Khalid Amayreh

In addition to its protracted war of terror against the Palestinian people, Israel has long waged an unrelenting campaign of psychological warfare against the Palestinian will, aimed at debilitating the domestic front across the occupied territories. The Israeli media, which often operates in sync with the Israeli occupation army and intelligence agencies, readily and routinely parrot the carefully concocted lies coming out of the Disinformation Department at the Israeli Defence Ministry headquarters at Hakirya in Tel Aviv.

The dirty propaganda is based on half-truths or outright falsehoods. Sometimes these lies are leaked to pro-Israeli media organs abroad in order to give them an air of credibility. But in most cases, the "scoops" are released to the Israeli media itself.

This pattern of disinformation is as old as Israel itself and has been used frequently. I remember that during the Romanian revolution Israeli radio reported that the bodies of dozens of Arab mercenaries, who had been fighting for the Ceausescu regime, were scattered on the streets of Bucharest and Timisoara, a claim that turned out to be totally untrue.

During the First Palestinian Intifada (1987-1992), the Israeli media would often describe a Palestinian activist freshly arrested by the Israeli army as "a high-ranking leader of the uprising" who was responsible for attacks on Israeli soldiers. However, a few days or weeks later, when the suspect was arraigned before a military court, all the talk about being a "high-ranking leader" of the intifada would have disappeared from the list of charges. In many cases, the activist would be released a few months later for lack of evidence against him.

Similarly, the Israeli media will often publish reports claiming that major Palestinian businesses and factories faced bankruptcy and were closing down. This, of course, has a demoralising effect, as is intended.

These are examples of the psychological warfare Israel has been waging against the Palestinians, which, by the way, failed to stop the intifada or, indeed, force the Palestinians to succumb to the Israeli occupation.

When I first read the fictionalised story of Musa’ab Yousuf, the son of Hasan Yousuf, a former Hamas spokesman in Ramallah, I remembered these and other examples of Israeli disinformation. We Palestinians have been living under the Israeli occupation for decades and not even the Americans know the Israeli way of thinking better than us. To put it bluntly, the Israelis lie as often as they breathe. Indeed, it is only a slight exaggeration to say that Israel is based on three elements: murder, theft and mendacity.

The Israeli media claims, inter alia, that Musa’ab, who had been recruited by Israel’s chief domestic security agency, the Shin Beth, penetrated the high echelons of Hamas and that he prevented and thwarted resistance operations against the Israeli occupation army and other targets. Well, it is true that the Shin Beth succeeded in recruiting the disoriented young man when he was 17 years old through blackmail. However, it is also true that Hamas and his own father knew about his tryst with Shin Beth from the very inception as a result of which Hamas’s student activists were warned against dealing with him.

Moreover, it is well known that Sheikh Hasan Yousuf, whom I have met several times, was never involved, either directly or indirectly, in the activities of Hamas’s military wing, the Izzidin al Qassam Brigades. Any claim to the contrary should be treated with contempt. Indeed, with all due respect, Sheikh Yousuf was no more than a media spokesman who would explain the Hamas position and reaction to certain events, and he would do that after careful coordination and consultation with the movement’s political leaders in the occupied territories.

Hence, the claim that the Sheikh’s son, Musa’ab, was able to penetrate the military wing of Hamas and thwart several resistance operations, including an assassination attempt against Shimon Peres, the certified war criminal responsible for the Qana massacre in 1996, looks like a vile lie.

I have spoken to several peers of Musa’ab who knew him very well both when he was a student at Beir Zeit University and following his graduation. The following are taken from their testimonies:

"He was not a serious person, he was kind of happy-go-lucky, he would go out with foreigners and tourists, brag about his English. I think very few people took him seriously," said Ahmed.

One college classmate described Musa’ab as "looking insecure, a person without an intellectual direction, infatuated with the luxurious life, would do anything to attract attention."

These and other statements indicate that Musa’ab was nearly always viewed with suspicion by Hamas people in Ramallah, including his own father.

Toward the end of the 1990s, Musa’ab mingled with evangelical Christian missionaries who, probably through a feminine connection, brainwashed him to "accept Jesus as his saviour". They also promised that they would facilitate his migration to the US, where Christian Zionists used him on his arrival as a propaganda asset in their war against Islam and the Palestinian people. Musa’ab, nearly penniless when he arrived in the US, was given a house and a job in exchange for praising Israel, maligning Islam and singing halleluiah.

According to Ha’aretz newspaper (27 February), the Shin Beth officer who looked after Musa’ab, code-named Captain Loay, said, "The amazing thing is that none of his actions were done for money. He did things he believed in. He wanted to save lives."

What lives? Even a person with minimal intelligence and living in Ramallah during the Second Intifada would know all too well that the Israeli occupation army murdered Palestinian civilians in cold blood, including children. These murders were nearly always carried out knowingly and deliberately just like the killings in Gaza last year.

For example, on 4 March 2002, and not far from Musa’ab’s home, Israel bombed the car of Hussein Abu Kweik, a political activist affiliated with Hamas, killing his wife and three children as they were returning home from school. So, why did we not hear anything about "saving lives" when the targets were Palestinian civilians? Could Musa’ab have converted secretly to the Chabad sect of Judaism which, apparently, views all non-Jews as animals whose lives have no sanctity?

In fact, the repeated invocation of "saving [Jewish] lives", terminology characteristic of the Israelis, suggests that Musa’ab was instructed, perhaps in return for a certain sum of money, to say what the author of the story wanted him to say in order to sell the book, or that the author wrote what he did in Musa’ab’s name.

The Shin Beth handler makes many claims suggesting that Musa’ab was aware of what was going on with the Izzidin al Qassam Brigades. "Let me tell you a story. One day we received information that a suicide bomber was going to be picked up at the Manara Square in Ramallah and be given an explosive belt. We didn’t know his name or what he looked like-only that he was in his twenties and would be wearing a red shirt. We sent ‘the Green Prince’ [Musa’ab] to the square and with his acute sense, he located the target within minutes."

Being thoroughly aware of the vicissitudes of Hamas and its military wing, I can safely say that this story is unlikely to be true since only two or three people are normally put in contact with any given military operation. This, I venture to suggest, means that people like Musa’ab would have no opportunity to know what was going on inside the Izzidin al Qassam Brigades.

In the beginning of the Ha’aretz’ article, written by Avi Issacharoff (who is notorious for his Shin Beth connections), Musa’ab is quoted:

"I wish I were in Gaza now. I would put on an army uniform and join Israel’s special forces in order to liberate Gilad Shalit. If I were there, I could help. We wasted so many years with investigations and arrests to capture the very terrorists that they now want to release in return for Shalit. That must be done."

Such a quote could only come from a person who is so badly disoriented and so thoroughly brainwashed, that he identifies himself with the enemies of his own family.

Such a coup is not uncommon in the history of bitter conflicts, as the Israelis know very well. The Jewish Virtual Library has the following information: "The German concentration camps depended on the cooperation of trustee inmates who supervised the prisoners. Known as Kapos, these trustees carried out the will of the Nazi camp commandants and guards, and were often as brutal as their SS counterparts. Some of these Kapos were Jewish, and even they inflicted harsh treatment on their fellow prisoners. For many, failure to perform their duties would have resulted in severe punishment and even death, but many historians view their actions as a form of complicity. After the war, the prosecution of Kapos as war criminals, particularly those who were Jewish, created an ethical dilemma which continues to this day."

Such an emotional-cognitive phenomenon is known as "identification with the criminal aggressor", a more than appropriate term for the relationship between Musa’ab Yousuf and his Israeli handlers.

Today, Israel continues to prevent a large number of consumer products from entering Gaza. This policy, often justified by security considerations, has actually nothing to do with security. It is a deliberate measure aimed at further tormenting the inhabitants of Gaza by showing them that Israel has the final say and that they would have to submit themselves to the Zionist will. This is how the Nazis behaved toward the inhabitants of the Ghetto Warsaw, forcing them to smuggle food and other consumer products into the camp.

What is more scandalous is that the  Zionist regime is adamantly preventing the entry into Gaza of building materials needed for the reconstruction of the estimated 40,000 homes destroyed, either completely or partly during last year’s Nazi-like onslaught against the impoverished territory.

Unfortunately, this callous and criminal policy is not being challenged by the international community which keeps issuing platitudinous remarks about the need to meet the humanitarian needs of the people of Gaza,  this is while thousands of  Gazans, whose homes were destroyed by the Nazis of our time, remain without shelter and are totally exposed to the elements of nature.

In fact, the enduring nightmare in Gaza is beyond the pale of common sense. The Israelis, who killed more than 1,400 Gazans, including more than 350 children last year alone, claiming they did it in self defense, are maintaining this suffocating blockade as an expression of sadism, callousness and hateful vindictiveness. What else can be said about a government whose ministers and spokespeople routinely appear on TV screens bragging and gloating over the suffering of Gazan children?

There is no doubt that the continued blockade of Gaza has exposed the brutal ugliness of Israel’s face, demonstrating that Israel and Nazi Germany are very much two sides of the same coin. Nonetheless, exposing Israel’s ugly face alone won’t save Gazan lives or enable the thoroughly tormented inhabitants of the largest detention camp in the world to rebuild their lives, torn into smithereens by a state that murders, steals and lies and then claims to be the only democracy in the Middle East.

Hence, it is important to make every conceivable effort and make every possible undertaking to help Gaza rebuild its life and restore a semblance of normal life. Undoubtedly admirable efforts have been made by courageous men and women from around the globe who often put their lives at risk in order to highlight the Gaza plight. However, it is imperative that more qualitative and pro-active efforts be made in order to make a real difference.

In short, Gaza must never be allowed to die quietly or silently. This was the message more than three years ago when the cruel blockade began. This is still the message today; because the overall situation in Gaza doesn’t really differ much now from what it was three years ago.

Unfortunately, we can’t rely much on the “good will” of most countries, perhaps with the exception of some magnanimous governments such as the Turkish government which has utilized much of the diplomatic weight of the Turkish state in order to help the just cause of the oppressed people of Gaza.

The Obama administration, which many people had given the benefit of the doubt when it came to power more than a year ago, has turned out to be quite impotent in the face of Israeli insolence and arrogance of power.

Similarly, Europe is doing nothing in real terms, apart from issuing nice-sounding statements about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and the need to allow Gazans to rebuild their homes.

And Egypt, the supposedly brotherly neighboring Arab country which is supposed to hasten to aide Gaza is completing and perfecting a nefarious underground concrete wall along its borders with Gaza in order to prevent the smuggling of food into the blockaded region.

Even the Palestinian Authority (PA) is implicitly encouraging Israel and Egypt and the West to keep up the pressure on Gaza in the hope that this pressure would prompt the people of Gaza to rise up against Hamas.

Well, how can such an entity, which is colluding and conspiring with Israel against its own people, be a true party to any Palestinian national reconciliation?

In light, it is necessary to once again mobilize the peoples of the world to rise up and demonstrate loudly in order to exert pressure on their respective governments to pressure Israel to put an end to this shameful, sadistic and cruel collective punishment.

We need to see millions of people take to the streets everywhere to demonstrate for Gaza and for humanity. In the final analysis, Gaza has become the ultimate test for humanity’s moral commitment.

If we, God forbid, don’t succeed in saving Gaza from the claws of Zio-Nazism, the future of humanity itself will be bleak.

Ghassan Khatib

While the Palestinian Authority (PA) seems prone to agree to "indirect talks" with Israel without the latter undertaking any meaningful freeze of Jewish settlement expansion in the West Bank, the Israeli government is making only provocations, rendering the resumption — let alone success — of peace talks more unlikely, especially in the near future.

Israel lately undertook several measures that Palestinian officials insist reveal Israel's determination to perpetuate its military occupation of Palestinian land and eliminate the possibility of establishing a viable Palestinian state. One of these measures is a decision by Israel Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu last week to add two ancient mosques, the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron and the Bilal Ibn Rabah Mosque in Bethlehem, to Israel's so-called heritage list.

The two sites are located in the Palestinian heartland, which implies that Israel intends to annex the two shrines, a prospect vehemently rejected by Palestinians.

Prior to the Israeli decision, Western officials involved in efforts to revive the peace process indicated that the resumption of talks between Israel and the PA would occur in a few weeks. Tony Blair, the Quartet's envoy to the Middle East peace process, was quoted as saying that "substantial progress" had been made in US efforts to get the two sides to restart stalled talks.

PA leader Mahmoud Abbas who has been on an extensive tour in three continents to explain Palestinian grievances to his hosts, has spoken of the consolidation of a Palestinian culture of peace, telling the European Parliament that peace could only be achieved through negotiations, not violence. He seems to have toned down his earlier insistence that the resumption of peace talks with Israel take place only after Israel agrees to freeze settlement expansion.

The latest Israeli provocations, however, with regards to the seizure of the two mosques, seem to have poisoned whatever atmosphere of optimism or modicum of goodwill US Envoy to the Middle East George Mitchell may have succeeded in fostering during his latest visit to the region. One Palestinian official intimated that Palestinian consent to resume stalled peace talks with Israel would be purely for show. "If we agreed to resume the talks under the present circumstances, we would be doing so solely to please and appease the Americans who apparently want to make an achievement of some sort, however shallow it may be."

Another official, Ghassan Khatib, who heads the Palestinian Government Press Office, voiced a similar view, saying that the resumption of talks with Israel would in no way mean that peace or justice were at hand. Speaking to Al-Ahram Weekly from his office in Ramallah, Khatib said peace talks would be "pointless" if the two sides didn't agree on three central points: a time ceiling to end the talks; the features and borders of the would-be Palestinian state; and the terms of reference — namely UN resolutions pertaining to the Palestinian issue, including the right of return guaranteed for Palestinian refugees uprooted when Israel was created more than 60 years ago.

Asked if he thought that indirect talks would be sufficient to resolve these defining issues, Khatib said that no amount of talks — direct or indirect — would be sufficient. "The problem lies not in holding more talks; the real problem has to do with Israel's refusal to end the occupation."

Khatib said the coming weeks and months would either witness more paralysis, which might precipitate violence, or a resumption of peace talks whose predictable failure would bring about the same. "My impression is that there can be no serious peace talks, let alone a peace agreement, with this rightwing [Israeli] government which, instead of facilitating the peace process, is actually poisoning the overall atmosphere by stealing more Palestinian land, seizing mosques and building more settlements."

