Running out of steam in Afghanistan?

What happens to left over countries and left over wars when the US public gets tired of them? Vietnam was one example. Iraq might be a second example. And now Afghanistan. Will Obama be remembered as another President with an unpopular war - that would be ironic, no? See Gauging US policy: Afghanistan and Iraq.

 

Ami Isseroff

Rafsanjani capitulates

The latest news from Iran is that the Ayatollah who had the best chance of opposing the fraudulent election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has apparently capitulated. Ali Akbar Rafsanjani, reversing his earlier stance, has urged the political factions to follow the orders of supreme leader Ali Khameinei, who supports Ahmadinedjad. De facto recognition of Ahmadinejad by the United States and brutal government crackdowns probably convinced Rafsanjani that the "election" is a done deal and there is no point in continuing the fight. The bad guys one. It's official. BBC calls this "reconiciliation."

 

Ami Isseroff

 

Rafsanjani in 'conciliatory' move 
 
The influential former leader has defied calls to back the disputed election
Former President Ali Akbar Rafsanjani has urged Iran's political factions to follow orders from the supreme leader, in an apparent conciliatory move.

 

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has endorsed the disputed re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in June, but Mr Rafsanjani has backed the opposition.

 

Correspondents say his statement seems to contradict a speech last month when he said the country was in crisis.

 

Official news agency Irna said he has also called for action to foster unity.

 

At least 4,000 people were arrested in protests following last month's election, alleging the result was rigged. Hundreds still remain in jail.

 

'Creating unity'

 

"[Mr Rafsanjani] referred to the observance of the guidelines set by the supreme leader and confronting lawbreakers as a necessity under the present conditions," Irna reported after a meeting of Iran's Expediency Council, the country's top political arbitration body, which he chairs.

 

Irna said he also called for "sympathy between officials and the public as a necessity for the country's passage from the current domestic problems and for confronting the problems created by foreigners".

 

He also reportedly reiterated a call to politicians and the media to "avoid stirring schisms... and take steps toward the creation of unity".

 

The comments appeared to be in contrast with a hard-hitting sermon he delivered on 17 July, when he declared the Islamic Republic to be in crisis and demanded an end to the arrests of moderates following the election.

 

Shortly after that sermon, clerics had called on Mr Rafsanjani to show more support for Ayatollah Khamenei.

How IAEA 'improves' nuclear data from Iran to fit their conception

Here is a detailed analysis of how the IAEA has been busy carefully hiding and obscuring evidence that Iran is building nuclear weapons. (see  Claim - IAEA hides evidence of Iranian Nuke activity).

 

Last update - 06:34 19/08/2009       
ANALYSIS / Israel, U.S. lost faith in IAEA long ago
By Yossi Melman, Haaretz Correspondent

 

If the International Atomic Energy Agency is indeed concealing information obtained by its inspectors about a secret Iranian nuclear weapons program, it would come as no big surprise. In recent years, IAEA headquarters in Vienna has been flooded with rumors and hints about the inspectors having obtained evidence that would embarrass Iran. But the IAEA repeatedly either excluded this evidence from its reports or downplayed it by using vague language and barely comprehensible jargon intending more to conceal than to reveal.

 

The IAEA reports on Iran, which have been published quarterly for six years now, repeatedly detailed Tehran's efforts to hide information, impede the inspectors' work and deny them access to nuclear sites, in defiance of its agreements with the agency. Nevertheless, the reports never state that these actions might indicate an attempt to hide a nuclear weapons program.

 

The report-writing process is essentially bureaucratic. Inspectors examine any sites to which they are granted access, take soil, water or plant samples and bring them back to Vienna, where the samples undergo laboratory analysis. The inspectors then write a report and submit it to the head of the IAEA's inspection department, known as the Department of Safeguards, who passes it on to IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei.

 

Then, the editing begins, with ElBaradei and his legal advisors playing a key role. They seek to blur the inspectors' harsher findings and conclusions and smooth any sharp edges. Ultimately, he has the last word, and the ambiguous, conciliatory reports on Iran reflect his management style and worldview.

 

The Department of Safeguards is headed by a Finn, Olli Heinonen, who is ElBaradei's deputy. It is no secret that Heinonen does not see eye to eye with his boss. There have been many cases in which he would have preferred the reports use to clear, unequivocal language, and he has said so periodically.

 

But like any good diplomat, he accepts the ElBaradei's decisions, even if with gritted teeth.

 

Israel and other Western countries lost confidence in ElBaradei years ago. As a result, Israel, the United States and Britain have all refused to give the IAEA sensitive intelligence, for fear that ElBaradei would leak it to Iran, thereby exposing their intelligence gathering methods and their sources.

