Pro-Zionism: Defending the Indefensible. By Stephen Lendman

Via: MWC News: A Site Without Borders.

This article responds to a March 15 Los Angeles Times Judea Pearl one headlined: “Is anti-Zionism hate?” Pearl teaches computer science at UCLA, is the father of slain journalist Daniel Pearl, and president of the Daniel Pearl Foundation. It was “formed….to continue Danny’s mission and to address the root causes of this tragedy in the spirit” of the man it represents, including “uncompromised objectivity and integrity….and respect for people of all cultures….”

Some of its honorary board member belie this purpose:

– former president Bill Clinton, an unindicted war criminal and backer of neoliberal plunder;

– Elie Wiesel, a shameless self-promoter, “Holocaust” exploiter, and apologist for the most outrageous Israeli crimes;

– Jordan’s Queen Noor, wife of King Abdullah II, who, like his father Hussein, rules with dictatorial police state powers; and

– Christiane Amanpour and Ted Koppel, two notables in the corporate media who never let facts conflict with their views and support for the powerful.

Pearl calls anti-Zionism “hate more dangerous than anti-Semitism, threatening lives and peace in the Middle East.” Zionism is precisely the opposite as numerous Jewish writers, including this one, have addressed.

In his book “Overcoming Zionism,” Joel Kovel explained how it fosters “imperialist expansion and militarism (with) signs of the fascist malignancy;” that it turned Israel “into a machine for the manufacture of human rights abuses” led by terrorists posing as democrats. Kovel’s book and his work got him fired from the Bard College faculty effective July 1 when his current contract expires – for daring to criticize Israel, its Zionist ideology, state-sponsored terror, and decades of lawlessness and egregious behavior.

Kenya: End Abuse and Neglect of Somali Refugees

Via: Human Rights Watch.

Government and Donors Should Urgently Address Refugee Crisis

(Nairobi) – Hundreds of thousands of Somali refugees in Kenya face abuse by corrupt and violent police and a rapidly growing humanitarian emergency in the world’s largest refugee settlement, Human Rights Watch said in a new report released today. Kenya should immediately rein in abusive police and grant new land for additional camps, while the United Nations and international donors should urgently respond to Somali refugees’ basic needs.

The 58-page report, “From Horror to Hopelessness: Kenya’s Forgotten Somali Refugee Crisis,” documents the extortion, detention, violence, and deportation at the hands of the Kenyan police faced by a record number of Somalis entering Kenya. The new refugees are joining over a quarter of a million fellow refugees struggling to survive in camps designed for one-third that number.

“People escaping violence in Somalia need protection and help, but instead face more danger, abuse, and deprivation,” said Gerry Simpson, refugee researcher at Human Rights Watch and author of the report. “Somali asylum seekers should be able to cross the border safely and get the aid in Kenya they urgently need.”

Planning for Failure in Afghanistan. By Col. Sam Gardiner

Via: Foreign Policy In Focus.

It’s official. President Barack Obama now fully owns the war in Afghanistan. Standing alongside his military advisors and in front of the Washington press corps, he outlined a plan with “a clear and focused goal: to disrupt, dismantle and defeat al-Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan.” While the goal and the five objectives to meet this goal are clear, they’re also unattainable and will likely result in the U.S. (and NATO) being trapped in the region for decades to come.

Searching for a solution in Afghanistan and Pakistan, in 2007, the National Security Council Principals Committee reexamined and reset U.S. objectives for Afghanistan. These essentially boiled down to establishing a democracy and a working capitalist state in which women were well-treated. With the military set to take the lead or a main support role to achieve these objectives, there was no way they could be achieved and, more importantly, there was no indication of when such a mission would be finished.

The Arab family divided. By Sami Moubayed

Via Asia Times Online.

DAMASCUS – The “Arab Family” was due to hold its 21st summit on Monday in Doha. But Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak s decision not to show up – made late on Saturday – has put a damper on the hopes of Arab and Western observers. Not only has Mubarak – the second-longest Arab leader in office after Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi – decided not to attend but in his place he has sent a low-key official rather than the prime minister or the foreign minister. In some ways Mubarak is snubbing the Arab family throwing sand in the eyes of the Qataris by intentionally trying to drown a summit that Doha wants to be a success. Because of the weight that Egypt carries Mubarak feels that he can get away with it and obstruct any resolutions made in Doha vis-a-vis the future of Hamas controlled Gaza.