This pessimism is shared by most — if not all — PA and Fatah officials. Ahmed Qurei, a former Palestinian prime minister and parliament speaker, told reporters recently that, "the prospects for a peace agreement with Israel are very dim," and that the "next five years will be very, very difficult." He said Israel was "still unwilling to bring itself to recognise the Palestinian people's right to freedom, independence and human dignity."

While some Palestinian leaders, including Ismail Haniyeh, the Gaza-based prime minister, are already calling for a new uprising against Israel as means of exiting the untenable present stalemate, some PA officials are entertaining a French proposal, which still needs to be refined, that would recognise an undefined Palestinian state within 18 months.

"We welcome these European declarations, especially those of France, which we consider to have adopted a new attitude amidst the current political stalemate," Nabil Shaath, a prominent PA spokesman, was quoted by the Maan News Agency as saying.

However, such a state without defined borders would, many Palestinians and their supporters contend, be a prescription for the liquidation of the Palestinian cause since it would enable Israel — perhaps under a rubric of land swapping — to consolidate its control of East Jerusalem and additional large chunks of the West Bank.

The PA has repeatedly said that it would never accept a state with temporary borders.

Hence, I urge you to go about carrying out your mission with utmost care, wisdom, and sagacity. I also want to remind you that several American envoys to the Muslim world have effectively failed to achieve what they were supposed to achieve, namely fostering healthy relations between Muslims and America that would be based on mutual trust, respect, and friendship.

It is my firm belief though that these people, whose efforts should never be underestimated, failed in their missions, not because of the lack of trying nor the absence of good will and rectitude.

My impression, which I believe is shared by many Muslims, is that these honorable men and women did not correctly diagnose the serious ailments plaguing America's relations with the Muslim world. In truth, past American envoys to the Muslim world acted very much as Public Relations emissaries, whose central concern was that Muslims misunderstood America.

In short, they thought that America was only having an "image problem" in the Muslim world, and that if only the United States worked a little bit harder in terms of presenting itself and its policies more skillfully, that tarnished image would be rehabilitated and Muslims would fall in love with Uncle Sam.

History of Wrong Deeds

My Brother in Islam and humanity: From our vantage point, the real problem besetting America's relations with Muslims goes far beyond the image problem. We truly feel that the US government is "tormenting" Muslims in many parts of the world, such as Palestine, Afghanistan, Iraq , Pakistan, Lebanon to mention some examples.

In occupied Palestine, America has been enabling and empowering Israel — a state that has much in common with Nazi Germany — to kill us, destroy our homes, steal our land, and banish us from our ancestral land. Moreover, whenever we sought to redress that bad situation at the UN Security Council, America would just veto any resolution that would have given us a modicum of justice.

This brazen alliance with the oppressors on America's part frustrated many Muslims and Arabs, prompting them occasionally to embark on doing things they probably should not have done. You know, people to whom evil is done, often do evil in return.

Even today, the United States, which was as silent as a graveyard during Israel's manifestly criminal onslaught against the helpless people of the Gaza Strip last year, is trying now to kill the Goldstone report, which exposed Israeli criminality and called for the possible prosecution of suspected Israeli war criminals.

The United States has had more than fifty years to make peace in Palestine. However, instead of forcing Israel to give up the spoils of war and grant Palestinians the right to freedom from the shackles of occupation and racism, America has always made sure to further strengthen Israeli militarily and bolster its arrogance of power.

Eventually, this unrestricted embrace of Zionism enabled Israel to irreversibly kill the two-state solution, leaving us with the ominous, but realistic alternative of open-ended conflict.

One Palestinian intellectual, Walid Khalidi, once referred to the United States as "the tormentor of the Palestinian people." Khalidi's words are not an overstatement. In fact, the opposite may well be true.

In Lebanon, a few years ago, Israel blanket-bombed Lebanon, annihilating and maiming thousands of innocent people whose only "guilt" was their weakness and military inferiority vis-à-vis Israel.

In fact, the Israeli air force dropped more than 2 million cluster-bomblets on Lebanon, enough to kill two million children, including people yet to be born. Instead of hearing the United States saying: "Stop it", we heard American officials from the president downward singing the songs of praise for Israel as if these innocent victims were children of  lesser humanity.

Iraq and Afghanistan

Moreover, In Iraq, one is really frustrated as to where to begin and where to end when talking about America's crimes and days of infamy in Iraq. America invaded, occupied and destroyed that Arab country based on the mendacious claim that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction (WMD).  True, Saddam Hussein was a tyrant, but are America's Arab puppets paragons of virtue and democracy?

A few years before the American occupation of Iraq, former secretary of state Madeline Albright made some telling remarks about the death of nearly a million Iraqi children as a result of US-led sanctions against the Arab country. She said, "If it is good for America, it is worth it."

I am sure you understand that only a human devil can reach this level of depravity and evil.

Regarding Afghanistan, American and other NATO forces are raining death on Afghan people in the Helmand province, killing many civilians. US military officials would claim it happened by mistake. Well, but mistakes are done a few times, and when made nearly on a daily basis and thousands of people are killed, it means "mistakes" are actually "the real policy".

In any case, when the number of civilian victims is so high as in Afghanistan and Palestine, even intent becomes irrelevant.

I am sure that had these unwept, helpless civilians been Jews or Christians, the NATO pilots would have been much more careful.

Dear Brother: Muslims want a relationship with America based on honesty and fairness, and above all on justice. I am saying so because the US policy toward Muslims has been almost completely devoid of honesty and fairness.

Nearly every new American administration declares from the outset that fostering democracy and human rights in the Arab world would be at the top of its agenda. However, the truth is that the policy pursued then represents the exact antithesis of America's declarations.

In the past few years, the United States actually encouraged certain Arab states to torture their own citizens by transferring "terror suspects" to these police states, where they underwent all sorts of physical and psychological torture. The so-called "renditions" were a stigma of shame at the forehead of both America and the Arab regimes.

In fact, the United States has effectively transformed several Arab regimes into agents helped by the American intelligence to serve America's illegitimate global interests.

Conflicting Interests?

These regimes do not represent the free will of the Arab-Muslim people. They are more answerable to Washington than they are to their own masses. In addition, they value the "legitimacy" that comes from America's acceptance more than that which comes from their own people's acceptance. 

For example, the American-envisaged steel wall being built along the border between Egypt and the Gaza Strip is rejected by up to 99 percent of the Egyptian people. Yet it is being imposed, thanks to America's approval of the evil structure.

Does not the United States realize that this wall amounts to passing a death penalty on more than 1.5 million innocent human beings, whose only "crime" was that they elected a political party that Israel and America did not like?

To be sure, America has the right to protect its interests. However, America has no right, moral or legal, to murder and starve people because they exercised their democratic right and elected a political party called "Hamas".

Besides, why is it that Israel has the right to elect clear-cut thugs and certified war criminals, such as Avigdor Lieberman, Ehud Barak, and Benyamin Netanyahu, just to name a few, while the Palestinian people are not supposed to elect a party like Hamas?

Do terror, criminality, and racism become kosher when assuming a Jewish face? Is Israel above the laws of God and man?

Muslims all over the world, including in Palestine, have no inherent hostility toward the people of the United States.

We have no problem with the American First Amendment and civil liberties. We are not against the United States because we hate the American life style. Our problem with the United States stems from hostile American policies that are killing us and murdering our children. 

In short, America must reconcile what it preaches with what it does, because otherwise, America cannot just keep lying to Muslims (and non-Muslims) as if  our people were blind, deaf, and dumb.

Finally, I hope and pray that you will have the courage to communicate our grievances to the White House, as I am sure you will communicate its concerns to us.

Furthermore, I would advise you to be always mindful of the Qur'an's eighth Aya (verse) of Surat Al-Ma’idah:

"O ye who believe! stand out firmly for Allah, as witnesses to fair dealing, and let not the hatred of others to you make you swerve to wrong and depart from justice. Be just: that is next to piety: and fear Allah. For Allah is well-acquainted with all that ye do." [Al-Ma’idah, 8]

I have chosen this verse because justice is not only a Muslim value; it is actually a universal value, without which life on earth is corrupted.
Once again, I call on the Almighty to help you carry out your mission in the best way.

http://www.islamonline.net/servlet/Satellite?c=Article_C&cid=1265890427629&pagename=Zone-English-Muslim_Affairs%2FMAELayout##ixzz0oUtCY5W6

The Turks are filling a certain psychological-strategic vacuum in the Middle East, especially the Arab region.

To be sure, this vacuum was created mostly as a result of the receding influence of traditional Arab powers, such as Egypt, which has become very much a stagnant, non-aspiring entity, thanks to its crippling subservience to the United States.

The continuing aggrandizement of Turkey's regional status is a real success story, which could be seen as a role model for other countries.

The Rising Sun of Turkey

Indeed, when the AKP came to power in 2002 through the ballot boxes — not political thuggery, as it is often the case in most Arab countries — it sought quietly and wisely to tackle a host of chronic problems besetting the Turkish republic.

Eventually, the successful treatment of these mostly economic ills produced amazing effects and aftereffects, enabling the Turkish economy not only to reel from its erstwhile chronic stagnation, but also to make phenomenal growth, especially in the production and export sectors. 

Today, Turkey is the world's 17th economic power. It is also a country that can proudly stand up and say "No" to Israel and the United States.

Internally, the Turkish government sought to quietly resolve, or at least defuse, the enduring Kurdish problem mainly by acknowledging Kurdish grievances and recognizing the legitimacy of the Kurdish people's linguistic and cultural rights.

This very much helped stabilizing the domestic arena, and enhancing internal security, an essential requirement for economic prosperity.

Under the Erdogan's leadership, Turkey succeeded in resolving old problems with Armenia, thus depriving Israel and the American Jewish lobby of a sensitive pressure card that had been used repeatedly against Turkey in order to keep it revolving in the Israeli-American orbit.

Nonetheless, the most remarkable thing about the AKP has been its adamant determination to preserve its free political will especially vis-à-vis the United States and Israel.

Seven years ago, when the United States was about to invade Iraq, the Turkish Government firmly refused to allow American warplanes to use the Incirlik Air Base to attack Iraq.

Prime Minister Erdogan defended the decision, which he said reflected the collective will of the Turkish people.

This happened while most Arab regimes were vying among themselves to please and appease the Bush Administration, which was slaughtering Iraqis in the tens of thousands.

Erdogan did not have to explain anything to the Americans. He just said "No" and that was it.

Maintaining his country's dignity in a world that looked more like a jungle and less like a civilized human community, Erdogan  did not hesitate to fly in the face of  the world's special sacrosanct state, Israel, for its manifestly murderous and Nazi-like aggressions against the helpless Palestinian people.

Eventually, while carefully maintaining relations with Israel, for certain practical necessities, Erdogan made it blatantly clear to the leaders of the Israeli regime that the future of Turkey's relations with the Jewish state would very much depend on Israeli behavior, especially toward Palestinians.

These are serious words coming from the leader of Israel's erstwhile strategic ally in the Middle East. Israel got the message, but remains at a loss as to how to internalize and come to terms with it.

It is true that non-Arab Turkey is not going to become a pro-active ally of Palestinians in the foreseeable future.

However, one can safely argue that from now on, Turkey will not play deaf and dumb, and it will look the other way if, and when, Israel decides to embark on another Nazi-like, genocidal episode against the people of Gaza or other Palestinians.

At the very least, Turkey will no longer be counted as a strategic asset for Israel as it had been the case for many years  prior to the  AKP's advent to  power.

The Stagnant Arab World

In contrast to the Turkish success story, the Arab world remains divided against itself, with many Arab states struggling to remain afloat economically while seriously and conspicuously ceding their sovereignty and national dignity to the United States, Israel's guardian ally.In fact, the collective Arab situation is probably the worst since the collapse of the Ottoman Caliphate, following the World War I. The collective Arab failure to perform a comparatively easy task, such as lifting the crushing blockade of the Gaza Strip, seems to reflect profound impotence and paralysis transcending all levels.

Similarly, the intensive preoccupation of each Arab state, or Sheikhdom, with its internal affairs, is really precluding any concerted Arab effort toward economic and political integration.

The main reason for this enduring political paralysis — this overwhelming calamity —  is the continued prevalence of tribal mentality and dynastic despotism throughout the Arab world.

One of the most solid expressions of this tribal mentality is the fact that the mostly autocratic Arab rulers, irrespective of whether they adopt the royal or republican polity, exist in order to control their people and perpetuate themselves and their sons in power, not to lead their nations and advance their interests.

For example, Egypt is a country of 80 million people that has immense human and other resources at its disposal.

This very important country, which had once been nominated to become an African tiger, has been retreating in every conceivable sphere of life, thanks to the regime's despotic policies and dismal political management.

As to rich Arab countries ruled by ignorant, decadent, and dynastic despots, they are caught in the grip of the same frustrating circle, because the ultimate strategy of the ruling Sheikhs is to remain in power at any price, including succumbing to the will of foreign powers.

Needless to say, these despots are in many instances plainly ignorant, as they have scandalously failed to translate the immense financial resources at their disposal into tangible and durable economic realities.

Some Arab Sheikhdoms are actually so stupid that they have squandered billions of dollars building ostentatious, but economically fruitless, projects, such as high towers to show off their wealth.

However, these tribal chieftains lack the primary means to shield their economies from real financial cries, as we saw recently in Dubai.

It is this destructive tribal mentality that has prevented culturally homogenous countries, such the member states of the Arab Gulf Cooperation Council, from establishing  a real common market or achieving monetary unity.

Nor has it been able to build a credible military force that would shield these countries against a possible foreign aggression.

There is no doubt that the collective Arab situation will continue to deteriorate further until the collective Arab house collapses completely.

This is unless the Arab masses wake up from their dormancy, despair, and apathy, and decide to empower themselves and restore the usurped Arab dignity and freedom.

Arabs are not stupid, and they can, if they want, learn from Turks, our brothers in faith.

However, you can lead the proverbial horse to the water place, but you cannot force it to drink.

It is really sad that in the very country where the Qur'an was revealed unto the Prophet Muhammed (peace be upon him) while wealthy billionaires are running after their beastly desires and mendaciously claiming to be upholding the rule of Shari`ah.

Well, what is the kind of Shari`ah that allows a decadent prince, for example,  to squander the Umma's resources on his prurient desires, while millions of Muslims cannot find food to feed their kids?

In the Qur'an, Allah warns such decadent people that their punishment would only be a matter of time.

[If ye turn back (from the Path), He will substitute in your stead another people; then they would not be like you!]( Muhammad, 38)

In the meanwhile, we say to our Turkish brothers, welcome back. We have long missed the Ottomans.

