indicative of the environment of possibilities Dubai has created for tall towers, according to Steven Oehme, Regional Director of Value Management and Sustainability at Hyder Consulting Middle East.

"It is certainly possible," Oehme said. "You can't just use today's technology, but it can be planned and the possibilities are there. Fifteen years ago, there was nothing even half the height of the Burj Dubai."

The time frame from drawing board to construction and completion for such developments, in this case termed a super-tall skyscraper, often banks on future technologies.

A "Mega-city Pyramid" proposed for Tokyo Bay in Japan needs a structure of incredibly strong, light materials still being developed.

While Burj Dubai is expected to be completed in September 2009, five years after the construction started, the one-kilometre-high tower Mubarak Al Kabir in Kuwait is estimated to take 25 years to complete since its announcement was made last year.

Oehme said the flurry of architect proposals, and buildings under construction, could speed up technology and encourage more investment in tall towers.

"People didn't really see the significance of building that tall," he said.

"There wasn't an environment that supported a building that tall. The Petronas Towers in Malaysia changed all that."

They held the mantle for nearly a decade."

Now, in the Gulf region, Burj Dubai is a year from completion. Khaleej Times has learnt Al Burj plans are being finalised and recently Timelinks announced plans for the Ziggurat, a 1.2-kilometre-high pyramid city to house one million people.

Oehme said the feasibility of a project like Dubai City Tower was highly technical and wondered how many of the proposals would materialise.

"It's not just a matter of scaling things up. Every factor has to be considered.Â In ten years there could be two or three tall towers in the region or there could be 20 or 30. But now, our understanding of tall towers is enormous," Oehme said.

Via: Khaleej Times

Adalah rally outside UAE UN office in New York

Haitham Sabbah — Fri, 30 May 2008 08:37:03 +0000

A Jewish-Palestinian advocacy group held a thank-you rally outside the UAE's representative office in New York on Tuesday over the country's stand on not allowing a controversial Israeli businessman from opening a store in Dubai.

The Coalition for Justice in the Middle East (Adalah) gathered on Tuesday outside the UAE representative office in New York city to thank the UAE for not allowing Israeli diamond magnate Lev Leviev from opening his self titled diamond boutique in Dubai, and deliver a letter on behalf of Palestinian children.

Source: Gulfnews

UAE Mission to the UN affirm boycotting Israeli settlement-builder Lev Leviev

Haitham Sabbah — Thu, 29 May 2008 11:46:14 +0000

Officials at the United Arab Emirates Mission to the UN affirmed their government's commitment to boycotting the businesses of Israeli settlement-builder Lev Leviev in a meeting Tuesday afternoon with representatives from Adalah-NY and Jews Against the Occupation (JATO). Leviev is attempting to open jewelry stores in the Emirate of Dubai and to sell his diamonds there. The UAE officials promised to pass on to their government photos from Dubai, one taken Tuesday, showing that Leviev's local partner Arif Ben Khadra is currently advertising and selling Leviev's products in Dubai in defiance of the Emirate boycott policy. As the meeting took place, twelve New Yorker human rights advocates held signs and distributed flyers in the street below in support of the boycott.

Noting that some Dubai sources had indicated that Leviev may still try to open the stores under Leviev or a local partner's name, Adalah-NY's Ethan Heitner explained, "we were glad to learn that officials in the Emirates plan to be diligent in enforcing their ban on Leviev, and not allow their citizens to be deceived by a company that seems intent upon thumbing its nose at both local UAE and international law."

Source: albawaba.com

Is Dubai helping ethnic cleansing in Palestine?

Khalid Amayreh — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 08:59:25 +0000

The government of Dubai recently allowed a major bankroller of Jewish settlement expansion in the West Bank to open at least two Jewelry stores in the Gulf emirate.

According to reliable sources in the United Arab Emirates, of which Dubai is a key member-state, Israeli billionaire and diamond magnate Lev Leviev is preparing to open two large jewelry stores in Dubai, a world's hub of Jewelry trading.