 

For years, Israel sought to avoid escalating its conflict with ElBaradei, and therefore refrained from criticizing him in public. Over the last year, however, it has removed the gloves, and its Atomic Energy Commission has issued several harshly critical public statements.

 

Nevertheless, it is not clear that Israel will be happy with his replacement, either. A few weeks ago, in one of his first public statements after being chosen to succeed ElBaradei, Japanese diplomat Yukiya Amano reiterated ElBaradei's stance that the IAEA has no evidence to support the claim that Iran is developing nuclear weapons.

Iranian reformer Karoubi wants to present evidence protestors were raped

Iran reformer says he wants to present rape evidence

Wed Aug 19, 2009 5:53am EDT

 

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iranian reformist cleric Mehdi Karoubi on Wednesday asked to meet top officials including the president to be able to present evidence of the rape of some detained post-election protesters, his party said.

The Etemad-e Melli website said Karoubi made the call in a letter to parliament speaker Ali Larijani, who has dismissed Karoubi's rape allegations last week as "baseless."

The meeting should be attended by Larijani, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, judiciary chief Ayatollah Sadeq Larijani, former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and the state prosecutor, Karoubi said.

"I ask you to organize a meeting ... in which I can personally present my documents and evidence over the cases of sexual abuse in some prisons," Karoubi said in the letter.

"I am waiting for your quick and rational action," he added.

Karoubi, who came fourth in the disputed June 12 presidential election, has come under fire from hardliners for saying some protesters, both men and women, were raped in jail.

Some have called for Karoubi to be arrested or tried if he failed to prove his allegations. Karoubi says he has evidence of mistreatment of detainees. Last Thursday, he said some of those arrested were killed under torture.

Opposition leader Mirhossein Mousavi, who came second in the vote, on Tuesday lent support to Karoubi and accused "establishment agents" of raping and abusing detainees, according to the reformist website mowjcamp.com.

"I praise your courage and hope the other clerics join and strengthen your efforts," Mousavi said in a letter to Karoubi.

Mousavi and Karoubi say the election was rigged to secure hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's re-election. Ahmadinejad and his allies deny it.

Iran arrested thousands of people after the election during its worst street unrest since the Islamic revolution three decades ago.

At least 200 people remain in jail, including senior moderate politicians, activists, lawyers and journalists. Iran has this month staged three mass trials against detainees.

"I tried to make the events related to the election more transparent and to defend the people's rights through my statements and letters," Karoubi said in his letter to Larijani.

"But unfortunately I did not receive a proper response ... Police, security and paramilitary officials insisted on their own firm position," he said.

The poll and its turbulent aftermath have plunged Iran into its biggest internal crisis since the 1979 Islamic revolution, exposing deepening divisions within its ruling elite and also further straining relations with the West.

Ahmadinejad is expected later on Wednesday to present a cabinet to parliament for approval but may get a rough ride from the conservatives who dominate the assembly, as well as from his moderate foes who see his next government as illegitimate.

(Reporting by Reza Derakhshi; writing by Fredrik Dahl; editing by Richard Balmforth)

Bombshell or real bomb? Claim - IAEA hides evidence of Iranian Nuke activity

The claim is that the IAEA censored "inconvenient" evidence of Iranian nuclear development. If there is anything to this report, it is very, very serious - not just for Iran.  It means that there can never be any certainty at all about nuclear activities in any country because the inspection system, in addition to its other many and known limitations, is corrupt and influenced by politics or "conceptions" or wishful thinking. It makes the entire anti-proliferation scheme completely worthless. It means that intelligence gathering, rather than looking at data and then drawing conclusions, starts to gather data to satisfy a preconceived concept, and to ignore the ominous signs that it is wrong. That is the sort of error - being locked into a "conception" - that allowed the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor and the surpise of the Yom Kippur war.

 

IAEA in the nature of things may well deny the report. They could not afford such a damaging admission. We can never know, until it is too late, if their denial is the truth.

 

Ami Isseroff  

 

Last update - 02:17 19/08/2009       
Sources: UN watchdog hiding evidence of Iran nukes program
By Barak Ravid, Haaretz Correspondent

 

The world's nuclear weapons watchdog is hiding data on Iran's drive to obtain nuclear arms, senior Western diplomats and Israeli officials told Haaretz.

 

The officials and diplomats said that the International Atomic Energy Agency under Director General Mohamed ElBaradei was refraining from publishing evidence obtained by its inspectors over the past few months that indicate Iran was pursuing information about weaponization efforts and a military nuclear program.

 

ElBaradei, who will soon vacate his post, has said that the agency does not have any evidence that suggests Iran is developing a nuclear weapon.
 