They think that Israeli-made Gaza tragedy shouldn’t deserve all this attention and that the thoroughly tormented Gazans should suffer, starve and die as silently and as quietly as possible.

Well, to begin with, it is highly unlikely that such questions are motivated by good will or any real desire to see real problems in Somalia and Darfur and other parts of the world rectified. What is nearly certain, given consistent Israeli and Zionist behavior, is that such questions are meant first and foremost to distract attention from the shameless genocidal crimes against humanity which the children, grand-children and great grandchildren of the holocaust have been committing against the people of Palestine.

It is rather a repulsive, diversionary red-herring tactic used by the murderous thugs of Zionism to distract attention from the real Israeli Jewish holocaust against the Palestinian people.

Hence, there is not even an iota of doubt that would make people, especially those who value their conscience, think that the Israelis are really concerned about the suffering of people else where. It is actually inconceivable that the hearts of Israeli child-killers are bleeding over the civil wars in Africa. Their real aim is to isolate the Palestinians, weaken world sympathy with them, and force them to die or get killed as quietly as possible. This is how the SS behaved at Ghetto Warsaw 67 years ago. This is what the Judeo-Nazis of today are doing. It is the same, just like tweedeldee and tweedeldum.

Having said that, it is increasingly obvious that the enduring plight of the Palestinian people is the most volatile and destabilizing issue in the world today since it has the potentials of disrupting world order. It is the root-cause of instability and violence in much of the world. Its symptoms and side effects have global and instant repercussions.

Indeed, events that occurred thousands of miles away from occupied Palestine, such as 9/11 events in the US, the Bali bombing in Indonesia, the terror bombings in both London and Madrid a few years ago and the American invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan had their roots in the American and western embrace of Jewish Nazism in Palestine and the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people from their ancestral homeland.

Similarly, one exaggerates very little by saying that most of the chronic political problems in the Arab world, e.g., the American and western embrace of Arab dictatorships, and the unrelenting suppression of the forces of freedom and democracy, are directly or indirectly linked to the situation in Palestine. The current standoff over the issue of Iran’s nuclear program is very much related to the Palestinian problem. Iranian leader Ahmadinejad wouldn’t have called for the dismantlement of the Zionist infrastructure of Israel had it not been for the outrageous persecution and brutal savagery meted out to the indigenous Palestinian people by foreign Jewish invaders.

Moreover, the US, which itself is in the grip of Jewish lobbies such as AIPAC and whose Congress is widely considered an Israeli-occupied territory, has always opted to keep tyrannical, even criminal, Arab regimes in order to serve and promote Israeli interests. Needless to say, both Israel and the US realize that it is much easier to blackmail and bully dictatorial regimes that are not answerable to their masses. Such bankrupt regimes would even act against their own nations’ interests when coming under a little pressure or bullying from Washington.

To be sure, all peoples in the world have the right to survive and prosper, including the people of Somalia and Darfur as well as any other people under the sun. This has never been a contentious issue and never will. However, the Palestinian cause is unique because Palestine was until recently the exclusive homeland of the Palestinian people which a European power thousands of miles away decided to give on a silver platter to another European people. The White Ashkenazi Jews originated in the Khazar region and had nothing to do with Palestine as Professor Shlomo Sand elucidated in his recent book, Matai ve'ech humtza ha'am hayehudi? (The Invention of the Jewish People).

Today, the Palestinian people is the only people in the world whose very survival and future as a people are under threat. We, the Palestinians, are now relying more than ever before on the good-will of the international community for our very survival. This is why the international community must move decisively to prevent Israel from carrying out genocide against our people.

The Israelis have not embarked on a full-fledged genocide against us for lack of trying. The real reason has more to do with non-moral and non-ethical issues, such as would-be international reactions. The Israeli genocidal onslaught against Gaza last year should be viewed as a mere rehearsal for a much larger war of extermination against a helpless people with little or no means to protect themselves and their children.

In the latest blitzkrieg, Israel killed thousands and maimed thousands and incinerated many with the infernal white phosphorus firestorms over Gaza. In the next blitz, Israel could reenact Auschwitz and Bergen Belsen in Gaza and the West Bank. In the final analysis, there is no real difference between gassing people in closed places, e.g. concentration camps, and incinerating them en masse in open air. As far as I know, no other people under the sun is being targeted for annihilation. True, there are civil wars in several spots in the world. However, neither the Somalis nor the Darfurians are being threatened with a holocaust.

I don’t know of religious leaders in any country other than Israel routinely issuing edicts permitting the mass extermination of men, women and children “and not leaving a breathing thing alive” as many Jewish rabbis have been doing. In short, the prospect of a Jewish-Zionist holocaust or at least partial holocaust against the helpless Palestinians is not really unthinkable as Israel continues to await the opportune time to carry out its monstrous designs against the Palestinian people.

This is why international, including non-governmental, efforts to protect the Palestinian people from Israel’s genocidal urges must continue.

A few years ago, Spanish intellectual Santiago Alba-Rico eloquently argued that the Palestinian plight continued to be humanity’s bleeding wound. He wrote: “Perhaps Palestinians are not the most punished people on earth, but they are indeed the most openly punished people on earth; perhaps they are not the people who have suffered the most but they are the people whose sufferings are the most uninterruptedly visible. Paradoxically, this visibility (beyond the lies) makes the victims even more vulnerable; it confers a kind of biblical dimension to the aggression: the boisterous authority of a divine intervention, and in front of it, the objects of God’s anger, are demeaned both morally and ontologically.”

In recent months, a plethora of rabbis, with hundreds of thousands of followers, issued Nazi-like edicts justify the physical annihilation of the Palestinian people. Needless to say, the effect of these insidious edicts goes beyond the confines of the theoretical sphere as the Israeli army (now being taken over by genocidal-minded religious thugs) and paramilitary terrorists, also known as settlers, are making sure to act on these satanic edicts by murdering Peaceable Palestinian civilians without batting an eyelash.

Let us not forget that the holocaust of the mid-1900s didn’t start with genocidal mass killings; it rather started with the type of things that Israel is now doing to the Palestinians, such as a violently-racist discourse, venomous and vitriolic media attacks, the Ubermenschen vs. Untermenschen mentality and eventually a Kristallnacht. Well, the Israelis themselves say openly that the Gaza campaign was a mere “prova” for things to come. We all know the rest of the story.

The international community's shaming silence has done nothing to stop the Israeli intentional attempts to kill life in Gaza.

Despite the passage of an entire one year since the cruel Israeli onslaught against the people of the Gaza Strip, the international community has done very little to remedy the effects and after-effects of the Nazi-like Israeli campaign.

Under the rubric of fighting Hamas, the Palestinian Muslim liberation movement, the Israeli army on December 27, 2008, rained bombs, missiles, white phosphorus and other lethal weapons of death down on the civilian population of Gaza.

The result was more than 1,400 Palestinians casualties of mostly innocent civilians, including more than 350 dead children, and more than 5,000 maimed and injured ones.

Moreover, the sustained bombing, which lasted for 21 days, destroyed the bulk of the civilian infrastructure throughout the coastal territory, leaving more than 40,000 homes totally or partially destroyed.

Hundreds, if not thousands, of public buildings, such as mosques and other public facilities were bombed and leveled to the ground.

Israel, a criminal state par excellence, claimed the bombing campaign was aimed at punishing Hamas for firing home-made projectiles on Israeli settlements across the borders.

Kill All Gazans!

The destruction of so many homes has left hundreds of thousands of Palestinian civilians homeless.

However, the massive death and destruction inflicted on the totally unprotected Gazan inhabitants showed that Israel wanted to kill as many Gazan civilians as the international community would allow.

Hence, one would not exaggerate a bit or sidestep truth by saying that the main motive behind the virtual Gaza genocide of last year was to satiate Jewish-Zionist thirst for the Palestinian blood.

It was a shameless expression of sadism whereby Israelis drew pleasure from seeing so many Palestinian children and civilians die by bombs and lethal white phosphorus dropped on them from high altitudes.

The destruction of so many homes has left hundreds of thousands of Palestinian civilians homeless.

These Palestinians had to be sheltered in insecure and unsafe tents or by clinging to their partially destroyed and highly risky homes.

Israel is vehemently refusing to allow building materials such as lumber, cement, panes, and glass to reach Gaza.

Israeli officials concoct many excuses to justify their manifestly criminal behavior, which is causing immense suffering to innocent civilians, such as claiming that building materials could be used by Hamas to build fortifications.

Indeed, "criminal" is an appropriate description of the Israeli behavior since barring building materials from getting into Gaza reflects callousness, cruelty, and criminality.

The Decapitated "Civilized West"

No matter what Israel does and what crimes it commits, this would not affect Israeli-EU relations.

Now, with the advent of winter, tens of thousands of tormented Gazans are going to suffer and many might get sick and die because of cold weather.

Notwithstanding its Nazi-like criminality, Israel does not alone bear all the blame for the huge shame of exposing the people of Gaza to much suffering and pain.

The "civilized" West, which created Israel by giving European Jews the historical and ancestral homeland of the Palestinian people, is virtually silent in the face of this shame as if the suffering and pain Palestinians have been through were not sufficient.

Indeed, apart from some routine statements by EU officials deploring the humanitarian conditions in the Gaza Strip, European officials who would hasten to invoke "Western civility and enlightenment", are more or less circumspect on the ongoing Gaza nightmare as if they are awaiting to see the people of Gaza slowly dying.

The European Union does give humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip. However, the people of Gaza need more than just food. They need to rebuild their homes and lives, and this task cannot be realized without the European Union exerting meaningful pressure on the Zionist regime to allow the entry of building materials into the Strip.

It is difficult to find a single legitimate reason justifying European inaction, which really amounts to a huge betrayal and moral failure.

The European Union has much leverage with Israel. The European Union is Israel's main trading partner, and the Zionist regime has immense interests in maintaining strong ties with European Union and its individual countries.

However, instead of utilizing these factors to convince or even force Israel to allow Gaza to rebuild, EU countries are often busy discussing ways and means to promote their ties with Israel.

The European attitude toward Israel is morally problematic. It shows that Europe is quite helpless in the face of the Israeli arrogance and insolence. In fact, Israel is not only indulging in cruel sadism against a helpless and thoroughly tormented civilian population, but is also killing the two-state solution by continuing to build Jewish-only settlements on the occupied Arab lands.

The European Union is actually rewarding the Zionist state by showing that no matter what Israel does and what crimes it commits, this would not affect Israeli-EU relations.

On December 10, as the world celebrates the so-called Human-Rights Day, the people of Gaza stand virtually alone in coping with their suffering.

Arab Regimes Collaborating with Israel

These regime will pay dearly for their betrayal of an Arab-Muslim people that has been standing alone against Zionist expansionism.

Unfortunately, the biggest Arab country, Egypt, could do much to alleviate suffering across the border. Egypt can, at no price and at no risk, allow building materials to reach Gaza, thus thwarting Israel's criminal blackmail.

The Egyptian economy could also benefit from rebuilding Gaza, given the fact that billions of dollars would be spent in the rebuilding process.

However, the autocratic Egyptian leadership refuses to do so, citing unconvincing arguments about "international agreements with Israel" as if these agreements, which have been violated a thousand times by the Zionist regime, were sacred covenants and more important than saving lives.

Other Arab countries, such as Saudi Arabia, have voiced their willingness to contribute generously to rebuilding Gaza. The King of Saudi Arabia, Abdullah Ibn Abdul Aziz, reportedly pledged a billion dollars to cover the expenses of rebuilding Gaza.

However, it is amply clear that financial generosity alone is not sufficient to overcome the present tragedy.

Saudi Arabia, an important country in the Middle East, could, if it wanted, exert strong pressure on Washington to pressure Israel to allow building materials to reach Gaza.

However, the fact that the Saudis are not exerting such pressure sends another bleak message of betrayal to the people of Gaza.

This impotent Arab attitude toward the Gaza catastrophe is more than a moral failure.

It really borders on outright perfidy. These regimes will pay dearly for their betrayal of an Arab-Muslim people that has been standing, virtually alone, along the first line of defense against Zionist expansionism and belligerency.

Nevertheless, one has to admit that the Saudis and other Arab regimes cannot really be more Palestinian than the Palestinians themselves can. The Palestinian Authority (PA) regime in Ramallah has done very little to help rebuild Gaza.

On the contrary, this regime, which gives the stupid political power struggle with Hamas priority over the Israeli occupation, often seems to be conniving with the Zionist occupiers and the Western powers in perpetuating the present situation for as long as possible in the hope of generating more anger and indignation against Hamas among the people of Gaza.

This is the very regime that claims to be serving the national interests of the Palestinian people.

Well, with leaders like Mahmud Abbas, Salam Fayyad, and Muhammed Dahlan, the Palestinian people certainly need no enemies.

The recent arrest warrant issued in London  for former Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni is more than justified.

This woman, along with two other Israeli leaders, Ehud Olmert and  Ehud Barak, stood at the helm of the Israeli government that ordered, supervised and charted  the  genocidal onslaught against the Gaza Strip this time last year.

She was a chief participant in the decision-making process who also supervised the progress of the hideous massacre from the beginning to the end.

Needless to say, the decisions taken by Livni, and other suspected Israeli war criminals, did lead to the murder of more than 1440 people,  including hundreds of innocent children whose lives were terminated by indiscriminate bombings from air, land and sea. This is in addition to the pornographic destruction of a huge part of Gaza’s civilian infrastructure, including tens of thousands of homes, mosques and public buildings of every kind.

The monstrous, satanic and evil lady knew perfectly what she was doing. She knew that her SS-like army was murdering kids in their mothers’ laps, annihilating entire families, frightened and huddling in their refugee shanties or whatever other places they thought would shield them from death.

She saw the pornographic death and destruction on television screens. She was alerted by human rights organizations, including Israel’s own B’tselem, that the Israeli army was murdering civilians knowingly and deliberately. But she chose to ignore what was too obvious to most people.

And instead of ordering an immediate halt to the massacre, she resorted to mendacious propaganda by blaming the victims and accusing Hamas of using civilians as human shields.

There is a huge mountain of evidence indicting this evil woman. She is an Adolph Hitler in a feminine form. She carries on her sinful hands tons of blood of innocent children and innocent men and women. 

Livni may have a diplomatic immunity, but diplomatic immunity is not a license allowing bearers to murder children in cold blood as Livni did nearly 12 months ago.

It is sad that the British government is behaving in a perplexed manner, reluctant to tell Israel that Israel and its leaders are not above the laws of nations, including the British law.

Well, the UK should never compromise its own laws for the sake of shielding a war criminal, a mass murderer and child killer, from justice.

