The Russell Tribunal on Palestine recently found the state of Israel to be guilty of apartheid (EPA)

I firmly believe that the Russell Tribunal has credibility as a venue for truth-telling despite being established and funded by ordinary citizens concerned about the denial of Palestinian rights and Israeli defiance of international law. RToP makes no pretense of being "a court" with enforcement powers, but it does deny allegations of "cooking the books" because it knows in advance that there will be a finding of guilt. Indeed it is this knowledge in advance, based on abundant and non-contested evidence, that explains the motivations for mounting the extraordinary effort to raise the funds and handle the logistics required to organise a proceeding of this type. Such a tribunal makes no real effort made to discover the truth, although representatives of those accused were formally invited to present their defence, but rather its calling is to document the truth. Israel has made no secret of the policies, laws and practices that were presented in Cape Town, although it describes them differently, hides and obscures their application, and draws a different set of conclusions.

Russell's historic initiative

It was the celebrated British philosopher, Bertrand Russell who suggests in his autobiography that he felt that the world needed to know about the Vietnam War in a manner free from self-serving slant and Cold War propaganda, and so he invited leading moral authority figures in the world to take part in an unrestricted inquiry into the alleged criminality associated with the American role in Vietnam.

In Russell's opening statement at the International War Crimes Tribunal convened in 1966 to investigate the atrocities by the US in Vietnam, he declared that the initiative had no clear precedent but that such openness was helpful as it allowed the tribunal "to conduct a solemn and historic investigation, uncompelled by reasons of State or other such obligations". He ended his remarks by making clear the distinctive objective of the undertaking: "May this Tribunal prevent the crime of silence".

In effect, the narration of the criminality is undertaken not primarily to speak truth to power, which is generally deaf to voices from below, but to speak truth to people, awakening public opinion from its apathy to the responsibilities of being human (concern for the victimised other) and duties as citizens of free society to ensure that a government acting in its name upholds the law. Russell expressed this orientation as embodying very grand, some would say grandiose, expectations: "our task is to make mankind bear witness to these crimes and to unite humanity on the side of justice in Vietnam".

Actually, the outcome of the Russell Tribunal was virtually unreported at the time (except derisively), and later its work was known only to small coteries of anti-war activists and intellectuals, and even they were often confused at the time about whether such a one-sided unauthorised event was helpful to the general cause of peace and justice in the world. With the passage of time, the Russell experience has gained in influence and reputation, but it remains a large exaggeration to claim, as Marvyn Bennum does in an otherwise excellent article, "Understanding the rational, logic and procedures of the Russell Tribunal", [Cape Argus, October 31, 2011] that the Russell tribunals had "a profound impact on world opinion", although this historic initiative did set the standard in most respects for subsequent enactments of such an approach, including the RToP.

Unfortunately, although Russell's words are often invoked as the core justifying claim, the reality after some 45 years is that such undertakings, and there have been many since this first one, are rendered almost mute by a media that thinks and feels like a state, which is especially so when the allegations are directed at the lead constitutional democracy that sits firmly at the pinnacle of geopolitical power and influence. The wall of silence does not crumble easily if sustained by the combined corporate and military muscle at the disposal of Washington.

As Russell said in 1967 at the second session of the Vietnam Tribunal, "[w]e are not judges. We are witnesses". This witnessing is meant to be politically effective than mere pronouncements of injustice and criminality, and it has gradually in recent years become more so. As the state system has moved to criminalise certain forms of conduct, and even to establish an International Criminal Court, it seems more plausible to demand that the law should be applied to the strong as well as the weak, and less of a usurpation of governmental functions for persons acting on their own to do what institutions of the state are failing to do, that is, assess charges of guilt.

It may seem to be the case that the Vietnam War Crimes Tribunal gave the game away at the outset by putting the words "investigate the atrocities by the United States in Vietnam". Such provocative language makes us think about the nature of the game, and how it should be played. To deal with the impunity of the powerful in abusing the weak, the supposed uncertainty of outcome in a governmental trial (where some version of the myth of "innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt" is in force) is not present in this kind of setting. The very premise of the Russell Tribunal, and the many subsequent replicas, is that there is such certainty present as to generate moral outrage sufficient to give rise to the inquiry.

Frank Barat, the main organiser of RToP put the issue slightly differently, by observing "[o]ur intention has never been to find out if Israel were guilty or not, nor to start a debate about it. This work has already been done by UN bodies, human rights organisations, aid organisations and countless violated UN Security Council resolutions". And further, "[i]t is our duty to stand with the oppressed in its quest for justice".

In this respect, those civil society tribunals that try to imitate to the extent a judicial model of inquiry and decision risk generating confusion. They make it more reasonable for critics to point out that if the tribunal purports to be trying to ascertain guilt rather than denounce it on the basis of a preexisting legal consensus, then a pretense of "judicial process" does make itself subject to criticism as a hypocritical fraud. To some extent, the recently concluded Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal, while impressive in many respects, fell into this trap by emphasising the legal credentials of its "judges" who were almost all exclusively jurists who were only locally known and by putting forward a kind of token defence on behalf of Bush and Blair who were charged with crimes in connection with the Iraq War. The Russell Vietnam Tribunal, in contrast, had clearly signalled its rejection of this vocational law model by using such a loaded word as "atrocities" in naming itself, by not seeking to appoint individuals with a law background to serve on its panel of judges, and by not mounting any defence on behalf of those accused (although a ritualised invitation was issued to the American president, Lyndon B Johnson, to do so).

Obviously, this issue raises a question for the future. Is it better to mimic the state-centric model of judicial process in a criminal case to the extent possible or is it preferable to produce a morality pageant in which a true story is told with as much passion, reasoning, and proof as possible? Of course, international law can be invoked in the pageant model as explained by Barat when he writes that the RToP "by using international law as its basis, proposes a no-nonsense way forward. The law is on the side of the Palestinians, so let's make good use of it. The Tribunal intends to assist the people working on a just peace for all with the legal means they have crucially been lacking for too long". [Frank Barat, "What is the point of the Russell Tribunal on Palestine?"] The pro-Palestinian claim here seems to correspond with a fair reading of relevant international law on all crucial dividing issues: settlements, Jerusalem, refugees, occupation, land, water, and the utmost issue, self-determination. So stacked it reinforces the moral condemnation.

Goldstone's charm

Realising that the objective is to overcome "silence", the RToP was greatly helped by the publication of a slanderous attack on the prospective undertaking in the pages of the New York Times by the notable South African public figure Richard Goldstone. [Goldstone, "Israel and the Apartheid Slander", NY Times, October 31, 2011] Never before in the more than four decades of such proceedings had an influential media venue in the West stooped to take notice of such happenings prior to their occurrence. Not only did Goldstone call global attention to RToP, but he created a platform for response that was used by John Dugard, another South African of global stature with special expert credentials as to conditions in Palestine as well as to the experience of apartheid in South Africa. The Goldstone attack suggests that it sometimes better to have enemies than friends!

In the article almost ludicrously Goldstone wrote, "In Israel, there is no apartheid. Nothing there comes close to the definition of apartheid under the 1998 Rome Statute. 'Inhumane acts... committed in the context of an institutionalised regime of systematic oppression and discrimination'..." Really! The list of discriminatory laws, the dual administration of settlements and Palestinians, the checkpoint treatment of Palestinians, the settler only roads, the non-protection of Palestinians living under occupation, the midnight abusive arrests of children certainly suggest a pattern of inhuman acts even to an uninformed mind!

Without naming the participants, among whom were a death camp survivor, Stephane Hessel, a former member of Mandela's cabinet - Ronnie Kasrils, a world renowned author - Alice Walker, a distinguished English barrister - Michael Mansfield, QC, and a former American congresswoman - Cynthia McKinney, Goldstone calls them "critics whose harsh views of Israel are well known". The question, of course, is not whether these outstanding personalities have strong opinions on the matter at issue, but whether they have credibility based on their reputation for bearing witness truthfully and effectively. [For insightful interviews by Hanan Chehata with these leading RToP participants see the Middle East Monitor website].

RToP in South Africa

The RToP chose South Africa as the site for this session on apartheid quite obviously to claim continuity with the universally condemned racist regime that governed the country until 1994. This continuity was reinforced by having Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, renowned opponent of apartheid in South Africa and someone who early drew the analogy to Israeli treatment of Palestinians, deliver an opening address at the session in Cape Town.

This lineage was further reinforced by the presence of Ronnie Kastrils, a Jewish member of the RToP panel, as well as receiving testimony from the world respected South African jurist, John Dugard, who was prominent both for his opposition at home to apartheid and because in his role as UN HRC Special Rapporteur for Occupied Palestine he called the occupation as an instance of the international crime of apartheid.

But there was also some cost paid for emphasising this link to South Africa, which was the only real basis for Goldstone's rant directed at RToP. Goldstone called the comparison "an unfair and inaccurate slander against Israel, calculated to retard rather than advance peace negotiations". In effect, it allows the misleading argument to be made that since there are significant dissimilarities between Israeli treatment of the Palestinians and the South African racist regime the allegation would seem to rest on the credibility of the comparison.

As should be understood by people of good will by now, the apartheid experience in South Africa gave rise to the formulation of an international crime of apartheid as specified in the 1973 International Convention and included in the 2002 Rome Treaty establishing the International Criminal Court, but it does not delimit future occurrences of the crime of apartheid. In this latter legal instrument, apartheid is set forth as one of eleven types of "crimes against humanity" in Article 7(1)(j) of the treaty.

The crime of apartheid

The most controversial, and at the same time far reaching feature, of the RToP finding was to conclude that Israeli responsibility for establishing an apartheid regime applied not only to Palestinians living under occupation, but also to the Palestinians minority living with discriminatory regulations in Israel and to the Palestinian diaspora consisting of 4-5 million refugees and exiles.

Seen in isolation, it seems like an unconvincing extension of the meaning of apartheid, even if separated from its South African connection, to consider Palestinian citizens of Israel, even if victims of severe and humbling discrimination, as living under an apartheid regime or even more so to view diaspora Palestinians in this manner. But there is moral and psycho-political weight to the unanimous view of the RToP jurors that the core right of self-determination applies to the Palestinian people as a whole, including not living under direct Israeli military control.

The RToP divides its rationale for finding guilty of committing the crime of apartheid into three main parts: (1) race as defining identity in Israel/Palestine relations (tribunal agrees that race in the international definition of the crime should be interpreted broadly to include ethnic and national character); (2) inhuman acts (specified in relation to Israeli treatment of Palestinians, as integral to the crime, particularly "colonisation and appropriation of Palestinian land" and coercive fragmentation of the Palestinian community in "different physical spaces"; (3) a systematic and institutionalised regime as pervading the subjugation of the Palestinian people (preferential treatment of Jews, dual legal arrangements, restrictions on residence and mobility, deportations and house demolitions are elements in what the tribunal calls "Israel's institutionalised regime of domination". [See Victor Kattan's excellent detailed analysis of the RToP finding of apartheid in his "The Russell Tribunal on Palestine and the Question of Apartheid", al-shabaka brief, November 23, 2011].

Assessing RToP

The importance of the RToP session is to strengthen the civil society case against the Israeli treatment of the Palestinian people. As such, it adds a certain quality of gravitas to such international initiatives as the Freedom Flotilla and the BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions) campaign. Thanks to Goldstone, and to the organisational skills of the tribunal, there has also been a certain media visibility for RToP that has been absent in most comparable undertakings, including the recent Kuala Lumpur proceedings against George W. Bush and Tony Blair. In this sense, the crime of silence that disturbed Bertrand Russell during the Vietnam War is still being committed, but it has been to a degree mitigated by the legacy he continues to inspire.

Indirectly, also, the very existence of RToP should encourage states to be more active in exerting their own authority to implement individual accountability under international criminal law via reliance on universal jurisdiction. At present, the impulse to reassert such national agency to supplement weak international enforcement mechanisms has been set back by a geopolitical backlash led by the US in the aftermath of the Spanish indictment and British detention of Augusto Pinochet a little more than a decade ago. This struggle between the vitalisation of international criminal law and geopolitical actors demanding impunity will help determine whether global governance is primarily a regime of power or a regime of just law.