If anything, this is testimony to how deep the divisions are between Egypt and Qatar, partly over the latter’s decision to invite Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad to the summit. While Egypt supports the West Bank government of the pro-Western Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas, Qatar is allied with Syria and Iran behind the Hamas-led government in Gaza.

Israel’s Ethnic Cleansing Policy and Land Day: Palestinian Uprising and Resistance. By Ahmad Jaradat

Via: Alternative Information Center.

On March 30, 1976, six young Palestinians were killed and dozens injured in mass demonstrations that took place in many towns and villages.  Twenty-eight years before, Palestinians lost 78% of their land to the Zionists during the months before and after Israel declared itself a State in 1948.   Not until 1966 did Palestinians, who remained in what became Israel, receive citizenship, living under military rule in the 20 year interim, much like Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza live today.  These years were marked by continued land theft and the activation of Israel’s policy of “Judeazation” of the Galilee, and other areas where indigenous Palestinians remained on their lands.

The State of Israel continues its policies of land theft.  But on this day, March 30th 1976, Palestinians took to the streets to protest Israel’s land confiscations orders. They were met by police and soldiers who opened fire on protesters, killing six of them and injuring many others.

The brave young men who were killed, and the many others who continue to protest Israel’s policies of land confiscation, have done more than fight for their rights and the rights of all Palestinians.  They have revealed the true face of Israel; a racist state whose aim, carried out through its policies of land confiscation, is to ethnically cleanse the land of all Palestinians, including Palestinians who are now citizens of Israel.

The Obama Government: Take From the Poor and Give to the Rich. By Ann Robertson

Via: Global Research.

These past several weeks have witnessed a stunning attack on working people, with the Obama administration leading the charge.

It started with Larry Summers, Obama’s chief economic adviser, responding to the A.I.G. bonuses by pontificating about the sanctity of contracts: “We are a country of law. There are contracts. The government cannot just abrogate contracts.” Like a mad dog pursuing its prey, he pounced on the conclusion that absolutely nothing could be done about the bonuses. Unfortunately, Summers voiced no similar outcry when the Obama administration, only weeks earlier, insisted that the U.A.W. contracts be renegotiated as a condition for the auto industry receiving a bailout, suggesting that a different set of rules applies to the rich than to the rest of us who constitute the majority and work for a living.

However, when a public uproar swept the country in response to these bonuses, many of which were ear-marked for the financial wizards who helped drive the economy over the cliff, the Obama administration executed a hasty about-face. Suddenly, they too were “outraged,” along with everyone in Congress who wanted to keep alive any chance of re-election.

China accused over global computer spy ring. By Dan Glaister

Via: The Guardian.

• Dalai Lama and foreign ministries bugged
• Cambridge researchers point finger at Beijing

An enormous electronic espionage programme run from servers in China has been used to spy on computers in more than 100 countries, according to two reports published at the weekend.

The reports, published by the universities of Cambridge and Toronto, detail a “murky realm” where cyber spooks infiltrate email, take over humble desktop computers and use them to spy on organisations, individuals and governments.

The reports name the system GhostNet, and claim that it has been used to attack governments in south and south-east Asia as well as the offices of the Dalai Lama. In two years, the reports suggest, the operation infiltrated 1,295 computers in 103 countries.

It is now impossible to trust any ‘official’ inquiry into Iraq. By Yasmin Alibhai-Brown

Via: The Independent.

The Government seems to have institutionalised duplicity

I watched a report on Fallujah last week on Sky News by Lisa Holland for which she deserves our gratitude and a top television award. It featured a quietly spoken Iraqi neo-natal specialist, Dr Muntaha Hashim, who is finding that in that town, bombed and collectively punished by the allies, there has been a massive increase in the number of deformed babies. Dr Hashim sees children with two heads – one, a young girl with bountiful hair was curled up on a bed – and others limbless, or born without vital organs. The number has doubled since the days of Saddam.

Some unidentified chemical weaponry is responsible. Pro-war politicians, dodgy spooks, spin doctors and unrepentant media warriors such as Christopher Hitchens still claim triumphantly the war was a victory of good over evil. Their own offspring will not be born with two heads and, they must believe, Iraqis are paying but a small price for ‘freedom’.

Banning Galloway Mocks Canada’s Criminal Code. By William A. Cook

via: The Palestine Chronicle.

