5/30/2008

An Open Letter to Defense Minister, Ehud Barak

Here's the Truth You've Been Running From

By Bassam Aramin30/05/08 "Counterpunch" -- - Honorable General Ehud Barak, you don't know me personally. I am a seeker of peace, and I struggle with all my strength and ability for the realization of a just peace that will bring calm and prosperity to Palestinians and Israelis together. I have suffered personally from your criminal occupation and I have paid a heavy price. Firstly, I was imprisoned when I was 17 years old and wasted seven years of my life in your barbaric prisons. Secondly, have you perhaps read or heard about what happened to the young girl Abir Aramin? She was a ten-year-old whom your soldiers killed with a rubber bullet from a distance of 15 feet on January 16, 2007 in front of her eleven-year-old sister Areen. Despite this I, the father of Abir — may she rest in peace — believe in the right of the Israeli person, as in the right of all people, to exist and to live in peace and security. So why do you not believe in our right to enjoy these same things, sir?Where was the democratic nature of your state when your heroic soldiers killed my daughter before the eyes of her friends at the entrance to her school in Anata? Where were your democratic ideals when you closed the investigation file into Abir's murder for lack of sufficient evidence, this despite the fact that the crime is clear and was committed in front of more than ten witnesses? Was Abir really a threat to your soliders, sir?I carry in my possession the weapons with which Abir threatened those soldiers. I have in my hand her school backpack, reinforced and armored, of course — the mechanical pencil she had, laden with dangerous lead cartridges, and her math book in which class she had a test the same day, which of course included detailed instructions on how to prepare chemical weapons. In addition to all this, she had a sharp ruler, which could for sure be used as a weapon to stab someone. Lastly, I found in her possession two pieces of chocolate that perhaps contained a bit of enriched uranium that would have certainly brought devastation upon your state, if she hadn't been tempted to take them in her hand for a taste seconds before she was shot.Here I have to give your soldiers credit in their incredible ability to incapacitate and kill with such deadly accuracy. The bullet hit Abir exactly one centimeter from her hypothalamus—this caused her to immediately enter a coma and she died thereafter and went to dwell in the presence of God, sparing her the continuing pain and heartache herein expressed.Thus, Abir Aramin can be added to the list of great successes and security accomplishments in the name of the state of Israel. But I request, Minister and General, in that I am the father of this young girl, at the very least an admission of responsibility for this murder, or its cause. It is your duty to bring the soldier who murdered Abir to court so he may be tried and judged a murderer and criminal.I believe that there is no military solution to the conflict and when those cowards murdered my daughter, I announced that I did not want revenge, I wanted justice, even though revenge is much easier. The real fighter is one who chooses the harder path of the two for the sake of peace, and revenge is the path of the coward.Sir, the Palestinian people cannot forever pay the price of the fear and suspicion of the Israeli people. Free my people from this abominable occupation so that your people may live in prosperity and be free from fear.For sixty years, the Palestinian people have paid the price of the Israeli military occupation an occupation which, in celebration of the Israeli state's inception, carries out acts of outright antagonism that spill the blood of Palestinian fighters, women, children and elders indiscriminately. It is the Palestinian general public that provides a target for your war machine that does not protect the small from the grown. Our people has faced the same murderer since Gaza in 1956 — and the never-ending series continues.I will not remind you now of the massacres that your government committed against my people; you know them far better than I. I read about them, heard about them — but you took part in them.The question I pose to you is this: in light of your rich military experience, and as someone who himself has seen sixty years of conflict go by, when will Israel have the strength to finish the conflict militarily and realize a complete victory over the Palestinian people? Do you continue to believe that what cannot be done by might may be done by more might? Does the occupation conceal in its bag of tricks additional methods of killing that the Palestinian people have not yet had the misfortune to know?If this is the case, perhaps it is a good idea for the Israeli government to try and use those methods. And perhaps they will be able to accomplish that tantalizingly complete victory…in another 60 years.Sir, when will you understand that the conflict between us cannot be ended with an army? For despite all the effort and conceit of the occupation, it could not stop the stones of our children from hitting your occupying soldiers. How will you be able to stop the Palestinian uprising? This is a dream that will never come true, even in another 1000 years. Why are you not telling this truth to the residents of Ashkelon and Sderot, that there is no solution that will stop the Qassam missiles flying at them from a destroyed and blockaded Gaza except if there would be an end to the occupation?This is the truth you've been running from for a long time.Believe me, sir, that you will gain nothing out of continuing to detain people. More than 750,000 Palestinians have been detained from 1967 until today. What result has been achieved except an increased determination on our part for confrontation and resistance? The policy of occupation only creates more and more people who rise up to fight occupation and refuse to accept its burden. The Palestinian prisoners who sit in your jails are among the most learned and erudite of our people, those are the most sensitive and humanistic. They have become educated in the tradition of liberty and democracy—and for this reason they will never agree to accept the occupation and subjugation. It is these men and women who will fight for peace, and if you want to realize peace you have no option but to set free these soldiers of peace first and foremost.How much have you really benefited from your strategy of home demolitions, uprooting of