ABBAS/ALA/SHAATH Regime Running Fast - Half Palestinian People Not Allowed to Vote
Latest | Recent Articles | Multimedia Page | TV | Search | Blog

Email this article | Print this article | Link to this Article

14 December 2004 - MiddleEast.Org - MER is Free
News, Views, & Analysis Governments, Lobbies, & the
Corporate Media Don't Want You To Know

The most honest, most comprehensive, and most mobilizing news and
analysis on the Middle East always comes from MER. It is indispensable!"
Robert Silverman - Salamanca, Spain

MER - We Never Stop Working For You!
MER - MER@MiddleEast.Org - (202) 362-5266 - Fax (815) 366-0800


Why aren't half the
Palestinian people voting?
U.S.-Israeli Chosen ABBAS/ALA/SHAATH REGIME Running Fast

"The method, if they can manage it, is to put in place a new
'moderate' under control Palestinian regime, declare an end to the
Intifada, pump in money for bribes and payoffs and to somewhat
improve the terrible conditions for most Palestinians, train
much greater numbers of 'security police', further repress any
and all opposition, and kill and imprison those who continue to fight."

"The goal is to create a greater Palestinian police-state client-regime
dutifully labled 'moderate' and 'democracy' however quisling in
reality that will accept the Palestinian fate, legitimize the worse
than apartheid realities, and sign some kind of historic 'final
peace agreement' which will give the Arab 'client regimes' in the
region the excuse they then need to be forced by the U.S. to
recognize Israel and open diplomat and trade relations with
the Jewish State."


MIDDLEEAST.ORG - MER - Washington - 14 December: With Arafat, Yassin, Husseini and many other of the most senior, credible, and respected Palestinian leaders gone from the scene -- most Palestinians believing, rightly or wrongly, all by Israeli and American design -- those who have not only been left living by the Israelis but very much rewarded by them financially and through the many priviledges of VIP status are now in the forefront. And it appears time for the the U.S. and Israel to try to cash in on their investments in this carefully selected and protected 'Palestinian leadership'.

The terms 'peace process', 'democracy', and 'freedom' all sound good and warm and nice, but in reality it's not only all in the details but also all in ones perspective and allegiances. And when it comes to 'elections' it's much the same though even more complicated.

The U.S. and Israel only allow 'Palestinian elections' in the first place on their terms, with their timing, and when their candidates are in front and in need.

The last time Palestinian elections were allowed in the occupied territories, back in 1996, they were courting and grooming Yasser Arafat to sign a historic 'final peace agreement' with Israel -- hence he was promoted for that election and given the status of most frequent foreign guest to the American White House, wined and dine from European to Arab capitals to modern-day Rome itself.

Since then the U.S. and Israel, at first working in full coordination with the 'Palestinian Authority' they created, and since then with various degrees of cooperation with various persons in the PA, have prevented any subsequent election...until now that is when they have something similar in mind for the Abbas/Ala/Shaath regime, three men they have in one way or another in their employ and all of whom are viewed with great skepticism by their own people.

While the far more popular Palestinian leader, Marwan Barghouti, languishes in Israeli prison and has been forced to end his candidacy; and while his distant cousin Mustapha Barghouti is literally pushed into the dirt by the Israeli army; Abu Mazen, Abu Ala, and Nabil Shaath are aided by the U.S. and Israel to go everywhere from Paris to Kuwait, from Syria to Lebanon, from Oslo to the U.S. And much new money and help of various kinds is being pumped into their pockets all along the way.

Indeed, as we have noted before, the big U.S. and Israeli Palestinian push is on. The
method, if they can manage it, is to put in place a new 'moderate' under control Palestinian regime, declare an end to the Intifada, pump in money for bribes and payoffs and to somewhat improve the terrible conditions for most Palestinians, train much greater numbers of 'security police', further repress any and all opposition, and kill and imprison those who continue to fight. The goal is to create a greater Palestinian police-state client-regime dutifully labled 'moderate' and 'democracy' however quisling in reality that will accept the Palestinian fate, legitimize the worse than apartheid realities, and sign some kind of historic 'final peace agreement' which will give the Arab 'client regimes' in the region the excuse they then need to be coerced by the U.S. to recognize Israel and open diplomat and trade relations with the Jewish State.

It's a very ambitious method and goal of course. And there's a very great chance, in view of how little the Palestinians are actually going to be offered and how deep the distrusts and hatreds, that in the end it too will fail. But even so world politics is such that it will be enough for the Americans if they are seen to be 'trying' and enough for the Israelis if they can further manipulate public opinion so the miserably occupied are blamed for their fate rather than the brutal occupier. Oh yes, at the same time the settlements are still feverishly building, nearly half of the West Bank is under Israeli control one way or another, and the Apartheid Wall is essentially turning still more Palestinians into prisoners in modern-day versions of ghettos and concentration camps.

