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Middle East Madness

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The Netanyahu paradox: All-powerful except in one area

Aluf Benn
Haaretz
Sat, 21 Nov 2009 23:35 EST

"Governance? What kind of governance problem? There is one-person rule in Israel. The prime minister decides everything. He is a lot stronger than the president of the United States."

The senior minister spoke from experience: He has served in several governments and has taken part in the most secret forums, but always with the knowledge that the real decisions are made at the echelon above. As for the routine contentions of politicians and political science experts that it is difficult to rule in Israel because of the frequent crises and changes of government, he finds them ridiculous. On the contrary, he says, if anything, the government here is too strong.

This week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu demonstrated this. He canceled the drought tax, rejected a plan to split the attorney general's job and froze the biometric-database bill. In all three cases, Netanyahu decided alone, and with one fell swoop did away with the efforts of other ministers and lawmakers.

Comment: So much for "the only democracy in the Middle East".

Kawther Salam
The Daily Life of Kawther Salam
Sat, 21 Nov 2009 23:25 EST

Israeli soldiers beating a Palestinian Police.

The Palestinian Authority "PA" covered up the news that on last Friday 20 November 2009, the Israelis arrested five senior Palestinian intelligence officers near the town of Salfit in the north of the West Bank which is under it's power, among them the regional intelligence commander for Salfit, Mohammad Abdel Hamid. The Palestinian Authority also hushed up the fresh news of the Israeli arrest on Nov. 21 2009 of three Palestinian security officers in the north-east of Qalqilya in the West Bank. The detainees are Ayoub Mohammed Khaled and Mohammad Fayez Shamasneh, from the PA national security forces, and Anwar Aziz Mustafa, from the military police, and two members of Fatah, Jihad Abdel-Halim Shamasneh and Nour Aziz Beda.

Haaretz
Sun, 22 Nov 2009 22:46 EST

Israel Air Force planes carried out strikes against targets in the Gaza Strip early Sunday, injuring five Palestinians, medical workers said.

An Israel Defense Forces spokesman said one of the strikes had targeted a factory in Gaza used to make weapons. Palestinians said the target was a metal foundry.

The army spokesman said the air strikes were in response to a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip on Saturday. It landed near Sderot, causing no injuries or damage, he said.

Raw Story
Sat, 21 Nov 2009 21:04 EST

Lebanese General Jean Kahwaj has ordered his troops on high alert, cautioning soldiers on the border region to prepare for an attack from Israel, according to published reports.

The comments first appeared in London-based Arabic language newspaper Alquds Alarabi, according to the Jerusalem Post.

"In a statement published in honor of Lebanon's Independence Day, the general said soldiers should prepare 'to handle what the Israeli enemy is scheming against the homeland, and to continue the battle against its violations - in the air, water, and land - with all the tools at our disposal,'" Ynet noted.

"Last week, a military court in Lebanon sentenced a Lebanese soldier and his wife to death, after the couple were found guilty of spying for Israel, Israel Radio reported," the Post added. "The court also sentenced the defendant's sister and her husband, who are reportedly living in Israel, to death."

Ynet continued: "IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi recently warned the Knesset that Hezbollah is currently armed with thousands of missiles, some of which could reach the southern city of Dimona."

PressTV
Sat, 21 Nov 2009 14:26 EST

Israeli aggression has resulted in the death of more Palestinians this year than in any other year over the past two decades, says an Israeli rights group.

The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, B'Tselem, published a report notifying that Israeli aggression had killed 1,387 Palestinians including more than 300 children so far this year.

Most of deaths occurred after Tel Aviv ordered three weeks of unabated aerial and artillery bombardment of the Gaza Strip at the turn of the year.

Medical sources put the number of deaths from the attacks at more than 1,400.

Overall Palestinian deaths due to aggression over the past 20 years added up to nearly 7,400 the report said, adding that hundreds of Palestinians are currently illegally incarcerated in Israeli jails.

Chaim Levinson
Haaretz.com
Fri, 20 Nov 2009 12:04 EST

Supreme Court President Dorit Beinisch accused the government on Wednesday of ignoring illegal settlement construction in one of several barbed remarks that could presage a first High Court of Justice decision ordering the demolition of illegal housing in the West Bank.

Beinisch made the comments while hearing a petition from Palestinian-rights advocacy group Yesh Din, which is asking the court to compel the government to implement an existing demolition order for nine homes in the West Bank settlement of Ofra.

Yesh Din argues that the homes were built on private Palestinian land, and while the government conceded on Wednesday that it is not claiming the construction is legal, it said the demolition orders would be carried out in order of priority.