trees, confiscating lands for questionable reasons and then establishing illegal settlements on those same lands? How much has it helped you to set up disgraceful checkpoints in every corner and every road of the West Bank and Gaza and at each intersection for the purpose of humiliating the residents of those areas, among them workers, students and political leaders. What is the expediency of all this, sir?When will the bloodthirsty bullets of your soldiers be sated by the blood of our children? When will you be satisfied with our blood that you have already spilled and leave us? When will you leave our waters and our heavens? Do you not see the helmets upon which your soldiers write, "I was born to kill"? Do you not see your brave men killing children every day? How can you decide to prevent the people of Gaza from acquiring cooking gas and at the same time send them teargas and tanks and warplanes?Only now do I understand the will of an Israeli woman in Italy — my colleague Eidan and I met her when we participated in a peace march from Perugia to Assisi as representatives of Combatants for Peace. When I asked her, "You aren't planning to return to Israel?" She answered me: "I swore that if Ehud Barak won the election, I will leave Israel forever." She continues to live there because you act according to a policy that says there is no Palestinian partner.I cannot begin to express in this short letter the enormity of the moral failures that have harmed Israeli society. The newspaper Yediot Ahronot said that 40 per cent of new recruits to the IDF have criminal records and this may go a long way in explaining the long list of acts against Palestinian civilians that they commit during their service. This is supposed to be the most distinguished, moral army in the entire world, no? Is this why we find that 25 per cent of the soldiers of the army of the occupation took part in instances of torture and punishment of innocent civilians or were witnesses to such acts?Sir, I want to submit that I have read the shameful report that every person of conscience should be horrified by, that talks of the torture of children in Hebron. And this — the strangling of Palestinian children by soldiers to test how much time they can stand without breathing, incidents that were committed by captains in your army, the most moral army in the world, this is the crown of shame on the brow of the occupation.Sir, how do you justify your soldier's use of children aged 10 as personal shields that they tie to the front of your patrols when they search for wanted persons or break up a demonstration? Where does international law permit this? I am trying to understand if this use of children as human shields is in some way related to the science of modern warfare, for the accusation that I hear in all instances of the killing of children in particular and in the killing of Palestinian citizens in general is that the Palestinians fighters use citizens for human shields to hide behind. How can there be a legal justification and distinction even in the Israeli terminology, but not in the international terminology, between Israelis and Palestinians?How can you justify the deaths of those innocents just trying to peacefully pass though the checkpoints that your soldiers put up at all entrances to villages, cities or camps that prevent pregnant women from walking to hospitals to deliver? Would you ever agree to let this happen to your wife? What would you do then?There are, however, military men, Israeli soldiers that used to do battle with the Palestinian people who at the moment of truth found that they are no more than pawns in the hands of the occupation. They had the courage and the valor to announce unanimously that they refuse to be occupiers. They exposed the falsehoods of their leaders who claim that Israel is reaching out her hand for peace but she has no partner on the Palestinian side. They discovered that they had never met a real Palestinian fighter face-to-face in combat, and that instead their day-to-day work was chasing schoolchildren, enforcing closures, destroying houses and putting up checkpoints and roadblocks to stop children who aren't even 13 years old. They took a moral and courageous stance and without any difficulty found themselves a Palestinian partner from within the heart of the Palestinian movement, people who wasted the spring of their youth in the prisons of your occupation. Together they founded the organization Combatants for Peace. The name itself exposes the false promises and the policy that says there is no partner for peace. This organization, united in courageousness and and morality, is made up of people from both sides who understand that there is only one shared enemy that conceals the path of realization of peace and life together as two nations. This enemy is the illegal and immoral Israeli occupation. I am a member of this organization, and I call upon all who are searching for a true peace to join us.We tell our peoples the truth, only the truth. We are committed to nonviolent resistance to the occupation, and I call here, in this very missive, to the people of our Palestinian nation that have been inscribed in the pages of history as the epitome of resilience, that have had the humanity to withstand decades of abuse and occupation with the purest steadfastness. I call also upon the people in Israel to accept moral and historic responsibility for the establishment of these two states together, and for a national, humanistic, peaceful intifada, a rising up against this unjust occupation that has transformed your children into war criminals and to abject murderers. You Israelis — stop sending your soldiers — your sons — to kill our children, because the blood of our children and the blood of all those Palestinian innocents will chase your soldiers and the generals of your army to judgment in international courts as the rest of the war criminals in the world. You must learn this lesson. The honorable general must surely be aware that the majority of captains and generals in the Israeli army are forbidden from entering any European state for they will be wanted persons there, to be arrested and taken to court as war criminals and for crimes against humanity?One last word – the blood of Abir will remain as a black crown on the brow of every Israeli and every Jew in the world until her murderer is brought to justice and passes the remainder of his days in jail, among the murderers and the criminals.
Bassam Aramin is co-founder of Combatants for Peace. Translation by Mimi Asnes.