Abu Mazen, Abu Ala, and Nabil Shaath dare not visit the refugee camps just a short distance from their heavily guarded offices in Ramallah -- places like Jenin, Deheishe, Aida or for that matter even nearby Bir Zeit University. They are not only afraid of what would be said to and of them, they are afraid for their lives. But while Shaath was in Oslo demanding to collect more billions from the gullible Europeans to finance their regime, Abus Mazen and Ala made a surprise visit to Rashidieh Camp in Lebanon as they hustled from Damascus to Beirut to Kuwait in their campaign to take hold of the image of Palestinian leadership that has always in the past been denied them. At some stops they declared the Intifada to be over, at others they appologized for what they now say were Arafat's policies, and at still other stops they promised to adher to Arafat's policies and absolutely insist on the fulfillment of U.N. resolutions, Jerusalem as their capital, and the crucial 'right of return'.

In a few weeks the U.S. and Israeli approved and financed 'election' will take place. The most credible and respected Palestinian leaders are gone. The widely supported Hamas organization is boycotting. 'Israeli Palestinians' are not allowed to vote. 'Jerusalem Palestinians' will have to vote absentee. And forgotten most of all are the majority of Palestinians -- most of them still living in refugee camps throughout the region from Jordan to Syria to Lebanon -- who will have no vote at all thanks to the policies of Israel, the United States, and the 'new Palestinian leadership'.

MIDDLEEAST.ORG - MER - Washington - 14 December 2004




Palestinian Authority to follow in Arafat's footsteps
Qorei: We 'insist on the main principles' of our cause

By Mohammed Zaatari and Mayssam Zaaroura
Daily Star staff

Palestinian Authority to follow in Arafat's footsteps

December 10, 2004 - RASHIDIEH REFUGEE CAMP, LEBANON: Palestine Liberation Organization chief Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Ahmed Qorei said Thursday that the Palestinian Authority continues to follow the main principles of the Palestinian cause and has not veered from the footsteps of its late president, Yasser Arafat.

Speaking during a visit to the Rashidieh refugee camp in Tyre, where they were welcomed by the commander of Fatah in Lebanon, Sultan Abul-Ainayn, Qorei stressed: "We cannot fill the void left behind by Abu Ammar [Arafat], but we will try to follow in his footsteps and continue the mission and fulfill the trust.

"All of Arafat's principles, including the establishment of an independent Palestinian state and the right of return, are a paramount will that must be followed by every Palestinian."

Qorei spoke to the crowd on behalf of Abbas after health reasons delayed his arrival.

In his speech, Qorei reassured those gathered about their national rights under the new Palestinian leadership.

Qorei also vowed to continue the struggle toward statehood and allowing Palestinians living in the diaspora to return to their homes in accordance with UN Resolution 194.

"We will not compromise over this right. We will cling to it and we will struggle for it," Qorei said.

He reiterated the long-standing Palestinian position that East Jerusalem should be the capital of any future Palestinian state.

"No state without Jerusalem, no independence without Jerusalem, no peace without Jerusalem - just like other national legitimate Palestinian rights," Qorei told the crowd.

Speaking on Wednesday at the Metropolitan Hotel in Beirut, Abbas had stressed that there was no compromise on the Palestinian peoples' right to return and on the need to provide a safe environment in the Occupied Territories.

But he added that there were no political talks taking place with Israel at all.

"There are talks, but they are of an agricultural, economic nature ... or of that kind, but no political talks. It is not the time yet," Abbas said.

Qorei backed Abbas' statement, adding that the "region can no longer handle the current situation," and that a "comprehensive solution" is more necessary than ever.

On Thursday, Palestinians in the camp welcomed their leaders with a marching band and honor guard.

The gathering amounted to an election rally in which Qorei outlined the process that led to Abbas' candidacy for the presidential elections to be held on Jan. 9 - as appointed by interim President Rawhi Fattouh.

The Palestinian delegation had visited Syria earlier in the week to mend relations with Damascus and to try to reach a common goal with Palestinian opposition groups there.

On Wednesday, replying to reports that the Palestinian factions would be boycotting the elections, Qorei said: "Everyone was afraid when Abu Ammar passed away because we did not have his protection any longer. But the factions and we want to agree on a common political agenda, and the factions want to participate in the political process ... which is their legitimate right."

Qorei also said talks with the Lebanese government had gone well and that the situation of the camps had been discussed.

"Steps are being taken to improve the refugees' situation in the camps until they can return home," he said.

The status of refugees in camps here is the worst in the region, and although they cannot vote, their numbers - and the fact that their cause has been at the center of the political dispute - keeps them an important constituency.