Finally, we notice that the jurisprudence of conscience, that is, applications of law without punitive capacity in relation to alleged violators, is maturing in two parallel directions. The first illustrated by the Russell legacy, including at this recently concluded inquiry into Israeli apartheid, rests its methodology on law established by testimony of legal experts and findings of individuals whose credibility depends primarily on their moral authority and cultural stature, a jury of conscience. The second illustrated to a degree by the Kuala Lumpur proceedings, seeking to replicate the behaviour of courts under the informal auspices of civil society, and seeks to base its credibility on a pervasive legal framework, including the makeup of the panel making findings and recommendations and extending to providing a defence on behalf of the government and individuals charged with criminal behavior. Hopefully, the fourth and final session of RToP, to be held in 2012 in the US, will in addition to providing an overview of the allegations against Israel, will also offer guidance to those who see a continuing need for a jurisprudence of conscience as a critical arena of struggle in the ongoing quest for humane global governance.

* Richard Falk is Albert G. Milbank Professor Emeritus of International Law at Princeton University and Visiting Distinguished Professor in Global and International Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He has authored and edited numerous publications spanning a period of five decades, most recently editing the volume, International Law and the Third World: Reshaping Justice (Routledge, 2008).

He is currently serving his third year of a six year term as a United Nations Special Rapporteur on Palestinian human rights.

By Mohamed Khodr* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

FOX's 3P Mission: Polarization, Propaganda, and Prejudice

"This is the soft war that seeks to isolate Israel by delegitimizing it...the battle ground is everywhere – the media, multinational organizations, NGOs. In this war, the aim is to make ISRAEL a pariah."
--Rupert Murdoch, .A.D.L. Speech upon receiving ADL's "International Leadership Award", October 13, 2010

"The corporate grip on opinion in the United States is one of the wonders of the Western world. No First World country has ever managed to eliminate so entirely from its media all objectivity - much less dissent. "
--Gore Vidal, novelist and critic

CAUTION: You Are About To Enter the "No Spin Zone."

No Corporation or Media mogul has had as much impact on the corruption and manipulation of minds, opinions, and attitudes in the U.S. and abroad than Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation and Fox News Channel in particular.

This mogul has singlehandedly created a nation within a nation--the Fox Nation. A nation dedicated to the principle that the only deserving humanity for wealth, power, supremacy, and governance are mainly white Republicans, Corporate and Business tycoons, those who support militarism as the sole means of projecting America's power abroad, and those who blindly and unquestionably support Israel's hegemony, illegal occupation, the building of illegal settlements, and who identify its offensive militarism as self-defense. Palestinians, Arabs, and Muslims are an offense to western civilization and thus are expendable collateral damage to the greater good of Israel which naturally translates to the greater good of the U.S.

Rupert Murdoch is the Chairman and CEO of News Corporation which owns vast holdings in newspapers, movie studios, television stations, cable and satellite stations, entertainment companies, book publishing, music, radio, and internet companies around the world..

In terms of revenue in 2010, News Corporation was second only to Walt Disney Company, with Time Warner and Viacom as third and fourth respectively.

With the exception of Rupert Murdoch the remaining three media conglomerates are run by Jewish Americans.

For his Zionist efforts Murdoch has received awards and high praise from Pro Israeli groups in the United States such as the Anti Defamation League which presented him with the "International Leadership Award" and the American Jewish Committee which presented him with the "AJC National Human Relations Award" on March 4, 2009.

The Jewish Commentary Magazine on October 14, 2010 published Murdoch's speech to the A.D.L. and made the following observation.

"Last night, Rupert Murdoch gave an extraordinary speech at an Anti-Defamation League dinner in which he revealed, yet again, that he is a true and selfless friend of the Jewish people and of Israel."

Not to be out done, Roger Ailes, Chairman and C.E.O. of Fox News and Fox News Channel was honored at a gala dinner by the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York. Former President Bill Clinton appeared on a video saluting "red-state Roger" for his concern for "the security for the State of Israel

Murdoch is also a staunch Republican Conservative who's unashamed to donate millions to Republican causes.

Murdoch's News Corporation donated $1 million to the Republican Governors Association in June 2010. Similarly he donated $1 million to the United States Chamber of Commerce, a staunch Republican organization. No one is investigating if such media donations to political organizations are ethical.

Thus it is a fact that Murdoch and News Corporation are propaganda patsies for Israel and the Republican Party.

Fox News Channel is the most popular and most influential cable network which for years has left CNN, MSNBC and other cable networks in the dust.

Fox Channel uses the following two slogans: "We Report, You Decide", and, "Fair and Balanced". In fact the channel is a weapon of mass deception that instills fear in a large segment of the U.S. population with lies and blasphemous bigoted hateful commentary. Goebbels would be proud in seeing an American "News" Channel implement his propaganda philosophy.

"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it."

The best that can be said about Fox News Channel and its bigoted, racist, fear mongering hosts and pundits is that it is committing "Intellectual Terrorism" upon a nation devoid of intellectual curiosity, a passion for truth and civic involvement, a self absorbed populace distracted with consumerism, and devoid of all outrage at the crimes committed by its government and corporations here and abroad.

The three most popular Fox Channel hosts are Bill O'Rielly, Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck who share the same viewpoints, personality traits, and fear mongering propaganda.

All three have delusions of grandeur, absolutism of truth, are paranoid, self promoting salesmen of their books and products, hold hallucinatory conspiracy theories where Looney lefties, Marxists, Socialists, Communists, Islamic terrorists, Sharia Law, George Soros, and radical media outlets are collaborating and planning to overtake America and western civilization to establish a one world government run by radical Islamists.

Perhaps this quote by former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich speaking to thousands of Evangelicals in a bid to build his base for a possible Presidential run is emblematic of the mindset of Fox News Channel, where he is a contributor, and the propaganda it pursues.

"I have two grandchildren - Maggie is 11, Robert is 9," Gingrich said at Cornerstone Church here. "I am convinced that if we do not decisively win the struggle over the nature of America, by the time they're my age they will be in a secular atheist country, potentially one dominated by radical Islamists and with no understanding of what it once meant to be an American."

--Newt Gingrich, Politico 3/27/2011

However a most revealing study conducted by the Center for International and Security Studies at the University of Maryland showed the following results from surveying American's knowledge of current events based on their viewership of the cable networks Fox, CNN, and MSNBC.

Their conclusion as reported by the Iowa Independent, December 2, 2010:

"People who regularly watch Fox News are more likely to be incorrect on a wide range of major issues. But the audiences of MSNBC, PBS and National Public Radio are frequently better informed than most, according to a new study by the University of Maryland.

The study finds Fox News viewers to be the more likely to be incorrect with each incremental increase of exposure to Fox. The respondents who watched Fox News on a daily basis were at times twice as likely to be wrong as those who never watched Fox "

Rupert Murdoch, News Corporation, and Fox News Channel are the greatest threat to American democracy, unity, and stability. Al Qaeda's threat is a distant second to the daily propaganda drum beat for War, Hate, Incitement, and Prejudice. (W.H.I.P.)

FOX News is the WHIP against civilized behavior, the use of reason, logic, and rationality of thought and policy in our national discourse.

Shockingly, the second largest shareholder of News Corporation is the Saudi Prince Al Waleed bin Talal Al-Saud (7% of shares) who obviously is unfazed by Fox's relentless attack on Islam, Muslims, Arabs, and Saudi Arabia. Like all Arab tyrants and business tycoons, fame, wealth, and glory far outweigh their devotion to faith and brethren.

SOURCES:

1. http://www.adl.org/PresRele/Mise_00/5873_00.htm

Rupert Murdoch's Speech to the A.D.L. (Anti-Defamation League).upon receiving the annual "ADL International Leadership Award"; October 13, 2010

2.http://www.ajc.org/site/c.ijITI2PHKoG/b.5018279/k.7184/AJC_Honors_Rupert_Murdoch.htm

Rupert Murdoch Speech upon Receiving the American Jewish Committee's Award; "AJC National Human Relations Award", March 4, 2009 (From Murdoch's Speech)

3. http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0624-25.htm

Must Read: How Only 118 People sit on the Board of the 10 Largest Media Conglomerates as well as on Boards of other Companies: See examples

* Mohamed Khodr is a political activist who frequently writes on the plight of Palestinians living under the brutal occupation of Israel, U.S. Foreign Policy, Islam, and Arab politics.

By Lawrence Davidson* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

The Bedouin village of al-Arakib

Palestinian children and women sleep in the shade after Israel ethnically cleansed them from their village.

On 26 July 2010 Israeli police armed with tear gas, a water canon and two helicopters forced the 200 Bedouin residents of the southern Israeli village of al-Arakib out of their homes. Most of the furniture was then removed from the village's 45 buildings, which were flattened using bulldozers. It is to be noted that the victims of this act are not residents of the Palestinian occupied territories. They are non-Jewish citizens of the State of Israel.

The news of these home demolitions made it to CNN in a short report entitled "Bedouins evicted from village in southern Israel". The Bedouin families explained that this was ancestral land on which they had lived for generations going back to the days of the Ottoman Empire. They even have their original land deeds. Israeli government officials retorted they did not care because they chose not to recognize the Bedouin claim. Why not? Well, all the land of Israel is reserved for the Jewish people and these folks are not Jewish. As far as police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld was concerned, that meant they were living there "illegally". The government expects the Bedouin to move to "reservations" that have been set aside for them.

This sort of thing happens all the time in "the only democracy in the Middle East". According to the Israeli Committee Against Home Demolitions, over 24,000 Palestinian homes have been torn down or blown up in the occupied territories alone. The vast majority of similarly destroyed homes in Israel proper are also those of Palestinians, making Israel's law of eminent domain a racist weapon. In the case of al-Arakib, the Israeli government says it will be turning the village land into part of a new "Jewish National Fund forest". But there is every indication that the area will eventually be opened to Jewish settlement, with preference given to "young couples in the army". Sometimes the Bedouin serve in the Israeli armed forces, but they won't qualify for this future perk.

So far this is a story that can be replicated thousands of times and thus just another day in the life of Israel's segregated non-Jews. So why draw attention to the quite ordinary fate of the 200 people from al-Arakib? The answer to this question comes from the following line in the CNN report, "the Israeli forces arrived in the village accompanied by busloads of civilians who cheered as the dwellings were demolished". This makes the whole incident a "sit up and take notice" kind of event.

Israel's teenage police volunteers

This sentence in the CNN report caught the eye of members of Ta'ayush, a small movement within Israel that organizes joint Palestinian-Jewish resistance to the Israeli occupation. They wanted to identify who the "cheering civilians" might be and so sent a delegation to al-Arakib soon after the demolitions took place. There they interviewed the village leaders and others, all of whom are now camped out in tents at the site of their demolished homes. The report of what they learned, accompanied by pictures, is now posted on the web. Here is some of what it says:

1. The cheering civilians were all Israeli Jewish high school students who had volunteered as "police civilian guards" to take part in this assault.

2. These teenagers did more then cheer. "Prior to the demolitions, the student volunteers were sent into the villagers' homes to extract their furniture and belongings." In the process they vandalized the sites, "smashing windows and mirrors ... and defacing family photographs." With the furniture piled up outside, the students "lounged around" on it while waiting for the bulldozers. This was done "in plain sight of the owners."

3. While the bulldozers were doing their work, the teenagers "celebrated".

What does it all mean?

The incorporation of Jewish youth into the racist and destructive pattern of behaviour exhibited in this incident is almost inevitable. You simply cannot raise up generation after generation within an environment of officially sanctioned racism and not get many of the young seeking confirmation of their place in the community through unjust sociopolitical actions. We can expect to hear more about this sort of officially organized youth thuggery in Israel. It is a logical tactic for the state to use, particularly at a time when the country is becoming increasingly criticized and isolated.