But the sources told Haaretz that the new evidence was submitted to the IAEA in a classified annex written by its inspectors in the Islamic Republic. The report was said to have been signed by the head of the IAEA team in Iran.

 

The classified report, according to the sources, was not incorporated into the agency's published reports. The details, they said, were censored by senior officials of the IAEA in the organization's Vienna headquarters.

 

American, French, British and German senior officials have recently pressured ElBaradei to publish the information next month in a report due to be released at the organization's general conference.

 

"We expect the details to appear in the new report and to be made public," a senior Western diplomat told Haaretz.

 

The efforts to release the allegedly censored report is being handled in Israel by Dr. Shaul Horev, director general of the Israel Atomic Energy Commission, and the Foreign Ministry. Asked about this sensitive subject, several Israeli diplomats declined to comment. The Prime Minister's Bureau also declined to comment, but the report was not denied.

 

Israel has been striving to pressure the IAEA through friendly nations and have it release the censored annex. It hopes to prove that the Iranian effort to develop nuclear weapons is continuing, contrary to claims that Tehran stopped its nuclear program in 2003. A confirmation of these suspicion would oblige the international community to enact "paralyzing sanctions" on Iran.

 

Throughout his term, Israel has accused ElBaradei of not tackling the Iranian nuclear issue with sufficient determination. As the end of his term in December nears, Israeli diplomats are concerned that he will become less responsive and continue to hide the classified report.

 

Jerusalem is hoping, however, that his successor, Japanese diplomat Yukiya Amano, will take up a tougher line on the Iranian nuclear program.

 

In its recent references to Iran, the IAEA criticized Iran for barring inspectors from its nuclear facilities, but did not accuse Tehran of developing nuclear weapons. Most of the reports were concerned with efforts to enrich uranium or to produce heavy water, without making conclusions as to where these resources might be applied.

 

The international community is expected to examine the issue of nuclear proliferation during three major international conferences over the next six months.

 

On September 14, the IAEA general convention will commence in Vienna, where the next report on the Iranian nuclear program will be officially presented.

 

On September 24, the UN Security Council will meet for a special discussion of weapon control and nuclear weapons proliferation, at the initiative of U.S. President Barack Obama. Obama is also calling an international conference on the security of nuclear installations in Washington on March 9, 2010.

The 14 Lies Blocking Peace in the Middle East **MUST READ**

 

Israel's enemies around the world have poisoned the debate with their smoke and mirrors.

The 14 Lies Blocking Peace in the Middle East
By: Steven Plaut
FrontPageMagazine.com
Friday, August 14, 2009
http://frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=35869

If a Martian were suddenly to land on earth and start listening to and reading the mainstream media, he would form the impression that the entire Middle East conflict were due to Israel building some settlements in land that much of the world thinks should become a Palestinian state. A near-consensus exists among the governments of the world and among media writers that peace has yet to break out in the Middle East because of three principle reasons. The first is that the Jews and the Arabs have been unable to agree about whether there should be a Palestinian state. The second is because Israel has obstinately refused to withdraw its troops from (so-called) "occupied Arab" lands. The third is because Israel behaves cruelly towards the Palestinians.

The Martian could easily carry these beliefs back to its home planet, as long as it did not bother to learn the background and the history of the Middle East conflict. Those three reasons cannot survive an antibiotic of familiarity with Middle East history.

President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton seem to think the idea of Palestinian statehood is the most wonderful idea to come along since the Thirteenth Amendment. And almost all world politicians, along with the Israeli Left, insist that all Israeli settlements must be removed from the West Bank because they serve as the main obstacle to peace. The reality is that the Middle East conflict has very little to do with debate over Palestinian statehood and even less to do with Israeli "settlements." In fact Israel has agreed in principle, somewhat foolishly, to the erection of such a Palestinian state, at least subject to some security conditions and other concessions from the Palestinians -- like recognizing Israel's right to exist. As it turns out, even so-called "moderate" Palestinians reject any such idea.

Meanwhile debate about the Middle East conflict is based on an incredible absence of historic information and on a series of stylish misconceptions about Middle East history. The anti-Israel Lobby, which grows by the day in its maliciousness and anti-Semitism, counts on the ignorance of much of the public concerning how the Middle East got to where it is.

Here are just a handful of popular misconceptions and their antidotes:

1. Falsehood: Israel was erected on land that belonged to Palestinian Arabs.

Truth: Before Israel was created its territory never belonged to Palestinian Arabs and had not been ruled by any Arabs at all since the Middle Ages. It had been a Turkish province for centuries until it was captured by Britain during World War I. The League of Nations awarded governance of "Palestine" to Britain at the end of the war in exchange for its commitment to turn the area into a Jewish homeland. The lands on which Jewish immigrants settled before Israel was created were purchased by Jews at above-market prices and in most cases had no Arabs living on them. Virtually no Arabs were evicted.