The first store will be opened soon at the Burj Dubai Mall (Dubai Mall Tower) while a second store is slated to be opened later this year in the new Atlantis Hotel on the Jumeirah Palm Island.
Leviev has already opened one store in Dubai in March, 2008, in the lobby of al-Qasr Hotel on Madinat Jumeirah.
The Dubai authorities were initially reluctant to grant the Israeli billionaire a license to do business in the oil-rich emirate. However, Leviev reportedly successfully lobbied "North American and European connections" to convince Dubai officials to reconsider their objections.

Leviev's companies, including Africa-Israel and Leader Management & Development as well as several other subsidiaries, have been quite active in displacing Palestinian villagers from their homes and land in several parts of the West Bank.

The two firms have built hundreds of settler units in at least five Jewish settlements constructed on land illegally seized from its Arab proprietors.

In recent years, a company called Leader belonging to Leviev built the settlement of Zufim on private Arab land seized from the village of Jayyous. Danya Cebus, a subsidiary of the Leviev-owned company Africa-Israel has built hundreds of settler units on land stolen from the village of Bilin. Numerous additional settler units were built in the two large settlements of Ma'ali Adomim, a few kilometers east of Jerusalem, and Har Homa, near the predominantly Christian Arab town of Beit Sahur.

Israel hopes that these settlements will cut off East Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank, thus making the Palestinian dream of making the city the future capital of a prospective Palestinian state utterly unrealistic and outright impossible.

In addition to his intensive involvement in Jewish settlement expansion, including colonies defined by the inherently unjust Israeli justice system as "manifestly illegal," Leviev has donated undisclosed but reportedly large sums of money to the Land Redemption Fund, a land-grabbing organization affiliated with Gush Emunim, the ideological group behind Jewish settlement activities in the West Bank.

According to the Israeli newspaper, Yediot Aharonot, the Land Redemption Fund uses fraud and strong-arm tactics to seize land from Palestinians for settlement expansion.

Last year the Israeli group, Peace Now, and other settlement-watch groups, discovered that hundreds of settler units built in the settlement of Matityahu in the Salfit region, in the central West Bank, were actually built on private Palestinian land seized at gun point from its legal and rightful Palestinian owners.
However, despite the discovery, the Israeli government refused to dismantle the illegal settler units, with one Israeli official saying that "this problem will be discussed with the Palestinian Authority in the context of final-status talks."

Leviev's companies are actually destroying the lives of thousands of Palestinians by narrowing their horizons and dispossessing them of their livelihoods.

Abdullah Abu Rahma from the village of Bilin and Sharif Omar from Jayyous told representative of the human rights group Adalah-NY (www.adalahny.org), which monitors Israeli theft Palestinian land, that "Leviev's companies are destroying the olive groves and farms that have sustained our villages for centuries."

"We call on people of conscience all over the world to impose broad boycotts and implement divestment initiatives against Israel similar to those applied against apartheid South Africa."

The mayor of Jayyous, which suffered incalculable losses due to Leviev's destructive rampage in the northern West Bank, told this reporter that "Leveiv is indulging in ethnic cleansing against our community and our farmers."

"He is building settlements at our expense; he is destroying our land, our farms, and our orchards, and at the same time he is opening business in Dubai in order to finance his crimes against our people. Shame on Dubai and its government."

Some Jewish organizations opposed to the Israeli policy of ethnic cleansing and apartheid have also called on the countries of the world to boycott Israeli businesses and firms involved in dispossessing Palestinians of their land.
"We call on the government and people of the United Arab Emirates to join the growing international campaign to boycott Lev Leviev's companies due to their construction of Israeli colonial settlements," declared Daniel Lang-Levitsky of Jews Against the Occupation-NYC.

"A major Israeli violator of Palestinian rights and international law should not be opening jewelry stores in Dubai," said Issa Ayoub, a spokesperson for the Adalah-NY group. Adalah-NY organized eight boycott protests outside Leviev's new Madison Avenue Jewelry store in New York City over the last five months.

The Palestinian Authority has refused to comment on the Dubai government decision to allow the settler bankroller Leviev to open business ventures in the oil-rich emirate.

One Palestinian official contacted by telephone said "I don't know anything about this affair and I have not heard of Leviev."

A Hamas official in the Gaza Strip said "the Palestinian people were feeling embittered and betrayed by this scandalous behavior on the part of the Dubai government."

