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The light of Israel was never very strong.
— Like the light of the West, it is out now.
The light of Israel was never very strong.
— Like the light of the West, it is out now. |
September 14, 2006
A Walk Through the Rubble
By FRANKLIN LAMBIsrael's Use of American Cluster Bombs Al Sultaneih, Lebanon. |
A s the initial assessment and clean up of American cluster bombs, estimated at more than 130,000 unexploded bomblets across the south of Lebanon, gets underway, unanticipated findings are emerging:
The breadth and depth of the problem with cluster bombs found in 498 locations in scores of villages as of September 9th was not expected.
So far less than 4% have been disposed of, and 0% of the villages in the south have been certified as safe for domestic or agricultural use by the United Nations ordnance disposal task force.
Even operators of heavy rubble clearing equipment are finding their work is stymied because Israel dropped cluster bombs both before and after many buildings were destroyed by bombs, and therefore cluster bombs are sandwiched between layers of pancaked walls and piles of rubble.
While the M-26 Cluster Bomb Unit may have looked "promising" at military demo shows when observed in ideal conditions of level, obstruction-free open areas, using "polished bomblet" conditions, the reality is very different in villages which are seeing not the military touted "dud rates" in the 1% to 4% range, but rather "dud rates" in the 40-60% range.
No weapons with this performance statistic would be taken seriously at arms sale outlets.
The U.S. cluster munitions dropped across Lebanon have been a near total failure as far as their claimed purpose and justification, degrading Hezbollah forces.
Lebanese Army, UN, and Hezbollah sources agree the Cluster Bombs had virtually no impact on Palestinian, Amal, and Hezbollah fighters during the recent conflict.
One Hezbollah commander told this observer:
"Maybe 3 or 4 [were killed] — perhaps a few more I didn't hear about — due to accidents by our forcesbut unlike the civilian population, we have a long history of confronting the Zionist aggressors and we often know what they will do before they do.
True, they have your country's latest weapons, but one-on-one they are not impressive at all.
Much more cowardly and incompetent than their propaganda claimsplus they are very weak psychologically — they know they stole Palestine, and they realize that sooner or later they will have to make peace, or they will destroy themselves and disappear from the region."
Another commander added:
"My brothers can't wait for their [Israeli] troops to enter Lebanon again on the ground. We are eager to hit them harder next time. The Zionists' training has been used to using tanks against stone-throwing children and harassing pregnant women at check points. We now have the weapons to quickly destroy their tanks. That is why they couldn't enter and finally accepted a ceasefire. We don't respect them either as men or soldiers".
Yet another offered:
"When we fire a rocket or series of rockets at their weapon stockpiles or artillery positions in northern Palestine, our brothers know that they have approximately 6-7 minutes to disappear — usually underground. The Zionists place their weapons next to Arab neighborhoods, where they have not provided shelters for the non-Jews. We are accused of targeting civilians. This is not truewe know where their weapons are exactly. They hide behind the civilians in northern Palestine like they do in Gaza. Using the people as shields."
Other recent findings confirm that Israel may have dropped as many as 60% of the cluster bombs they used during July-August 2006 in the 72 hours immediately before the ceasefire.
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Military analysts on the ground offer two explanations:
1. Shear frustration, hatred, and rage by Israel's leadership and its obsession with punishing Lebanon for its more than 85% support (including Lebanon's middle class and Christian citizens) for Hezbollah's resistance to Israel's attempted reoccupation up to the Litani River.
2. A desire by Israel to get rid of as much of its U.S. cluster bomb inventory as possible, which the Pentagon has stipulated must be reduced to a lower level before Israel can reorder newer models like the M-26.
This is why the 33 year old CBU-58, almost extinct, was used so widely. Israel was cleaning out its CBU closet for new orders, one Lebanese army source reported.
Senator Ted Stevens and those in the Senate who opposed banning cluster bombs on Sept. 9 might want to reflect on what actual utility the US cluster bombs used by Israel in Lebanon actually achieved.
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According to Israeli soldiers, reported in the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz on Sept. 13, the Israeli military launched over 1.2 million cluster bombs into Lebanon, and used phosphorous shells as well — "the overwhelming majority used in the last ten days of the war."
The use of phosphorous, which causes excruciating burns, is prohibited under international law.
An Israeli rocket unit commander stated that because the Israeli rockets are so imprecise, his unit was ordered to "flood" the area with them.
The soldiers said that during IDF training exercises live rockets are almost never fired, to prevent leaving duds behind that would "fill the IDF's firing grounds with mines."
Yet, the soldiers said, Israeli forces in Lebanon fired the rockets at ranges of less than 15 kilometers, "even though the manufacturer's guidelines state that firing at this range considerably increases the number of duds."
The rocket commander, who said he had complained to Israel's Defense Minister but has received no response, stated:
"In Lebanon, we covered entire villages with cluster bombs. What we did there was crazy and monstrous." |
One flower for the Palestinian resistance.
Another for the Lebanese resistance |
Oh, where have you been, my blue-eyed son?
Oh, where have you been, my darling young one?
I've stumbled on the side of twelve misty mountains,
I've walked and I've crawled on six crooked highways,
I've stepped in the middle of seven sad forests,
I've been out in front of a dozen dead oceans,
I've been ten thousand miles in the mouth of a graveyard,
And it's a hard, and it's a hard, it's a hard, and it's a hard,
And it's a hard rain's a-gonna fall. Bob Dylan - Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall |
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We shall all lose: A diary report, a day after the Tel Aviv rally
By Adam KellerAugust 7, 2006
"Is this the last week?" people asked each other.
Since the jets went streaking northwards to rain death over Beirut and the missiles came shrieking back southwards to an ever-widening number of Israeli communities, Israeli activists had been gathering every Saturday evening and marching in protest through the streets of Tel-Aviv.
According to the confident predictions emanating from Condoleezza Rice's entourage at the beginning of the week, by today a ceasefire should have already been in place.
But Saturday was at least as bloody as the preceding days, with the end of the killing seeming an ever-receding horizon.
As thousands streamed to the rendezvous at the end of Ben Tzion Boulevard (accustomed place of the weekly Women in Black vigil) the prospects of a ceasefire were a major subject of conversation.
"To us, 'ceasefire' and 'cessation of hostilities' seem the same, but the diplomats hide a hell of a lot of meaning between nuances of this kind.
It could make a life or death difference on the ground afterwards, we have to look very carefully at what the Americans and French are up to, over there in New York" said a white-haired man with a big sign reading "We are not Bush's puppets!"
To the mother and her two daughters, killed this morning at Arab el-Aramsheh from the direct hit of a Katyusha missile, it will no longer make any difference.
(Like nearly half the Israeli civilian casualties, they were Arabs, in whose community the government never thought of installing air-raid shelters or alarms).
And whatever the final formulation of the UN resolution, it will also come far too late for the 33 farm workers (35 in other accounts) killed by a single Israeli bomb near the Lebanese-Syrian border (most of the Israeli media did not even bother to mention it). |
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| "Tomorrow I shall go to prison!"— army refuser explains his motives |
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How Israel sought to make this documentary illegal |
It was made in 1997, except for Gaza settlers still in Gaza, could be written today.
You’ll really like the scenes where Israelis speak of 'how to take care of the problem'.