2. Falsehood: The Jews came to Palestine as foreigners and aliens whereas the Palestinians were the indigenous people of the territory.

Truth: Jews lived in "Palestine," which is the Land of Israel or "Eretz Yisroel," continuously from the time of the Bible. Most families of "Palestinians" migrated into "Palestine," during the same period as the Zionist waves of immigration, starting in the second half of the 19th century. The largest ethnic group in the country at the time was the Turks. The "Palestinian Arabs" in 1948 were primarily families of migrants from Lebanon and Syria. Ironically, they were motivated to become "Palestinians" in the first place thanks to the Zionist movement, which brought capital and labor into "Palestine" and improved living conditions there. Huge numbers of the names of "Palestinian" Arab villages and towns are slightly-modified Hebrew names. It is difficult to dig in the ground of "Palestine" without uncovering Jewish artifacts, some thousands of years old. Meanwhile, two-thirds of Mandatory Palestine's territory had been sliced off in the 1920s and used to set up Jordan, an Arab Palestinian state much larger than Israel. The remaining territory, Western Palestine, was to become the Jewish homeland. That was the original "two-state solution," the same "innovation" now being promoted for the Western third of the remaining part of Palestine.

3. Falsehood: There is no Palestinian state today because of Israeli aggression and obstinacy.

Truth: There is no Palestinian state today because of Arab aggression and obstinacy. In late 1947, the United Nations approved by a two thirds majority a proposal to in Western "Palestine" two states to replace the British Mandatory regime there. One would be Jewish and the other a Palestinian Arab state. The Jews agreed. The Arabs rejected the idea. The Arab states launched an attack of genocidal aggression against the Jews, invaded "Palestine" and gobbled up the lands earmarked for the Arab Palestinian state. Most of those lands were then held illegally by Jordan and semi-legally by Egypt until 1967 when they were liberated by Israel in the Six Day War. The Arab world has maintained a state of war with Israel since 1948, refusing to recognize its legitimacy, and attacking Israel over and over in a series of wars and terrorism campaigns. The Arab states attacked Israel in 1948, 1956, 1967, 1973, 1982, 2006, and sponsored terrorist atrocities against Jews in Israel since it was created. The reason for the attack which produced the first Arab-Israeli war in 1948 is exactly the same thing that stands in the way of any real peace settlement today.

4. Falsehood: Israel conducted "ethnic cleansing" of the Palestinian Arabs in 1948-49.

Truth: The Arab states conducted ethnic cleansing of Jews after 1948. About a million Jews were expelled by Arab states, their property stolen, and most then became citizens of Israel. Palestinian Arabs became refugees in 1948-49 as a direct result of the Arab war of aggression against Israel, in which the Palestinians participated. The estimated number of such Arab refugees varies between 400,000 and 750,000, with the former the more likely correct estimate. Afterwards, many were quietly allowed to return to Israel. Hundreds of thousands of Arabs from other Arab countries then declared themselves "Palestinian refugees" in order to get handouts from the UN and other international relief organizations. The actual Palestinian Arabs became refugees for the same reason that ethnic Germans living in Eastern Europe became refugees after World War II: because they were on the losing side of the war of aggression launched by their own political leaders.

5. Falsehood: Israel is an apartheid regime and mistreats Arabs.

Truth: Israel is the only Middle East country that is NOT an apartheid regime. Arabs living under Israeli rule are the only Arabs in the Middle East who enjoy freedom of speech and of the press, free access to courts operating with due process, legal protection for property rights and the right to vote. Israeli Arabs have higher standards of education and health than any other group of Arabs in the Middle East. Israeli Arabs are quite simply the best-treated political minority in the Middle East and are in some ways better treated than are minority groups in many European countries. Israel is the only country in the Middle East that does NOT deal with Islamist terror through wholesale massacres of the people in whose midst the terrorists operate

6. Falsehood: Arabs engage in aggression and terrorism because Israel occupies territories.

Truth: Israel occupies territories (that had been controlled by Jordan and Egypt before 1967) because of Arab aggression and terrorism. Had the Arabs made peace with Israel after 1949, the West Bank and Gaza would have remained under the hegemony of Arabs and they could easily have erected a Palestinian Arab state there any time they wished. Instead, they attacked Israel in an attempt at genocidal extermination in 1967 and they lost.

7. Falsehood: The Middle East conflict is and has always been based on Israeli opposition to Palestinian self-determination.