"We were hoping that Dubai would stand with us against the genocidal Israeli regime and its unrelenting efforts to ethnically cleanse our people from their ancestral homeland. We had never imagined that a day would come when we had to appeal to an Arab country to refrain from harming us and undermining our cause."

Call on Dubai to boycott Leviev’s stores over Israel settlements

Haitham Sabbah — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 16:26:13 +0000

New York human rights activists, and representatives of the West Bank Palestinian villages of Bil'in and Jayyous called on the government and the people of the United Arab Emirates to boycott the jewelry stores of Israeli billionaire and diamond magnate Lev Leviev over his companies' construction of Israeli settlements. According to a flurry of recent media reports, Leviev is opening jewelry stores in Dubai during 2008.

"We call on the government and people of the United Arab Emirates to join the growing international campaign to boycott Lev Leviev's companies due to their construction of Israeli colonial settlements, and their human rights violations in Angola," declared Daniel Lang-Levitsky of Jews Against the Occupation-NYC. "A major Israeli violator of Palestinian rights and international law should not be opening jewelry stores in Dubai," added Adalah-NY spokesperson Issa Ayoub. Adalah-NY has organized eight boycott protests outside Leviev's new Madison Avenue jewelry store over the last five months.

In the last few days, media have reported that Lev Leviev Diamonds will open two stores in Dubai this year. In the fourth quarter of 2008, construction will begin on a store to be located in the Burj Dubai Mall. The second will open in September in the new Atlantis Hotel on Jumeirah Palm Island. Leviev has already opened one store in Dubai in March, 2008 in the lobby of Al-Qasr Hotel on Madinat Jumeirah.

Leviev's company Leader is building the settlement of Zufim on the land of the West Bank village of Jayyous. The company Danya Cebus, a subsidiary of Leviev's Africa-Israel, has also built Israeli settlements on the land of the village of Bil'in, and has built homes in Maale Adumim and Har Homa on Jabal Abu Ghneim, encircling and cutting off East Jerusalem from the West Bank. Israel is building its wall to the east of all these settlements, with the aim of annexing them to Israel. Leviev also donates to the Land Redemption Fund, an Israeli settler organization which has used deceit and strong-arm tactics to secure Israeli-occupied Palestinian land for settlements in villages like Bil'in and Jayyous.

Israeli settlements directly violate international law according to the UN, all major human rights organizations and the International Court of Justice's 2004 advisory opinion on Israel's wall. The IJC's opinion also said that states are responsible for ensuring that Israel complies with international law.

Abdullah Abu-Rahme from Bil'in and Sharif Omar from Jayyous explained, "Leviev's companies are destroying the olive groves and farms that have sustained our villages for centuries, and are profiting from human rights abuses." The growing international movement to boycott Israel has developed in response to the 2005 Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) call by 171 Palestinian civil society organizations (www.bds-palestine.net) asking for "people of conscience all over the world to impose broad boycotts and implement divestment initiatives against Israel similar to those applied to" apartheid South Africa in order to end "Israel's persistent violations of international law," and "colonial and discriminatory policies."

In Angola, Leviev works closely with the repressive Dos Santos regime to mine and sell the country's diamonds, and he employs the private security firm K&P Mineira, which has been accused of torturing, sexually abusing and even murdering Angolans. According to the non-profit watchdog group Partnership Africa Canada, around 10% of the diamonds sold from Angola, including some of Leviev's, fail to comply with the Kimberley Process which was created to end the trade in "blood diamonds."

Source: Adalah NY

Highest is everything!

Haitham Sabbah — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 13:10:02 +0000

If you thought that Burj Dubai is the end of the "Arabian Dream", you are mistaken.

The new race in the Arab World (to be particular, the Gulf region) is building the highest towers.

Few years ago, Dubai announced that they are going to spend few "Billions" of Dollars to build the highest tower in the world, Burj Dubai, a 818 meter high building.

The tower is in progress and any visitor to Dubai can notice this landmark from anywhere around Dubai.

But that was just the beginning of the race to highest. More proposals are coming to reality!