One American holds up a sign saying 'transfer all the Arabs to Oklahoma where there’s oil'
Listen to settlers speak.
Watch how uncomfortable they are with the camera facing them.
56 minutes long — so sit back or come back.
See something that really does open your eyes to Palestine and the takeover now known as Israel.
If you've never been there, observe this intensity and human cruelty.
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| 'People and the Land' (PDF file) by Tom Hayes — click here A 24 page article about how hard this film was to make. How Israel sought to make it illegal, doing all they could to prevent the film. |
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What Lies Beneath
by Meron Rapoport
S. is a reservist in an artillery battalion, and he is not at ease with what he did during the second Lebanon war.
He fired shells, sometimes at a rate of one per minute.
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He and his fellow soldiers fired 200 shells one night and on other nights, "only" 50 or 80.
S. doesn't know what damage was done by the shells he fired.
He didn't see where they fell.
He doesn't even know exactly where they were aimed.
Artillery gunners like him only receive coordinates, numbers, not names of villages.
Even those commanding the team or the battery don't know exactly what they're firing at.
"Tell me, how do the villages there look? Are they all destroyed?"
S. asked me after I told him that I was in contact with UN personnel who were patrolling the villages.
What really made something inside S. snap was when his battalion was given an entire village as a target one night.
He thinks it was Taibeh, a village in what is called the eastern sector, but he's not sure.
The battalion commander assembled the men and told them that the whole village had been divided into parts and that each team was supposed to "flood" its alloted space — without specific targets, simply to bombard the village.
"I told myself that the people left in that village must be the weaker ones, like in Haifa," says S.
"I felt that we were acting like Hezbollah.
Taking houses and turning them into targets.
That's terror.
My soul is important to me.
When I hug my girlfriend, I want to feel good about myself.
And I don't feel good about what I did in the war.
I felt like I really should have tossed my weapon and run away."
According to the UN, S. has good reason not to feel at peace with himself.
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One reservist artillery officer estimated that the Israel Defense Forces fired about 160,000 shells during the recent war.
By comparison, in the Yom Kippur War, the IDF fired less than 100,000 shells.
Moreover, in addition to the tens of thousands of regular shells, Israel fired several hundred cluster rockets and cluster bombs.
These kinds of munition break apart in the air as they approach the ground, and spray dozens or hundreds of bomblets, each about the size of a large battery, within a radius of up to 100 meters.
Most of these bomblets explode when they reach the ground, but a significant portion do not, and effectively become something like land mines.
UN personnel who have been patrolling in south Lebanon in recent days say that a good part of the villages and towns there have been turned into large mine fields.
As of this past Wednesday, UN mine-sweepers in southern Lebanon had identified 450 sites where cluster shells had fallen, and that's only in settled areas.
In open areas, in fields, say the UN people, there are many more such sites.
Each of these sites may contain hundreds or even thousands of small unexploded bombs.
The UN estimates that about 100,000 of these little mines are now scattered about that part of Lebanon.
Since the cease-fire, 12 Lebanese civilians, including two children, have been killed by the explosion of these "duds" and 78 people (22 of them children) have been wounded, some losing limbs in the process.
Bombs all over
In Tibnin, a town in the central part of southern Lebanon, a cluster bomb landed opposite the main entrance to the hospital.
A member of the UN's mine-sweeping team told Human Rights Watch that in just 10 minutes, he had counted 100 unexploded bomblets; after that he just didn't bother.
David Shearer, the UN humanitarian coordinator in Lebanon, toured the Tibnin area on Wednesday.
"I saw these kinds of bombs on houses, inside houses and next to houses," he says.
"I saw them clear 16 or 17 away from a school soccer field. I saw them on the road and in orchards next to the road, caught in t0he trees."
Since the cease-fire, he adds, nearly every day a death is reported, and three or four people are wounded, as a result of someone stepping on parts of a cluster bomb.
International law expert Dr. Yuval Shani of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem explains that there are international conventions that prohibit the use of chemical or biological weapons, of dumdum bullets and other types of weaponry, but that cluster bombs are not expressly prohibited.
However, says Shani, Section 57 of the first protocol of the Geneva Convention, to which Israel is a signatory, prohibits the use of "indiscriminate" weapons, a definition that fits the cluster bombs.
"Cluster weapons cannot be used in a place where there are liable to be civilians," says Shani.
The only justification for using such bombs in an area where there are civilians is in cases when they are the only type of arms by means of which the desired military result may be achieved.
"It's hard to believe," he continues, "that in the hundreds of instances discovered in Lebanon, cluster bombs were the only possible weapon."
The Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), which filed a request this week for Attorney General Menahem Mazuz to investigate the matter, puts it more forcefully:
"The dropping of cluster bombs in built-up areas, in complete disregard for the danger they pose to the lives of innocent civilians, seems to meet the basic mental requirement for committing a crime that involves deliberate killing or deliberate harming of civilians," says the petition, sent by attorney Sonia Boulos on behalf of the association.
S. did not fire cluster bombs, but he heard over the radio orders being given to use them.
He also met a friend from another battalion who excitedly told him that he had fired such bombs.
The friend's excitement is understandable given that these weapons are not customarily used in IDF operations and are a rarity even in training exercises.
Says one reservist officer: "Cluster bombs are only used in training in one firing range in the south of Israel, and this area is treated as if it's a mine field."
Y., a reservist in the same battalion, fired at least 15 cluster shells.
"It was in the last days of the war," he says.
"They gave us orders to fire them. They didn't tell us where we were firing — if it was at a village or at open terrain. We fired until the forces that requested the shelling asked us to stop."
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More duds
Another peculiarity involves the type of shells that were used.
The 155-mm. artillery batteries use two types: American-made shells, known in the IDF by the acronym matzrash, and Israeli-made shells, called tze'if.
Y. learned that with the Israeli cluster shells, the percentage of duds — i.e., of bombs that essentially became land mines — was lower than that of the American-made ones, and yet they fired only the latter kind.
But the major portion of the damage wasn't done, apparently, by the 155-mm. guns that S. and Y. fired, rather, apparently, by the new MRLS rocket launchers that the IDF used in operations for the first time in the second Lebanon war.
In the late 1990s, the IDF purchased 48 of these launchers from the United States.
Each one holds 12 rockets, which act essentially like large cluster bombs.
According to the official specifications, each such rocket contains no fewer than 644 tiny bomblets that are supposed to disperse in a 100-meter radius above the target.
"Like a soccer field full of bombs," is how one artillery reservist described it.
Y. says that his battalion commander said that when the IDF Apache helicopter came down near Ramot Naftali, killing its two pilots, one suspicion was that it had been hit by such a rocket that had been fired in the area at the time.
It was later determined that this was likely not the cause, but the discussion of such a possibility basically amounted to an official admission that such rockets were indeed being used against southern Lebanon.
How many exactly?
It's hard to know.
The UN people have no precise data on the breakdown of unexploded ordnance from MRLS rockets, or American or Israeli cluster shells.
Shearer says it's clear that most use of the cluster weapons was made in the final 72 hours of the war.
"In the beginning of the war, too, there were reports on the use of cluster bombs," he says.
"But only a few.
In the three last days, a tremendous amount of them were fired.
It's also hard to know where they were aimed.
The dispersion of the bombs is so wide that even if the original target were outside a populated area, many bombs fell amid the houses."