Truth: The Middle East conflict is and has always been based on Arab opposition to Israeli-Jewish self-determination. There is one and only one cause of the Arab-Israeli conflict, even if that single cause is buried beneath an avalanche of media mud designed to obfuscate and confuse. That single cause is the refusal of the Arab world to come to terms with Israel's existence within any set of borders whatsoever. The cause of the war is Arab refusal to come to terms with Jewish self-determination in any form whatsoever. The Middle East conflict is not about the right of self-determination of "Palestinian Arabs," but rather it is about the Arab rejection of self-determination for Israeli Jews. For a century, the Arabs have attempted to block Jewish self-determination, using violence.

No Palestinians before 1967 demanded any "homeland," although they did demand that the Jews be stripped of theirs. That is because Palestinians are not a "people" at all and do not consider themselves such, any more than do the Arabs of Paris or of Detroit. Palestinians never had any real interest in their own state, and in fact rioted violently in 1920 when "Palestine" was detached from Syria by the European powers. Indeed the original term "Nakba" ("catastrophe" in Arabic and in leftist NewSpeak) was coined to refer to the outrage of Palestinians separated from their Syrian homeland. Immediately after the Six Day War a sudden need for a Palestinian state was fabricated by the Arab world, as a gimmick to force Israel back to its pre-1967 borders. Israel would then again be ten-miles wide at its narrowest, and so prepped for the new Arab assault of annihilation and genocide.

The Arab world invented the "Palestinian people" so that it would serve the same role as the Sudeten Germans did in the late 1930s. That role was to provide a pretense of legitimacy for the war aims and aggression of a large fascist power. The term "self-determination" has been repeated as a rhetorical "inalienable right" for so long that few people recall that pursuing "self-determination" can also serve as a tool of aggression by barbarous aggressors and totalitarian powers. When Hitler decided to go on a war of conquest in the late 1930s, he dressed up his intentions in the cloak of legitimacy, merely "helping disenfranchised and oppressed people attain self-determination." He distorted the plight of ethnic Germans living in the Czech Sudetenland and elsewhere in Eastern Europe, inventing tales of mistreatment. In reality of course these ethnic Germans already had the option of "self-determination" within the neighboring, sovereign German nation-states, and in fact enjoyed far more freedom and rights than did Germans inside Germany. Germany's invasion of Czechoslovakia was prepared through postured indignity over the mistreatment of Germans by Germany's neighbors. Hitler insisted he was simply seeking to relieve the "misery of mistreated ethnic Germans," supposedly suffering inside democratic Czechoslovakia. "Self-determination" was also the pretense when Germany attacked Poland and other countries.

The Arab world decided that the "Palestinians" must play the role of Sudetens, serving as the political and moral pretense for Arab aggression and Islamofascist imperialism. The Arab fascists then misrepresent themselves as pursuing noble efforts at protecting a mistreated oppressed minority group of Arabs in need of "self-determination."

8. Falsehood: Palestinian terrorism has been a response to Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, and as a response to Israeli settlements there.

Truth: Palestinian terrorism against Jews began in the 1920s, escalated in the 1930s, continued non-stop in the 1940s even in the midst of World War II, and reached heights of barbarism in the 1950s. All this was long before Israel "occupied" anything. The PLO was set up long before the Six Day War, meaning before Israel "occupied" the West Bank and Gaza, and before those areas held a single Israeli settlement.

9. Falsehood: Israel has no right to build settlements in the West Bank.

Truth: Israel has as much right to build settlements in the West Bank as France has to build towns in Alsace and Lorraine, or as Poland has to build in areas that once held ethnic Germans. The Arabs launched a series of wars of aggression against Israel and lost. Aggressors who lose a war also lose territory. The bulk of Jewish "settlers" are actually Israelis living in the suburbs of Jerusalem that were constructed after 1967. A handful of small rural "settlements" have been constructed in empty West Bank lands from which no Arab civilians were evicted. In any real peace settlement, Jews would have as much right to live in the West Bank as Arabs have to live inside Israel. A peace accord that rules out such an arrangement would be no peace accord at all.

10. Falsehood: The Middle East conflict continues because Israel refuses to share its land and resources with Palestinians.

Truth: The Middle East conflict continues because the Arab world refuses to share its land and resources with Jews. It is about the absolute refusal of the Arab world to acquiesce in the existence of any Jewish-majority political entity within any set of borders in the Middle East. The Arabs today control 22 countries and territory nearly twice the size of the United States (including Alaska), whereas Israel cannot be seen on most globes or maps. Arabs as an ethnic group control more territory than any other ethnic group on earth. They refuse to share even a fraction of one percent of the Middle East with the Jews, even in a territory smaller than New Jersey. Without the West Bank, Israel at its narrowest point is less than 10 miles wide, about the length of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. The main reason the Arab world demands that Israel relinquish the West Bank to Palestinian terrorism is so that it can be used to attack Israel again and so that Israel can at last be militarily annihilated. The Arab world controls such vast amounts of territory and such vast amounts of wealth (thanks to petroleum) that it could have created a "homeland" for Palestinian Arabs anywhere within its territories at any time.