Kuwait is planing to beat Dubai by building its own "highest tower" in the world, "Mubarak Tower," which is going to be a 1001 meter high. So once this tower is built (God knows how many years) it is going to be the highest tower in the world and is going to washout "Burj Dubai" record.

Of course Dubai doesn't like to be a looser, so they are planing to challenge their own record (Burj Dubai) as well Kuwait's Tower and spend more billions of dollars to take back the for Dubai. New proposals are in action and one of them is to build another tower, "Al Burj." Rumors are saying that it will be as high as 1050-1200 meter. So, Dubai wins again, but between Kuwait and Dubai new plans, Bahrain have a proposal to build something in between, "Murjan Tower," 1022 meter high, and the race goes on...

But wait, this is not the end of the "highest race". Saudi Arabia and it's multi billionaire Prince Al-Waleed Bin Talal is going to join the race through his version of the "highest building". But this one is really impressive.

Mark this...

"Mile High Tower" is the name of the tower which Al-Waleed is intending to build. As the name implies, it is going to be a "MILE HIGH", that is 1600 meter high (which is twice the hight of the yet to be highest tower, Burj Dubai). I say impressive because this number (1600m) is really crazy and will be crazy to compete.

(Click picture to enlarge)

"Mile High", the tallest in the world, will be built in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, and no doubt it will beat all the records and hopefully stop the race. For ever! (I wish)

Will Dubai (and others) take a break and spend some of these billions in the development or building something other than towers?

If we have so many "freaks" for height, maybe they should think in spending these billions (or at least some) in building things like the "Space elevator" or something useful other than buildings?!

Ferrari theme park in Abu Dhabi

Haitham Sabbah — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 00:59:10 +0000

Sport cars are not enough. Ferrari-branded goodies are expanding. After the sunglasses, perfumes, laptops, etc... Now it's taking on Disneyland with its own theme park. The doors will open in 2009 in Abu Dhabi, the capital city of the United Arab Emirates.

A large slice of desert on the island of Yas will be reclaimed to host the park, which will include 24 attractions, including a 70-metre high G-Force Tower and what's claimed to be the world's first F1-branded twin rollercoaster ride, allowing races between carriages.

What else will be there? This is a massive scheme, including a motor racing circuit destined to host the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix in 2009, posh hotels, apartments, villas, a golf course and marina, dozens of restaurants and shops... you get the idea.

The whole thing is going to cost around Â£300 million.

[Source]

Arab in Worldwide Press Freedom Index 2007

Haitham Sabbah — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 19:12:50 +0000

It's time of the year for Worldwide Press Freedom Index 2007. With all my reservations regarding Reporters Without Borders neutrality (having doubt after knowing that France is their financial supporter, although they are an NGO!), yet, their report was always a good indicator, if not the closest to reality - at least from my experiences as a blogger from the Middle East with all the sorrow and sad stories that I went through and heard of - when it comes to measure the freedom of speech in general and freedom of press in particular.

Every now and then we hear about new rules and regulations around the Arab World that makes it harder for press to speak the 'truth'. Not to mention the censorship applied in many Arab countries such as - but not limited to - United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Syria, etc... worst is to know that this list is getting bigger day by day, but with different terms and means such as the official watchdogs of local authorities to monitor and nail bloggers and detain them, e.g. Egypt cases.

Having said the above, lets look on how do 'Arab States' stand this year, but before this, let's note the leading paragraph of the report:

Bloggers now threatened as much as journalists in traditional media

Doesn't sound good news at all... following that by few paragraphs,

Outside Europe - in which the top 14 countries are located - no region of the world has been spared censorship or violence towards journalists.

And who are these 14 countries? Iceland, Norway, Estonia, Slovakia, Belgium, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Ireland, Portugal, Switzerland, Latvia, Netherlands and Czech Republic. Congratulations to these leading countries, and shame on the rest!

Note that the Big Brother and the Queen are not in the above list. But anyway, they are better than some others.

Back to Arab States ranking, the story is as expected. Looking at the leading countries from the bottom we find that Somalia, Palestine and Iraq are ranked 159, 158 and 157 respectively. Not surprised by this due to what they are going through with the Israeli occupation from one side and from the USA 'Freedom Operation' on the other side, beside Somalia's 'brothers war', but this is not enough excuse for them to be leading the bottom.