Y. and S. confirm this appraisal of events.
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"In the last 72 hours we fired all the munitions we had, all at the same spot," says Y.
"We didn't even alter the direction of the gun.
Friends of mine in the battalion told me they also fired everything in the last three days — ordinary shells, clusters, whatever they had."
Members of the UN mine-sweeping team estimate that the rate of unexploded ordnance from the cluster shells and rockets fired by Israel at Lebanon is very high, about 40 percent.
This means that if each of these bombs that were fired at Lebanon left over 250 tiny bomblets around, then scores of them remain unexploded.
"In the Israeli shells there's supposed to be a mechanism that detonates the duds shortly after they reach the ground," said a UN official who toured Sidon and Tibnin this week.
"But this mechanism didn't work. They're all over the place — near hospitals, schools, private homes."
Israel is not the only country that has used cluster bombs.
Human Rights Watch claims that the United States and Great Britain made massive use of MRLS rockets during the second Gulf War, causing hundreds of casualties among the Iraqi civilian population.
The organization estimates that about 30 million of these tiny bombs were dropped on Iraq.
This may make the U.S. State Department's decision to launch an inquiry into Israel's use of such shells and rockets in the recent war seem somewhat hypocritical.
The inquiry, whose existence was revealed about a week ago by The New York Times, is supposed to determine whether Israel reported to the Americans on its use of cluster bombs and on whether the targets hit were clearly defined in military terms, in keeping with a classified agreement signed when the United States began supplying Israel with cluster bombs in the early 1970s.
A similar investigation, following the first Lebanon War, led to a six-year ban on sales of cluster bombs to Israel.
The New York Times reported that in the final days of the second Lebanon War, the American administration refused to transfer to Israel an emergency shipment of cluster rockets, apparently for this reason.
The UN mine-sweeping team currently working in Lebanon arrived there from Kosovo, where NATO forces used cluster bombs.
But team members says that in Kosovo the situation was a lot simpler, and that the UN received from NATO precise maps of the targets at which the bombs were fired.
The UN requested such maps from Israel, but the ones they received, says a senior source in the UN, "... were very general.
We need maps with coordinates and quantities, so we can locate the sites and know how many bombs we're supposed to find in each place.
I don't think we'll get maps like that from Israel."
David Shearer says that the cluster bombs are the main obstacle to getting life in Lebanon back on track.
"We'll finish fixing the water and electricity within two weeks," he explains.
"But it will be 12 or even 15 months before we make southern Lebanon a safe area.
Right now the residents are afraid to return to their homes.
The farmers are afraid to return to the fields."
 © Copyright 2006 Haaretz. All rights reserved |
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Israel atrocities
Advisory Group (MAG) personnel prepare to detonate an M-42 Israeli submunition cluster bomb they found in the village of El Maalliye, southern Lebanon, on Tuesday.
Jan Egeland, the U.N. undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs, drew attention to the issue Wednesday, August 30, 2006.
'What's shocking and I would say, to me, completely immoral is that 90 percent of the cluster bomb strikes occurred in the last 72 hours of the conflict, when we knew there would be a resolution,' Egeland said.
Chris Clarke, head of the UN mine action service in southern Lebanon, who has worked in bomb clearance in Sudan, Kosovo, Kuwait and Bosnia, said: 'This is without a doubt the worst post-conflict cluster bomb contamination I have ever seen.' |
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of Israel itself as the exclusive state of Jews?
Is it only observers outside the conventional mainstream who have noticed that by its murderous assault on Lebanon and simultaneously on Gaza, Israel finally exposed, for even the most deluded to see, the total bankruptcy of its very founding idea?
Can it be that the deluded are still deluded?
Can it truly still be that Israel's bankruptcy is evident only to those who already knew it, those who already recognized Zionism as illegitimate for the racist principle that underlies it?
Can it be therefore that only the already converted can see coming the ultimate collapse of Zionism and, with it, of Israel itself as the exclusivist state of Jews? |
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Racism has always been the lifeblood of Israel.
Zionism rests on the fundamental belief that Jews have superior national, human, and natural rights in the land, an inherently racist foundation that excludes any possibility of true democracy or equality of peoples.
Israel's destructive rampage in Lebanon and Gaza is merely the natural next step in the evolution of such a founding ideology.
Precisely because that ideology posits the exclusivity and superiority of one people's rights, it can accept no legal or moral restraints on its behavior and no territorial limits, for it needs an ever-expanding geography to accommodate those unlimited rights.
Moral Bankruptcy of Israel's Founding Idea By Kathleen Christison www.counterpunch.org |
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"THE KANA MASSACRE — A WAR CRIME!"
Immediately after the news about the Kana Massacre became known today (July 30, 2006), spontaneous protest demonstrations started near the Ministry of Defense compound in Tel-Aviv.
In the evening, a larger demonstration was held.In spite of the fact that there was hardly any prior notice, more then 200 demonstrators gathered, including activists of Gush Shalom, Hadash, Anarchists Against Walls, Ta'ayush and other organizations.
This time, a group of Meretz member, who rebelled against their party leadership, was also present.
They included former Meretz MKs Ya'el Dayan and Naomi Hazan.
Also present were Hadash MK Dov Hinin and former MK Tamar Gojansky.
Conspicuous by its absence was Peace Now.
The director of this organization, which has ceased to exist as an active peace movement years ago, appears now in the Media as one of the most enthusiastic supporters of the war.
When a journalist wrote by mistake that Peace Now had taken part in a demonstration, the director denied it vigorously.
Meretz leaders Yossi Beilin, Haim Oron and the others, except MK Zahava Galon, also publicly supported the war.
"Peretz, Peretz, don't worry / Bush will meet you at The Hague!" shouted the demonstrators through their megaphones, which could be clearly heard in the ministry compound.
The Hague, of course, is the seat of the International Criminal Court.
"Peretz, you have promised education and pensions / all you gave us is tanks and dead bodies!"
"Children want to live / both in Beirut and in Haifa!"
"Killing Children is a war crime!"
"Labor in government / brings only war!"
"Olmert's agreement with Bush: / War and occupation!"
(All these rhyme in Hebrew.)
"It is rank hypocrisy to assert that the Kana inhabitants have been warned to leave their homes," former MK Uri Avnery said. "From the first day of the war, our army has bombed the roads and whole families were killed on the way. They have concluded that it is safer to stay in a shelter at home than to move on the roads." Avnery added that a commander who bombs and shells an inhabited area must know such disasters are bound to happen."
"The criminal returns to the scene of the crime," commented Gush Shalom spokesman Adam Keller, referring to the massacre that happened in Kana in 1996, when Shimon Peres started a war in Lebanon. "That massacre compelled Peres to break off his war. The conclusion is that we must stop this war at once, before it is too late."
Opposite, a small counter-demonstration took place. Usually, the fascists of the Kahane group play this role, but this time they were Labor Party members, who support the war completely.
In the course of the demonstration, a special unit of the riot police appeared and for a moment it seemed that they were about to attack the protesters, but they only drove them off the road.
After two and a half weeks of suppressing every voice against the war, this demonstration was covered on TV and the radio.