5/27/2008

Are You A Coward Like Me?

From time to time I receive from my friends in the Middle East, horrific photographs of the atrocities perpetrated on the Palestinians by the IDF. (Israel Defence Force) Apparently these photographs are never ever distributed in the western media; they are in fact, censored.

5/19/2008

Terror Most Imperial

By Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich

19/05/08 "ICH" -- -- For centuries the colonizers exploited and dominated the third world. Today, one of the more subtle tools of imperialism is the use of value-laden language that seeks to define the Arab and Muslim world. With labels such as ‘terrorists’ and ‘Islamofascism’, they wish to establish an ‘Orientalist’ perspective of otherness denoting barbarism as set apart from Israel and the West which represents admirable qualities. It is imperative to reject this imperial imposition of characterization and for each state, individually and collectively, to self-rule, foremost through self-definition.
The case of Mojahedeen-e Khalg (MEK) showcases the ever present imperial influence of the West in defining the ‘other’ due to the ownership of language. The hypocrisy is stark given that the U.S. with the help of her ally the British waged a ‘war on terror’ which has resulted in the death of over a million people to date. Yet, a certain Lord Corbett of Castle Vale, a member of the House of Lords from Gordon Brown's ruling Labor Party, has coauthored an opinion piece with Congressman Bob Filner (D-CA), both of whom promote the terrorist organization of the MEK. In their opinion, these two argue that engagement with Iran would risk, among other things, a “support for international terrorism”[i].
Lord Colbert does not do his title justice; to paraphrase Samuel Butler, a degenerate nobleman is like a turnip. There is nothing good of him but that which is under ground. Else how can he explain throwing in his lot with terrorists who are in the employ of Israel? "Israel is said to have had a relationship with the M.E.K at least since the late nineties, and to have supplied a satellite signal for N.C.RI. broadcasts from Paris into Iran” [ii]. Their servitude to the Israelis was after they had committed treason, murder, and terrorism while under the tutelage of Saddam Hossein – the man that the Americans and the British considered a threat to world peace, and whose demise and the invasion of Iraq has now caused a threat to world peace.
While innocent Iraqis were being killed en masse in the ‘war on terror’, the Commander in Chief gave ‘special persons status’ to Saddam’s pet terrorists in Camp Ashraf while an associate from the powerful Republican lobbying group of Barbour Griffith & Rogers invited Neil Livingstone, the C.E.O. of Global Options, an international risk-management firm, and Gregory Minjack, who was an executive at Public Strategies, a Washington-based crisis-management company” to remove the group from the FTO designation. The lobby group was not without help. Congressman Filner has been on the Hill promoting the group. But perhaps one of their most ardent admirers is Cuban-born Congresswoman Senator Ros-Lehtinen who is not new to the game.
In February 1988, Orlando Bosch had been arrested in Miami and implicated in the 1976 Cubana plot, a terrorist act which had resulted in the downing of flight 455 killing 73 passengers. Joe D. Whitley, associate United States Attorney General at the time, called Bosch “a terrorist, unfettered by laws or human decency, threatening and inflicting violence without regard to the identity of his victims”[iii], had the distinct advantage of having Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) Bosch’s release as one of the cornerstones of her 1989 congressional campaign. This murderer of 73 innocent lives had the more good luck. Ros-Lehtinen’s campaign manager was Jed Bush, the President’s son. In July 1989, a month after meeting his son Jed and Ros-Lehtinen to discuss the Bosch case, President Bush rejected his Justice Department’s recommendation and authorized Bosch’s release who became a resident of the United States two years later.[iv] In granting the MEK terrorists asylum in Iraq, George W. is following a family trend.