The battle raging between Hamas and Fatah is the main cause of the large number of serious press freedom violations in the Palestinian Territories (158th). Hostage-taking, arrests, physical attacks and ransacking of news organisations - the Palestinian media and the few visiting journalist are threatened from all sides.

In Iraq (157th), what journalists fear most are the armed groups that target them without the authorities ever finding a way to put an end to the litany of violence. More than 200 journalists and media assistants have been killed since the start of the US-led invasion in March 2003.

Next comes Libya ranked 155, which is not far from Palestine and Iraq, but I guess this country is going through worst that Israeli and USA occupation, so they are excused.

Now comes Syria as rank 154 and they are also excused because the are in "continuous state of war" against God knows who?! (if you know, let me know).

Who's next? Saudi Arabia (148), Egypt (146), Tunisia (145), Yemen (143), Sudan (140). Great mix and match. Rich and educated countries with poor and highly illiterate percentage of the population countries, that if we give Sudan the excuse like their Palestinian, Iraqi, Libyan and Syrian brother and assume that they are in war against 'poverty'!

Algeria (123), Jordan (122), Bahrain (118), Morocco (106) and Lebanon (98). Not really good and can do much better, specially Lebanon. Next comes Qatar (79), United Arab Emirates (65), Kuwait (63) and Mauritania (50), which is the best position that any Arabian country could reach this year, so congratulations to Mauritania for being at least among the top 1/3 of the list!

Some non-European countries have made their first appearance in the top 50. They are Mauritania (50th), which has climbed 88 places since 2004, Uruguay (37th) and Nicaragua (47th).

Wow! Big hand for them.

Quoting the report again and looking at the Big Brother:

There were slightly fewer press freedom violations in the United States (48th) and blogger Josh Wolf was freed after 224 days in prison. But the detention of Al-Jazeeraâ€™s Sudanese cameraman, Sami Al-Haj, since 13 June 2002 at the military base of Guantanamo and the murder of Chauncey Bailey in Oakland in August mean the United States is still unable to join the lead group.
[...]
We regret all the same that only two G8 members, Canada (18th) and Germany (20th), managed to be among the top 20.

And as a blogger, this is the worst part of the report:

Government repression no longer ignores bloggers

The Internet is occupying more and more space in the breakdown of press freedom violations. Several countries fell in the ranking this year because of serious, repeated violations of the free flow of online news and information.

In Malaysia (124th), Thailand (135th), Vietnam (162nd) and Egypt (146th), for example, bloggers were arrested and news websites were closed or made inaccessible. "We are concerned about the increase in cases of online censorship," Reporters Without Borders said. "More and more governments have realised that the Internet can play a key role in the fight for democracy and they are establishing new methods of censoring it. The governments of repressive countries are now targeting bloggers and online journalists as forcefully as journalists in the traditional media."

At least 64 persons are currently imprisoned worldwide because of what they posted on the Internet. China maintains its leadership in this form of repression, with a total of 50 cyber-dissidents in prison. Eight are being held in Vietnam. A young man known as Kareem Amer was sentenced to four years in prison in Egypt for blog posts criticising the president and Islamist control of the country's universities.

Free Kareem!

Complete list in attached image (click to enlarge).

Dubai Floating Bridge

Haitham Sabbah — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 23:07:05 +0000

One of the biggest criticisms of Dubai has always been the traffic congestion, ask me about it as I lived there for six years.

In an effort to reduce the traffic, Dubai, opened a floating bridge which connect the two sides of the creek - Deira and Bur Dubai.

(Click thumbnail to enlarge)

The Floating Bridge project is part of an integrated system, implemented that will reduce the traffic congestion. The number of lanes that cross Dubai Creek will increase from 19 to 38 lanes by 2007 and to 45 lanes by 2008.

The Floating Bridge, a first-of-its-kind project in the UAE, will be built out of 20-metre-wide hollow concrete blocks that will float on water. The rolling segment of the bridge allows the bridge to open and close at intervals of 20 minutes. These opening and closing times will be set in coordination with the authorities regulating the movement of ships and ferries crossing Dubai Creek.