Nor is this sort of thing historically unique. Reading about this incident one can see intimations of the youth organizations of fascist Italy and Spain, Nazi Germany and Communist China during the Cultural Revolution. More explicitly though, one can see in this two more immediate precedents. The first is Vladimir Jabotinsky's youth movement Betar. Up until his death in 1940 Jobotinsky was the leader of the Zionist Revisionsts, the most militant, and often most terror prone, of pre-1948 Zionists. Likud and its kin are successors of the Revisionist movement. As part of this history, Betar was founded in 1923 in order to "educate its members with a military and nationalistic spirit". The teenagers at al-Arakib are a good match. The second precedent, and one noted in the Ta'ayush report, are the youth involved in the violent Israeli settler movement. The Ta'ayush investigators observed that the behaviour of the teenage volunteers at al-Arakib was "strikingly reminiscent of the behavior of settler youth in Hebron who pelt Palestinian shopkeepers in the old city with eggs, rocks and human waste. If there is a distinction between the two cases, it is that the Hebron settlers act as vigilantes while the teenagers of the Israeli civilian guard vandalize Arab property as agents of the state."

I will end this analysis on a personal note. I grew up in a liberal and secular Jewish American household that adhered to the values of equity and justice in their idealized American forms. At the time we all thought that these were perfectly compatible with Jewish teachings. Following from those values, as a teenager I involved myself in the civil rights movement and the resistance against war in Vietnam. It seemed not only the right thing, but also the natural thing to do. On rare occasion some of my adult relatives used negative Yiddish terms to refer to African-Americans, but that was the closest I ever came to experiencing illiberal sentiments among Jews. Then in 1972, as part of a wider visit to the Middle East, I spent 10 days in Israel. It was a real culture shock mainly because for the first time I met openly racist Jews, many of them Americans of my own age.

The shock of those 10 days has worn off long ago. But it was replaced by a lasting conviction that Zionism is bad for the Jews in exact proportion to its negative impact on the Palestinians. As the Zionists ethnically cleanse and otherwise destroy Palestinians and their society, they destroy Judaism and mutate themselves, and all others who support them, into barbarians. That includes those teenagers at al-Arakib. It is a matter of ends equalling means and so cannot be otherwise. That is why all Jews would do well to heed the words of Booker T. Washington (1856-1915), an emancipated American slave and fighter for African American dignity, "You can't hold a man down without staying down with him."

* Lawrence Davidson is professor of history at West Chester University. He is the author of numerous books, including Islamic Fundamentalism and America's Palestine: Popular and Official Perceptions from Balfour to Israeli Statehood.

By Dr. Elias Akleh* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

Canada had declared the issuance of a "Canada-Israel Diplomatic Relations" commemorative stamp to celebrate 60 years of relations between the two countries. This stamp will serve as a historical witness and reminder, for many future generations in the whole world, of the inhuman, unethical and immoral Canadian association with and support to the ultimate religiously racist, self-worshipping, rogue, international-law-breaking, murdering, genocidal, ecocidal, and terrorist bastard state of Israel.

Israel is established and based on the ultimate supremacist racist ideology. It is a religious ideology that has surpassed all other racist ideologies Man had ever known throughout history. Whereas German Nazism is a social ideology, and Italian Fascism is a political ideology, that can be opposed, debated and debunked, Israel's "God's chosen people in God's promised land" is a supremacist ideology cloaked within a religious cover. Its opposition is labeled atheism, its debate is called blasphemy, and its debunking is claimed a sin. This ideology is, after all, a divine contract between God and Abraham signed by circumcision in the foreskin of Abraham's penis. Jewish Israelis consider themselves God's gift to this world. All other nations, Goyims, non-Jews, are considered animal souls incarnated in human bodies, whose sole purpose of existence is to serve the Jews. One needs only read the Old Testament, the Talmud, Jewish religious books, and Rabbinical texts and pamphlets to learn and to confirm this supremacist ideology.

Israeli Jewish religious supremacy and self-worship beliefs are reflected in their Rabbis' teachings and statements. This religious arrogance is expressed clearly in Rabbi Ginsburgh's justification of the Israeli army murdering Palestinian civilians when he declared that: "Jewish blood and a goy's (gentile's) blood are not the same ... every single cell in a Jewish body entails divinity, and is thus part of God, thus killing isn't murder if the victim is a Gentile." Israeli chief Rabbi Yosef Obadia described Palestinians as cockroaches that should be crushed. Such ideology is the basic fundamental teachings Judaic Yeshivot (religious schools) incorporate in their so-called religious curricula.

Unlike all other countries Israel has no acceptance or tolerance to other religions. Although supremacist Judaism is tolerated and Jews are permitted free worship in every Christian and Moslem country, even in Iran, falsely accused of being fanatic Islamic, Arab Christians and Moslems are harshly rejected, persecuted, and equally ethnically cleansed in "Jewish only Israel". Jews were persecuted by all western Christian countries for the last two thousand years. They found refuge and acceptance only in the Middle Eastern mainly Islamic Arab countries. Yet instead of expressing any form of simple gratitude they have forcefully occupied Palestine. They are now evicting Christian and Moslem Palestinians out of their own country and especially out of their holiest city; Al-Quds (Jerusalem), and are denying them worship in their holy places during their religious holidays. Israel had destroyed hundreds of mosques and bombed and burnt many churches.

Many western Christians are deceived and are misguided by the so-called Zionist-Christianity and Judea-Christianity. These are antithetical terms, for Judaism considers Christianity its arch-enemy. Judaism considers Virgin Mary a whore, and calls Jesus Christ a pervert, Satan, and charlatan. Jews had crucified Jesus for his teachings of loving God, who loves all his creations equally without any favoritism to a specific nation.

Israel is a genocidal state. Israeli Jews like to proudly trace their history back to Moses and his commandments. An objective study of Moses's Five Books reveals that Moses was the most genocidal figure in the history of mankind. He, himself, had broken all his ten commandments. Moses had preached many other commandments that are racist to the core in the form of laws and regulations for the favor of only Jews. He and his racist God had destroyed Egypt seven times. He had ordered his followers to utterly annihilate other nations including babies and pregnant women (Numbers 31:17). Even the homes, the crops, the farm animals of other nations were ordered killed, burnt and destroyed; "you shall let nothing that breathes remain alive, but you shall utterly destroy them; the Hittite and the Amorite and the Canaanite and the Perizzite and the Hivite and the Jebusites, just as the Lord your God has commanded you" (Deuteronomy 20: 16-17) Moses ordered the Israelites.

He and his God were genocidal even against their own followers; Moses's God supposedly annihilated the Israelite tribes of Korah, Dathan and Abiram in a fiery earthquake for objecting to Moses's leadership (Numbers 16), and Moses ordered the sons of Levi to murder their Jewish brothers, companions and neighbors (Exodus 32: 27-28). Moses had even killed his brother Aaron (Numbers 20: 23-29), who was allegedly "gathered to his people" at mount Hor.

Moses's genocidal crimes are grotesquely documented in his five books in the Old Testament. The Israelites eventually got fed up with his genocidal frenzy that he "mysteriously", or divinely as they claim, disappeared and no family member of this divine prophet was ever mentioned in the Jewish history since then.

Unfortunately Moses's genocidal commandments had become so fundamental Judaic teachings that all present-day chief Rabbis of Israel are quoting them to incite and to justify Israeli genocide and holocaust of Palestinians. The Old Testaments tells us how Jewish Rabbis and so-called prophets commanded their people, in the name of their God, to annihilate non-Jews, to destroy their cities, to kill their animals, and to cut down their trees.

Today's Israeli Jewish Rabbis are no better than their ancestors. They, too, call for the extermination of Palestinians, the destruction of their towns, the killing of their farm animals and the cutting down of their fruit trees. Israel's former chief Rabbi, Mordechai Elyahu encouraged the Israeli army to mass murder Palestinian civilians; "even murdering a million". The Hasidic Rabbi Manis Friedman urged the Israeli army to murder Palestinian civilians regardless of their age. He declared: "The only way to fight a moral war is the Jewish way: destroy their holy sites, kill men, women, children, and cattle."

Israeli Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira, the head of a Yishuv in illegal colony of Yitzhar in usurped Palestinian city of Nablus in the Occupied West Bank, had published a religious book distributed to Israeli soldiers before their onslaught against Gaza December 2008. The book called "The King Torah" is based on the halachic (Jewish religious) laws for the killing of non-Jews. Shapiro wrote that "Jews have the right to kill non-Jews in just about every circumstance ... If we kill a gentile who has sinned or has violated one of the (Jewish) seven commandments ... there is nothing wrong with the murder." Jewish Rabbis' disregard to non-Jewish nationals was exposed when Israeli Rabbis and Israeli army officers were caught traffic with human body parts in Palestine and in Haiti.

Before the illegal declaration of Israel, Jewish terrorist groups such as Lehi, Irgun and Haganah had perpetrated many massacres against civilian Palestinians. These terrorist groups merged together to form the terrorist Israeli army. For the last 62 years this terrorist army had committed numerous massacres against all its Arab neighbors; Palestinians, Egyptians, Jordanians, Syrians, and Lebanese. Their murdering and assassination arms have reached far other countries such as South Africa, Sudan, Somalia, Algiers, Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, and lately Dubai. This so-called most moral army finds its morality in spreading terror through the use of the American most sophisticated weapons against unarmed Arab civilians especially women and children. To understand why Israel had waged so many wars throughout its short history one should know that Israel is an army with a government rather than a government with an army. Its survival depends on perpetual conflict; the real reason for Israel's continuous rejection of all Arab peace initiatives.

Besides crimes against humanity Israel is committing daily crimes against mother earth and against the environment. Israelis keep claiming that they came to a desert and made it bloom. The reverse is true. Part of what is known as the Middle Eastern Fertile Crescent, Palestine is a very fertile land. Its fertility had been for thousands of years the target of all colonial powers. In their genocidal fever the Israelis had uprooted millions of fruit trees, especially olive trees that were cared for by Palestinians for two thousand years.

The 2007 report published by Applied Research Institute-Jerusalem documented that Israel had uprooted 1,000,000 fruit trees in the Occupied West Bank between 1967 and 1999, and an additional 1,405,658 trees from 2000-2006. The building of the Israeli apartheid wall has caused the uprooting of at least another million trees.

Israel's use of nuclear (DU), biological, and chemical weapons during its aggression against Lebanon and Gaza had contaminated earth and rivers. The razing of fertile land, the poisoning of water wells, the destruction of farm land, and the aerial chemical spraying of Palestinian crops and trees, which are part of a deliberate plan to destroy Palestinian economy, are grave crimes against Mother Nature and against the environment.

Israel is the most anti-Semitic country. Arabs are Semites, while the majority of Israeli Jews are Khazars and Germanic. Israeli Jews are not one ethnic nation. Walking through any Israeli city one encounters highly differentiated people, who came from different countries with different backgrounds that have nothing to do with Semitic people. Judaism is a religion that is adopted by people from different parts of the world and rather than an ethnic nationality. Not all Jews are Semitic the same way that not all Moslems are Arabs and not all Christians are part of one particular race.

Since the first Zionist Congress in 1897 in Basel, Switzerland up to this very day, every Zionist leader and every Zionist Rabbi had openly called for the ethnic cleansing and forceful eviction of Palestinian Arabs from Palestine. The Zionist Koenig Memorandum encouraged Israeli army to use terror, assassination, intimidation, eviction and land confiscation among other terrorist tactics to terrorize Palestinians out of their country.

It would take large volumes to enumerate Israel's crimes against humanity and against mother earth. With their at least 200 nuclear bombs and their aggressive posture continuously threatening to bomb their neighbors back to stone age, it is the fanatic self-worshipping Israelis, not the Iranians, who pose the greatest threat to peace in the Middle East and threat to global peace.

With such criminal history I ask descent Canadians whether they really want to associate themselves with such a terrorist state and become a terrorist-sponsoring country. I urge Canadians, specifically, and peace loving people in general, to express their disappointment in Canada's decision to issue such a shameful postal stamp by writing/emailing to the minister responsible for Canada Post Corporation; Mr. John Baird (baird.j@parl.gc.ca) and to Minister of State Rob Merrifield (Merrifield.R@parl.gc.ca).

* Dr. Elias Akleh is an Arab writer from a Palestinian descent born in the town of Beit Jala. His family was first evicted from Haifa after the "Nakba" of 1948, then from Beit Jala after the "Nakseh" of 1967. He lives now in the US, and publishes his articles on the web in both English and Arabic.

By Jeff Gates* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

President Harry Truman

We entered this tunnel in 1948 when an enclave of religious fanatics induced President Harry Truman to portray them as a "state" meriting recognition, aid and protection.