A crime is a crime is a crime, irrespective of the religion or race of the perpetrator. I know that certain diplomatic and political considerations may be pressing 10-Downing Street to seek a solution that would appease Israel.

However, appeasement, it should be understood by all, would only embolden Israel to commit more genocidal crimes against the helpless Palestinians and other peoples of the Middle East. After all, crime unpunished is crime encouraged.
 
In any case, the British government, including Foreign Secretary David Milliband who reportedly described the arrest warrant against Livni as “insufferable” will find itself in an unviable situation, having to defend Israel’s Nazi-like behavior against the people of the Gaza Strip.

First, the British government would have to prove beyond doubt that the 21-day onslaught against Gaza, during which all weapons of death, including white phosphorus, precision missiles and laser-guided bombs were used against the nearly totally unprotected inhabitants of Gaza, didn’t constitute war crimes or crimes against humanity.

However, a claim as such wouldn’t be viewed seriously as it has been established beyond doubt by the UN-mandated investigating commission headed by judge Richard Goldstone that what Israel did in Gaza in last December and January did constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity.

However, if the government does accept the Goldstone report, but still refuses to allow the British justice system to prosecute the diabolical lady because of certain diplomatic and political considerations, then it will be showing extraordinary flaccidity toward Israel and utter contempt for the entire system of justice in the UK.

After all, a justice system that is selective in applying justice, is not a true system of justice.

This is why, the British government should not cower before the Israeli bully or be intimidated by Israeli threats such as the often-made threat that  Israel wouldn’t allow the UK to take part in the so-called “peace process” in case Israeli war criminals were arrested or prosecuted for war crimes before British courts.

Britain must not allow itself to be bullied by this bullying criminal entity whose very existence is based on murder, ethnic cleansing, land theft and lying.

A last word to those known and unknown soldiers who monitor the movement of Israeli war criminals. You are God’s means to make these hateful criminals realize that murdering innocent people has a price.

So, chase them wherever they go, hound them, narrow their horizons, and try to get them apprehended and arrested.

We owe it to these innocent children, who were mercilessly annihilated by the Nazis of our time, to seek justice for them and their families.  We betrayed them when they were alive by failing to protect them from the Nazis of our time, we must not betray them again by denying them justice, even as they are dead.

Adopted by European foreign ministers in Brussels on 8 December, the document reasserts the two-state solution, urging Israel to allow for the creation of a viable and territorially contiguous Palestinian state on the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with East Jerusalem as its future capital.

While begrudgingly recognising the "eventuality" of a Palestinian state of some sort, Israel insists that it will be subject to stringent limitations that the Palestinians say would drain it of any substance.

Reaffirming European non-recognition of the annexation by Israel of predominantly Arab East Jerusalem, the ministers agreed that genuine peace between the two sides required that the status of the city be resolved through negotiations. They rejected the mantra that East Jerusalem is Israel's "united and undivided capital".

"The EU will not recognise any changes to the pre-1967 borders, including Jerusalem, other than those agreed by the parties," read the ministers' statement.

The statement also urged Israel to halt settlement building and end discriminatory treatment of Palestinians in East Jerusalem.

Palestinian leaders in both the West Bank and Gaza Strip reacted cautiously, if positively, to the EU statement. In Ramallah, Palestinian Authority (PA) Prime Minister Salam Fayyad even sounded a euphoric note.

"I believe it is a good day for international law, for international legitimacy, for justice, for our own people to begin to have a sense of hope about the future."

Speaking to reporters, Fayyad voiced the hope that "this path is going to take us to freedom and allow us to be able to live like other people around the world, as a free people with dignity in a country of our own, on the territories occupied in 1967, including East Jerusalem."

Fayyad, who enjoys strong Western backing due to his reputation for fighting corruption and promoting transparent governance, described the EU stance as an "important juncture" towards realising Palestinian statehood.

He applauded the EU's assertion that a final resolution of the conflict would have to be based on UN Security Council resolutions, the Arab Initiative and the land- for-peace formula.

Other Palestinian politicians showed more caution.

Abdullah Abdullah, a former director- general of the Palestinian Foreign Ministry and member of Fatah's revolutionary council, described the statement as significant only "if acted on and translated into tangible policy".

"It is a watered-down statement, much less than what we would like to see. But it is ten times better than earlier European positions, characterised by vacillation, ambiguity and indecisiveness."

Abdullah pointed out that Europe appeared increasingly willing to adopt distinctive and independent policies vis-à-vis the Palestinian question. This, he said, constituted a departure from earlier European subservience to Washington.

"The other thing is that the Obama administration seems to have refrained from exerting pressure on the EU to adopt a more pro-Israeli stand. This happened despite strong Israeli pressure on the US to do so."

The veteran Palestinian diplomat nonetheless cautioned that transforming the EU policy statement into a tangible political reality will depend on what the Palestinian-Arab side does as much as on the EU's own actions.

"We have to make tremendous efforts to get the EU, both as a bloc and also as individual states, to translate this important statement into a manual for action. Israel is not going to give a damn about statements and declarations not backed by action. Hence the urgent need for an immediate, pro-active implementation of this policy in the EU's relations with Israel."

One Fatah official, Tayib Abdel-Rahim, castigated French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner for taking a "vague position" with regard to the borders of any future Palestinian position.

Abdel-Rahim was quoted by the local Maan news agency as saying that Kouchner's position in Brussels was incompatible with France's longstanding policy supporting the creation of a Palestinian state along the 1967 borders.

Infuriated by the pro-Israeli French stance, PA chief negotiator Saeb Ureikat called on Arab states to take a stand against Paris for its opposition to unconditional EU recognition of East Jerusalem as the capital of a Palestinian state.

Israel, which had waged an extensive diplomatic campaign against the Swedish draft both in Brussels and Washington, insisted any "damage" caused by the EU statement would be limited and contained.

An unnamed senior Israeli official praised East European states which helped "moderate and weaken" the original Swedish draft.

"The EU's only saving grace is that some of its members are responsible and moderate nations that didn't support the Swedish draft, which looked like something taken from the Fatah platform at the Bethlehem conference."

The same official was quoted as saying that "a group of [moderate] nations saved the EU from itself, since any other decision would have severely harmed relations between Jerusalem and Brussels, and would have prevented the EU from becoming an important partner in the peace process."

Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman issued a statement deploring the EU's policy statement, saying that Israel regretted that the EU chose to adopt a text that, although containing nothing new, did not contribute to the renewal of negotiations.

Lieberman, shunned in much of the world due to his racist attitudes, expressed partial satisfaction that the EU didn't adopt the original Swedish proposal which called for EU recognition of East Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state.

"In light of the extreme draft originally presented by the Swedish presidency at the start of discussions Israel does welcome the fact that at the end of the process the voice of the responsible and reasonable EU states prevailed, balancing and improving the text."

In a recent article in the New York Times,  the American Jewish journalist Thomas Friedman blamed the so-called Arab-Islamic “Narrative” for all the troubles surrounding US-Muslim relations-from the 9-11 terrorist events in 2001 to the recent killing of 13 American soldiers in Texas by American-born and American-bred Nidal Malik Hasan.

Friedman suggested that Muslims all over the world ought to show gratitude to the US for helping them in places like Kosovo, Bosnia, Darfur, Somalia, Lebanon, Kurdistan, post-earthquake Pakistan, post-Tsunami Indonesia, Iraq and Afghanistan. True to his style, he carefully ignored the killing of hundreds of thousands of  mostly innocent people in the context of American intervention in these countries.

Friedman also suggested that the American military crusades against the Muslim Middle East were meant as a message of deterrence and primarily to destroy two tyrannical regimes-The Taliban and the Baathists.

Well, I don’t always take Friedman seriously. He is a fanatical Jewish supremacist who seems to think deeply in his heart that non-Jews are lesser human beings.

And when it comes to the Judeo-Nazi entity known as Israel, which is the central source of instability and agitation in the Middle East and beyond, Friedman loses all pretension of objectivity and fair discourse.

In fact, the reason I am responding to his screed is not because I think he has something worthwhile to say. In the final analysis, Friedman is just another shipyard dog of American Zionism who for many years shamelessly utilized his journalistic skills to support and defend Israeli terrorism, territorial expansion and wanton theft of Arab land.

I’ve decided to write a brief response because an American internet friend has asked me to do so. In addition, the American people, in whose name all this criminal war and oppression are carried out, needs to be reminded from time to time of the real facts. I am saying this because it is really sad and lamentable that dishonest, or pathologically dishonest, journalists like Friedman are allowed to poison the American discourse unchallenged.

First of all, Friedman ignores the legitimate reasons and root-causes of Arab and Muslim dislike for the United States. Let me remind him of the following cardinal facts.

For decades, the US has been the main backer and enabler of Israeli terrorism, aggression and criminality against the peoples of the Arab-Muslim Middle East.

Successive America administrations since Truman, probably with the sole exception of the Eisenhower administration, effectively acted at Israel’s beck and call. They gave Israel the wherewithal to behave like a neighborhood bully-from  state-of-art technology of death to doggedly and overzealously shielding  Israel from international condemnation at the UN Security Council.

This fanatical embrace of a regime whose very existence constitutes a gigantic crime against humanity didn’t encourage Israel to walk in the path of peace. On the contrary, it emboldened the Zionist regime to commit every conceivable crime under the sun – from massacring Palestinian refugees en mass at Sabra and Satilla near Beirut in 1982 (in concert with allied Lebanese Christian militias) to raining white phosphorus on civilians in Gaza in 2008-9.

Indeed, thanks to unlimited and unrestricted American support of the criminal entity, some Israeli leaders were prompted to declare that “we control America and the Americans know it.”

Needless to say, the scandalously huge magnitude of America’s embrace of Israeli Nazism earned America the title of Israel’s guardian ally.

The Israeli-American alliance has never been a force for good, justice or democracy in the Middle East. The exact opposite is true. Thanks to this unethical and unholy alliance, Israel has been able to have a free season on the helpless Palestinians, destroy their homes and farms, enslave them economically, narrow their horizons, and expel the bulk of these tormented people to the four corners of the globe.

In the final analysis, it was America’s pornographic disregard for justice and international law that enabled Israel to kill any real hopes for peace in the Middle East as Bob Simon, another American Jewish journalist, asserted in a recent documentary.

I don’t know why journalists like Friedman don’t tell their readers the truth, namely that a country that builds, by way of coercion and bullying, hundreds of Jewish-only settlements on occupied territory, doesn’t really want peace with its neighbors.

Similarly, I don’t know why these dishonest shapers of American public opinion don’t write and say through their respective media outlets, such as the NY Times, that the Israeli military occupation is nothing short of an act of rape since it robs the victims of their most fundamental human and natural rights.

This is a question that Mr. Friedman ought to answer honestly and straightforwardly without indulging in verbal juggling and selective citation of facts.

In addition to its central role in tormenting and savaging the Palestinian people for decades, successive US administrations have been supporting tyrannical Arab despots who never stopped humiliating and oppressing their own people in order to preserve their autocratic but impotent Sheikhdoms, princedoms, fiefdoms, and kingdoms as well as their "royal republics" as in Egypt and Tunisia.

It is mainly due to enduring American support of these tyrannies, that the vast bulk of the peoples of the Middle East are denied the right to freely choose their own governments and rulers.

America is not ignorant or unaware of what is happening in the Arab Middle East. It is well aware of the extent to which basic human and political rights are denied.  It is well aware of the feudal nature of governance in many of the so-called allied Arab countries. America watches the brazen shamelessness of dictatorship in the capitals of the Middle East but remains silent as if the Arab and Muslim masses were children of a lesser God.

Nonetheless, even this whoring hypocrisy toward Muslims doesn’t prevent American officials and spokespersons from lecturing Muslims on the virtues of democracy!

A few years ago, the Bush Administration cajoled the Palestinian Authority leadership in Ramallah to organize elections in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. However, when Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic liberation movement unexpectedly won these elections, the man in the White House lost his composure and expeditiously ordered a whole set of draconian measures to be imposed against the people of Gaza to punish them for electing a political party that Israel and the US didn’t like.

After all of this, I wonder how people like Friedman still have the temerity and audacity to claim that the American invasion, occupation and destruction of two sovereign  Muslim countries, which killed or caused the death of over a million innocent human beings, were merely meant to foster democracy in these two unfortunate countries.

In fact, a manifestly intellectually bankrupt Friedman shamelessly indulges in fornication with language when he claims that for every stupid and bad act America committed-such as the scandal at Abu Ghraib, “our soldiers and diplomats perpetrated a million acts of kindness aimed at giving Arabs and Muslims a better chance to succeed with modernity and to elect their own leaders.”!!!

Well, this is another obscene and pornographic lie that really goes beyond the pale of human decency. Where are those Arab countries which, thanks to American “altruism and kindness,”  have been made  able to democratically  elect their leaders and succeed with modernity? Egypt? Saudi Arabia? Jordan? Kuwait? The Gulf Sheikhdoms? Tunisia? Morocco?

Friedman and ilk might want to cite Iraq as an example to corroborate their conspicuous mendacity.  But everyone knows that the so-called Iraqi democracy is a tight ly controlled democracy and that the US would move swiftly to scuttle it  in one fell swoop if there was the slightest chance that it would produce an anti-American or even anti-Israeli leadership.

It is true that the US has done what might be thought to be positive deeds, such as building some schools in some Arab countries. But these acts pale in comparison to Americas cardinal sins in the Muslim world. Indeed, in many cases, these "acts of kindness" are only meant to divert attention from America’s evil policies  in the region,  especially the policy of embracing Israeli Nazism and sustaining tyranny and dictatorship throughout the Arab world.
 
Well, perhaps I am being too hard on Friedman. After all, he is a product of a culture that killed millions of Native Americans and then  had the audacity to call  the genocide “manifest destiny.” This is the same country that allows and encourages Israel to liquidate the just Palestinian cause, by building settlements, carrying out ethnic cleansing  and stealing more Palestinian land, while calling the slow-moton  liquidation a “peace process.”

Last week, Ashkenazi was quoted as saying that Israel was likely to wage another quasi holocaust on Gaza, adding that the Israeli occupation army would enter the innermost corners and streets of the coastal territory.

As a nefarious mass murderer, Ashkenazi, like the rest of Israeli war criminals, ought to be in the Hague preparing his defense against charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. After all the crimes he perpetrated put him  on equal footing with Nazi war criminals who had stood trial  for their  own crimes against humanity during the Second World War.