Canada’s border security officials and Jason Kenny, the immigration minister, banned George Galloway, MP for Bethnal Green and Bow, from Canada where he was scheduled to speak in Toronto on the 30th. “A spokesman for Citizenship and Immigration Canada said the decision … was based on a ‘number of factors’ in accordance with section 34 (1) of the country’s immigration act” (Guardian.co.uk 3/20/09). This action denies Galloway entrance as a foreign national on security grounds for one or more of 6 reasons including “engaging in terrorism,” and “engaging in acts of violence that would or might endanger the lives or safety of persons in Canada.” The CJC, the Canadian Jewish Congress, supporting the decision, noted that it should be seen as an “issue of security law, not a dispute over free speech” (Mar. 27, 2009, Montreal Gazette). Indeed, other Jewish organizations like the League of Human Rights of B’nai B’rith, not only supported the action but took some credit for the banning of Galloway.

Galloway’s talk, “Resisting War from Gaza to Kandahar,” sponsored by the Toronto Coalition to Stop the War, would have provided Canadians with a first hand account of conditions in Gaza following Israel’s invasion and destruction of that walled in strip of Palestinian land during the three week war from December 27 to January 18, 2009. Galloway is one of a handful of foreigners to see the devastation that others could glimpse only from You Tube videos made available through Al Jazeera news service. All western journalists were banned from Gaza by Israel’s IDF. Galloway led a convoy of trucks from England to Gaza carrying relief provisions for the people. The convoy entered Gaza just over a week ago.

This Crisis of Capitalism Is Not All Bad News. By Jayati Ghosh

Via: The Monthly Review.

I think that what we’re going through now — which is really just starting, we’re nowhere in the middle of it yet either, I think — is much bigger and more extensive than the Great Depression.  There are particular difficulties of fixing it because of the fact that it is bigger, it is more global, and the inter-linkages are greater. . . .  The reason why it’s so difficult to fix this time around is because there are three simultaneous imbalances that are finally — shall we say — expressing themselves beyond repair.  These imbalances, people have known about them for a while, everyone, even the mainstream, has been noting and talking about them, but each one of them has been sort of dealt with on a separate track, and now everything is imploding at the same time — exploding and imploding, both actually.

The first imbalance is kind of obvious — it’s between finance and the real economy.  It’s very clear that finance became of course this haven for speculative activities, but I think what was more significant is the extent of financialization of all economic activities everywhere meant that everyone is implicated.  So whether you’re talking about pensioners in Malaysia or municipalities in Norway, everyone’s real income is affected by the generalized collapse of finance.  Now, it’s also true that, therefore, as a result, the problems that are emerging are a bit of a bottomless pit.  Every day brings additional problems, and of course, because of what’s called a “counterparty risk,” the risk that people you are dealing with may actually not be able to repay, or have further problems that they cannot handle, that is now so extensive that nobody really knows how this can be resolved.  I don’t think we are anywhere near seething this fully play out.  I think it’s very clear that eventually it’s not just that finance has to be controlled but banking will have to be nationalized, and I do believe that, within a few years, we’ll see nationalized banking throughout the core capitalist countries and probably in many developing countries as well, simply because there’s no option.  Banking today is untenable the way it’s done, so just to get it back on the rails, there will have to be some amount of social control over it.

Economic Boycott of Israel Works: 21% of Israeli Exporters Affected

21% of Israeli exporters have been directly affected by the boycott movement since the beginning of 2009. So reports today (29 March) The Marker, a Hebrew-language economic newspaper.

This number is based on a poll of 90 Israeli exporters in fields such as high tech, metals, construction materials, chemistry, textile and foods. The poll was conducted in January-February 2009 by the Israeli Union of Industrialists.

The AIC is working to receive a copy of this poll, and will translated and distribute relevant sections of it in service of the global boycott movement.

via Alternative Information Center.

Biberman & Co. By Uri Avnery

IS THIS the government of Biberman (Bibi Netanyahu and Avigdor Liberman) or perhaps of Bibarak (Bibi and Ehud Barak)?

Neither. It is the government of Bibiyahu.

Binyamin Netanyahu has proven that he is a consummate politician. He has realized the dream of every politician (and theatergoer): a good place in the middle. In his new government he can play off the fascists on the right against the socialists on the left, Liberman’s secularists against the orthodox of Shas. An ideal situation.

The coalition is large enough to be immune from blackmail by any of its component parties. If some Labor members break coalition discipline, Netanyahu will still command a majority. Or if the rightists make trouble. Or if the orthodox try to stick a knife in his back.

This government is committed to nothing. Its written “Basic Guidelines” – a document signed by all partners of a new Israeli government – are completely nebulous. (And anyhow, Basic Guidelines are worthless. All Israeli governments have broken their agreed Basic Guidelines without batting an eyelid. They always prove to be rubber checks.)