We were warned not to do so.

These extremists had just inflicted on the Palestinians an ethnic cleansing that rivaled in its savagery the fascist abuse of ethnic groups during WWII. In December 1948, Albert Einstein and 27 other concerned Jews urged us "not to support this latest manifestation of fascism."

Our failure to heed that warning led to the current morass in which we find ourselves.

Einstein and his colleagues foresaw that a "Leader State" was the goal of the "terrorist party" that has led Israel over all but a few of the 62 years since Truman's fateful decision.

The latest Likud Party coalition ranks among the worst in the consistency of its duplicity and the blatant manipulation of its loyal ally, the American people. By our unbreakable bond with this abusive enclave, the U.S. appears guilty by association, making us a target of those abused.

From the outset, deceit was the foundation on which this ill-fated alliance was built. To betray, one must befriend. To defraud, one must first create a relationship of trust. Therein lies the basis of the "special relationship" through which Tel Aviv pursued, though us, its expansionist agenda.

To deceive in plain sight requires a capacity for what national security specialists know as game theory. In 2005, Israeli mathematician and game theory specialist Robert J. Aumann received the Nobel Prize in Economic Science. Co-founder of the Center for Rationality at Hebrew University, this Jerusalem resident candidly concedes "the entire school of thought that we have developed here in Israel" has turned "Israel into the leading authority in this field." He's correct.

Israeli strategists deploy mathematical models to anticipate reactions to staged provocations and manipulated crises. By applying game theory algorithms, those reactions (and reactions to those reactions), behavior becomes foreseeable-within an acceptable range of probabilities.

While the future is never certain, the effects of a well-planned provocation become "probabilistic." This blend of duplicity and game theory expertise makes Israel a perilous partner and an outright imposter when portrayed as a credible partner for peace in the Middle East.

For game theory war-planners, peace is not the point. For the agent provocateur in pursuit of an undisclosed agenda, the anticipated reaction is the goal. Aumann practices his craft not at the Center for Morality, Justice or Fairness but at the Center for Rationality. Peace would preclude the expansion of Greater Israel, an irrational outcome to be avoided-at any cost.

Waging War by Way of Deception

From a game theory perspective, Palestinian abuse has little to do with the Palestinians. From the Israeli point of view, their mistreatment is all about how best to provoke reactions that can be foreseen-within a acceptable range of probabilities. For those who view themselves as Chosen and above the law, such abuse is their God-given right. To behave otherwise would be irrational.

Well-planned provocations have long been Tel Aviv's core competence. For a skilled agent provocateur, an anticipated reaction can become a powerful weapon in the arsenal of the provocateur. In response to a mass murder on American soil, even a moderately competent game theorist could foresee that the U.S. would dispatch its military to avenge that attack.

With phony intelligence "fixed" around a preset goal, a game-theory algorithm could predict that our military could be redirected to invade Iraq, a nation that played no role in the attack. Therein lies the game theory-enabled treachery imbedded at the core of this duplicitous relationship.

Happily, our national security apparatus now comprehends the "how" of this non-transparent treason. Concern at its common source is rampant in senior military ranks. Israel and pro-Israelis have been confirmed as those who fixed the intelligence that took us to war on false pretenses.

Those "in the know" now grasp that Truman's recognition of this enclave was part of a multi-decade fraud that remains ongoing as Israel seeks to induce us into Iran and even Pakistan.

No one likes to be played for the fool. Yet that's how Israel treated all those it befriended. That includes not only other nations but also those in the broader faith communities deceived to believe they share an identity of interest with this "latest manifestation of fascism."

Intelligence agencies are fast coming to recognize the shared mindset of those who prey on the goodwill and trust of others. Their distrust of the U.S. is now morphing into sympathy and pity.

Misplaced Sympathy

Those adept at marketing serial Evil Doers are the agent provocateur source of the very terror from which they claim a need for protection. What now needs protection are those who continue to believe-despite the facts-that this "state" is owed the status granted to other nations.

Light is now seeping into the geopolitical crevices where this deception has long operated in the dark. The consistency of Israeli behavior over six decades has left the rule of law with but one choice: acknowledge the fraud and withdraw Israel's standing as a legitimate nation state.

Just prior to extending recognition, Harry Truman was assured by Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann that Israel would become a democracy and not what he feared: a theocratic and racist state. We now know that even its very founding was a fraud on America's leaders.

Given every opportunity to conduct its affairs consistent with international law and standards of human decency, this extremist enclave chose another course. As both an enabler and a target of these religious extremists, the U.S. has a special obligation to take the lead in withdrawing recognition and securing the nuclear arsenal now under Israeli control.

Further delay only heightens the probability of another agent provocateur operation on a scale of 911-doubtless featuring yet another evidentiary trail that points to "Islamo" fascists. With more than 80% of the U.S. Congress declaring an "unbreakable bond" with Israel, Americans face a perilous future in which we need help from other nations to pressure our leaders to act promptly.

We were warned more than six decades ago. Now is the time to heed that warning.

* Jeff Gates is a widely acclaimed author, attorney, investment banker, educator and consultant to government, corporate and union leaders worldwide, Jeff Gates' latest book is Guilt by Association -How Deception and Self-Deceit Took America to War (2008) his first release in the Criminal State series. His previous books include Democracy At Risk and The Ownership Solution. See his website Criminal State

Sabbah sits on a concrete block at the Erez crossing. MaanImages/Wissam Nassar

Israel deported a prisoner from Tulkarem to the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, in a move that followed the approval of the new military order No. 1,650 to expel Palestinians living in the West Bank.

Ahmad Sabbah's family was waiting at the Al-Thahriyah crossing to receive their son after 10 years behind bars, but were surprised when Israeli authorities delivered the news that he had already been deported to Gaza.

Sabbah said the "discriminatory and harsh" decision was intended to further punish detainees and their parents. "There is a real war against detainees," the former prisoner said.

Deported to Gaza on Wednesday after his release from Israeli prison, Tulkarem native Ahmad Sabbah announced a sit-in strike at the Strip's northern Erez crossing in protest.

"I consider myself the first detainee deported to Gaza, and I will stay in this sit-in tent at the Erez terminal until I am allowed to return to my wife and family in Tulkarem," Sabbah said Thursday.

source: Ma'an News

El Al racial profiling

By Jonathan Cook * | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

Two Palestinian brothers with Israeli citizenship have won 8,000 US dollars in damages from Israel's national carrier, El Al, after a court found that their treatment by the company's security staff at a New York airport had been "abusive and unnecessary."

Abdel Wahab and Abdel Aziz Shalabi were assigned a female security guard who watched over them at the airport's departure gate for nearly two hours, in full view of hundreds of fellow passengers, after they had passed the security and baggage checks.

Later, El Al's head of security threatened to bar Abdel Wahab, 43, from the flight if he did not apologize to the guard for going to the toilet without first getting her approval. Abdel Aziz said he had been humiliated and "cried like I've never cried before in public."

Although surveys of Palestinian citizens, who comprise one-fifth of Israel's population, show that most have suffered degrading treatment when flying with Israeli carriers, few bring cases to the Israeli courts.

The brothers are now planning to sue El Al and its New York staff in the United States over Israel's racial profiling of passengers in a country where the practice is illegal.

"I'd rather go to New York by donkey than fly with El Al again," said Abdel Aziz, 44. "We will keep fighting this case until Israel is embarrassed into stopping its policy of discriminating against its Arab citizens."

The brothers, who live in northern Israel, were the only Palestinians in a party of 17 Israeli insurance agents on a two-week business trip to Canada and New York in 2007.

They arrived four hours early at John F Kennedy airport in New York for their return flight with Israir, an Israeli charter company, to allow time for the additional checks they expected from El Al's security staff.

El Al has special agreements with most countries' airports to carry out its own security checks for passengers flying with Israeli airlines.

The brothers said they were questioned, searched and had to wait two hours while their bags and carry-on luggage were subjected to lengthy inspections.

"The Jews with us went through in minutes," said Abdel Aziz, in his home in the village of Iksal, near Nazareth. "The difference in treatment was very clear."

Keren Weinberg, Israeli security agent

When Abdel Wahab visited a toilet without her permission, a noisy argument broke out between the two, with Ms Weinberg accusing him of "roaming freely." He said he told her to "either arrest me or go away."

Ilan Or, the head of El Al security, was then called and issued him an ultimatum that he apologise or be prevented from catching the flight. Abdul Wahab told a magistrate's court in Haifa this month that he broke down in tears and finally said he was sorry.

"I was in shock. One minute I was made to feel like a terrorist and then the next like a naughty child," he said.

Judge Amir Toubi said the security staff had admitted that neither brother was deemed a security threat and that Israeli law did not allow checks to continue after passengers had passed the security area.

"With all due understanding of security needs, there is no justification for ignoring the dignity, freedom and basic rights of a citizen under the mantle of the sacred cow of security," the judge ruled.

El Al told the court that it had been "asked by the state to conduct security checks abroad on behalf of [charter companies] Arkia and Israir airlines, and is acting under the security guidelines set by official bodies of the state."

Abdul Wahab praised the court's decision but said the damages were minor and would not act as a deterrent against El Al repeating such behaviour in future. He said the brothers would appeal to a higher court in Israel and were planning to initiate a legal action in New York, too.

"I will not rest until we get an apology from El Al and they acknowledge that what they did is wrong," he said. He called on all Palestinian citizens to boycott El Al until it committed to stop its discriminatory policy.

A 2007 report on racial profiling by Israeli carriers, published by the Arab Association for Human Rights and the Centre Against Racism, concluded: "This phenomenon is so widespread that it is hard to find any Arab citizen who travels abroad by air and who has not experienced a discriminatory security check at least once."

The two groups found that Arab and Muslim passengers typically faced long interrogations and extensive luggage searches, and were also regularly subjected to body and strip searches, had items including computers confiscated, were kept in holding areas and were escorted directly on to the plane.

The report noted that foreign countries that allowed Israel to carry out its own security checks at their airports failed to supervise them and preferred to "ignore their discriminatory nature and the human rights violations committed on their own soil".

New York's JFK airport was one of the airports that refused to answer questions from the groups about incidents of discriminatory treatment of Arabs and Muslims.

Israel has also come under harsh criticism for the standard racial profiling policies it uses against its own Palestinian citizens and foreign Arab nationals at Ben Gurion airport near Tel Aviv.

The practice of putting different color-coded stickers on Jewish and Palestinian passengers' luggage ended three years ago. However, airport guards still write a number on uniform white stickers indicating the level of security threat. Critics say higher numbers are reserved for non-Jews.

Faced with a lawsuit from Israeli human rights groups, Menachem Mazuz, the attorney general at the time, instructed the airports authority in early 2008 to implement "visible equality" by ending discriminatory screening policies.

However, observers have noticed no change in practice. "This was a very cynical exercise. ‘Visible equality' simply means making it look like there's equality when the inequality persists," said Mohammed Zeidan, director of the Association for Human Rights, based in Nazareth.

In December an airport official told the right-wing Jerusalem Post newspaper: "Profiling makes the biggest difference. A man with the name of Umar flying out of Tel Aviv, whether he is American or British, is going to get checked seven times."

Two years ago Israel's racial profiling policy made headlines when a member of an American dance troupe with a Muslim-sounding name was forced to dance at the airport to prove he was who he claimed.

The incident with the Shalabi brothers follows on the heels of a diplomatic crisis between Israel and South Africa over revelations that spies posing as El Al staff have been operating at Johannesburg airport, gathering information on non-Jewish passengers visiting Israel.

El Al has threatened to close the route after South African officials stopped providing the airport guards with diplomatic immunity.

South African TV reported last month that two of the Mossad assassins suspected of killing a Hamas commander in Dubai in January may have used Johannesburg airport to fly back to Israel.

* Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel. His latest books are "Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East" and "Disappearing Palestine: Israel's Experiments in Human Despair".

By Mohamed Khodr* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

"We sent thee not, O! Muhammad, save as a mercy to all the people. Say, O! Muhammad: "It has but been revealed unto me that your God is the One and Only God: will you, then, surrender yourselves unto Him?" (Qur'an: 21: 107-108)

There is only one "Absolute" form of Free Speech in the west, the freedom and right to bash Islam, stomp, shoot, and flush the Holy Qur'an down the toilet, and portray Islam's beloved Prophet Muhammad (p) in the most vile manner in all forms of "art".