11. Falsehood: Israel deals with Palestinian violence and terrorism using excessive disproportionate force.

Truth: The number of innocent Palestinian civilians intentionally killed by Israel is exactly zero. The number of civilians injured in Israeli anti-terror operations is tiny when compared with NATO and Allied military operations in Serbia, Bosnia, Afghanistan, or Iraq. Given the near universal support among Palestinians for terrorist atrocities against Jews, the self-restraint and moderation used by Israel in dealing with the threat has no precedent in the world.

Israel's own Arabs make little attempt to hide their open identification with the genocidal enemies of their own country and they by and large support the annihilation of the state in which they hold citizenship. No other democratic country facing such open sedition and identification with the enemy in time of war ever responded with anywhere near the same restraint as shown by Israel. In World War II, when faced with a far less-dangerous problem, the United States locked up its ethnic-Japanese domestic population in internment camps. Democratic Spain set up teams of death squads to deal with its separatist terrorists. Democracies in war have junked habeas corpus and treated their internal Fifth Columns as the enemy, with no hesitation or squeamishness.

Democratic Czechoslovakia and India (as well as non-democratic countries throughout Eastern Europe) undertook wholesale expulsions of millions of members of their internal ethnic minorities who had sided with the enemy. Greece and Turkey and the two sections of Cyprus simply expelled altogether their minority populations. Israel, in contrast, operates affirmative action programs that benefit Arabs, finances Arabic-language schools in which Israeli Arabs preserve and develop their culture, overfunds Arab municipalities, and turns a blind eye to massive Arab sedition and lawbreaking, including with regard to illegal mass squatting on publicly-owned lands.

Israel is a Western democracy with a Scandinavian style social welfare system, the only democracy in the Middle East. It is hard to come up with words to mock satisfactorily the ludicrous nature of the complaints about Israeli "mistreatment" of Arabs. These complaints come from the very same people who are apologists for genocidal Islamofascist terrorist movements and for the Arab fascist states, regimes that are among the most barbarous and openly war-seeking on earth. The endless complaints about "human rights violations" of the "Palestinians" by Israel are a rhetorical part of the broader campaign of aggression against Israeli survival. Arabs living under Israeli rule are the world's foremost illustration of "Moynihan's Law," which holds: "The amount of violations of human rights in a country is always an inverse function of the amount of complaints about human rights violations heard from there. The greater the number of complaints being aired, the better protected are human rights in that country."

12. Falsehood: Israel can achieve peace by trading "Land for Peace" and by relinquishing territories that it "occupies."

Truth: Every time Israel relinquishes territory it "occupies" it triggers an escalation of terror and violence by Arabs against Jews. The main cause of anti-Israel terrorism today is the removal of Israeli occupation from Arabs. This is so obvious that it is a major intellectual challenge to explain why so few people understand it.

Israel ended its occupation of the Gaza Strip in its entirety in 2004 and evicted all Jews who had been living there. The complete Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip produced a barrage of thousands of rockets aimed at Israeli civilians inside Israel (NOT in the "occupied territories"), a barrage that eventually forced Israel's reluctant leaders to carry out the "Cast Lead" operation against Gaza terrorism.

The Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon was unilaterally ended in the year 2000 by then-Israeli socialist Prime Minister Ehud Barak. The direct result of that fiasco was the launching of 4,000 Katyusha rockets from Lebanon against northern Israel in the summer of 2006, and several times that number now poised to strike Israel.

The worst waves of Palestinian suicide attacks were directly triggered by the early Oslo withdrawals — before which there had been no suicide bombings. There can be no doubt that a complete Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and a return to pre-1967 borders would trigger a massive rocket and terror assault against the remaining areas of Israel, launched from the "liberated" lands in the West Bank. The same thing would result from Israel relinquishing the Golan Heights to Syria.

13. Falsehood: The Zionist Lobby exercises excessive influence and dictates policies to the United States, protecting Israel from just criticism.

Falsehood: The anti-Zionist Lobby exercises excessive influence and dictates policies to the United States, protecting Palestinians, Arab fascist regimes, and Islamofascism from just criticism. While the media overflow with nonsensical talk about a "Zionist/Israel Lobby," it would only be a small exaggeration to claim that there is no such thing at all. The anti-Zionist lobby binds together anti-Semites and fanatics, ranging from Islamists, to the radical Left to the Neo-Nazi Right. There is little today that separates anti-Zionism from anti-Semitism and I have never met an anti-Zionist who was not also an anti-Semite. (Jewish leftist anti-Zionists are the self-hating moral equivalents of Taliban John and Tokyo Rose).