Press TV
Fri, 20 Nov 2009 09:42 EST

The Secretary General of Hezbollah movement, Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah, has been re-elected chief of the Lebanese resistance movement for a sixth term.

The resistance movement announced its decision following a congress that also adopted a new manifesto on Thursday.

Hezbollah issued a statement declaring that it has endorsed "a number of organizational amendments that fit the new developing nature of its movement and path in the recent years on various aspects."

The statement further added that Sheikh Naim Qassem has been re-elected as the movement's Deputy Secretary General.

The Thursday statement however did not mention when senior Hezbollah officials voted to re-elect Nasrallah as the resistance movement's Secretary General.

Tehran Times
Thu, 19 Nov 2009 04:24 EST

Iran's Oil Minister Masoud Mir-Kazemi has unveiled a plan to counter possible fuel sanctions against the oil-rich country.

According to the plan, the Iranian petrochemical plants, such as Imam Khomeini, Bou Ali Sina and Borzouyeh, are equipped to produce about 14 million liters of gasoline per day if they have to.

Iran, OPEC's second largest oil exporter, only produces 60 percent of its domestic gasoline demand and imports the remaining 40 percent.

Rod Nordland
The New York Times
Thu, 12 Nov 2009 03:30 EST

© Joao Silva for The New York Times
At a recent trade fair in Baghdad, companies from several nations were on hand to promote goods and services, but companies from the United States were notably absent. Above, a corporate booth at the fair’s Iranian pavilion.

Iraq's Baghdad Trade Fair ended Tuesday, six years and a trillion dollars after the American invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein, and one country was conspicuously absent.

That would be the country that spent a trillion dollars - on the invasion and occupation, but also on training and equipping Iraqi security forces, and on ambitious reconstruction projects in every province aimed at rebuilding the country and restarting the economy.

Yet when the post-Saddam Iraqi government swept out its old commercial fairgrounds and invited companies from around the world, the United States was not much in evidence among the 32 nations represented. Of the 396 companies that exhibited their wares, "there are two or three American participants, but I can't remember their names," said Hashem Mohammed Haten, director general of Iraq's state fair company. A pair of missiles atop a ceremonial gateway to the fairgrounds recalled an era when Saddam Hussein had pretensions, if not weapons, of mass destruction.

Comment:

The trade fair is a telling indication of an uncomfortable truth: America's war in Iraq has been good for business in Iraq - but not necessarily for American business.

This statement is so far from the truth, yet it highlights the overall scheming message of this article: that the Iraqis are unappreciative people, provided the US came all the way to their country to help liberate them and assist them in rebuilding their country, for now shunning American businesses. The uncomfortable truth for some Americans to digest is that the US illegally invaded Iraq under manufactured pretexts and to date remains the occupying force; killed over a million of Iraqis and maimed for life millions more; destroyed the country's infrastructure, culture and socioeconomic systems. All the rest is propaganda.

If it was a war for oil, the US lost

Jeffrey Blankfort
Mondoweiss
Sun, 15 Nov 2009 03:16 EST

Although the Bush administration denied it, the conventional wisdom on the part of the anti-war movement was that the war on Iraq was launched in order for the US to take over Saddam's oil supplies which would give Washington an even more dominant position in the region. That there was no concrete evidence that the war was supported by the oil companies was discounted and, as it had been in 1991 during the first Gulf War, "No blood for oil!"became the battle cry.

If the war was indeed about oil, then, as the NY Times reported on Friday, the US lost.

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"The free press is the mother of all our liberties and of our progress under liberty" Adlai E. Stevenson

"There is no more important struggle for American democracy than ensuring a diverse, independent and free media. Free Press is at the heart of that struggle." Bill Moyers

"This is, in theory, still a free country, but our politically correct, censorious times are such that many of us tremble to give vent to perfectly acceptable views for fear of condemnation. Freedom of speech is thereby imperiled, big questions go undebated, and great lies become accepted, unequivocally as great truths." Simon Heffer in The Daily Mail, 7 June 2000

"The only security of all is in a free press. The force of public opinion cannot be resisted when permitted freely to be expressed. The agitation it produces must be submitted to. It is necessary, to keep the waters pure." Thomas Jefferson to Lafayette, 1823

"A cantankerous press, an obstinate press, a ubiquitous press, must be suffered by those in authority in order to preserve the right of the people to know.": Murray I. Gurfein

One of the shrewdest ways for human predators to conquer their stronger victims is to steadily convince them with propaganda that they're still free. N.A. Scott