Freedom of Speech is an ever changing and evolving right that depends on time, person, place, method of delivery, issue, and people involved. Since the time of Socrates who was prosecuted for corrupting young minds to today's blasphemous attacks on Islam, the Quran, and Islam's Prophet; freedom of speech has always been defined and determined by those in power.

Bashing Islam is not new. In fact it began during the Prophet's own lifetime by those who rejected his message in Arabia only to be followed by Christians, Jews, and followers of other faiths. Saint John of Damascus (7th – 8th C) while ironically working as an administrative officer for the Muslim ruler of Damascus wrote that the Prophet Muhammad (p) was a "false prophet...heretic...an Anti Christ." Such attacks continued throughout historical Christian Europe by men such as Martin Luther, Voltaire, Dante, to , right wing European parties, to the U.S. by such men as Franklin Graham, Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Hal Lindsey (who called Allah (God) Satan), and politicians. Bashing Islam has become a respectable political and money making cottage industry.

Thus it's not surprising that 9/11 opened the flood gates for a wider multitude of westerners who inflame and further incite hatred of Islam. Such vileness arises out of total ignorance of Islam and the historical innate fear of the "other". The West fears what it does not know. In Europe, especially, fear of an Islamized Europe has conveniently morphed into a political agenda against the immigration of the "other", mainly people of color who immigrate to Europe from formerly European colonized nations.

It is inexplicable to describe the West as civilized when such uncivil behavior toward those of a different faith or color permeates a significant portion of the population. If civilization is based on education then such people must be hailed as arrogant, racists, supremacists, and ignorant fools.
The Swedish cartoonist Lars Vilks as part of an art exhibition entitled "Dog in Art" decided to follow in the footsteps of the Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard (who drew cartoons depicting Muhammad as a terrorist) and drew a cartoon of the Prophet with the body of a dog. While the public rationale is freedom of speech, the underlying motive is pure racism. But freedom of speech in the west depends on who you offend. Offending Jews, discussing the Holocaust, criticizing Israel's brutality against the Palestinians is either attacked as "Anti-Semitic", or met with jail time while the western kosher media quashes such "free speech". God forbid such a cartoonist would draw a similar cartoon of Moses (p), a Jew with a swastika as a tail, or of the Crown Prince of Spain. (Spanish cartoonist fined for royal dishonour", UK Telegraph, Nov. 14, 2007)

The Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard wrote of Freedom or Speech, "People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use."

The European Union Human Rights reports on Racism and Xenophobia annually reports that racism against Muslims and people of color in Europe is an ever increasing problem. While the E.U. and Sweden have laws on "hate crimes", which I consider these foul cartoons to be, they seldom if ever prosecute the perpetrators of such hate crimes if the intended victim is Islam or Muslims. On the contrary such politicians and artists are applauded and welcomed in the U.S. (Salman Rushdie, "The Satanic Verses", in the White House), by Conservative Christians and Pro Israeli lobbies, think tanks, and the mainstream Pro Israel media as idols of free speech. Yet in Europe and the U.S. if the perceived crime is "Anti Semitic" governments are in the fore front to decry and prosecute such "hate crimes".

When Israel is portrayed in a negative light in the Arab media due to its murderous occupation of Palestinians and constant theft of their land both European and U.S. governments immediately and publicly condemn such actions as hateful and anti Semitic, but when Islam's Prophet is subjected to vile hate it is considered "freedom of speech". It is a fine line and slippery slope between what is considered free speech and blasphemy. Didn't the Nazis use hateful cartoons of Jews as part of their propaganda for the "final solution?

It is this double standard and hypocrisy by western governments that inflames the Muslim world against their policies and practices, especially with respect to Israel's invasions and genocide against Lebanese and Palestinian civilians. Criticizing Israel for its illegal occupation, inhumane siege of Gaza, massacring Gaza's children, demolishing thousands of homes, destroying hospitals, clinics, schools, churches and mosques, depriving the population of food, water and medicine, it's massive abuse of human rights and defiance of International laws, and much more is unacceptable, censored, hateful, and strongly defended by western governments and the media as "Israel's right to self defense", a right that its victims are denied.
Muslims are strictly forbidden from carrying out any violence or calling for death threats against the perpetrators of hate against the Prophet. The Holy Quran forbids such violence and directs Muslims to endure and be patient as the Holy Prophet endured during his lifetime.

"And, whenever they heard frivolous talk, having turned away from it and said: "Unto us shall be accounted Our deeds, and unto you, your deeds. Peace be upon you - [but] we do not seek out such as are ignorant [of the meaning of right and wrong]." (Quran: 28:55)

"Believers (Muslims), stand out firmly for God, as witnesses to fair dealing, and let not the hatred of others toward you make you swerve to wrong and depart from justice. Be just: that is next to piety: and fear God. For God is well-acquainted with all that you do." (Qur'an 5:8)

The European Council for Fatwa and Research (ECFR) and the Federation of Islamic Organizations in Europe (FIOE) condemned the death threats issued by Al Qaeda and other small extremist groups against Lars Vilks, the Swedish cartoonist, and Ulf Johansson editor in chief of the paper that published his cartoon of the Prophet with a body of a dog. Such hate must be met with patience and a strong educational outreach program to tell the truth about Islam and its beloved Prophet Muhammad (p).

Perpetual racism, arrogance, and ignorance of Islam in the west are the combustible ingredients for assured mutual destruction of our planet. The lack of any sacredness in the west that belies the misguided application of free speech against the "other" rests on the premise that if I hold nothing sacred and I damn my own faith and religious figures then I have the right to damn yours and if you are civilized like me you will accept such racist rantings as free speech. That is the rational of fools who've surrendered their superficial intellect to misguided stupidity.

It's not enough that the west has annihilated, bombed, and committed holocausts across the globe against the "other"; now the "other" must endure the verbal and written bombs upon their faith, culture, and traditions.

What conceivable civilized aim can be achieved by denigrating a Prophet of 1.6 Billion Muslims? Why aren't Muslims retaliating with the same vile hate against Judeo-Christian religious founders such as Moses and Jesus, peace be upon them both, or the Torah and Gospel? Because Muslims believe and revere these two prophets and the original holy revelations they received.

The least that can be expected from "civilized" people who wish to criticize a faith is to have a working knowledge on the subject to confer some credibility for their critique. Such knowledge of Islam is sorely missing in the West, thus such critiques are frivolous and meaningless.
Both the Danish and Swedish cartoonists who drew the vile cartoons of the Prophet were unknown entities until they entered racist contests concocted by two small papers in a competition to defame and demonize a most exalted person. After the controversy these two men achieved the celebrity status that has eluded them for decades.

But what of this man, Muhammad (p), who for centuries became the object of racist depictions by people who knew nothing about him in Christian Europe and in the U.S. (Read: "Muhammad in Europe", by Minou Reeves)

The British Historian Michael H. Hart in his book: "The 100: Ranking of the Most Influential Persons in History" chose Muhammad (p) as the most influential human being in history. He wrote:

"My choice of Muhammad to lead the list of the world's most influential
persons may surprise some readers and may be questioned by others, but he
was the only man in history who was supremely successful on both the
religious and secular level."

The famous French writer, poet, and politician Alphonse le Lamartine (1790-1869) in his book, "Histoire De La Turque", wrote of Muhammad (p):

"If greatness of purpose, smallness of means, and astounding results are the
three criteria of human genius, who could dare to compare any great man in
modern history with Muhammad"?

The renowned Professor of Comparative Religion Karen Armstrong wrote a book in 2006 entitled "Muhammad: A Prophet for Our Time"

There are endless biographies, books, speeches and statements on Prophet Muhammad (p) by renowned authors around the world that exalt his person, his unshakeable spiritual beliefs, morality, ethics, compassion, mercy, and extraordinary leadership.

Sadly in America's educational system the study of cultures, world religions, history, and geography are sorely lacking. Such a vacuum can only lead to further misunderstanding and conflict between religions and peoples

"There will be no peace among the nations without peace among the religions. There will be no peace among the religions without dialogue among the religions."
--Hans Kung, Catholic Theologian

The foundation for a peaceful world is the knowledge that all humanity is equal in the eyes of God and in human laws and that human nature is the same throughout time, place, and geography. The secret is simple: R-E-S-P-E-C-T.

"O mankind! We created you from a single (pair) of a male and a female, and made you into nations and tribes, that ye may know each other (not that ye may despise each other). Verily the most honored of you in the sight of Allah is he who is the most righteous of you. And Allah has full knowledge and is well acquainted with all things. (Qur'an: 49:13)

* Mohamed Khodr is a political activist who frequently writes on the plight of Palestinians living under the brutal occupation of Israel, U.S. Foreign Policy, Islam, and Arab politics.

By Dr. Alan Sabrosky* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu once remarked to a Likud gathering that "Israel is not like other countries." Oddly enough for him, that time he was telling the truth, and nowhere is that more evident than with Jewish nationalism, whether or not one pins the "Zionist" label on it.

Nationalism in most countries and cultures can have both positive and negative aspects, unifying a people and sometimes leading them against their neighbors. Extremism can emerge, and often has, at least in part in almost every nationalist/independence movement I can recall (e.g., the French nationalist movement had The Terror, Kenya's had the Mau Mau, etc.).

But whereas extremism in other nationalist movements is an aberration, extremism in Jewish nationalism is the norm, pitting Zionist Jews (secular or observant) against the goyim (everyone else), who are either possible predator or certain prey, if not both sequentially. This does not mean that all Jews or all Israelis feel and act this way, by any means. But it does mean that Israel today is what it cannot avoid being, and what it would be under any electable government (a point I'll develop in another article).

The differences between Jewish nationalism (Zionism) and that of other countries and cultures here I think are fourfold:

1. Zionism is a real witches' brew of xenophobia, racism, ultra-nationalism, and militarism that places it way outside of a "mere" nationalist context -- for example, when I was in Ireland (both parts) I saw no indication whatsoever that the PIRAs or anyone else pressing for a united Ireland had a shred of design on shoving Protestants into camps or out of the country, although there may well have been a handful who thought that way -- and goes far beyond the misery for others professed by the Nazis;

2. Zionism undermines civic loyalty among its adherents in other countries in a way that other nationalist movements (and even ultra-nationalist movements like Nazism) did not -- e.g., a large majority of American Jews, including those who are not openly dual citizens, espouse a form of political bigamy called "dual loyalty" (to Israel & the US) that is every bit as dishonest as marital bigamy, attempts to finesse the precedence they give to Israel over the US (lots of Rahm Emanuels out there who served in the IDF but NOT in the US armed forces), and has absolutely no parallel in the sense of national or cultural identity espoused by any other definable ethnic or racial group in America -- even the Nazi Bund in the US disappeared once Germany and the US went to war, with almost all of its members volunteering for the US armed forces;

3. The "enemy" of normal nationalist movements is the occupying power and perhaps its allies, and once independence is achieved, normal relations with the occupying power are truly the norm, but for Zionism almost everyone out there is an actual or potential enemy, differing only in proximity and placement on its very long list of enemies (which is now America's target list); and

4. Almost all nationalist movements (including the irredentist and secessionist variants) intend to create an independent state from a population in place or to reunite a separated people (like the Sudeten Germans in the 1930s) -- it is very rare for it to include the wholesale displacement of another indigenous population, which is far more common of successful colonialist movements as in the US -- and perhaps a reason why most Americans wouldn't care too much about what the Israelis are doing to the Palestinians even if they DID know about it, is because that is no different than what Europeans in North America did to the Indians/Native Americans here in a longer & more low-tech fashion.

The implications of this for Middle East peace prospects, and for other countries in thrall to their domestic Jewish lobbies or not, are chilling. The Book of Deuteronomy come to life in a state with a nuclear arsenal would be enough to give pause to anyone not bought or bribed into submission -- which these days encompasses the US Government, given Israel's affinity for throwing crap into the face of the Obama administration and Obama's visible affinity for accepting it with a smile, Bibi Netanyahu's own "Uncle Tom" come to Washington.