At the same time, demonstrations were held around the country, mostly by Arab citizens. |
Israel called their attack on Gaza'Summer Rains' |
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We shall all lose: A diary report, a day after the Tel Aviv rally
By Adam KellerAugust 7, 2006
Here in the heart of Tel-Aviv we had to contend with a fortunately non-lethal kind of missile: a salvo of eggs suddenly plastered the gathering activists.
The police somehow failed to notice the perpetrators, despite being present on the scene in great numbers (there had been extensive and exhausting negotiations on the route of the march, the authorities rejecting the organizers original proposals on various bureaucratic grounds).
"Damn, I worked on this placard for nearly three hours" cried a young man from Jaffa.
Under the caption "Stop the carnage — start negotiating peace!" there were two hand-painted pictures: on one side airplanes dropping bombs and great flames bursting from the ground, on the other birds flying above a meadow with children playing happily.
Three girls rushed to help, thoroughly scraping the poster with their tissues until all signs of the dripping yolk were removed.
Our malevolent "friends" were far from through.
The activist who brought a great bundle of 300 black flags, newly produced for this march, made the mistake of leaving them for a minute on the pavement.
Suddenly a car stopped, three youngsters got out, seized the flags by force and disappeared. The police, some of whom were a short distance away, failed to notice this act of flagrant thievery, too.
The black flags were intended to convey mourning for all the victims, on whatever side of the physical borders and the ethnic and religious divide, and also to remind of the Supreme Court ruling half a century ago that "It is not only the right but the duty of a soldier to disobey a manifestly illegal order, on which the Black Flag of Illegality flies".
The thieves had robbed us of having the mass of black at the head of the march as organizers envisaged.
Still, a group of traditionally-dressed Arab women from the north got off their bus with black flags they had prepared in their village, and the Anarchists naturally also has quite a few of them.
The black flags mixed with the red ones of the Hadash Communists, and the yellow flags of the Arab Renewal Movement of KM Ahmad Tibi, and the round Gush Shalom two-flag signs, and the numerous printed and hand-made signs: "Occupation and War are a disaster!"
"Just Peace = Security!"
"39 Years are enough — End the Occupation!"
"There is no military solution!"
"Cease-fire NOW!"
"Stop the war! Stop the massacre!"
"No more Unilateral Acts, Open Peace Negotiations Now!"
"Negotiations with Syria — the Key to Peace in Lebanon!"
A middle-aged woman walking at the side held a small carton sign with the words:
"Stop, please!" |
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Friday, 4 August 2006
Crisis in the Gaza Strip deepens By Lucy Williamson
BBC News, Gaza Strip
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Gazans at both ends of this tiny strip of land wake up — and go to bed — to the sound of tank shells.
Israel fires more than 150 shells a day into Gaza, according to the UN, and their muffled booms reverberate across the rooftops of Gaza City, Beit Hanoun in the north and Rafah in the south.
Several nights a week, they're joined by the throbbing of Apache helicopters as Israel launches air strikes against houses they suspect of storing weapons for militant groups, or against militants themselves.
And every week or so, Gazans learn of the arrival of a new party of Israeli tanks, pushing their way into one area, then another, along the length of the Strip.
It feels like Israel is everywhere in Gaza.
Campaign on militants
It isn't clear what impact Israel's campaign is having on the militant groups.
At least 85 militants have been killed by Israel, according to the Israeli human rights group B'tselem, but the rockets have kept on landing in Israel's southernmost towns, and each Israeli incursion is met with fighters from the armed wings of militant groups Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the others.
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More apparent is the impact on the civilian population here.
Alongside the number of militants killed, says B'tselem, are an almost equal number of civilians, who were not taking part in the fighting.
And it alleges that in four such incidents, Israel may have breached international law.
Nowhere safe
Thirty-six of the civilians killed were children like Ali. He was 14, and had gone to watch the Israeli tanks at the edge of the Mughazi refugee camp.
His mother is in her second week of mourning for him.
And alongside the dead, the kinds of injuries being seen here are worrying doctors.
Surgeons at one hospital said in 100 consecutive operations, a third were amputations. Many of those affected are children.
Israel says it needs to target civilian areas because that's where militants base themselves to fire their rockets at Israeli towns.
Warnings
Israel regularly issues warnings to civilians to stay away from militants, through leaflets dropped from planes, or automated telephone calls.
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But aid organisations say these measures simply terrify the population, many of whom feel there is nowhere safe for them to go.
But Gazans feel they're being hit twice — once by the Israeli military operation, and once by the growing economic crisis here.
Three-quarters of Gaza's population already lives in poverty. Since the fighting began here over a month ago, Israel has allowed only a trickle of food and other essential supplies across the border.
Aid organisations say it's enough to stop the population from starving, but not to create food security.
And the food situation isn't helped by the lack of electricity.
Since Israel bombed the power station here, there are frequent electricity cuts — meaning no lights, no television and no fridges.
Many shopkeepers say they've had to throw away their small supplies of yoghurt and other perishable goods.
A combination of border closures and the dire economic conditions here have meant many businesses have simply given up.
Fadi imports ceramics from China. He says it costs him less to get his goods from China to Israel than to transport them the last few kilometres into Gaza.
He's already lost thousands of dollars, and says he'll lose less if he simply stops trading.
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Oh, what did you see, my blue-eyed son?
Oh, what did you see, my darling young one?
I saw a newborn baby with wild wolves all around it,
I saw a highway of diamonds with nobody on it,
I saw a black branch with blood that kept drippin',
I saw a room full of men with their hammers a-bleedin',
I saw a white ladder all covered with water,
I saw ten thousand talkers whose tongues were all broken,
I saw guns and sharp swords in the hands of young children,
And it's a hard, and it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard,
And it's a hard rain's a-gonna fall. Bob Dylan - Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall |
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©2006 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd. All rights reserved |
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We shall all lose: A diary report, a day after the Tel Aviv rally
By Adam KellerAugust 7, 2006
The narrow King George Street through which we passed is in the downtown area of Tel-Aviv, rather rundown though bustling.
The area had been the heart of the city back when it was part of the British Empire.
It has a considerable right-wing element but also enclaves of students and bohemians.
Demonstrators chanted:
"We shall neither die nor kill / in the service of the USA!"
"Children want to live / in Beirut and Haifa!"
"Peretz, Peretz, resign / peace is more important!"
"A million refugees / that's a war crime!"
"Olmert, Peretz and Ramon / Get out of Lebanon!"
(originally, this slogan had Sharon's name).
But the slogan repeated again and again, in alternating Hebrew and Arabic, was:
"Jews and Arabs Refuse to be Enemies!"
A small child, riding her father's shoulders, clapped hands merrily to the rhythm of the slogans.
The two most popular stickers circulating in the crowd were Gush Shalom's "Bring the Soldiers Home" (from a model dating back to the 1982 invasion of Lebanon) and the Bereaved Families' Forum's "It will not End — Until we Talk!"
An enterprising activist had produced at his own expense a sticker reading:
"We shall all lose!"
A faithful replica of the colours and graphic style of "Together we shall win!", the sticker mass-produced and distributed in the past weeks by the patriotic/commercial Leumi Bank.
Quite a few participants wore Che Guevara t-shirts, and there were some with the face of Nelson Mandela.
But also one participant's shirt had blazoned in English:
"Conference of Jewish Communities, Seattle". |
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And what did you hear, my blue-eyed son?
And what did you hear, my darling young one?