However, because of the serious moral imbalance afflicting our world today, which finds a brazen expression in western complicity with Zio-Nazism,  Ashkenazi and ilk are not only free but are even  threatening their victims with a fresh holocaust.

In a certain sense, Ashkenazi’s arrogant behavior falls within the normal order of things. The totally inappropriate reaction by the international community to the Nazi-like blitz against the unprotected Gazans must have further emboldened Israeli leaders, convincing  them that Israel can always have a free season on the 1.5 million helpless, blockaded and thoroughly starved inhabitants of the coastal enclave without having to worry about any serious ramifications and repercussions.

Hence his repulsive statements.

It is true that many free-minded political and moral leaders, such as the Turkish Prime Minister Recep  Tayyip Erdogan, have strongly condemned Israeli barbarianism in Gaza.

It is also true that the Goldstone report, prepared by South African Judge Richard Goldstone, denounced Israel for perpetrating war crimes and crimes against humanity during the Gaza blitz, which is a positive development.

However, it is also true  that war criminals pay little attention to verbal condemnations even if coming from prominent international bodies and figures.

This is why Askenazi’s remarks ought to be taken with utmost seriousness for two main reasons:  First because the Israeli army, or Zionist Wehrmacht, is capable of committing the unthinkable, including the carpet bombing of civilian areas, using cluster bombs, as happened over Lebanon in the summer of 2006,  or white phosphorus as happened in Gaza last winter. And  second, because Israel is essentially a  rebellious state which  has never taken international law seriously. What is even more scandalous is that western countries, especially the United States, have always treated the Judeo-Nazi entity as above international law.

Hence, it is imperative that the Palestinian people play their cards very carefully and smartly. After all, when wrestling with a huge bull, one has to rely on his brain, not his muscles, otherwise one may end up getting crushed by the mighty beast.

Palestinians ought to be always mindful of this fact because their very survival as a people depends to a large extent on the good will of the international community, not their own military or political strength. After all, most Palestinians are effectively prisoners of the enduring Israeli military occupation.

Hence, the Palestinian must seek to recruit the best minds and most gifted spokespersons to raise the awareness of the peoples of the world about the creeping holocaust Israel is trying to wreak on our helpless people.

We must not flinch from invoking the holocaust lest we be accused of making hyperboles. Indeed, if even one tenth of what happened in Gaza earlier this year had happened to Israeli Jews, Israel would have invoked the holocaust  nonstop, and urgent calls from around the world would have been made for saving the Jews and preventing  the Arabs from completing what Adolph had started nearly seventy years ago.

More to the point, the idea of Israel carrying out a sort of a holocaust is not unthinkable at all.

Last year, the Israeli deputy defense minister Mattan Vilna’ai warned that Israel would launch a holocaust against the Palestinians if that was what the Palestinians wanted.  And during the blitzkrieg on Gaza, the psychotic Israeli foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman was quoted by the Israeli media as saying that a nuclear bomb ought to be dropped on Gaza.

Hence, Palestinian fears are not and shouldn’t be viewed as phobic and irrational. After all, we are dealing with an irrational state and a morbid society that are overwhelmed with a unique type of collective psychosis.

Never the less, raising our voices is not sufficient. We must also seek to enlist the attention and support of international human rights organizations as much as possible. These are credible witnesses whose testimonies might be proven crucial for safeguarding the rights of our people, the dead as well as the living.

We must also gather and  meticulously document every conceivable  piece of information pertaining to Zionist crimes and criminals, from the ordinary soldier in the field to the highest-ranking commander. This shouldn’t be a difficult job as there is already a huge amount of information pertaining to Israeli war criminals available, even through the internet.

Furthermore, Palestinians and their supporters should always confront states all over the world with information indicting Israeli military and political leaders. We should seek to narrow their horizons, make the capitals of the world off-limit to them, we should pursue them wherever they go. These people are war criminals and child killers must not be allowed to have any shred of  peace of mind . Their murderous crimes must condemn them to a life of existential anxiety, stress and depression.

Of course, the Zio-Nazis will not surrender and allow themselves to be easily defeated by our efforts. Moreover, manifestly immoral governments such as those of the US and Germany, to name just a few, will hasten to support Israel and shield it from any proactive measures that would make the Zionist regime feel  the heat and understand that the occupation has a cost that must be paid in full.

But we and our allies could counter this true axis of evil by building a worldwide front comprising millions of free and honest  men and women  who would chase the war criminals wherever they go and  expose their evil deeds.

Luckily, we already have such a movement in place. But we need to get more organized, and be more effective. These goals are not difficult to realize as the world is already fed up with Israel, a state that we must never stop comparing with Nazi Germany because in the final analysis when Zionist Jews think, behave and act like the Nazis of the past century, they become Nazis.

We must never be apologetic about this.

Futility Much Anticipated With Israel's Occupation

In a measure that has already vexed the internal Palestinian political arena, Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmud Abbas has called for "presidential and legislative elections" to be held in the Occupied Territories of the West Bank, East Al-Quds and the Gaza Strip on January 24, 2010.

The decision is expected to widen and deepen the  state of contention between Fatah and Hamas, the two largest political groups in occupied Palestine.

Fatah, which have been in control of the PA security agencies connived with Western powers and also Israel against Hamas after the Muslim liberation group won the 2006 elections.

This prompted Hamas to oust Fatah militias from the Gaza Strip in the summer of 2007.

The cold-bloodedness between the two sides has evolved into a kind of unprecedented enmity as all Arab, especially since Egyptian efforts to reconcile the two groups, have so far failed.

It is not exactly clear what prompted Abbas to embark on this feat now, especially with reconciliation efforts going nowhere and with the current Israeli government of Benyamin Netanyahu refusing to freeze Jewish settlement expansion despite constant American demands.

Hamas which controls the Gaza Strip, has castigated the decision to hold elections without consultation or coordination with Hamas, as a "grave blunder that would have serious repercussions on the Palestinian national cause."

For his part, Abbas sought to defend his decision, arguing that the elections were a "legal, national and constitutional imperative."

To this, Hamas retorted that it is futile to speak  of constitutional imperatives when Israel controls every street and corner in the West Bank, and when Abbas himself, as the head of the Palestinian Authority, cannot even move from his office in Ramallah to the next street without getting Israel's consent beforehand.

Palestinians, Hamas argued, must not get themselves accustomed to the "normality" of living under the Israeli military occupation.

Objective Facts

In a certain sense, Hamas is correct. The West Bank, which will be the main theatre of the scheduled elections, is still tightly controlled by the Israeli occupation army. 

Indeed, every Palestinian town where the PA enjoys nominal and symbolic "authority" is actually controlled and by the Israeli army, either directly or in collaboration with American-trained Palestinian security forces.

This means that Israel, not the PA, has the final say in all matters pertaining to elections. If Israel says "No", Abbas obviously cannot do much. He will probably succumb to the Israeli decision, and perhaps complain to Israel's guardian-ally, the United States.

Hence, it is probably safe to say that Israel will not allow the organization of real, fair and transparent elections in the West Bank and East Al-Quds if the Jewish state does not receive an "appropriate price" from the weak and vulnerable PA government.

In 2006, when Israel felt that Hamas was poised to win Palestinian legislative elections, it unceremoniously rounded up hundreds of pro-Hamas candidates for PA parliament and local (municipal) councils.

In the West Bank, nearly all elected Muslim MPs were arrested and sentenced to lengthy periods of imprisonment ranging from 32 months to 48 months. Their only "crime" was their participation in elections under the umbrella of a "terrorist organization".

On October 26, 24 MPs, including formers ministers, such Sheikh Nayef Rajoub, are still languishing in Israeli dungeons on no ground other than the fact that they earned the trust of their people in a fair election that was okayed by Israel and the United States and meticulously observed by observers from around the world.

This means that there is no guarantee whatsoever that Israel will not resort to the same draconian measures again. If so, one would really wonder if it is wise to hold elections under such conditions.

Police State Without a State 

To be sure, Israel is not the only obstacle impeding the organization of fair and truly democratic elections. The PA itself is very much a police state without a state. A police state because there is a nearly total absence of the rule of law in the West Bank as human rights and civil liberties are routinely and constantly violated.

 And "without a state" because the PA has no sovereignty of its own and is thoroughly subservient to Israel's whims.

Needless to say, an atmosphere of fear now prevailing throughout the West Bank inhibits organizing truly democratic elections.

People suspected of holding "non-conformist" views, such as sympathizing with Hamas, will be dragged to jails and interrogation dungeons where they are often beaten, humiliated and even tortured. 

At least 10 pro-Hamas sympathizers have been tortured to death at the hands of PA interrogators since 2007.

In addition, thousands of people have been detained and hundreds are still languishing in PA jails without charge or trial.

The police state atmosphere is so rampant in the West Bank today that a petty act like hoisting a green Islamic flag bearing Islam's article of faith (I bear witness that there is no God but Allah, and that Muhammed is His messenger) is enough to make one land in a PA interrogation center.

Hence, it is only logical to question the plausibility, let alone wisdom of holding elections under such circumstances.

This is not to say that "elections" cannot be organized at all. They can, but it is highly likely that they would be seriously rigged in daylight, although this would not prevent the PA's Western donors and bankrollers , such the United States and the United Kingdom, from hailing the elections as "democratic and honest".

Hard Questions

The PA leadership claims that it will respect the outcome of the elections, regardless of which party wins the polls. However, any serious observer of the Palestinian arena can hardly take this claim for granted.

Let us suppose for the sake of argument that Hamas would win the elections, even by a narrow margin. Would Fatah then cede power to the victorious party?  Would the United States and Britain and Israel's Western allies come to terms with the results? Would Israel recognize Hamas as the true representative of the Palestinian people? Would the American-trained PA security forces agree to be answerable to the new government?

Obviously, the answer for all these crucial questions is absolutely "No".
It is amply clear that Abbas is not intending to hold elections for the elections' sake.

His ultimate goal is to avenge Fatah's defeat in Gaza more than two years ago, as well as to outmaneuver Hamas into a serious  political predicament.

Ultimately, Abbas wants to get rid of Hamas as a key political player at the Palestinian arena in order to be able to give Israel all or most of the concessions it is now demanding without  facing any serious Palestinian opposition.

Abbas and his aides did try to achieve this ominous goal, namely to decapitate Hamas in 2007, in concert with US intelligence through such people as Elliot Abrams and Keith Dayton.

However, Hamas managed to outsmart them when its "Executive Force" defeated and ousted Fatah's militias from the entire Gaza Strip.

Moreover, Fatah and Hamas differ sharply on the entire rationale behind the elections. Hamas views the elections as part of an overall program for resistance that would eventually enable the Palestinian people to wrest freedom from the Israeli occupation.

On the other hand, Fatah views the election as an opportunity to "settle scores with Hamas" and to willy-nilly re-impose the group's erstwhile hegemony over Palestinian lives, using a variety of stick-and-carrot tactics.

Fatah is bent on remaining in "power", a term which in the Palestinian context is devoid of any real meaning since the PA has no real power and only functions as a submissive sub-contractor for the Israeli occupation.

In light, there is no doubt that holding elections in the West Bank  under the present circumstances would seriously complicate and exacerbate the internal Palestinian crisis and might lead to an irreversible divorce between Gaza and the West Bank.

Certainly, this is not what most Palestinians want.

http://www.islamonline.net/servlet/Satellite?c=Article_C&cid=1256034022358&pagename=Zone-English-Muslim_Affairs%2FMAELayout

The recent Turkish decision to exclude Israel from an aerial military exercise over Turkish territory is another indication that Turkey will not allow itself to be blackmailed by criminal international Zionism.

Following the decision, Zionist officials and media sought to mitigate its impact on the increasingly troubled relations with Turkey by claiming that it had little to do with the genocidal blitz which the Israeli army carried out in winter against the Gaza Strip.
However, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Prime Minister of Turkey, and other Turkish officials  have made  it amply clear that the cancellation of the military drill is consistent with the feelings of the vast bulk of  the Turkish masses vis-à-vis the Nazi-like atrocities in the Gaza Strip.

This week, Erdogan once again invoked the mass killings by the Israeli army of hundreds of Palestinian children, using white phosphorus shells and other weapons of death.
The Turkish premier argued convincingly that Turkey has an influential public opinion and that it was the government’s duty to take it into consideration.

His remarks have effectively silenced Zionist pretensions and attempts at self-assurance that Turkey would budge to Zionist pressure.

To be sure, Israel is unlikely to succumb to the new reality of Turkish-Israeli relations, namely that the quasi-Islamic leadership of  Turkish republic will not just play deaf and dumb and look the other way if the Zionist regime keeps up its genocidal crimes against the helpless and innocent civilians in occupied Palestine.

Zionist circles, incensed by their inability to intimidate or bully the Turkish leadership, are likely to be devising ways and means of retributions against Turkey.

These might include instigating the Jewish-controlled American congress to declare the anti-Armenian campaign of 1915 a “genocide” or even a “holocaust.” More importantly, Israel and its Zionist circles are likely to step up efforts to incite the traditionally secular Turkish military establishment to topple the democratically-elected government.

Israel has had a reputation of inciting the Turkish military against civilian governments that dared deviate from the Zionist line.

A classical example was the Zionist-envisaged coup against the first Islamic Prime Minister of modern Turkey, Necmittin Erbakan in 1997.

Moreover, Israel could still manipulate a vast network of Freemason agents to destabilize the Turkish government.

Zionism played a pivotal role in effecting the downfall of the Ottoman state after Sultan Abdul Hamid II adamantly refused repeated Jewish solicitations for a national Jewish home in Palestine.

Nevertheless, Israel would have to be extremely cautious about any provocative interference in internal Turkish affairs since this could boomerang badly on Israel and cause irreparable damage to Israeli-Turkish relations.

Also, the increasingly stable relations between the Turkish government and the military establishment are likely to make any Zionist-inspired conspiracies against the stability of Turkey more difficult than ever before.

The exclusion of Israel from the Anatolian Eagle exercise seems to be a popular measure for most Turks who are disquieted by recurrent efforts by government-backed Jewish extremists to arrogate a foothold at the Aqsa Mosque in occupied Jerusalem, one of Islam’s holiest sanctuaries.

In addition, the decision is manifestly morally right. After all, which country, let alone an Islamic country, would host warplanes that only a few months ago were raining death on helpless and unprotected children throughout the Gaza Strip, killing, maiming and incinerating thousands of innocent people, and utterly destroying thousands of homes, mosques and other civilian buildings?

The Zionists will always try to defend or cover up their evil crimes, now exposed by the Goldstone report, with obscene lies.