The late General Moshe Dayan, who -- Zionist or not -- remains an honored part of my own Pantheon of military heroes, allegedly observed that Israel's security depended on its being viewed by others as a mad dog. He may have been correct. But he neglected to note that the preferred response of everyone else is to kill that mad dog before it can decide to go berserk and bite. It is an option worth considering.

*Alan Sabrosky (Ph.D, University of Michigan) is a ten-year US Marine Corps veteran and a graduate of the US Army War College. He can be contacted at docbrosk@comcast.net

By Mohamed Khodr* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

"Right and wrong are the same in Palestine as anywhere else. What is peculiar about the Palestine conflict is that the world has listened to the party that has committed the offence and has turned a deaf ear to the victims."
--Prof. Arnold Toynbee, Foreword to the Transformation of Palestine, 1971

"Israel may have the right to put others on trial, but certainly no one has the right to put the Jewish people and the State of Israel on trial."
--Ariel Sharon

"Well, it's a trick, we always use it. When from Europe somebody is criticizing Israel then we bring up the holocaust. When in this country US) people are criticizing Israel then they are anti-Semitic. And the organization (Israel Lobby) is very strong and has lot of money. And the ties between Israel and American Jewish establishment are very strong - and they are strong in this country as you know. And they have power which is ok."
--Shulamit Aloni, Former Israeli Minister of Education, On Democracy Now, August 14, 2002

Honorable President of Harvard University Dr. Drew Faust
Honorable Members of the Board of Directors
Harvard Faculty Members
Harvard Student Organizations

Dear Madame President Faust;

I must strenuously and in the strongest terms possible protest the silence and inaction of Harvard University toward the outrageous, inhumane, offensive, even racist eugenic proposal that Dr. Martin Kramer, a Visiting Scholar at Harvard made during his speech at the Israeli Herzliya Conference on January 31, 2010.

In that speech Dr. Kramer implored the West to stop its Pro Natal services to the already besieged and starving Gaza Palestinian pregnant mothers and infants as a method of controlling the rapid birth rate in Gaza as a matter of political and social policy. To him such control will naturally lead to a decrease in the radicalization of Palestinian youth which he calls "superfluous men" as well as relieve the "demographic threat" to Israel's Jewish identity.

How racist is the term "superfluous men" to describe young Palestinian men who are constant fodder for Israeli soldier's bullets, missiles, and tank shells (as soldiers themselves have told "Break the Silence" group of former IDF Soldiers) as unnecessary and wasteful human beings.

Dr. Kramer's eugenic proposal not to provide Pro Natal care, which I take he means Pre and Post Natal care, is tantamount to genocide of fetuses and infants. Pregnant mothers would not receive the preventive care, regular OB exams, nutritional guidance (such as providing Folic Acid and Vitamins given their already malnourished state), appropriate vaccines or a healthy medically supervised delivery in hospitals, which all are damaged by Israel's assault on Gaza in 2008-2009. Infants would not receive the necessary medical care, or intensive care if necessary (difficult given the lack of electricity, oxygen, or antibiotics in Gaza), regular immunizations, nutritional guidance, or regular Pediatric checkups. Dr. Kramer shouldn't worry about a Palestinian population explosion; Israel's militarily with our tax dollars and weapons is determined not to leave any Palestinian child behind.

His proposal meets the accepted definition of eugenics, passive euthanasia, and genocide and no amount of spin cover up, rationalization, justification, taken out of context lies; nor the canard of Freedom of Speech that's available to Pro Israelite hate mongers to the exclusion of Pro Justice proponents for Palestinians and peace in the Holy Land.

In addition to Israel's three year physical devastating siege of Gaza, Dr. Kramer is proposing another physical and medical siege, this time of a Palestinian woman's womb that would ultimately result in a secondary ethnic cleansing of Palestinians that has continued unabated since 1947.

In Harvard as elsewhere, Academic Freedom and Free Speech means never having to say Israel is wrong, or that Israel defies all divine and human laws, or that Israel's occupation and theft of Palestinian land is illegal and immoral, and Israel's wars upon a captive population under its control is tantamount to "war crimes, nor that the Israel Lobby dominates the formulation of our foreign policy in the Middle East and the Islamic world. To them it's Baghdad, next stop is Iran.

No politician, academic institution, or American citizen dare have an honest public discourse on our self destructive relationship with Israel. Even the Pentagon's Defense Science Board confirmed that the Muslim world doesn't hate our freedoms but hates our blind policy of supporting Israel.

In describing freedom of speech the famous Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard wrote:

"People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use."

Contrary to Dr. Kramer's assertion and his defense by WCFIA controlling or preventing a population's birth right and rate meets the definition of Genocide according to the First Geneva Convention Against Genocide which states:

"This convention bans acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religion group...imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group".

Dr. Kramer need not worry that Gaza's children are growing up healthy, safe, able to go to school, eat right, receive medical care, play, or even visit family, given Israel's persistent military attacks, invasions, and total blockade of Gaza. During the unprovoked onslaught on Gaza a year ago Israel killed hundreds of infants and children. That is why the Goldstone report accusing Israel of committing war crimes never appeared in TV news or most of our print media. Neither will the media report on Dr. Kramer's speech or the angst of many Americans who find it abhorrent and offensive.

While Israel destroys the lives of current Palestinian children, Dr. Kramer seeks to ensure the end of future Palestinian children.

In fact Palestinian children are living breathing beings who often serve as fodder and target practice for Israel's soldiers. (Guardian, Nov. 24, 2004: "Israeli Officer: I was right to shoot 13 year old child")

Chris Hedges, the famed journalist, author, and war correspondent who was also a Neimen Fellow at Harvard and served for years as MidEast Bureau Chief for the New York Times horrifically captured the plight of Palestinian children in Gaza in a Harper Magazine article titled, "A Gaza Diary", October 2001.

"It was in Gaza, where I lived for weeks at a time during the seven years I spent in the Middle East, that I came to know the dark side of the Israeli Defense Force....Children have been shot in other conflicts I have covered-death squads gunned them down in El Salvador and Guatemala, mothers with infants were lined up and massacred in Algeria, and Serb snipers put children in their sights and watched them crumple onto the pavement in Sarajevo-but I have never before watched soldiers (IDF) entice children like mice into a trap and murder them for sport."

Madame President, imagine the outrage in Harvard and among worldwide Jewish groups if a Harvard Muslim Professor suggested that limiting Jewish births in the U.S. will lead to a dramatic decline in their political, financial, and media clout thereby ending their stranglehold on U.S. foreign policy and its blind support of the rogue state of Israel. How long before you, Madame President, the Board of Trustees, Deans, Faculty, the ADL, AIPAC, ZOA, JDL, JINSA, WINEP, and the mainstream media would be calling for his Anti-Semitic head not just to be fired, even with tenure.

Madame, you'd be the first to initiate the firing of such a person who'll be blacklisted never again to find academic employment in this country. Such is the power of Pro Israelite's wrath.

Again, I am under no illusion that you or Harvard's Board of Trustees would even consider the slightest reprimand against Dr. Kramer for his most offensive call to limit the freedom for Palestinians to procreate lest their population growth translates into future political violence, an argument used effectively for years by Apartheid South Africa.

Dr. Kramer enjoys the protection of rich philanthropic donors to Harvard, Jewish colleagues and superiors, Jewish organizations, and a supportive media.

But, in the larger scheme of education which is the foundation of any civilization is Harvard's mission and responsibility to its students, community, and the world; to teach the truth on any subject or at least present both sides of an argument, to stand up for the principles of freedom and equality for all, for justice, for world peace, constructive dialogue, respect for human life and human rights, respect for the law and due process; or is Harvard akin to all institutions in our capitalistic money corrupted society where special interest groups with money and power determine the content of our education and the extent of our freedoms.. If so, who will speak for and advocate for the voiceless, the invisible poor, the homeless and the oppressed?

This is the issue and challenge for our times. Will we lend an ear and voice for those who have no money to endow chairs, hold no high positions in the government, think tanks, banking and financial institutions, the media and the entertainment industry?

Have we all lost our souls for the expediency and reward of the moment at the expense of others and our future?

Given that our nation's future demographics will result in today's minorities becoming tomorrow's majorities, should we adopt Dr. Kramer's proposal and limit by any means necessary the procreation of our Hispanic, African American and Asian populations?

How will such a future majority impact our relationship with Israel and the power of the Israel Lobby upon our foreign policy?

If Harvard remains silent regarding Dr. Kramer's speech, as I expect it will, perhaps we should recall Elie Wiesel's hypocritical statement:

"Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented."

The famous Harvard graduate John Kennedy once said:

"The great enemy of truth is very often not the lie, deliberate, contrived and dishonest; but the myth, persistent, persuasive and realistic"

How tragic that in Harvard there is no longer a commitment to Veritas or Justice. Fear and the maintenance of the status quo have become the corruptive regressive tools of an outstanding institution denying its bright young minds the dream of a brighter, safer, and peaceful future for this fragile planet.

With all due respect to you, the Board of Trustees, Faculty and students of our beloved Harvard, I remain.

Note: Martin Kramer is Senior Fellow at the Shalem Center in Jerusalem, and President-Designate of Shalem College (in formation). He is also the Wexler-Fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, and National Security Security Studies Program Visiting Scholar at Harvard University.

Dr. Kramer was also former editor of the Middle East Quarterly a publication of the Middle East Forum founded by Daniel Pipes founder of campuswatch.org which "monitors" universities and scholars who teach Middle East Studies. lest they, God forbid, describe Israel in its true historical colors.

http://www.martinkramer.org/sandbox/2010/02/wcfia-at-harvard-accusations-are-baseless/
M. Kramer's blog which contains his speech and the defense of his speech by the Directors of WCFIA at Harvard where he is a Visiting Scholar.

http://www.wcfia.harvard.edu/
Weatherhead Center for International Affairs (WCFIA) at Harvard where Dr. Kramer is described as Visiting Scholar, National Security Studies Program. Former Director, Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies, Tel Aviv University.

From the Electronic Intafada website which brought the issue to the attention of WCFIA at Harvard:

"In her initial response to a query from the Electronic Intifada regarding Dr. Kramer's speech, Professor Beth Simmons, the director of WCFIA, wrote, "I agree with your assessment of the appalling nature of these [Kramer's] statements," but added, "the WCFIA does not have a policy of censoring or censuring our affiliates on the basis of their opinions." Simmons also stated, "I very much hope you bring these [Kramer's] words to the attention of others affiliated with the WCFIA, Harvard and the broader community, where I hope they will garner their just reaction." She encouraged individuals to make their concerns known to Professor Stephen Rosen, who is in charge of the National Security Studies Program of which Kramer is a fellow.

Naturally and as expected the Directors of WCFIA reversed their assessment from "appalling" to defending the "appalling" speech.

http://www.michaelheart.com/songforgaza.htm
PLEASE WATCH this Song by an American Humanitarian Songwriter on GAZA

http://vodpod.com/watch/122002-the-israel-lobby-the-influence-of-aipac-on-us-foreign-policy
Important Dutch Video on Influence of AIPAC on US Foreign Policy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H88gVDrIlPs
UK Channel 4 Video: Inside Britain's Israel Lobby

http://quicksilverscreen.com/watch?video=34545
BBC Panorama Video: THE WAR PARTY, the Neocons Behind Iraq War

http://www.bintjbeil.com/articles/en/011001_hedges.html
Chris Hedges, "A Gaza Diary", Harper's Magazine, October 2001

* Mohamed Khodr is a political activist who frequently writes on the plight of Palestinians living under the brutal occupation of Israel, U.S. Foreign Policy, Islam, and Arab politics.

Illustration by Carlos Latuff

By Paul J. Balles* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

If you indulge in ad hominem attacks (attacking the person rather than the issue), you can expect the same in return. The issues related to the anti-Semitic label are many.

First, the expression "anti-Semitic" is a misnomer. It's defined as "hating Jews or Judeophobia." The label "anti-Semitism" is wrong because not all Jews are Semites, and many Arabs are.

In 2004, the US Congress passed the Global Anti-Semitism Review Act. The Act defines a person as being anti-Semitic for holding any of a number of beliefs. My comments follow each of the 14 items supposedly revealing anti-Semitism.

1) Any assertion, "that the Jewish community controls government, the media, international business and the financial world."