I heard the sound of a thunder, it roared out a warnin',
Heard the roar of a wave that could drown the whole world,
Heard one hundred drummers whose hands were a-blazin',
Heard ten thousand whisperin' and nobody listenin',
Heard one person starve, I heard many people laughin',
Heard the song of a poet who died in the gutter,
Heard the sound of a clown who cried in the alley,
And it's a hard, and it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard,
And it's a hard rain's a-gonna fall. Bob Dylan - Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall |
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We shall all lose: A diary report, a day after the Tel Aviv rally
By Adam KellerAugust 7, 2006
The Likud Party headquarters, which the march passed, seemed deserted and lifeless.
"They can afford to be lazy, Peretz is doing the dirty work for them" remarked an activist, who shortly afterwards furiously tore down a poster of the Labour Party leader, left over from the elections of four months (just four months!) ago.
A bit later on, on a balcony, two bare-chested youths waved Israeli national flags and made rude gestures, shouting something which was inaudible over the din.
A demonstrator silently waved towards them his own Israeli flag — one draped in the black of mourning. A neighboring balcony bore a large Animal Rights poster — "Meat is Murder!" — and from it a woman in a red flowered dress was enthusiastically waving in support.
Crossing the busy Allenby Street, we got to the designated site of the rally — Magen David Square, at the entrance to the Carmel Market.
'Welcome to the Demonstration of the Ten Thousand, the largest demonstration to date against the criminal Lebanon War!'
"Move along, move along!" boomed the loudspeaker from the podium. (Various press accounts later credited the demo with between 3000 and 5000 participants). The thousands that did not find place in the square flowed over into the Nahlat Binyamin pedestrian mall and other neighboring streets.
In the back there was, however, a constant motion and hubhub.
"We call upon everybody to cross Allenby and file into the square, we want to begin! Please cross the street, don't linger!" called moderator Khulud Badawi on the loudspeaker, and a little later: "We call upon the Tel-Aviv police force to stop molesting our people, to stop shoving and pushing! The agreement was that problems will be dealt with by demonstration marshals! Policemen, please hold to the agreement!"
In the densely packed crowd, it was difficult to see clearly even a short distance away, and impossible to establish how the confrontation started and by whom.
Some objects, such as bottles and sticks, have certainly flown through the air, and two demonstrators ended up in detention. None of many who were asked during and after the demonstration, have seen (or smelled) the throwing of feces at the police — but the police spokesperson announced it as a fact to the press, even while the demonstration was going on, and on Y-net the feces incident — true or fabricated — took up the headline and a large portion of the news item published.
In fact, however, the entire confrontation with the police took part on the outer edge of the rally, which started after a few minutes' delay. Besides Gush Shalom, participants included the Women's Coalition for Peace, Ta'ayush, Anarchists Against Walls, Yesh Gvul, the Israeli-Palestinian Forum of Bereaved Families, feminists, many parents with their children, veteran and young peace activists as well the political parties Hadash, Balad and the United Arab List.
A sign of the ferment in the political system was provided by members of Meretz, who took part in spite their party's pro-war position. They were led by former MKs Naomi Hazan and Ya'el Dayan.
Dayan at first got wild applause when she called for the immediate return of the invading troops from Lebanon and for a prisoner exchange to free the ones captured by Hizbullah and Hamas.
But when she also sent greetings to the fighting soldiers there was a chorus of angry protests and catcalls.
Defiantly, she added that the war had been justified to begin with, "though it had now gone on too long and too deep."
Some activists tried to storm the podium, pushed back with difficulty by marshals. |
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Running Scared By Chris Floyd
Published: August 4, 2006 Like a gang of twitchy hit men afraid they've botched the job, the Bush regime is creeping back to the scene of the crime: the Congressional backrooms where they thought they'd put the kibosh on the American Republic once and for all. But it seems there is still a flicker of life in the victim, and thus a threat that the gangsters might have to pay the piper somewhere down the line. So they went back to the bagmen on Capitol Hill this week, ordering their minions to provide retroactive legal cover for the rank offenses committed by the big boys at the top when they devised their torture regimen — in knowing, deliberate violation of the U.S. War Crimes Act, which was passed by acclamation in the Republican-led Congress in 1996, and toughened up the following year with the Pentagon's support, The Washington Post reports. The moribund republic was thought to have been bludgeoned to death when the Bushists brought out the blunt instrument of the "unitary executive" earlier this year. After the regime's patently illegal domestic spying programs were revealed, the regime at last dropped all pretense and openly declared a presidential dictatorship, insisting that any action ordered by the commander-in-chief was beyond the reach of law. When this extraordinary usurpation of the Constitution did not produce angry crowds in the street demanding the return of their liberties — and nothing more than a prissy "Well, I never!" from the oozing invertebrates in the Democratic opposition — it seemed that the republic was well and truly dead. But then last month, the Supreme Court's decision in the Hamdan v. Rumsfeld case effectively overturned the Bushists' "unitary executive" fantasies by ruling that the Geneva Conventions, which had been incorporated into U.S. law and are the basis of the War Crimes Act, applied to Bush's Terror War. This was the nightmare scenario that Attorney General Alberto "The Fixer" Gonzales and Dick Cheney's capo, David "The Enforcer" Addington, laid out in legal memos for President George W. Bush in early 2002, when Bush, Cheney and Pentagon warlord Don Rumsfeld were signing off on the various tortures they would inflict on their captives. The minions told Bush that they could all be prosecuted, even executed, under the War Crimes Act for what they were doing — if the Geneva Conventions were upheld. Gonzales thus advised Bush to issue a presidential order stripping Terror War captives of the Geneva protections, the Post reports. Only this bit of weasel-wording could provide a "defense against future prosecution," Gonzales wrote. What he forgot to say was that this defense would only work in a presidential dictatorship under the legally baseless "unitary executive." Otherwise, the president would still be bound by America's strict laws against torture. Thus any president who ordered interrogation techniques that violated those laws could be prosecuted; and if those techniques resulted in the murder of prisoners, then that president, and his minions, could be executed. So far, at least 35 Terror War captives have been killed in military or CIA custody, Human Rights Watch reports. But Bush duly wrote the unconstitutional order anyway, thereby committing himself to full, personal responsibility for the criminal system that followed. For the U.S. War Crimes Act not only forbids "murder, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture," it also specifically criminalizes "outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment." Gonzales and others have tried to define away torture, claiming that anything less than outright murder or "pain approaching, but not equal to, that experienced during organ failure" is not really torture, but just a kind of extending tickling or good-natured horseplay. Thus, they say, there is no torture in the gulag. Yet even if you accept these ludicrous and frankly evil formulations, and even if you ignore the evidence of beating, waterboarding, deprivation and other actions acknowledged by any sentient human being as torture, there is no escaping the fact that the Pentagon and the CIA have instigated interrogation techniques centered on outrages upon personal dignity and humiliating, degrading treatment. Indeed, they're proud of it; they brag about it. And yet these techniques — planned, approved and celebrated at the highest levels of government — are patently illegal. The military's own lawyers know this — and have long known it. Alberto Mora, the Navy's general counsel throughout most of the Terror War, told the Pentagon that some of the specifically approved techniques "violated domestic and international legal norms," with legal responsibility for the crimes running "along the entire length of the chain of command," the Post reports. And just last month, the Air Force's chief counsel, Major General Jack Rives, told Congress, under oath, that "some of the techniques that have been authorized and used in the past have violated" key portions of the Geneva Conventions: the very portions that are the foundations of the U.S. War Crimes Act. That's why the Bushists are now roaming the back alleys of Congress again, looking to fire a few more slugs into their victim. Bush wants the "unitary executive" autocracy he created in secret to be restored — in public — by Congress. There is brutal arrogance behind this, of course, but there is blind panic, too. For the blood-soaked thugs of the Bush regime now realize they have no choice: If law and the Constitution are allowed to prevail, they could all be doing hard time — or even find themselves strapped down and stretched out, waiting for the executioner's needle. To save their hides, the republic must die, for good this time, forever. Annotations
Detainee Abuse Charges Feared; Shield Sought From '96 War Crimes ActWashington Post, July 28, 2006 Will Bush and Gonzales get away with it? Salon.com, Aug. 2, 2004 Craven Image: The Senate Bows to Imperial Power Empire Burlesque, July 20, 2006 Bush submits new terror detainee bill Boston Globe, July 28, 2006 Echoes of the Nixon Era Salon.com, July 31, 2006 Bush Has Broken 26 Statutes Talking Points Memo, July 31, 2006 American Dream: The Fleeting Lights of Freedom Empire Burlesque, July 7, 2006 © Copyright 2006, The Moscow Times. All Rights Reserved. |
Oh, who did you meet, my blue-eyed son?