They would claim, as the former Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni did this week, that the virtual genocide in Gaza was not an anti-Palestinian act but rather an “anti-terrorist act.”
But such claims are nothing short of a fornication with language.

After all, it is well-established that the vast majority of the victims of the Gaza blitz were innocent civilians. This fact is readily recognized by human rights groups such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and even Israel’s own B’tselem group which monitors Israeli army crimes in the occupied Palestinian territories.

So could it be that the entire world is wrong about what happened in Gaza while the Judeo-Nazi thugs in Tel Aviv are right?

The Turkish leadership should therefore be applauded for its moral commitment toward  the helpless Palestinians, many of whom have Turkish ancestry, who are languishing under an unmitigated Nazi-like military occupation.

This Turkish approach to Israel, an entity whose very existence constitutes a gigantic war crime, or a crime against humanity, is the least any Muslim country can do to prevent a possible genocide against the Palestinians.

This is why, other Muslim (and non-Muslim) countries with diplomatic ties with the Israeli regime ought to learn a moral lesson from Turkey and stop having “business as usual” with the Nazis of our time.

I am saying this  because it is a Nazi act par excellence to employ the most advanced technology of death  to exterminate innocent civilians who are even denied access to food and fuel as well as  some of the basic amenities of life, on the ground that a few Israeli settlers were killed and injured by primitive projectiles fired by desperate Palestinian resistance fighters who found themselves very much in a situation resembling  that which faced the anti-Nazi resistance fighters in Europe during the Second World War.

I am sure that conscientious people around the world, including many Jews, know in the depth of their hearts that what Israel did in Gaza ten months ago, and what it has been doing to the Palestinians for decades, belongs to the same moral category under which Nazi atrocities are listed.

This is why it is a moral obligation of the highest order upon all people of conscience and honesty, irrespective of religion and race, to condemn, expose and isolate this nefarious regime that is trying to consolidate the law of the jungle in place of international law.

Failing to do so, God forbid, means that the law of the jungle will prevail.

The report, compiled by South African judge Richard Goldstone, accused Israel of committing, knowingly and deliberately, war crimes and crimes against humanity during its winter onslaught on the Gaza Strip in which more than 1,400 Palestinians were killed, most of whom were innocent civilians, including more than 300 children, with thousands others injured or badly incinerated by phosphoric bombs. Thousands of homes, mosques and public buildings were destroyed in the 22-day blitz.

The adoption of the report by the UNHRC would likely have led to calls for its referral to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague and could eventually have led to the prosecution of suspected Israeli war criminals. However, the inexplicable PA decision to support freezing discussion of the report until March has effectively enabled Israel to evade culpability by burying and neutralising the report, at least for the time being.

In occupied Palestine, and much of the Arab world, the scandalous PA misstep has drawn universal condemnation from the political right to the left, with PA officials, including President Mahmoud Abbas, finding themselves at loss as to how to shield themselves from an avalanche of vitriolic condemnations and accusations ranging from commission of treason to weakness, incompetence and powerlessness in the face of Israel and the United States.

In fact, no other act by the PA/PLO (Palestine Liberation Organisation) since the signing of the Oslo Accords more than 16 years ago has met such a unanimous revulsion, which explains the perplexed and confused reactions of PA officials and spokespersons. Moreover, most of the criticism came from secular groups, including organisations associated with the PLO itself, which would refute the claim that the widespread indignation was part of the public relations showdown between Fatah and the Islamist camp.

Even Fatah, Abbas's own party, which is the political backbone of both the PLO and PA, had to "go with the flow," at least publicly, by criticising the "irresponsible feat" in Geneva. Fatah is worried that the Geneva fiasco may cause it to lose popularity ahead of Palestinian elections that could take place in the second half of 2010.

PA President Mahmoud Abbas, eager to limit the damage, has ordered a probe into what happened. However, very few Palestinians take the measure seriously since it is widely believed that it was Abbas himself who asked the Palestinian ambassador to the UN to recommend freezing the Goldstone Report until March.

Hamas used strong epithets to denounce the PA decision to defer discussion of the Goldstone Report. Hamas leaders in Gaza and Damascus slammed the decision as representing "total subservience and submission" to the Zionist will. Ismail Haniyeh, the prime minister of the Hamas government in Gaza, blamed Abbas for the debacle, asserting that it was Abbas who took the decision. "The decision to abandon the Goldstone Report came from the top of the authority in Ramallah," he said.

Harsher words came from Sami Abu Zuhri, a Hamas spokesman in Gaza. "The Palestinian people would like to know if the Ramallah leadership is a defender of the Palestinian people and their just cause or a lawyer for Israel. We wouldn't be exaggerating if we said that this irresponsible behaviour borders on treason," he said.

Hamas had lately toned down its propaganda war against Fatah, apparently in order to help create the atmosphere conducive to prospective reconciliation between the two groups. However, it seems that Hamas has found the latest public relations disaster incurred by Abbas too precious to be let pass quietly — especially since the PA misstep is widely viewed as a huge betrayal for war victims and the entire people of the Gaza Strip.

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a PLO faction, also strongly denounced the deferral of the Goldstone Report as "irresponsible, defeatist" and representing a "huge affront to our people's struggle for justice". "This suspicious behaviour," the group continued, "is a prescription for corroding a major tool of our struggle against the Israeli occupation." A statement by the PFLP dismissed as "mendacious and silly" PA justifications for "this irresponsible act" which only serves the goals and interests of Israel.

Even stronger words came from the Islamic Jihad, which strongly condemned PA "connivance with our enemy". "The PA behaviour in Geneva brings shame and dishonour to the Ramallah leadership and underscores the extent to which that leadership is conspiring with the Zionist regime against the interests of our people." According to Mohamed Al-Hindi, a prominent Islamic Jihad leader in the Gaza Strip, "it is disgraceful that while the Palestinian people are celebrating the release of its honourable female prisoners from Israeli dungeons, the PA is conspiring with Israel to cover up its crimes against our people in Gaza."

The NGO sector also strongly denounced the Palestinian "retreat" in Geneva. In a widely circulated appeal entitled, "Justice delayed is justice denied," 16 Palestinian civic and human rights organisations argued that PA consent to defer the ratification of the Goldstone Report to March effectively "denied the Palestinian people the right to an effective judicial remedy and equal protection of the law. It also represents the triumph of politics over human rights. It is an insult to all victims and a rejection of their rights."

The same statement argued that the right to justice for victims of the Israeli war on Gaza shouldn't be subject to political manoeuvring. "These rights are universal, they are not subject to political considerations. In the nine months since Operation Cast Lead, no effective judicial investigation has been conducted into the conflict."

It is still somewhat unclear why the PA embraced such an unpopular decision. Some unnamed PA officials have disclosed that US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton bullied Abbas to defer discussion of the Goldstone Report, arguing that ratification of the report at the UNHRC would embarrass Israel and seriously undermine American efforts to restart the stalled peace process. The same sources intimated that the Obama administration had threatened to suspend its role as broker of Middle East peace efforts and freeze financial aid to the PA government if the latter didn't heed the American "advice".

Israel, also reportedly threatened the PA that it would refuse to license a new Palestinian mobile phone company, partially owned by one of Abbas's sons, if the PA pushed for the adoption of the Goldstone Report in Geneva. However, the most likely reason for the PA decision may have to do with an Israeli threat to release records of conversations between Israeli and PA officials showing the latter pleading with the former to pursue the war on Gaza to the end in order to crush Hamas.

The PA has remained reticent over these specific accusations, which only enforces speculation about the public rumours.

What is clear is that the latest scandal, or "Goldstone-gate" as some Palestinian journalists are beginning to refer to events in Geneva, is likely to seriously undermine PA standing with the Palestinian public. Weakened popularity, coupled with obvious US failure to force Israel to freeze Jewish-only settlement expansion in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, along with mounting tension around Al-Aqsa Mosque, could form an incendiary trigger that might eventually explode in a new wave of violence — a third Intifada.
Source: Ahram Weekly
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2009/967/re72.htm

Abbas Must Go
by Khalid Amayreh

Mahmoud Abbas’s decision to defer the adoption of the Goldstone report by the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva last week was more than an innocent diplomatic error or classical example of political misjudgment.

It was rather a brazen act of national irresponsibility bordering on breach of trust or outright treason.

I realize that one shouldn’t use words such “treason” very lightly. However, it is also true that undermining national interests, even unknowingly, in order to appease Israel and please the Obama administration goes beyond the pale of what is politically allowable and morally acceptable.

We are a people languishing under a cruel military occupation that is trying to obliterate us as a people using nefarious tactics, including murderous ethnic cleansing. This is why we can’t allow ourselves to have the luxury of having third-class leaders playing with our cause.

Abbas might cite a lot of excuses to save face and extenuate the gravity of this blunder, to put extremely mildly, such as claiming that he came under tremendous American pressure, or that he didn’t foresee the harmful effects of his decision on the Palestinian people and their just cause.

But such excuses makes no sense and only dishonest peoples or imbeciles would give Abbas the benefit of the doubt.

The reason is very simple. If indeed incompetence, or misjudgment or even senility is to blame for this appalling act of national irresponsibility, then it is clear that Abbas is unfit to be the leader of the Palestinian people. In the final analysis, incompetent leaders can be as harmful to their nations as treacherous leaders are.

But the scandalous blunder would be considered a brazen act of treason if Abbas did know what he was doing and if he decided to sheepishly heed the American “advice” despite his foreknowledge that this would cause a huge harm to the Palestinian cause.

So, in both cases, Abbas has no excuses to remain in his job as “President” of the Palestinian Authority, an entity of ill-repute that has wreaked havoc on the Palestinian people and their just cause.

The just Palestinian cause simply can’t bear having another “mistake” or “judgment error” of this magnitude.

Today, the issue is shielding Israeli war criminals from international condemnation and possible prosecution and punishment. God knows what could happen next if the Palestinian people allowed this awful absurdity to persist.

It is really difficult to relate to this issue without getting angry. After all, we are dealing with the murder of more than 1,400 innocent Palestinians, including hundreds of children, brutally massacred in order to grant the Judeo-Nazi entity a feeling of safety, confidence and deterrence.

In fact, what happened in Gaza more than nine months ago was a quasi-holocaust.  How else could one honestly relate to the ganging up by a regional superpower on a helpless and blockaded people who could hardly find sufficient food to feed their children, a people who had to die everyday to prove that they were alive?

And when a glimmer of hope for taking the murderers and child-killers to task appeared on the distant horizons, the leader of the victimized people, Mr. Abbas, readily and single-handedly volunteered to help Israel bury its crimes by saying  “not this time!”

Well, if not this time, then when, Mr. President? When the disciples of Hitler will turn Gaza, Nablus and al-Khalil into another Auschwitz, another Bergen Belsen, and another Mauthausen?

When the world loses whatever semblance of human conscience it still has and comes to view the murder of Palestinians by the Nazi-minded Israelis as just one of these unpleasant aspects of daily life?

Besides, it is perfectly legitimate to wonder if a president who doesn’t fully realize the consequences and repercussions of his actions can really be entrusted with the paramount task of tackling the national burden, the task of regaining our freedom and extricating our usurped rights from the claws of Zionism.

Indeed, would it be farfetched to think that Abbas and his ilk could repeat the same disastrous stupidity (in case he didn’t mean it) or brazen treachery (in case he did) with more paramount issues such as Jerusalem and the right of return for millions of Palestinian refugees unjustly uprooted from their ancestral homeland at the hands of the criminal Zionists?

In fact, there is already strong evidence that Abbas is planning to compromise on both issues (Jerusalem and the refugees), which require that we, the people of Palestine,  remain vigilant in order to thwart all conspiracies against our survival and future.

I strongly believe that Abbas must take the right decision and retire for good. That would be a dignified step that would spare him further indignity and dishonor.

The Palestinian people are too tired and too exhausted to fight on two battles, the main battle with the Zionist beast which is trying to arrogate our land and ruin our present and future, and a secondary battle of preserving our just cause from the betrayal of narcissistic and self-absorbed “leaders” who think that complacency and capitulation are the best policy.

Finally, Fatah should draw the right conclusion from this sorry episode. After all, one doesn’t have to be a great public relations expert to realize that the continued existence of this man at the helm of Fatah will prove to be disastrous. But the issue is more than just public relations. The issue is Palestine itself.

The people just won’t forgive you, and Abbas is no Yasser Arafat.

Likewise, the stupid and disgraceful feat immensely serves the Israeli goal of covering up the Nazi-like crimes the Israeli occupation army committed during its manifestly criminal war on the Gaza Strip nine months ago. 

Endorsement of the report by UNHRC would probably have paved the way for the prosecution of Israeli war criminals before  the International Criminal Court (ICC) as well as International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague. 

The PA has given a plethora of  mostly mendacious pretexts to justify the scandalous act which numerous Palestinians, ordinary people as well as intellectuals, have described as an expression of national treason. 

To be sure, the Palestinians had on their side a solid majority of  33-35 member-states out of the 47-member council, which means the Goldstone commission report could have been easily endorsed by the UNHRC and referred to ICC or ICJ. 

Hence, the only real interpretation of the PA decision to delay a vote on the report is that the Ramallah regime wanted only to appease Israel and the Obama administration irrespective of the disastrous effects and ramifications on the Palestinian cause, especially on the unwept victims of Israeli war crimes in the Gaza Strip. 

Well, if Israel can get away with murdering 1300 Palestinians and utterly destroying half of Gaza, the next holocaust would probably assume European proportions. After all, the world can’t be more Palestinian than the Palestinians themselves. 

Prior to the decision, there were reports that President Obama personally intervened behind the scenes, asking the PA leadership to stop pushing for the endorsement of the report since according to him doing so would undermine “diplomatic efforts.” 

Similarly, another report suggested  that the PA had reached  a deal with Israel whereby the apartheid  Zionist regime agreed to license a business venture partially owned by wealthy businessmen linked to the PA  in return for the latter agreeing to defer discussion of the Goldstone report at the UNHRC. 

The PA ambassador to the UN in Geneva, Ibrahim Khreishi, was quoted as saying that the Palestinian leadership was interested in a “compromise text.” 

“It will help us explain to the Israelis that the international community is with the Palestinians to achieve their hopes and dreams.” 

What a stupidity! After more than 42 years of a criminal military occupation, do we still have to explain our suffering to the Israelis? 

Does Mr. Khreishi really think that all the Israelis needed to desist from their Nazi-like crimes against our people was just a “convincing explanation”? 

Does the PLO ambassador think a “compromise text” would make the despicable thugs and war criminals in Tel Aviv reconsider their criminal approach vis-à-vis the Palestinians? 