According to this, it doesn't matter whether the assertion is true or not. Truth is not an issue. Simply making such a statement violates the Act. In itself, that fact provides strong evidence of control of the US government.

2) The expression of "Strong anti-Israel sentiment."

Any criticism of Israel can thus be considered anti-Semitic. Israel can mangle Gaza and get away with it.

3) Expressing "Virulent criticism" of Israel's leaders, past or present.

Menachem Begin may have led the Irgun in the slaughter and dispossession of thousands of Palestinians, but it's anti-Semitic to say so.

4) Any criticism of the Jewish religion or its religious leaders with its emphasis on the Talmud and Kabbala.

It's perfectly acceptable, as free speech, to vilify Islam, but any criticism of Judaism violates the Act.

5) Any criticism of the United States Government and Congress for being under the undue influence by the Jewish-Zionist community, which would include Jewish organizations such as AIPAC.

Truth matters not to the ridiculous legislators who passed this ludicrous act.

6) Any criticism of the Jewish-Zionist community for promoting globalism or what some call the "New World Order."

When you can't criticise a propaganda machine for its promotions, both free speech and democracy are dead.

7) Placing any blame on Jewish leaders and their followers for inciting the Roman crucifixion of Christ.

In order to accommodate the anti-Semitism label, simply rewrite history.

8) Citing any facts that could in any way diminish the "six million" figure of Jewish holocaust victims.

I violate the act simply by citing the fact that five million non-Jews died at the hands of the Nazis. This goes beyond stifling free speech.

9) Claiming that Israel is a racist state.

That's not a claim. It's a fact. Israel is full of racist laws. It insists on preserving its racist character and its right to impose apartheid in the West Bank and Gaza.

10) Making any claim that there is a "Zionist Conspiracy."

A rational provision for such a claim would insist on evidence as proof of its validity. To disallow making such a claim is existentially (Israelis love that word) dictatorial.

11) Offering proof that Jews and their leaders created Communism and the Bolshevik revolution in Russia.

It just became illegal to offer proof. Minds are made up. Don't confuse them with the facts.

12) Making derogatory statements about Jewish persons.

Why limit it to Jewish persons?

13) Asserting that spiritually disobedient Jews do not have the Biblical right to re-occupy Palestine.

Why limit it to the spiritually disobedient?

14) Making any allegations of Mossad involvement in the 9/11 attack.

I just did in a column published a week ago.

The Act passed by the US Congress makes me anti-Semitic. It's an unconstitutional violation of the First Amendment to the Constitution. I'm a critic of Israel when they commit wrongs and a critic of America when it does wrong. Despite Congress, that's not anti-Semitic.

* Paul J. Balles is a retired American university professor and freelance writer who has lived in the Middle East for many years. For more information, see http://www.pballes.com.

By Dr. Elias Akleh* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

A fully pre-meditated international crime of genocide has been taking place during the last 62 years in the heart of the Arab World. The victims are the Palestinian people especially those in the Gaza Strip. The assassin is the worst ever terrorist group deceptively called the Israeli Defense Forces under the leadership of the theocratically most racist "god's chosen" deceitfully self-proclaimed "democratic Jewish-only" Israel. Israel had been created, financed, armed, and politically protected by, mainly, British and American rapture-vision-obsessed Talmudist power elites consisting of profit-seeking financiers and military-industrial complex.

In December 2008 this Israeli Terrorist Forces added another war crime to its long list of war crimes against the Palestinians since 1948. One more time the international political community had become an accomplice to one more Israeli war crime either by being a passive silent witness or by becoming an active participant and protector of Israeli war criminals. One more international war crime had been perpetrated against the Palestinians. It is an international crime since multi political regimes; Israeli, American, European and even Arab governments, had joined in this crime that is STILL GOING ON up to this very minute.

For almost the last three years Israel had subjected Gaza to an illegal economic siege, which in itself constitutes a crime against humanity. Israel had, and still is, preventing the entry into Gaza of vital life sustaining products such as food stuff, fuel, medicine and needed medical equipment, water purification equipment and many building materials. This is a genocidal crime using hunger and thirst as weapons.

Starting late December of 2008 and for continuous 22 days Israeli terrorist army had perpetrated a genocidal war crime against Gaza Palestinians. The Israeli army, known to be the fourth powerful army in the world, attacked unarmed civilian Palestinians of Gaza comprising mostly of children, women, and old people. There was no regular army in Gaza to face the well equipped, well trained to murder Israeli army. Only few male civilians, who took it on themselves to carry the light arms they could obtain to resist the Israeli war criminals in order to protect their own families.

The Israeli military radio station announced that half of the Israeli air force had conducted 2500 air sorties dropping a total of 1,000,000 KG of explosives on the civilian families of Gaza. This is not counting the shells fired by the artillery and tanks. They had used high precision GPS-guided bombs to destroy vital locations such as the UN food warehouse and schools, government buildings, hospitals and medical clinics, religious buildings and civilian institutions.

From his observation of the video taped explosions in Gaza, the British weapons expert Dy Williams concluded that the Israeli army had used DIME bombs to guarantee murder of victims, Phosphorous bombs producing 900 centigrade degrees of heat, and DU bombs producing 5,000 centigrade degrees of heat, that is equal to the heat of the sun surface. The Israeli soldiers, themselves, had admitted and boasted to "Breaking The Silence" organization of committing war crimes in Gaza. These included, among many, the deliberate murder of civilians including women and children, using civilians as human shields, shelling homes after hording groups of civilians inside, destroying and vandalizing properties and civilian homes, and writing hate and racial graffiti on walls.

Israeli criminal leaders were not satisfied with mere destruction of Gaza infrastructures, contaminating agricultural land and water, and murdering some 1500 Palestinians. They had carefully chosen the most lethal weapons of mass destruction (WMD) that will cause the death of Palestinians, who survived the attack, and the death of their future born generations. Besides their devastating environmental contamination effects the Israeli bombs were found to have long lasting reproductive toxic, carcinogenic, genotoxic, fetotoxic and pathogenic effects on humans.

A study titled "Craters Gaza 2006/09 and respectively WP Bomb Gaza 2009" published on www.newweapons.org was done by Prof. Mario Barbieri CNR, Rome, Prof. Maurizio Barbieri, University of Rome, and Prof. Paola Manduca, University of Genova. They analyzed dirt samples from four bomb craters in Gaza, and residual components of spent Israeli bombs. Their analyses found unusual concentrations of Molybdenum (male sperm toxicant), copper, nickel, cadmium and Mercury (carcinogenics), Tungsten (genotoxic and fetotoxic), Zinc and Manganese (carcinogenic and fetotoxic) Aluminium (fetotoxic and pathogen affecting nervous system and kidneys), and Cobalt (DNA repair inhibitor and mutagenic).

Even now, after a year of the Israeli barbaric war crimes against Gaza, the Israeli air force bombards life vital centers, while the Israeli army use bulldozers to raze fertile farm lands, destroy crops, and shoot farmers. The Israeli attack boats have become worse than the Somali pirates. They attack and sink Palestinian fishing boats. They fire at, kidnap, and confiscate international humanitarian aid materials loaded on boats of "Free Gaza" organizations.

In a blatant violating of all international laws and a disdain to all humanitarian appeals the terrorist Israeli state had severely tightened its military siege against the Gaza Strip after the end of its last onslaught in January 2009. Palestinians in Gaza are living without clean drinking water, bare minimum food, without electricity, and without the necessary medical supplies. This is a real holocaust. A holocaust is the premeditated plan to exterminate masses of people (such as the 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza), whether through gassing, incendiary phosphorous, DU and WMD bombs, hunger and thirst, or any other means leading to mass death.

Instead of coming to the aid of Palestinians the UN reverted to its old tactic of blaming the Palestinian victims and Ban KI-moon requesting a permanent cease fire. In its meeting the UN had totally ignored the Palestinian elected Hamas government; a major part of this conflict. Rather it listened to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who humiliatingly begged the UN for help, promising to do "everything" to secure peace. In an indirect way he blamed Hamas government and did not even criticize Israel's aggression.

The UNSC issued Resolution 1860 that ignored realities of Israeli genocide of Palestinians, exonerated the Israeli terrorists, blamed the Palestinian victims (as usual) and equated them with the Israeli terrorist army. It stressed the urgency of and called for an immediate durable ceasefire leading to full withdrawal of Israeli forces. It called for efforts to prevent alleged illicit trafficking of arms into Gaza (but not the sale of arms to Israel). Thus denying the Palestinians any means of defending their lives against terrorist Israel. It misrepresented the conflict as a humanitarian crisis by calling the international community to provide humanitarian aid to alleviate the suffering of Gazans. This is not a humanitarian crisis; an Israeli occupation. It is a political conflict with grave humanitarian consequences. This is a genocidal holocaust of 1.5 Palestinians through thirst, starvation and use of WMD. THIS IS BLATANT NAKED WAR CRIMES.

Ban Ki-moon was sent to visit Gaza after the Israeli onslaught. He cared only to check the bombed UN warehouse and schools but not the civilian sufferings. He cared more about buildings than humans. He later expressed his "pleasure" that Israeli leaders had agreed to meet with UN representatives to discuss precautions that further "accidental bombing" of UN facilities could be avoided. Thus meeting with Israeli war criminals has become a UN pleasure. He stated, further, that he would close any investigation into Israel's war crimes.

Whatever Israel bombs and destroys Western donors volunteer to pay for. These donor countries pledged $4.5 Billion for Gaza reconstruction on the condition that such money is paid to Abbas' Palestinian Authority and not Hamas. After a whole year of the onslaught, Gaza Palestinians had never received one cent of that money, and no reconstruction had even started. Most of the money had gone into the private pockets of Abbas' gang and to his security forces.

After the failure of Israeli siege of Gaza and its onslaught on the Strip to destroy the democratically elected Hamas government The Western countries stepped in to produce harsher measures. In February 2009 experts from nine Western countries (US, UK, France, Canada, Germany, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, and Norway) met in Copenhagen to discuss ways of combating alleged weapons smuggling into Gaza. Their main concentration was to use Egypt as a land front to further tighten the siege against Gaza, specifically to target the underground tunnels Gazans use to smuggle in food stuff, goods, and fuel. They also decided to send NATO warships into the Mediterranean, Red Sea, and Persian Gulf to intercept alleged weapon smuggling from Iran to Gaza.

At the end of January 2009 French President Nicolas Sarkozy sent a frigate with helicopters to the waters off Gaza to combat arms smuggling into Palestinian territories. He ordered his Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner to coordinate closely with the US and EU to come up with more effective ways to fight arms smuggling on land and sea. Sarkozy said: "We have pledged to help Israel and Egypt with all the technical, military, naval and diplomatic ways to help end the smuggling of weapons into Gaza."

British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, issued an order to deploy the British Navy to the region to help fight weapons smuggling. "We'll send Royal Navy to help fight weapon smuggling" He stated courageously. Latest British scandal came this month when its Foreign Office Minister Ivan Lewis said that UK is urgently looking into reforming its laws to protect Israeli war criminals, such as Tzibi Levni, from being arrested.

Germany sent end of January border police exports and equipment to detect and destroy tunnels in Gaza Strip. German Deputy Interior Minister, August Hanning, claimed that Egypt had requested the detection equipment and the technical skills.

The newly elected American President at the time Barak Obama had also sent American vessels into the region to board all suspected vessels of smuggling weapons. He also had asked the Gulf States, especially Saudi Arabia, to help combat arms smuggling. The US had sent surveillance cameras and underground sound sensors to Egypt to be installed on the border with Gaza. Recently the US Army Corps of Engineers had constructed treated steel plates and is helping Egypt install them as an underground wall on the Gaza border to prevent tunnel digging.

While denying Palestinians acquire any arms for self defense the US and EU member states are major arms exporters to Israel. According to figures from Brussels the European Union member states authorized the export of €200 million in arms exports to Israel in 2007, with France far and away the Israel's biggest European weapons supplier. According to the EU's 2008 report on arms export licenses, published in December for the 2007 calendar year and consolidating the accounts that member states must annually submit, 18 member states authorized a total of 1,018 such licenses to Israel worth €199,409,348.