Who did you meet, my darling young one?
I met a young child beside a dead pony,
I met a white man who walked a black dog,
I met a young woman whose body was burning,
I met a young girl, she gave me a rainbow,
I met one man who was wounded in love,
I met another man who was wounded with hatred,
And it's a hard, and it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard,
And it's a hard rain's a-gonna fall. Bob Dylan - Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall |
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We shall all lose: A diary report, a day after the Tel Aviv rally
By Adam KellerAugust 7, 2006
Naomi Hazan, the other Meretz dissident, was more pleasing to this audience:
"Each and every one of us came here because of being totally against this war. We have come here to make a united voice of protest against this terrible monstrous madness and call for an immediate ceasefire, to protest the destruction and mourn the killings.
"And not only in Lebanon - let's not forget the Palestinians, let's not forget the blood which was shed this morning in Rafah!
"We have come here to struggle for life, to oppose the war with all our power - and we will win!"
The keynote speech was delivered by Saul Feldman, a person hitherto unknown to most of his listeners.
"I live in Nesher, which as you know is a suburb of Haifa. Until three weeks ago, this was just a geographical detail, a quite comfortable house to live in. On the day this war broke out, I and my wife went to the demonstration in Tel-Aviv.
"On the following day we were sitting in a back room when there was this whistle and explosion, quite near, and our dog came running, shaking and very frightened.
"Our front room was in shambles, broken glass strewn everywhere. I tried the piano to see if it was working, that was when the press photographers arrived."
Here, a group of extreme-right people, waving flags, arrived on the scene and tried to break into the podium, to be thrown back after a few minutes' struggle. Unperturbed, Feldman resumed his speech:
"I should have thought that the photo of a man playing the piano in a ruined house should have sent a message of peace.
But I saw the photo with all kinds of very warlike captions, which implied that I want revenge from the inhabitants of Lebanon. I called the press and protested and told them I had participated in the anti-war demonstration. They said: oh, but did you not change your mind when your house was bombed?
Change my mind? I have protested against the stupid wanton destruction of war, and then the war and destruction came to my own home. Should that make me change my mind?" |
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Oh, what'll you do now, my blue-eyed son?
Oh, what'll you do now, my darling young one?
I'm a-goin' back out 'fore the rain starts a-fallin',
I'll walk to the depths of the deepest black forest,
Where the people are many and their hands are all empty,
Where the pellets of poison are flooding their waters,
Where the home in the valley meets the damp dirty prison,
Where the executioner's face is always well hidden,
Where hunger is ugly, where souls are forgotten,
Where black is the color, where none is the number,
And I'll tell it and think it and speak it and breathe it,
And reflect it from the mountain so all souls can see it,
Then I'll stand on the ocean until I start sinkin',
But I'll know my song well before I start singin',
And it's a hard, and it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard,
And it's a hard rain's a-gonna fall. Bob Dylan - Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall |
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We shall all lose: A diary report, a day after the Tel Aviv rally
By Adam KellerAugust 7, 2006
"Olmert, stop this madness!" cried Uri Avnery of Gush Shalom.
"The war has gone to your head. You are war drunk, a war junkie. Nothing good will come of this war. Stop it, before it is too late!
"And you, Amir Peretz — you have lied to your voters and cheated them. Some people in this rally have voted for you, or at least seriously considered doing it. People who would otherwise have never thought of voting Labour supported you because you presented yourself as a radical social reformer, because you promised to divert a large part of the defence budget to education and health and social improvement, because you said you were a dove and a peace-seeker.
"What is left of that?
"You have a become a monster, a real monster!"
Shauki Khatib, Head of the Arab Monitoring Committee said:"Jews and Arabs pay the price in blood, the price in dead and wounded, of this miserable criminal war.
"We are in this together. Jews and Arabs together stand here in this this square, stand together and protest together and demand together the immediate end of this terrible carnage."
The leadership of Israel's Arab citizens, and the audience responded with prolonged chanting of "Jews and Arabs Refuse to be Enemies!".
"The main victims of this war are the poor. The well-to-do can afford to run away. The poor stay, exposed to the bombs and the missiles. The poor in Northern Israel and the poor in South Lebanon. This is the war of the rich and the generals, and the poorer you are the higher the price you pay" said Prof. Gadi Elgazi, historian and central activist of Ta'ayush.
"This war must stop. We here have to stop it. It is a war for Israel's control and domination of the Middle East, a completely unjust war. There are people who like to oppose a war after it is over, after they have cheered the soldiers on. I say: the time to oppose the war is now — now when the blood is flowing, when the bodies are buried, when the war crimes are committed and perpetrated. The time is now!" was how anarchist Adar Grayevsky, veteran of the prolonged struggle at Bil'in, put it.
After her, a young man mounted the podium.
"My name is Zohar Milgrom. I am 26 years old, an activist in Yesh Gvul. I have got an emergency call up up order. Tomorrow I have to show up at the army and get sent to Lebanon. I will go there to declare that I am refusing. This is the only thing I can do in face of the public silence, in face of the war crimes committed in our name, in face of the leaders who have sent soldiers again into the Lebanese swamp.
"I will dedicate my time of imprisonment to all the people who suffer in this war, the Jews and the Arabs, the Israelis and Lebanese and Palestinians, to stopping the madness and saving their lives.
"Before I finish I would like to read to you the words of my friend, Isma'il abdul A'al of Gaza, who would have liked to stand here in Tel-Aviv and address you, were it possible.
"This is what he asked me to tell you: Stop this war now!
"This war is the mother of terrorists and extremists!
"We are all in danger!
"We have to struggle together, to end this horror, to live together in peace, in two states!"
After he went down, to the sound of applause, a Yesh Gvul speaker announced a solidarity demonstration for next Saturday outside Military prison 6 at Atlit.