Bosch’s terrorist partner, Cuban-born, Luis Posada Carriles dedicated his life to the over throw of Fidel Castro and was a CIA recruit who participated in the calamitous 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion, “he was part of Operation Southern Front…and he worked for the Hammer [Oliver North]…From 1967 to 1986, Luis was a compensated agent of the CIA. And George Bush, the vice president, knew what he was doing.”[v] Yet for blowing up a plane and causing 73 people to be killed, he was arrested in 2005 on immigration charges and released in 2007[vi] . It is interesting to note that George H.W. Bush was director of the CIA when the Cubana airliner exploded. What makes the Cuban-born Ros-Lehtinen support the MEK terrorists, does she have a fatal attraction towards assassins and murderers? Or are she and the rest of Congress following the leader of nation that has waged ‘war on terror’?
Perhaps they believe that by imposing the colonial language of calling the ‘other’ ‘uncivilized’ and state sponsor of terrorists, their mass murder and moral annihilation will go unnoticed. “The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie -- deliberate, contrived and dishonest -- but the myth -- persistent, persuasive and unrealistic.” – J.F. Kennedy.

Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich is an Iranian-American studying at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles. She is a member of World Association of International Studies society, Stanford. Her research focus is U.S. foreign policy towards Iran, Iran’s nuclear program, and the influence of lobby groups. She is a peace activist, essayist, radio commentator and public speaker.

5/14/2008

Taking a Stand Against War

By Scott Ritter
13/05/08 "Truthdig" -- - As someone who has been urging focused citizen activism for some time now, I find it heartening that there are those in the United States who put action to words and seek to lead by example. This is the case with Chicago Alderman Joe Moore, who, together with seven of his 49 colleagues (Toni Preckwinkle, Sandi Jackson, Eugene Schulter, Robert Fioretti, Freddrenna Lyle, Ricardo Munoz and Mary Ann Smith), has prepared a resolution for the Chicago City Council opposing war on Iran. By itself, this resolution most probably will not serve to alter the policies currently being pursued by the Bush administration. But when a great American city such as Chicago takes the lead in expressing its rejection of irresponsible national policy, other cities should, and will, take notice.
I have been asked to be a witness, together with other experts on Iran and U.S. Middle East policy, before the City Council as it considers this resolution. I think it is of great importance that the representatives of the people of Chicago vote to adopt it in its entirety. I would also encourage other municipalities to consider similar resolutions opposing war on Iran, and to express their concern through the adoption of resolutions which, collectively, might serve as a notice to the United States Congress, as well as the administration of President Bush, that a war with Iran would not be supported by the citizens of this land.
In preparing for my role as witness, I carefully considered the Chicago resolution in its entirety, and offer my analysis of its content as a primer for interested parties. I sincerely hope that the leadership and courage exhibited by the Chicago council members can be replicated across America in a timely fashion, and that the resultant will of the people is recognized by the Congress in time for effective legislation to be drafted and passed which reduces the threat of U.S.-Iranian conflict.
“WHEREAS, The Bush Administration and its Congressional allies are engaging in a systematic campaign to convince the American people that the Islamic Republic of Iran poses an imminent threat to the American nation, American troops in the Middle East and U.S. allies.” ......