The US is the largest arms exporter to Israel. Successive American Administration had sold Israel the latest and most technologically and most devastating weapons. According to Amnesty International the US had provided Israel with $8.3 Billion worth or weapons between 2004 and 2007. In 2002 the US granted Israel $21 Billion worth in military aid. Israel's 2006 war against Lebanon and its 2008/09 war against Gaza were carried using American weapons. Still Obama's administration had delivered late last January 14,000 tons of weapons to Israel delivered by the German cargo ship, Wehr Elbe, to Israeli port of Ashdod. Recently, peace prize winner, President Obama has signed off $2.775 Billion in further defense aid for Israel, a part of the $30 Billion over 10 years. Last Monday 12/21 Obama has approved a defense spending bill that includes $2.2 Million in funds for Israel's missile defense program, more than double what was approved last year. All this while American economy is collapsing, housing crisis is exacerbating, and unemployment rate is rising. It seems for Obama administration the Israeli citizen is more important than the American tax payer. Also refer to my article "Arming Terrorist Israel".

EU and US don't mind breaking their own laws for the sake of arming terrorist Israel. Under Criterion 2 of the EU Code of Conduct on Arms Exports, Member States are supposed to "deny an export license if there is a clear risk that the proposed export might be used for internal repression, or be used in the commission of serious violations of international humanitarian laws". Israel is proved to commit both offenses.

The US breaks three of its own arms export laws; US Arms Export Control Act (P.L. 80-829), Foreign Assistance Act (P.L. 97-195), and the Leahy Law (Foreign Ops Appropriation Act).

With such extraordinary consorted international efforts and the use of such amassed technical and military powers one would imagine that Israel, EU and US are fighting a war against a great global enemy not impoverished and starved civilians trying to survive on a small and narrow war-scorched strip of land. The reality is that this international power is fighting the resisting spirit of these people against colonial occupation. They are afraid that such spirit may spread over and impede their own occupation in the region. To destroy this spirit these Western governments are willing to unconditionally support terrorist Israel financially, militarily and politically, on the expense of their citizens tax payers despite their own economic crises and joblessness.

The worst accomplices in this international crime are the Arab governmental regimes, who are supposed to protect their Palestinian brothers from such a holocaust. Rather than united in one nation, one government, one military, and one economy Arab leaders had, instead, asserted the division of the Sykes-Picot Agreement. Thus they keep themselves weak and vulnerable to foreign occupation, interference and control that can be overtly and covertly seen in almost every Arab state. The Arab League is just a tool to keep the leaders in a chaotic disagreement unable to make any national decision. For the last 61 years they have watched Palestinian land gradually gobbled by the Zionist occupation and had not taken any significant action to free Palestine. Rather they spend their Billion oil money in buying obsolete weapons to rust in the desert. Finally they stopped financing Palestine freedom fighters and surrendered the penniless Palestinian Authority to the merciless manipulation of the pro-Israeli Western donor countries. While some had completely withdrawn from the Arab/Israeli conflict, others like Jordanian and Egyptian regimes had actively contributed to the suppression of all forms of Palestinian resistance against Israeli occupation.

During the Israeli 22 days onslaught on Gaza Arab leaders kept coming up with unreasonable excuses for not convening an urgent summit meeting. When they finally did meet, they, as usual, agreed to disagree on how to deal with the Israeli aggression. They finally begged the UN to interfere. Such delay gave Israelis longer time to murder more Palestinians and destroy more homes.

The Arab League, later on, issued a resolution calling for breaking Israel's siege of Gaza, yet they donated money to Abbas' security forces, controlled by American general Dayton, to oppose the democratically elected Hamas government. Instead of feeding the starving Palestinians in Gaza the League is spending $50 Million to protect the lives of endangered marine turtles on 8000 square meters coast land off Al-Arish in Egypt. What a humanitarian gesture!

Like all colonial puppet local regimes, the present Palestinian Authority, under the leadership of Mahmoud Abbas and his thugs, had hijacked the Palestinian leadership and offered Palestine and its people on the Israeli alter to glorify a genocidal god and his chosen people. My previous articles (here and here) discuss the betrayal of the present Palestinian Authority. This betrayal was recently exposed by Israeli audio and video recording of these so-called Palestinian leaders urging the Israelis to attack Gaza to finish off the elected Hamas government regardless of any Palestinian casualties. Abbas and his PA had also tried to muffle Goldstone's Report about Israel's crime.

Besides crushing dissidents and any form of pro-Palestinian solidarity, Jordan has become a training campground for Abbas' security forces under the supervision of the American General Keith Dayton. Dayton had established a twin sister of the American School of Assassins to suppress Palestinian resistance. It was reported that about four thousands trainees of this School were ready to enter and control Gaza after the anticipated destruction of Hamas government.

Besides suppressing and robbing its own citizens for the last 28 years, Hosni Mubarak's Egyptian regime has played the most active role, second to Israel, in opposing elected Palestinian government and in the destruction of Gaza and starving its people. To ease Mubarak's conscious for participating in such genocide of his Arab brothers his regime is paid a handsome $2 Billion in the form of American Aid.

Mubarak's regime has committed crimes against humanity by fully participating in the Israeli siege against Gaza. Rather than helping the next door homeless and hungry Arab brothers of Gaza Strip the Mubarak's regime preferred to send, last May, an airplane full with humanitarian aid to Sri Lanka on the opposite side of the globe. This regime was a stubborn obstacle in the face of every international solidarity movement and organizations, who tried to break the siege against Gaza. The regime blocked the entry of thousands of tons of badly needed food aid to Gaza; letting them rot in the desert heat, and finally burn them as spoiled food. Under the deceptive banner of "fighting arms smuggling into Gaza" it erected the most sophisticated surveillance equipment to detect and prevent life-sustaining materials delivered to Gaza through tunnels.

This month, December 2009, Egyptian Mubarak's regime, with the help of American Army Corps Engineers, is building an underground steel wall to block tunnel digging, and is running underground pipes to flood the existing tunnels with sea waters.

Egyptian regime has opposed the elected Hamas Palestinian leadership and sided with the Western puppet Abbas, whose presidency has expired. It has sabotaged all reconciliation attempts between the two Palestinian factions by imposing harsh conditions against Hamas government and altering the text of agreements before signature.

The Egyptian policy towards their Palestinian brothers in Gaza, many of whom carry Egyptian citizenship, was reflected in the confession of its Foreign Minister, Ahmad Aboul-Gheti, in 11th of November 2008 when he stated that Egypt was closing Rafah Crossing with Gaza to punish a Palestinian faction (Hamas). Opening the Crossing, in his opinion, constitutes recognition of Hamas' legitimacy.

Unlike the silence over the Holocaust during WWII conscientious citizens of these same international criminal governments are actively mobilized to act against terrorist Israel and the genocidal policies of their governments. Through Breaking Gaza Siege Campaigns many of them, such as Viva Palestina and The Hope convoys, are delivering humanitarian aid to Gaza. They have also organized boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaigns to boycott companies that sustain Israeli occupation on Palestine such as Motorola and Caterpillar, as well as academic and cultural boycott of all Israeli academic and cultural institutions, all of them are supported by the Israeli government. The effects of these campaigns had penetrated the blindly pro-Zionist American congress, where on December 18th Representatives Jim McDermott and Keith Ellison are seeking signature on a "Dear Colleague" letter to President Obama criticizing Israel's siege of Gaza. Representatives Jim Moran and Bob Inglis are also seeking signatures on another "Dear Colleague" letter to Secretary of State Clinton urging her to pressure Israeli government to end the ban on student travel from Gaza to the West Bank.

This week protests are organized in major countries around the world in US, UK, France, Turkey, Ireland, Germany, Spain, Australia, Belgium, Switzerland, Sweden, Canada, Poland, Denmark, Greece, Jordan, and occupied Palestine (Israel), commemorating the first anniversary of the Israeli onslaught against Gaza.

Under the Principle of Universal Jurisdiction we are witnessing Western courts issuing arrest warrants against Israeli leaders (Tzibi Livni) and army generals (former military chief Moshe Yaalon and General Doron Almog) for committing war crimes. International lawyers are filing for more arrest warrants against more Israeli war criminals. Soon Israeli leaders will be chased across the globe as war criminals the same way Israel had chased German Nazis as war criminals.

* Dr. Elias Akleh is an Arab writer from a Palestinian descent born in the town of Beit Jala. His family was first evicted from Haifa after the "Nakba" of 1948, then from Beit Jala after the "Nakseh" of 1967. He lives now in the US, and publishes his articles on the web in both English and Arabic.

When celebrating Christmas, it would be a good idea to think about the birthplace of Jesus. What is like in the Holy Land under the Israeli occupation, injustice and racism? How does Christmas feel when the Holy Land is under siege?

Help bring joy to the Holy Land.
Help break the siege.
Support the Freedom March to Gaza, Holy Land (Palestine).
http://www.gazafreedommarch.org/

Video link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9esPiCxLDZk

The video is self explanatory:

By Cherifa Sirry

Rabbi Ovadia Yosef , spiritual head of Israel's ultra-Orthodox Shas party which forms part of Israel’s ruling coalition, criticized US president Barack Obama on Saturday describing him as "a slave" who rules the world and who wants to control Israeli policy when it comes to building in occupied Jerusalem. In his weekly sermon, Yosef protested that "American insidiousness tells us to build here and not to build there as though we were slaves working for them" then he adds that "We live in a time when slaves are governing us and are trying to control us" refusing the US administration request to stop illegal settlement building on Palestinian occupied territories.

"We are not employees of the Americans.. and Israel does not work for the United States!" asserted Yosef.

The Rabbi then addressed the Haram al Sharif (Dome of the Rock) issue saying: "and where is our temple?! The situation there is cause for grief! There is nothing there but evil Arabs who are occupying our lands... and I hope that the messiah will appear soon to destroy them."

An Israeli government official has publicly insulted the president of the United States and US Zionist controlled media has of course kept a lid on the story. Israeli apartheid and racism is no longer just confined to us 'evil Arabs', it now goes all the way to the president of the United States. While criticizing and insulting the American president is of no consequence to Israelis, criticizing Israel or the Jews is of course unacceptable, "anti-Semitic" and can even lead to legal procedures in the US and Europe. Even the FBI last week has been accused of being "anti-Semitic" for having arrested a few Rabbis in New Jersey. Will Americans allow Israelis to call the US president "a slave" without so much as asking for an official apology from the Israeli government? When will Americans learn how to speak other languages in order not to be at the mercy of politicized Zionist-controlled media?

This is the Arabic source (newspaper) from which I got the text of Ovadia's sermon and translated it. I hoped that a correct English translation would appear somewhere in the past two days, but it didn't, so I translated the text.

http://www.almasry-alyoum.com/article2.aspx?ArticleID=220414&IssueID=1479

Al Masry Al Youm No. 1870 Monday 27-7-2009 p. 16 (source for Ovadia Yosef’s sermon text)

Additional sources:

Rabbi Ovadia slams US: We're not their slaves
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3752180,00.html

"'You can't build here, you can't build there' – it's as if we were their slaves," the rabbi protested. "We are being ruled by slaves," he said," adding that, "Our messiah will come and throw them out."

Israel religious party hits out at US over settlements
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5i6Vdh2CQB36SvflWbJ_PVxw63J_A

"What right do they have to tell us 'here you can build, here you can't build,'" Rabbi Ovadia Yosef said in his weekly sermon, excerpts of which were re-aired on Sunday by Israeli radios.

"We are not their slaves," he said.

It marked the latest swipe in Israel at US President Barack Obama's administration over its repeated demands that the Jewish state stop all settlement activity in the occupied West Bank including annexed east Jerusalem.

The demands have created tensions between the two close allies not seen in years.

Born in Iraq in 1920, Yosef is a former Sephardic chief rabbi of Israel and a controversial figure who has in the past referred to Arabs and Palestinians as "snakes" and "vipers" who were "swarming like ants."

Rabbi Ovadia Attacks Obama's Policy
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/Flash.aspx/168505

Rabbi Yosef said in his weekly Saturday night lecture, "They're telling us not to build here, not to build there – as if we're their servants. Servants are ruling over us. The holy Messiah will come and disperse them." Rabbi Yosef continued, "Only Torah study will bring and draw near the Messiah. Nothing else will help. Not a high school diploma nor [knowledge of] literature."