Where refusing Captain Amir Pester has been for more than week and where Milgrom will probably soon join him. |
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Tuesday, 8 August 2006
Seized speaker in Israel hospital
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The Palestinian parliamentary speaker detained by Israel on Sunday has been taken to hospital with chest pains and dizziness, the Israeli army says.
A spokesman for Aziz Dweik said he was taken to hospital after being beaten by Israeli guards. The army, which is holding him, denied the claims.
Mr Dweik, who is a key member of the governing Hamas movement, was detained in a raid on his home in the West Bank.
The Israeli military said Mr Dweik was a legitimate target as a Hamas leader.
Israel has detained about 30 MPs and a third of the Palestinian cabinet in the past six weeks, following the capture of an Israeli soldier by Palestinian militants in June.
Palestinian officials have called on the international community to intervene to secure their release.
A Hamas spokesman in Gaza said that Mr Dweik was taken to hospital "after being severely beaten".
The Israeli army said a prison doctor had examined Mr Dweik after he had complained of dizziness and chest pains, and decided to transfer him for further tests to a hospital in Jerusalem.
"He underwent tests at the hospital and will remain under observation," a spokesman told the Agence France Presse news agency.
Wednesday, 2 August 2006
Gaza 'crisis as bad as Lebanon'
By Lucy Williamson
BBC News, Gaza
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The United Nations has called on world leaders not to forget the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, saying it is at least as serious as that in southern Lebanon.
More than 140 people have been killed during Israel's operations there over the past month, many of them civilians.
Delivery of food and other essential items has been reduced to a trickle.
Thirty aid agencies backed the appeal, and one charity spoke of a sense among aid agencies that Gaza's population was being terrorised.
Care International told the BBC that Western nations had failed to put pressure on Israel to rein in its actions and that attention was being focused on Lebanon at the expense of the situation in the Gaza Strip.
According to the UN, Israel fires around 150 shells into the tiny territory every day in a bid to stop Palestinian militants who fire an average of 10 rockets across the border.
Israel says it needs to target civilian areas because that is where militants base themselves but aid organisations say Gaza's population of 1.4 million is living in perpetual fear.
Sudden explosion of air strikes
Several nights a week the noise of Israeli helicopters vibrates over Gaza followed by the sudden explosion of air strikes.
Israel has begun dropping leaflets and leaving telephone messages warning residents not to stay near militant homes but aid organisations say such measures leave people terrified and with nowhere safe to go.
The UN is currently sheltering 1,000 people in schools in Gaza.
Many others have moved in with relations.
Aid agencies are also calling on Israel to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza.
One hundred and fifty trucks carrying food and essential supplies are currently crossing the border each day but according to Care International this is only just enough to stop the population from starving.
To keep people from being hungry and to restore food security, they say, Israel needs to increase this to 400.
Gaza's population is already living in the dark.
Since Israel bombed the power station homes are often without clean water or electricity and health officials say they are worried about the possible spread of disease.
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ESTIMATED NUCLEAR WARHEADS, STRATEGIC AND TACTICAL The United States has conducted 1,127 nuclear and thermonuclear tests — 217 in the atmosphere.
The Soviet Union/ Russia conducted 969 tests — 219 in the atmosphere.
France, 210 tests, 50 in the atmosphere.
The United Kingdom, 45 tests — 21 in the atmosphere.
China, 45 tests — 23 in the atmosphere.
India and Pakistan — 13 tests underground.
Israel — possible 1 test atmosphere South Africa 1979.
North Korea — 1 test underground, October 2006.
“The United states had drawn up a battle plan for the potential use of nuclear weapons in Iraq and the United States has been involved in planning potential nuclear use scenarios for Iran.”“The United States is now involved in a massive program to overhaul its nuclear arsenal. In fact they're working to replace every nuclear warhead and all of the existing delivery systems in the arsenal to ensure prompt precision global strike capabilities.”Jackie Cabasso — Western States Legal Foundation |
Western Elite militarismWestern Elite Terror StatesWestern Elite War Crimes
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'Oh! You don't believe the 9-11 official version,' they say.
'You mean where they want you to accept the buildings were not blown up from below.
'Plane fuel! Substance never burns higher then a gas stove! That it caused the inner core steel to melt!
'Steel melting!
'Concrete vaporizing!
'
'No! I don't believe that conspiracy theory.
'Cheney! Bush! Rudy Giuliani! HA! HA!
'Tower 7 that never had a plane hit — just came tumbling down!
'You believe that, eh!
'Ever think it had to be blown up because the plane scheduled to fly into it was off getting shot down.
'Thermite in Tower 7's walls, you see — incriminating evidence — impossible to get out without people watching!
Had to be blown up!
'Next you'll be saying Obama is not a Wall Street Illuminati banker stooge?
'Take your pick: The partner in a comedy team who feeds lines to the other comedians.
'Him who allows himself to be used.
'Oh! I can't really blame you, Television it turns minds to pulp.
'Turn off the television. It's the only way.'
'Turn off the television?'
'Get rid of it really. I mean what else is there to do!'
'Get rid of the television?'
'Don't forget all radio garbage is propaganda, even the songs.
'Then those five minute propaganda hits they send you every hour!
'The ones they refer to as News
'Get rid of all the propaganda from your brain, the only way to do it.'
'Stop being hooked on those Hollywood movies — even those that make you think they are making you think'
'All paid performers to make your brain dead.
'You turn the brainwashing off, you'll begin to become yourself.
'It really is the only way!'
'Oh!'
Kewe — TheWE.name
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We are change 9/11 lies have sustained the ruling terrorism-threat paradigm The “why” is obvious: To justify an unjust war to serve corporate interests and greed |
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9.11 Truth New York City Decades long history of political disruption the US has been responsible for 9/11 is part of a long series of criminal, imperialist conquests Another major highlight was surprise appearance of Cynthia McKinney |
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Architects and Engineers for 9/11 truth A solid convincing case which architects & engineers will readily see: that the 3 WTC high-rise buildings were destroyed by both classic and novel forms of controlled demolition These buildings were professionally demolished with explosives |
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Danish scientist Niels Harrit on nano-thermite in the WTC dust
— Click Here
Niels Harrit and 8 other scientists found nano-thermite in the dust from the World Trade Center.
Niels Harrit, you and eight other researchers conclude in this article that it was nano-thermite that caused these buildings to collapse. |
ITALIAN SAYS 9-11 SOLVED
It’s common knowledge, he reveals
CIA — Mossad behind terror attacks By the Staff of American Free Press
Former Italian President Francesco Cossiga, who revealed the existence of Operation Gladio, has told Italy’s oldest and most widely read newspaper that the 9-11 terrorist attacks were run by the CIA and Mossad, and that this was common knowledge among global intelligence agencies.
In what translates awkwardly into English, Cossiga told the newspaper Corriere della Sera:
“All the [intelligence services] of America and Europe… know well that the disastrous attack has been planned and realized from the Mossad, with the aid of the Zionist world in order to put under accusation the Arabic countries and in order to induce the western powers to take part … in Iraq [and] Afghanistan.”
Cossiga was elected president of the Italian Senate in July 1983 before winning a landslide election to become president of the country in 1985, and he remained until 1992.
Cossiga’s tendency to be outspoken upset the Italian political establishment, and he was forced to resign after revealing the existence of, and his part in setting up, Operation Gladio.