And what does a “compromise text” mean anyway? Did Israel not commit war crimes and crimes against humanity knowingly, willfully and deliberately against innocent people in Gaza? 

Didn’t Israel rain death, using state-of-the-art of the American technology of death, on unprotected civilian neighborhoods, killing and maiming thousands of innocent men, women and children?  

Didn’t Israel rain white phosphorous on large parts of Gaza, incinerating innocent life all over the coastal territory? 

Didn’t Israel knowingly and deliberately rain bombs from high altitudes on homes, mosques, colleges, hospitals and schools all over Gaza? 

So, how could any human being with any semblance of honesty and morality try to make these crimes look less nefarious and less satanic by agreeing to adopting a  “compromise text”?

Of all people in the world, we Palestinians must call the spade a spade especially when we see that proverbial spade in the hands of our grave diggers,  tormentors and child killers. 

The Judeo-Nazi army, navy and air force  murdered our people en masse in Gaza and the West Bank. They committed their horrendous crimes in broad daylight and  in full view of the entire world. 

There were no extenuating circumstances or controversial accounts of what really happened. The so-called “Qassam rockets” are largely a red-herring and shouldn’t be used in the same phrase with the horrendous Israeli machine of death since the enormity and deadliness in both cases are totally incomparable.  

And above all, the person who prepared the report, Richard Goldstone, is a Jew, actually a Zionist Jew, who would never overplay and exaggerate these war crimes against a virtually completely unprotected people whose very physical survival has always depended and continues to depend on the good will of the international community.

Hence, the Palestinian people, the longest-lasting victims of genocidal racism,  and the entire free world around us would like to know what is it that makes the Palestinian leadership in Ramallah and its disoriented ambassador in Geneva cringe so submissively in the face of Zionist pressure? 

Don’t you people have any modicum of honor and national dignity? After all, we are talking about real crimes and hundreds of children mercilessly murdered by the army of  these thuggish Zionist spokespersons who are now shamelessly bragging about swaying the PA ambassador into helping  the Israeli propaganda cause. 

Nevertheless, it is probably unfair to pin all the blame on Khreishi, a mere functionary who had to heed the stupid instructions from Ramallah. 

True, Khreishi should have resigned rather than be part to an ignominious act of national betrayal. But the ultimate villain is, of course, the Palestinian Judenrat in Ramallah which has become inured to sacrificing  Palestinian national interests for the sake of appeasing Israel and pleasing the Obama administration in the hope of getting a “payoff” of some kind.

Interestingly, however,  the “payoff” given to the PA  that we have seen so far is in the form of more Jewish settlement expansion in the West Bank, more Jewish provocations at the Al-Aqsa Mosque esplanade, and more Jewish violence and terror against unprotected Palestinian citizens in both the West Bank and Gaza Strip. 

As to the Obama administration, it, too, has been “rewarding” the PA for its perfidy and betrayal of its own people by turning a blind eye to Israeli settlement expansion and by insisting that the PA resume talks with the arrogant government of Benyamin Netanyahu without any preconditions.

Well, people who don’t respect themselves don’t deserve respect from others. Moreover, an authority that torments, tortures and kills its own citizens in order to please the Israeli occupier and obtain from it a certificate of good conduct is utterly unqualified to be a true representative of the Palestinian people. 

Finally,  it is probably safe to assume that the PA dreads a thorough discussion of the Goldstone report as much as Israel does. 

According to certain sources, the PA had consistently urged Israel to pursue the criminal war on the Gaza Strip to the end. 

Israel is also believed to possess damning evidence showing some PA officials pleading with Israel to keep up the war on Gaza in order to crush Hamas. 

Hence, it is highly likely that the PA has found itself in an exceedingly embarrassing situation, which explains why it doesn’t want to see a public discussion of the Goldstone report take place anytime soon as this would reveal many shocking  and embarrassing secrets about  PA connivance with Israel in carrying out the Nazi-like onslaught on the Gaza Strip.

Mary Rizzo: Could you briefly tell us about the work you do? 

Khalid Amayreh: I am a journalist who since time immemorial has found himself, first as a human being, and second as a journalist, right in the middle of the fray of the enduring Palestinian plight. For example, I remember I knew all the details of Israeli commando operations and massacres when I was merely 7 years old. 

When I went to the US in 1976, I wanted to study Computer Science, then Business Administration. However, as I saw Zionist circles on campus at the University of Oklahoma try somewhat successfully to change the black into white and the big lie into a virtual truth, I decided to study journalism. 

Which I did.  Now, I am fully-engaged in my work, writing nearly daily columns for a host of media outlets on three continents. Eventually, the internet became my ultimate domain because what I do say, and I always have much to say, is not particularly liked by the politically-correct media. Hence, I can say that in a certain sense, the internet has substantially freed us from the traditional media colonialism. 

I am quite satisfied with what I have been doing. My articles are published and posted around the world in several languages, including Arabic, English, French, Spanish and other European languages. Many of my articles are posted on my website. It is www.xpis.ps.   

MR: You have in the past several years faced some difficult situations. Two of these that we are aware of are your denial of a visa to leave the West Bank for conferences in Europe and the other was your arrest and brief detention. Both of these were the doing of the Palestinian Authority. Why do you believe they have put these restrictions on you? 

KA: Yes, my success as a journalist, especially my ability to communicate the Palestinian narrative to Western audiences drew negative reactions from the Israeli security authorities. You know the Shin Beth, Israel’s chief domestic security agency, controls nearly every aspect of our life despite the existence of the Palestinian Authority. Hence, the Shin Beth constantly sought to persecute and harass me in the hope that I would tone down my outspoken criticism of the Israeli occupation and its often barbaric treatment of our people. In this context, they refused to grant me a press card, they refused to allow me access to Jerusalem. And finally, they imposed a harsh travel ban on me. In fact, I am still barred from leaving the West Bank. This is the behaviour of a country that claims to be a democracy.

As to the PA, it is very much slave of Israel. This is why I am also constantly harassed by the PA security apparatus. The PA doesn’t like my writings, and seeing that neither carrot nor stick would stop me, they often incarcerate me for a short period until a media outcry ensued in which case they would release me, hoping that next time I would exercise self-restraint, or more correctly self-censorship.  

MR: You live in one of the areas where settlers have made any kind of co-existence in the same territory as the indigenous population impossible. In your view is the Hebron experience a typical one that would be reproduced whenever there would be closer contact between Jews and Palestinians, or is it in some way different? 

KA: The settlers are mostly genocidal fanatics who would go to any extent, including cold-blooded murder, to reach their goals. And their goals can be summarized in one phrase, and that is the annihilation of the Palestinian people. 

I’ve met numerous settlers, and from my conversations with them, I can say that most of these people represent the Nazis of our time. What else can one say of a people who tell you that you either agree to be enslaved by them or you will be deported and expelled from your own country? And if you said ‘NO’, then you would have to be physically exterminated.  These people are really depraved and sick. They would quote strange quotations from a host of religious books to justify their genocidal ideology. The brutal ugliness of their mentality has no limits.

What is more dangerous is that they don’t stop at the theoretical and ideological levels. They often translate their venomous and virulent views into cold-blooded murder of innocent Palestinians.  And in most cases, the pro-settler Israeli justice system turns a blind eye to their murderous behaviour and lets them get away with impunity.

MR: You often refer to the actions of today’s Israelis as being similar to those of the Nazis, and you present in detail many of these crimes and abuses against especially unarmed civilians that indeed are strikingly similar. Do you believe there is a danger or risk in the use of this analogy?

KA: Well, this is a very good question. First of all, we have to remember that the holocaust didn’t start with Auschwitz or Bergen Belsen and other concentration camps. It started much earlier with comparatively innocuous things like the enactment of anti-Jewish laws in the early 1930s. Earlier, there was Hitler’s infamous book, Mein Kampf. Eventually there was the Kristalnacht, and we know the rest of the story.

Today, any serious observer scrutinizing the collective psychology and behaviour of the Israeli Jewish society would most certainly find many serious similarities between the Jewish state and the Third Reich. In Germany, they had the master race mantra, here in Israel they have the chosen people mantra.

In Germany they had the expansionistic concept known as Lebensraum; and here in Israel they have the settlement scheme. In Germany, they had the racist classification of people into Übermenschen and Untermenschen, while here in Israel almost everything is defined through the prism of being  either Jewish or Goy. The list goes on and on.  Do you know that there are rabbis in Israel who openly teach that non-Jews are animals and whom the Almighty created in a human shape only in deference to Jews. I am not speaking about marginal or obscure figures. I am speaking about rabbis with thousands of followers who are backed by powerful political parties represented in the government and the Knesset.

Ask any average settler how he or she views Palestinians or non-Jews in general, and they will tell you that they are animals and that their lives have absolutely no sanctity.

In short, the Zionist-Nazi analogy is more than legitimate. It is an objective reality.

MR:  Is it possible that there is the danger of a new Palestinian genocide comparable to that of ’48 with the discussions of “population transfer” of the Palestinians who live in Israel that are heard by several political movements that are in power in Israel, or is this population somehow protected and facing more danger are those in the Occupied Palestinian Territories?

KA: The answer is definitely yes. I am saying so because Palestinians have always relied for their very survival on the good will of the international community and world public opinion. Hence, should the world community go into a brief slumber, I have no doubt that Israel would seize the opportunity and embark on the unthinkable.

More to the point, we must view the criminal Israeli onslaught on the people of Gaza nine months ago as a precedent that could be repeated again and again.

Finally, it is crystal clear that the Israeli Jewish society is drifting menacingly toward fascism. For example, today the very survival of the Benyamin Netanyahu’s government depends to a very large extent on the support of three manifestly racist political parties representing the extreme religious right. These are “Habayt ha’Yahudi,” “Echud Leumi,” and Shas, a formerly moderate Charidi party which has been moving steadily toward religious jingoism.

I am speaking about religious parties that see nothing wrong with the mass murder of innocent people. They always can quote from ancient books to justify their morbid ideology. Also, imagine how the world will look like when these racist groups reach power in Israel and seize control of Israel’s huge nuclear arsenal.

And this is not a matter of “if” but rather a matter of “when” it will happen, because it is only a matter of time before the fanatics of Gush Emunim and other Judeo-Nazi elements reach power in Israel. 

MR: Palestinians in Israel comprise twenty percent of the official population. Why is it that, after Azmi Bishara, whose fate is now in exile, and a very few others, this large sector of population is under-represented in their parliament? Would it not be helpful to have more representation? 

KA: The Arab community in Israel is under-represented because of a host of factors. But the main factor is that the Israeli system is designed to keep the Arab community marginalized. Today, Israeli leaders from “right” and “left” are increasingly brazenly advocating ultimate ethnic cleansing of Israel’s Arab citizen. Tzipi Livni, the leader of Kadima, said on numerous occasions that Israeli Arabs would have to seek national fulfilment in the future Palestinian state. Her remarks are nothing short of a euphemism for expulsion and ethnic cleansing.

If this is the view of a respected  “liberal,” and “centrist” politician, imagine the kind of attitudes the right with its religious and secular camps would have toward Israel’s Arab citizens.

MR: You have documented many of the acts against the Palestinian people. If you could put things in an order of those that should be resolved before the others, out of this selection, what would your suggestion be and why: the ending of the siege of Gaza, the dismantlement of the checkpoints, the dismantlement of the Wall, international recognition of Hamas as the legitimately elected representatives of the Palestinians and in the 2006 Legislative elections, release of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails, release of Palestinian prisoners from Palestinian jails, a freeze on settler expansion in the West Bank and Jerusalem?

KA: I think all aspects of the Palestinian plight are inextricably entwined. For example, the internal Palestinian problems stem mainly from the Israeli occupation. It was Israel after all which took draconian measures against our people following the 2006 elections when Hamas won the polls. This eventually led to the contention between Fatah and Hamas which culminated in the ousting by Hamas of Fatah militias from Gaza following a failed coup attempt against the elected government by Fatah forces backed and armed by the United States.

But, it is true, we just can’t solve and resolve all the problems facing our people in one fell swoop.  The situation in Gaza remains very harsh and the survival of our people there is imputed first and foremost to their tenacity, resilience and steadfastness, not Israeli magnanimity.

The Palestinian prisoner issue is also a nagging nightmare that is constantly haunting our people. We are talking about nearly 10,000 prisoners many of whom are held without charge or trial because of their non-violent opposition to the Israeli occupation. Their continued detention is undoubtedly a repulsive reflection of the brutal ugliness of the Zionist mentality.

MR: Do you believe that the Palestinians should aim at establishing a new popular uprising, or should they wait and see if the Palestinian Authority can find a unity government or bring an end to Israeli occupation by themselves.

KA: Normally, uprisings, especially in the Palestinian context, are not planned. They just happen when the powder keg reaches the boiling point. But I tend to accept the hypothesis that another Intifada is only a matter of time, given the unmitigated occupation and repression as well as the scandalous failure of the peace process.

As to forming a new unity government, it is really difficult to accord this subject a lot of importance. After all, what is the point of forming a government that has no sovereignty and is subject to the draconian restrictions of the Israeli occupation?

MR: Do you hold out hope that the Obama Administration can bring about at least a bit of improvement for Palestinians, or is it equally subject to the Israel Lobby? 

KA: No, not any longer. Until recently, I thought, probably naively, that Obama might prove himself to be a man of his word. However, his utter failure to stand up to the arrogant Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu has exposed the American president as just another functionary of the establishment.

Moreover, what many in the West doesn’t realize is that for Israel to give up the spoils of the 1967 war, the Jewish state would have to be forced, even physically, to do so.

However, in light of Obama’s obsequious discourse vis-à-vis Netanyahu, especially with regard to the settlement issue, it is increasingly obvious that the US leader is not mentally or politically capable of doing what it takes to force Israel to end the 42-year-old occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip.

The task of forcing Israel to end the hateful occupation would require a radical transformation, even a revolution, in American political thinking. And I just don’t see this happening in the foreseeable future.

MR: Why, in your view, have the Palestinian Islamist parties, especially Hamas, not had the strong support of the Ikhwan in other Arab nations, especially following the rejectionist stance of the so-called International Community following the democratic elections? Is it because the project of Hamas has a stronger nationalist nature to it, or might there be other reasons that you have reflected upon?

KA: I think they do as evidenced in the huge demonstrations organized by Islamic organizations throughout the Muslim world during the Israeli blitz against the Gaza Strip. However, we have to keep in mind that most Islamic parties and organizations are based in despotic and authoritarian states. Hence, the often tight restrictions imposed on Islamist activism do have a detrimental impact on the extent to which Islamists can render tangible material support to Hamas.