14. Falsehood: The Middle East conflict can be resolved through "Two States for Two Peoples."

Truth: The "Two States for Two Peoples" idea is not a solution at all but simply a strategy for weakening Israel and forcing it behind indefensible borders. Right after "Two States for Two Peoples" would be implemented, the new "Palestinian state" would invite the rest of the Arab world to finish off what remains of Israel. Even the "moderates" within the PLO insist that any "Israel" left standing within "Two States for Two Peoples" must be flooded by Arab migrants and stripped of its Jewish majority, in effect converted to yet another Arab Palestinian state. The Arabs still condition any "two-state solution" on Israel agreeing to being flooded with Arab immigrants purporting to be Palestinians, so that it will morph demographically into the 24th Arab state. Israel obviously cannot agree. Israel would be blanketed in rocket and mortar fire from "Palestine" and waves of Arab terrorist infiltrators into Israel would raise the carnage to unprecedented levels.

That such a "two-state solution" will not end the conflict, but only signal the commencement of its next stage, has long been the quasi-official position of virtually all Palestinian groups. These have long insisted that any two-state solution is but a stage in a "plan of stages," after which will come additional steps ultimately ending Israel's existence as a Jewish state. The "two-state solution" is no more realistic an option today than it was in 1948, when it was militarily squashed by the Arab states, terrorists, and armies. It is ultimately as much of an existential threat to Jewish survival in the Middle East today as the so-called "one-state solution," favored by the anti-Semitic Left, in which Israel is replaced by a Rwanda-like bi-national entity controlled by Arabs, in which the Jewish problem will be resolved in a Rwanda-style manner.

Creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel would be a major step in the escalation of the Arab war against Israel's existence, even if that war is delayed for a brief time while the world celebrates the outbreak of a Potemkin "peace" in the Middle East produced by the end of Israeli "occupation" of "Palestinians."

Since the Oslo "peace process" began in the early 1990s, the working hypothesis endorsed by nearly everyone on the planet (including large numbers of IQ-challenged Israeli politicians) has been that the most urgent task at hand is to end the Israeli "occupation" of Palestinian Arabs. The problem is that ANY Palestinian state, regardless of who rules it, will produce nothing but escalated violence, terror and warfare in the Middle East, certainly not stability or peaceful relations. It will seek war with the rump Israel, and will seek to draw the entire Moslem world into that war. It will be indifferent to the economic and social problems of its own citizens.

Humans seem to have a basic impatience with hearing the truth repeated over long periods of time. In an era in which technology, politics, and science change so rapidly, many consider it to be implausible that a statement that had been true 60 years ago could still be true today. Surely, they insist, explanations from the past, such as those of the Middle East conflict, must be obsolete by now, replaced with new updated "theories" and more-modern perceptions of reality.

The result of all this is pseudo-history, where people invent new "theories" about some of the most widely-accepted truths of history. No subject has been subject to quite so much pseudo-historic revisionism and denial of "out-of date" truths as the Middle East. George Orwell once said that the first duty of intelligent men is to restate the obvious. Obvious truths need to be restated because they are under assault by so many dishonest men.

The Palestinians have no legitimate claim to a right to set up their own state, and creation of such a state would result in escalated warfare and bloodshed, not peace. There was never in history an Arab Palestinian state. Even if such a right ever existed, the Palestinians – like the Sudeten Germans - would have forfeited it thanks to decades of terrorism, savagery, mass murders and barbarism. Their pacification today requires reimposing of martial rule by Israel and a thorough program of De-nazification.

The promotion of a "Two States for Two Peoples" solution has radicalized and Nazified most Israeli Arabs, who now identify with and openly support Arab parties and politicians openly calling for violence against Jews and for the destruction of Israel. The "solution" is a recipe for more bloodshed and strife.

-------------------------------------------
Steven Plaut is a professor at the Graduate School of the Business Administration at the University of Haifa and is a columnist for the Jewish Press. A collection of his commentaries on the current events in Israel can be found on his "blog" at www.stevenplaut.blogspot.com.

Do you know who human rights watch is

 

http://www.nrg.co.il/online/1/ART1/930/244.html?hp=1&loc=3&tmp=7994

 AUTHOR OF REPORT AGAINST ISRAEL SUPPORTED MUNICH MASSACRE

(Article by Ben-Dror Yemini, Ma'ariv, 16.8.09, p. 13)

 Joe Stork, a senior official in Human Rights Watch, which accuses the IDF of killing Palestinians who waved white flags, is a fanatical supporter of the elimination of Israel.  He was a friend of Saddam, ruled out negotiations and supported the Munich Massacre, which "provided an important boost in morale among Palestinians."