This was a rogue intelligence network under NATO auspices that carried out bombings across Europe in the 1960s, 1970s and ’80s.
Gladio’s specialty was to carry out what they termed 'false flag' operations — terror attacks that were blamed on their domestic and geopolitical opposition.
In March 2001, Gladio agent Vincenzo Vinciguerra stated, in sworn testimony:
“You had to attack civilians, the people, women, children, innocent people, unknown people far removed from any political game.
The reason was quite simple: to force … the public to turn to the state to ask for greater security.”
Cossiga first expressed his doubts about 9-11 in 2001, and is quoted by 9-11 researcher Webster Tarpley saying:
“The mastermind of the attack must have been a sophisticated mind, provided with ample means not only to recruit fanatic kamikazes, but also highly specialized personnel.
I add one thing: it could not be accomplished without infiltrations in the radar and flight security personnel.”
Coming from a widely respected former head of state, Cossiga’s assertion that the 9-11 attacks were an inside job and that this is common knowledge among global intelligence agencies is illuminating.
It is one more eye-opening confirmation that has not been mentioned by America’s propaganda machine in print or on TV.
Nevertheless, because of his experience and status in the world, Cossiga cannot be discounted as a crackpot.
Free to redistribute as long as credit given to American Free Press |
Photo: Bentham-Open.org |
Bentham-Open.org Download pdf — 10mg document including images — Right click Save As |
The secret story of Mossad and the World Trade Center attack The Odigo Warning: Israeli employees get e-mail warnings of 9-11 SEC Secret Probe Of Stock Dealings Before 9/11 |
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Truth Action LA Branch We are in the midst of a mass awakening 9/11 is the foundational myth upon which the entire agenda has been triggered for our generation |
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Scholars for 9/11 Truth & Justice High Velocity Bursts of Debris From Point-Like Sources in the WTC Towers Why Did the World’s Most Advanced Electronics Warfare Plane Circle Over The White House on 9/11? |
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Your life, your children's lives — Will you live or die?Decided by small group of elite.Pure evil It doesn't get any clearer than this
Published on Friday, March 2, 2007 by the Los Angeles Times
US to Develop New Hydrogen Bomb
by Ralph Vartabedian
The Energy Department will announce today a contract to develop the nation's first new hydrogen bomb in two decades, involving a collaboration between three national weapons laboratories, The Times has learned.
The new bomb will include design features from all three labs, though Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the Bay Area appears to have taken the lead position in the project. The Los Alamos and Sandia labs in New Mexico will also be part of the project.
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Hiroshima, Nagasaki — George Weller report |
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Why are the West's elites trying to start a nuclear war?
Because you pay for it |
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BBC — Thursday, 6 September 2007
UK jets 'chase Russian bombers'
The UK's Royal Air Force has launched fighter jets to intercept eight Russian military planes flying in airspace patrolled by Nato, UK officials say.
Four RAF F3 Tornado aircraft were scrambled in response to the Russian action, the UK's defence ministry said.
The Russian planes - said to be long-range bombers - had earlier been followed by Norwegian F16 jets.
Russia recently revived a Cold War-era practice of flying bombers on long-range patrols.
A Norwegian officer, Lt Col John Inge Oegland, told the BBC the Russian Tupolev Tu-95 Bear bombers flew in international airspace from the Barents Sea to the Atlantic, before turning back.
Two Norwegian F-16s shadowed them on Thursday morning and another two went up later, he said.
There have been several similar incidents in recent months, Lt-Col Oegland added.
"Norway is following the increased Russian activity in the far north with interest," he told the BBC News website.
He said the Russian flights were not causing alarm in Norway. "Our systems are adequate," he said, when asked whether Norway was bolstering its security in the area. |
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9/11
By all accounts, the unprecedented events of September 11th, 2001 changed the way our country functions, and in turn, the world.
It is therefore critical that conscientious Americans, as well as people around the globe, understand these events in detail.
Unfortunately the official reports, including The 9/11 Commission Report and the NIST WTC Report, written by those working under the direction of the Bush Administration, have been proven to be elaborate cover-ups.
Film: 9/11 Revisited
September 11th Revisited is perhaps the most riveting film ever made about the destruction of the World Trade Center.
This is a powerful documentary which features eyewitness accounts and archived news footage that was shot on September 11, 2001 but never replayed on television.
Featuring interviews with eyewitnesses & firefighters, along with expert analysis by Professor Steven E. Jones, Professor David Ray Griffin, MIT Engineer Jeffrey King, and Professor James H. Fetzer.
This film provides stunning evidence that explosives were used in the complete demolition of the WTC Twin Towers and WTC Building 7.
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For Film: 9/11 Revisited
— Click Here
Film: 9/11 Press for Truth
An excellent documentary about the families of the victims of 9/11 and their fight to uncover and expose the truth about what happened that day.
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For Film: 9/11 Press for Truth
— Click Here
Film: 9/11 Mysteries
90 minutes of pure demolition evidence and analysis, laced with staggering witness testimonials.
Moving from “the myth” through “the analysis” and into “the players,” careful deconstruction of the official story set right alongside clean, clear science.
The 9/11 picture is not one of politics or nationalism or loyalty, but one of strict and simple physics. How do you get a 10-second 110-story pancake collapse?
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Image: Natasha Mayers |
| It's kind of a fun gameYou see the aim of those inner forces who guide the Elite —
For them the real agenda is depopulation
To kill off you your children your grandchildren It is to have fun watching our stupidity as we allow the destruction of our planet — but most haven't figured this out yet! If we stop them with the nuclear and biological weapons then it's the 400+ MPH, KPH wind the increase in UVB, UVC, UVA rays due to loss of stratospheric ozone. It's the climate! It's the reduction and elimination of food coming from all levels of cunning World Elite — tools and servants of Lucifer |
Gustave Doré's illustration for Paradise Lost by John Milton |
The Dark Side Initiates — Click here Dark path initiates depend on the denial The five-percent manipulator class is composed of those on the dark path |
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Agent Orange Dioxin — Vietnam Cleft palate, Canoe footed, Clawed fingers continue in births I didn't know what it was then, but it was white |
UVC in the 10 to 290 nanometer band UVB, 290 to 320 nanometers UVA, 320 to 400 nanometers |
Soot's effect on ice melt and glaciers Washington State's Glaciers are Melting |
Remnants of knowledge would be retained with those on higher ground. A few people here, a few there. Translations of discussions with The WE |
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Unspeakable grief and horror
...and the circus of deception killing continues...
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Nanci Pelosi — U.S. House Democratic leader — Congresswoman California, 8th District
Speaking at the AIPAC agenda May 26, 2005
There are those who contend that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is all about Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. This is absolute nonsense.
In truth, the history of the conflict is not over occupation, and never has been: it is over the fundamental right of Israel to exist.
The greatest threat to Israel's right to exist, with the prospect of devastating violence, now comes from Iran.
For too long, leaders of both political parties in the United States have not done nearly enough to confront the Russians and the Chinese, who have supplied Iran as it has plowed ahead with its nuclear and missile technology....
In the words of Isaiah, we will make ourselves to Israel 'as hiding places from the winds and shelters from the tempests; as rivers of water in dry places; as shadows of a great rock in a weary land.'
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The United States will stand with Israel now and forever.
Now and forever.
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