But the Islamists are giving extremely viable financial support to Palestinian Islamists without which Hamas would have had a much harder time facing international sanctions.

We also have to remember that Hamas is mainly an asset, not a liability, for Islamic activism around the world, which means that support for Hamas by Islamic groups in the Arab-Muslim world is not exactly altruistic in nature but is also motivated by a certain degree of expediency. 

MR: The division of the Palestinian people along many lines, while an internal problem, does prevent more firm opposition to the military occupation of Palestine. Do you think there is a way to overcome the divisions, or are they destined to increase with the introduction of measures such as Dayton’s “Security” forces in the West Bank, for example?

KA: Well, in the final analysis, Palestinian divisions are a symptom of the Israeli occupation. They are not a home-grown malady but rather a foreign-induced phenomenon sustained through political and economic manipulation of certain objective Palestinian needs. After all, we are very much a prisoner population who have been relentlessly used by the Israelis as a field of experiment for over 40 years.

I believe that the ultimate raison d’être of the “Dayton forces” is to crush public opposition to any prospective “peace” deal that would be imposed on the Palestinian people.  Needless to say, such a deal would be tantamount to a real liquidation of the Palestinian cause. However, I really doubt whether these forces would succeed in their mission in the long run.

The Palestinian cause is simply so deeply rooted in the collective conscience and psyche of our people, so much that it is inconceivable that these kids would succeed in morphing our people into submission. That would be anti-historical antithetical to the nature of things in Palestine.

MR: Recently, the first group of Palestinian refugees from the Al-Tanaf, Al-Waleed and Al-Hol refugee camps in Iraq have been “settled” in the USA. What do you think of this kind of programme?

KA: Naturally, we are very suspicious about any resettlement of Palestinian refugees anywhere in the world. But I am certain about one thing, namely that the refugee plight and the right of return will continue to define the Palestinian question.

I am saying so because the refugee problem is the Palestinian problem.

MR: What kind of personal experiences does the average Palestinian living in the West Bank have with the Israelis?

KA: Well, it is safe to say that the mental landscape of every Palestinian man, woman and child is overwhelmed with the Israeli nightmare. Ours is a landscape shaped by home demolitions, land seizure, evil roadblocks and checkpoints manned by trigger-happy soldiers, humiliating inhuman treatment, cruelty, terror and unrelenting criminality. Ours is a real holocaust minus the gas chambers.  We are after all the longest suffering people on earth, and we continue to suffer on a daily basis.

Today in every junior high school in America, students read Anne Frank, while in every high school Elie Wiesel’s ‘Night’ is requisite reading. This is the man who says rather brazenly that he readily identifies with Israeli crimes and that he couldn’t bring himself to say bad things about Israel. 

The victims of the first Kristalnacht enjoy the world’s approbation and sympathy, while at the same time having succeeded in demonizing an entire people for whom Kristalnacht still remains a night without end.  

MR:  It seems that access to information about the reality of Palestine, especially of the hardships brought on by the war, the checkpoints and the blockade of Gaza, should enlighten the public that there is a humanitarian emergency. What, in your view, is preventing the international community and the Arab nations from expressing moral outrage and demanding their leaders to hold Israel accountable for these situations? 

KA: I think the Arab masses would want to help the Palestinians, and they are actually helping. However, for most Arabs helping the Palestinians, especially Hamas, involves a certain risk as most regimes view identification with Hamas as connoting opposition to the regimes itself. This is true in American-allied states such as Egypt and Jordan.

As to people around the world, I think the overall outlook is positive. I think a growing number of people are now willing to take to the streets to voice their solidarity with our people. But what we need to do is to keep up the good work and try as hard as possible to isolate the evil entity.

MR: Do you believe that there is a great deal of fear in the Palestinian people which prevents them from voicing denouncements of the corruptions of the PA and the PLO before it? Or could some of this be because the allocation of funds is filtered through these organs and people need to make a living?

KA: Of course there is. The Palestinian Authority is effectively a police state without a state, and the corrupt people and their supporters, friends and cronies occupy powerful positions in the PA hierarchy. Take for example the millions of dollars arrogated by Yasser Arafat’s widow, Suha. It is widely believed that the former “First Lady”! received millions of dollars from the PLO as part of a financial settlement which very few Palestinians know about. As to the justice system, it is very much subservient to the political level and the security apparatus. This is how the donor countries, e.g. the US, are shaping Palestinian “democracy.” 

MR: What can the exiled or Diaspora Palestinian community do for their brothers and sisters in Palestine?

KA: Palestinians in the Diaspora have a grave responsibility to carry out. They should constantly communicate our plight to the world, they should always be eloquent spokespersons for their people and their cause. But in order to be successful and effective they have to organize themselves and try to enlist local support for Palestinian grievances in their respective places of residence. My ultimate advice to Palestinian expatriates is: make as many friends as possible for our just cause. And don’t allow yourselves to be diverted from the central goal, and that is to create and effect pressure on the Zionist regime.

And don’t get yourselves involved in any activities that might be misconstrued as “anti-Semitic.”  Judaism is not our enemy.  

MR: What can “internationals” do to help?

KA: “Internationals” and other solidarity activists have a hugely important job to do. They are witnesses to what Satanic Zionism has been doing to the Palestinians. Israel would want to gang up on us while the eyes of the world are shut. It is very much like the way a murderer or a thief behaves. They don’t want to be seen committing their crimes.

In fact, I can safely claim that had it not been for these courageous men and women, the level of Israeli terror against the Palestinians could have been much worse.

Therefore, I would like to salute each and every one of these heroes who have been sacrificing their time, energy and careers in protecting an unprotected people. You are the good Samaritans of our time.  So come here, bring your friends, and don’t forget your cameras. May God bless you all.

MR: You are often considered to be especially sensitive to and close to the positions of the Islamist parties, and very often, there are more than a few false representations of them, including for example that Hamas had help from Israel in its foundation, with some even saying Mossad was involved, that they won the elections only because they represented a “protest” vote, and more crucially, that their operations are not resistance, but are rather terrorist acts. Evidence points away from all of these positions, yet they are part of an interpretation trend as much in “the left” as for “moderates” and “neo-cons”. Why do you think that despite evidence, for instance, Hamas always maintained their unilateral truces, while Israel engaged in targeted assassinations of high-ranking leaders of Hamas, people across the board are so quick to accept these false representations as legitimate?

KA: I am not affiliated with any political group. This is because I had long realized that affiliation with an ideological or political party would interfere with and be detrimental to my work as a journalist. Besides, the little philosopher inside me always tells me to be constantly free-minded.

I remember that poet who described fanatical adherence to a political party. He said: I always voted at my party’s call, and never thought for myself at all.

Having said that, I also realize that it is imperative that people must support just causes and speak up the truth even in the presence of power. This is why it is paramount for my mental and psychological health that I must stand against such vices as oppression, arrogance, immorality, mendacity, selfishness, hypocrisy, rapacity and racism. I know it is not easy to swim against the current. However, it is also true that silence or indifference or inaction in the face of evil is morally disastrous in the long run. We mortals live a few decades in this life. It is essential therefore that we lead a dignified life shaped by our concerns for freedom and justice and sublime human spirit.

As to Hamas being helped by Israel, I think this is a form of disinformation by the anti-Islamist camp aimed first and foremost at besmirching Hamas.

The way Hamas has been behaving and acting since its foundation more than 20 years ago should be a clarion refutation of all these lies and insinuations.

This is not to say though that Israel has not tried and is not trying to pit Palestinians against each other. But this is not the same as saying that Hamas was created by Israel or that its growth was facilitated by the Israelis.

After all, Islamic fundamentalist groups are a global phenomenon and by no means confined to occupied Palestine.

MR: What do you think the final status might be in terms of statehood and what do you foresee as a timetable for this?

KA: It is very difficult to figure out how and when this conflict will end. What is clear though is that it won’t come to an end in the foreseeable future. I am convinced that the increasingly-religious conflict will continue for several more decades. However, in order for the conflict to reach an exhaustive conclusion, Zionism would have to disappear.

A final point, I strongly believe that time is not working in Israel’s favour as Israel is going to find it increasingly difficult to live normally in a hostile environment. Fifty years from now, Israel will be surrounded by more than 700 million Arabs and Muslims. And Jews themselves would be a small and dwindling minority in mandatory Palestine.

And like Albert Camus said “in world where everything can be denied, there are forces undeniable, and on earth where nothing is sure, we have our certainty.” And I think the dismantlement of Zionism is a historical certainty.

This article was written a few hours before the New York meeting  

One doesn’t have to be a prophet to predict the outcome, or more correctly failure, of the three-way meeting between President Obama, the Israeli premier Benyamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, which is to take place later today in New York. 

The meeting comes on the heels of two important events: First the nearly total failure of Obama’s personal Envoy to the Middle East, George Mitchell, to convince the extremist Israeli leadership to freeze Jewish settlement expansion in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. 

Mitchell met numerous times with Israeli officials in the hope of convincing them to walk in the path of peace. However, instead of listening to Mitchell, who represents the President of Israel’s guardian-ally, Israeli leaders chose to announce fresh settlement expansion plans every time the American diplomat arrived in Jerusalem. 

Moreover, the numerous promises made to Mitchell with regard to a settlement freeze, even including the pledged dismantling of so-called illegal outposts, have all failed to materialize. 

Hence, one can assume that the New York meeting is actually a timely recognition by the Obama administration of the utter failure of  Mitchell’s shuttle diplomacy. 

Second, the three-way encounter comes a week after the publication of the Goldstone’s Commission report which asserted that Israel knowingly and deliberately committed war crimes and crimes against humanity during the December-January blitz against the Gaza Strip. 

Needless to say, during the Nazi-like onslaught, the Israeli army, or Jewish Wehrmacht, murdered, maimed and incinerated thousands of innocent Palestinians. In addition, thousands of buildings, mostly civilian infrastructure such as homes, mosques and schools were utterly bombed and destroyed. 

This is not Arab propaganda. Any human being can travel to Gaza and see for himself or herself the huge magnitude of the shocking holocaust. 

For those who can’t travel to the  besieged coastal territory, they can have access to “Google Earth” and see for themselves. The important thing is not to succumb to the Zionist hasbara machine. These people lie as often as they breathe, to put it mildly. 

It is therefore shameful and immoral for the  American President, who had promised ad nauseam that decency and dignity would loom large in his administration,  to invite and welcome the leader of a criminal entity whose modus operandi continues to consist of murder, lies and land theft. 

This really forces many to pose the following question: What would it take to get the Obama administration to adopt an meaningful  stand against Israeli expansionism, racism and bellicosity? 

Obama is not a stupid man. He must be fully aware of the twisted modes of Israeli thinking. Even a brief argument with an Israeli leader or diplomat would reveal the striking morbidity of the Zionist mentality. 

This is why it is hard  to fathom how an intelligent man continues to believe that the fudge-and-compromise approach would still be working with such racist-minded Zionists who think that the entire universe was created for the sake of the Jew. 

My prediction of the New York encounter’s failure is not a matter of  soothsaying.  It is rather a careful reading into consistent Israeli political behavior since time immemorial. To put it simply, Israel will not give up the spoils of the 1967 war, unless it is forced to. Israel will not give up the bulk of Occupied East Jerusalem unless it is forced to. Israel will not allow the thoroughly-savaged refugees to be repatriated to their former homes and villages unless it is forced to. Finally, Israel will not remove these children of rape, otherwise known as “settlements” unless it is forced to. 

In light, it is perfectly legitimate to wonder if the US which has been utterly unable to get Israel to stop the construction  of even a few settler buildings in East Jerusalem, or even in the rest of the West Bank, would ever be able to compel the Zionist regime to undo the entire Zionist project. 

This is why one must always be cautious and realistic when appraising the inherently oblique American-Israeli-Palestinian axel. In particular, one must resist the temptation of thinking that the US is the dominant player in this scandalous  tripartite game of conspiracy, bullying,  betrayal, domination and compulsion. 

President Obama might be tempted to view with favor misleading Zionist arguments that the Palestinians would have to compromise and give concessions just as Israel is demanded to give concessions. 

But this argument is inherently mendacious and unfair. After all, Israel has been devouring rather gluttonously the contested piece of cheese for many decades, so much so that very little of it has been left anyway. 

Hence, the question that imposes itself on the conscience of conscientious men and women around the world, people who value honesty and justice, is whether it is fair and just to divide the remaining little of the proverbial cheese between Israel and the savaged Palestinians. 

In 1948, Zionist Jews usurped our country, committed hideous massacres, destroyed our homes and villages before deporting the majority of  native Palestinians  to the four corners of the globe. 

The Nakba was our national catastrophe and in a certain sense was our holocaust as well. The harsh impact of this cardinal  disaster remained relevant today as it was more than 60 years ago. 

However, instead of seeking genuine reconciliation with the Palestinians, if only by recognizing their basic human rights, successive Israeli leaderships constantly sought to consummate Zionism by trying to effect our national annihilation. 

Didn’t the infamous Gold Meir claim that the Palestinians didn’t exist? Don’t the shipyard dogs of Zionism continue to this day  to argue that a Palestinian state never existed  as if people not confined into a  nation-state structure didn’t have the right live on their respective homelands? 

As to the Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, it is crystal clear he is not the best person to lead his people and represent their enduring aspirations for freedom of Justice. He is not an eloquent tongue that would fearlessly defend  our people’s cause nor is he a tough and principled leader who wouldn’t budge under pressure. 

Moreover, Abbas stands  at the helm of an entity whose very survival depends to a large extent on the “good will” and politically-motivated charity provided by western countries and their Arab puppet regimes. 

This is why it is extremely important that the Palestinian people must closely monitor Abbas’s behavior in the coming weeks and months. I am saying this because in the absence of a clarion, determined   and collective “NO” to any prospective concessions by the PLO leadership, especially with regard to our national constants,  Netanyahu and his criminal comrades could have their way of imposing de facto capitulation on an un-sovereign  leadership that is more concerned about defeating  Hamas than ending the Nazi-like Israeli occupation of our country. 

In the final analysis, people whose aspirations don’t go beyond owning a smart car and having a hefty salary at the end of the month can’t be entrusted to be honest representatives of the Palestinian people. 

And a final word to the new Fatah leadership. You repeatedly described yourselves as the new patriotic leadership of the Palestinian people. We listened to you with indifferent silence because we didn’t believe  a word of what you were saying. 

Now it is your turn to prove us wrong.