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19914.htm

5/12/2008

Illuminati @ Freemason aka Zionis

Menarik sindiran yang berkaitan dengan Illuminati @ Freemason aka Zionis.
Apakah kita sudah tengok betul-betul dan fikir betul-betul sebagaimana yang didakwa.Tidak menafikan kemungkinannya bahawa Zionis memang sentiasa mengembangkan pengaruhnya hingga seluruh dunia melutut dibawah tapak kaki mereka. Mereka menguasai ruang politik, ekonomi dan militeri bagi merealisasikan doktrin iblis dan lebih mudah lagi dalam alam siber ini bagi menyesatkan seluruh anak adam. Material dan kuasa sebagai umpan dan kebodohan seseorang mempercepatkan lagi status mereka sebagai hamba pilihan atau hamba-hamba sembelihan.
Seluruh dunia menyedari kebejatan Zionis dan pemimpin2 Malaysia dari dulu juga sedar pengaruh jahat tersebut malahan lebih arif dari kita yang sedang secara suka rela menyembur racun bikinan mereka untuk merosakkan kepercayaan sesama sendiri. Malaysia merdeka tanpa tumpah darah juga atas konspirasi halus dengan perundingan membentuk Perlembagaan yang menguntungkan mereka untuk jangka panjang. Pendidikan yang disekatakan untuk keserasian wawasan global telah memaksa kita menelan racun doktrin yang bergerak lancar dalam agenda membunuh semangat kebangsaan dan kesedaran keagamaan secara perlahan. Segala itu telah membentuk sebagaimana diri kita sekarang ini yang semakin mendekati matlamat mereka mendominasi dunia dalam percaturan mereka. Kita Lebih takut kepada hembusan nafas dunia dari hembusan malaikat maut yang dijanjikan Tuhan hinggakan peraturan agama yang diperturunkan diperlekehkan atau sengaja memekakkan hati dari menerima kebenaran. Pengaruh dan kuasa senyap mereka semakin mencengkam tanpa mampu untuk disaingi kerana mereka memang yakin dan arif untuk memanipulasikan tabie iaitu kebanyakan anak adam ini memang gemar bersengketa dan bersifat tamak (tidak puas-puas dan sentiasa keluh kesah)
Pendek kata sejak awal pengaruh Zionis yang direncana musuh atau yang dikaitkan dengan Illuminati memang berkesan membentuk generasi kita sepertimana sekarang ini. Bangsa yang merdeka dari segi apa kalau Zahirnya terhina dan Rohaniahnya semakin meraba dalam gelap dan buta untuk mencari jalan merdeka sebenar akibat mulut tidak habis menelanjangi sesama bangsa?
Sebagaimana yang saya nyatakan sebelum ini bahawa kita ini haiwan lebih hina daripada babi selagi berperangai melebihi dari spesis tersebut. Solat subuh kita dah terpasang dengan niat buruk kerana apabila celik mata nampak kesalahan dan keaiban orang lain, dan buka mulut mengutuk sana sini dan berkesinambungan tabiat tersebut hingga selesai tasyahud Isya sebelum dimatikan Tuhan yang kita sendiri tidak tahu sama ada berpeluang untuk bernafas keesokannya.
Ruginya kita kerana lebih gemar menempa penutup hati dan gendang fitnah tanpa cuba mencari jalan penyelesaian atau perdamaian. Dari senario sekarang ini apakah kita boleh menjamin bahawa kebenaran akan berpihak pada kita apabila kemenangan yang dihajati tercapai. Benarkah sangkaan kita selama ini atau kita selamanya hanya berada dalam sangkaan semata-mata yang telah merumitkan ego diri hingga membutakan hati kita dari menerima kebenaran.