 Last Thursday, many world media outlets covered the press conference in which a senior Human Rights Watch official, Joe Stork, presented the report accusing Israel of killing twelve Palestinians in the Gaza Strip who waved white flags during Operation Cast Lead.   Stork, the person identified with the report, has a unique history of Israel-hating: He supported the murder of Israeli athletes in Munich, was an avid supporter of Saddam Hussein and more.

Several times in the past, Stork has called for the destruction of Israel and is a veteran supporter of Palestinian terrorism.  Already as a student, Stork was amongst the founders of a new radical leftist group, which was formed based on the claim that other leftist groups were not sufficiently critical of Israel and of the United States' support of it.  Already in 1976, Stork participated in a conference organized by Saddam Hussein which celebrated the first anniversary of the UN decision that equated Zionism with racism.  Stork, needless to say, arrived at the conference as a prominent supporter of Palestinian terrorism and as an opponent to the existence of the State of Israel.  He also labeled Palestinian violence against Israel as "revolutionary potential of the Palestinian masses" – language that was typical of fanatical Marxists.

In articles which he authored during the 1970's, Stork stated that he was against the very existence of Israel as an "imperialistic entity" and, to this end, provided counsel to Arab regimes on how to eliminate the Zionist regime.  He also was opposed to any negotiations since this meant recognizing its existence: "Zionism may be defeated only by fighting imperialism," wrote Stork, "and not through deals with Kissingers."

On other occasions, Stork expressed his position that the global Left must subordinate itself to the PLO in order to strengthen elements that opposed any accord with Israel.  It would seem that he has not changed his ways since then.  He is still conceptually subordinate to those who have maintained their opposition to the existence of the State of Israel.  Once the world's radical left supported the PLO.  Today, part of the global Left supports Hamas.

Stork, of course, is not alone.  The hate ships that arrive from time to time, or attempt to arrive, to the shores of Gaza, are full of radicals of his ilk.  They do not identify with efforts towards compromise or peace.  On the contrary, they identify with those who are continuing the old line that supports the elimination of Israel.  And what would happen if the PLO should decide to enter the negotiations track?  Stork already recommended years ago that the Palestinian left splinter in order to continue the resistance.  Hamas obeyed.  It is possible to guess where Stork's heart lays.

Where does Stork stand regarding matters of objectivity and neutrality?  He criticized Professor Ibrahim Abu-Lughod, himself a PLO figure, because he edited an anthology which tried, at least seemingly, to produce a balanced presentation.  "Academic neutrality is deceitful," wrote Stork.  And what about factual accuracy?  Stork claimed that Menachem Begin said that, 'The Palestinians are two-legged animals."  In fact, Begin said that those who come to kill children are "two-legged animals."  The difference is, of course, huge.  Stork, time after time, justifies his high standing in the industry of hate and lies against Israel.

Stork reached his peak in a statement published by the Middle East Research and Information Project, which dealt with gathering information on the Middle East conflict, and in which Stork was a leading figure.  This was a statement that included explicit support for the murder of the eleven Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics: "Munich and similar actions cannot create or substitute for a mass revolutionary movement," the statement said, "But we should comprehend the achievement of the Munich action…It has provided an important boost in morale among Palestinians in the camps."  Murder and terrorism, if so, are a matter of morale.

This is the man.  A radical Marxist whose positions have not changed over the years.  On the contrary.  Objectivity, neutrality or sticking to the facts are not Stork's strong suit.  He even proudly exclaims that there is no need for neutrality.

Is it possible to relate seriously to a report against Israel which this man stands behind?  Both Camera and Professor Gerald Steinberg have revealed worrying data on the leaders of Human Rights Watch and on the two people who head its Middle East Department – Sarah Leah Whitson and Joe Stork – even before its latest report and unconnected to it.  The organization, as part of its false presentation, issued polite condemnations of Hamas rocket fire.  But it seems that such blatant anti-Israel bias leaves room for doubt.  A Stork produced report on Israel is about as objective as a report by Baruch Marzel on Hebron.

Israel is called upon to provide explanations in the wake of Human Rights Watch reports.  It is about time that Israel publicly exposed the ideological roots of several of this organization's leaders and demands the dismissal of these supporters of terrorism and haters of Israel.  Until then, Israel, justifiably, cannot seriously comment on criticism from such a body.

Above is a translated report in today's Ma'ariv regarding the author of the report against Israel from Human Rights Watch.

It is important that this rebutal to the HRW report receives as wide a circulation as possible.

Jack

---