Rashidieh has an estimated 17,000 population and is controlled by Arafat's mainstream Fatah movement. The Lebanese Army maintains checkpoints at all entrances - as it does at the other 11 camps in Lebanon.

Abbas was awarded the President Arafat honorary shield by Abul-Ainayn. Qorei received a similar shield. A meeting was later held by the visiting delegation and Fatah officials.

Earlier, Qorei visited Martyrs' Square in Tyre, laying wreathes to commemorate those killed during Israel's 1982 invasion.

Fatah official Brigadier General Khaled Aref said the delegation's visit sought to reassure Palestinians that they will return to their homeland.

However, Fatah's general supervisor in Lebanon, Colonel Mounir Maqdah, expressed surprise that the Palestinian delegation did not visit the Ain al-Hilweh refugee camp in Sidon.

Maqdah said he hoped all the Palestinian leadership, not just Abbas and Qorei, would visit Ain al-Hilweh, which he called the "capital of the Palestinian diaspora, as it is the biggest camp in Lebanon."

Ain al-Hilweh houses at least 70,000 Palestinians.

Maqdah said he hoped the delegation's failure to visit Ain al-Hilweh was not due to rumors about security instability in the camp, and he reiterated that the camp would welcome any visitor and provide the necessary security.

"The delegation's visit did not yield any results because refusing the settlement and clinging to the right to return were already undisputed issues," Maqdah said.




Abbas says armed struggle is over
Palestinian presidential candidate insists right of return is paramount

By Mayssam Zaaroura and Nada Bakri
Daily Star staff

Daily Star, 9 December, BEIRUT: Palestine Liberation Organization chief Mahmoud Abbas said the armed struggle for the Palestinian people is over and it is now time for the "democratic route to liberation."

His comments came as he warned that the Palestinian Authority "would not able to take control of Gaza if Israel withdraws" adding "it would lead to a civil war ... we are not ready - security wise - to take over."

Speaking during his historic visit to Lebanon Wednesday Abbas also reiterated that all Palestinian refugees must have the right to return to the Occupied Palestinian Territories in line with UN Resolution 194.

Abbas' comments came during his first visit to Lebanon since the PLO's forced departure from the country in 1982.

Referring to the two-year-long intifada in the Occupied Territories, Abbas said "Ninety-nine percent of Palestinian people are in favor of calming the situation down. What we have now is not an intifada or armed struggle; we merely have the use of weapons."

He added: "The Palestinian citizen has lost all sense of security and well-being, so if we provide him with security, his life is brought back. It is an equation of providing safety in anticipation of independence. Establishing security on the Occupied Palestinian Territories and providing security and stability for the Palestinian people is the paramount issue in our cause."

Commenting on the death of Yasser Arafat, Abbas said: "The departure of Abu Ammar created an expected chaos and we will never be able to replace him."

But he added that "the chaos which arose" created the "need to unite and present a democratic establishment to the international community."

Abbas recalled the secret negotiations that were taking place between U.S. President George W. Bush, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice prior to the Israeli announcement of its intended withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.

"Sharon told Bush that he would withdraw from Gaza in return for keeping the settlements in the West Bank," said Abbas.

But, Abbas added that there were two "minor" issues that Sharon insisted upon - keeping the West Bank settlements and rejecting the Palestinians' right to return.

UN 194 for the Palestinians - whether the authority, the factions or the people - is not an issue for debate and is a common goal, which since the Oslo Accord in 1993 was not even ever allowed to be put forth, according to Prime Minister Ahmed Qorei ("Abu Alaa").




Kuwaitis Get Apology From Palestinians

<>Palestinian Leader Abbas Tours Mideast to Gather
<>Support,Apologizes to Kuwait for Supporting Saddam

The Associated Press -Dec. 13, 2004 - Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas apologized to Kuwaitis on Sunday for Palestinian support of Saddam Hussein during the 1990-91 Gulf War, his latest gesture to mend fences with Arab nations offended by the late Yasser Arafat over the years.

Kuwaitis had mixed feelings ahead of Abbas' visit, with many holding a grudge against the Palestinians for supporting Saddam during the war. On his arrival Sunday, Abbas provided a long-awaited apology in response to a question.

"Yes, we apologize for what we have done," he said.

Kuwait's prime minister, Sheik Sabah Al Ahmed Al Sabah, had said an apology was not needed and the matter of the Palestinian leadership's support for Saddam "has been closed."

Mohammed al-Saqr, who heads Parliament's foreign affairs panel, praised the apology, saying a "new page in relations was now being opened."

However, a group of lawmakers said in a statement Saturday they rejected the visit before the Palestine Liberation Organization "offers an official apology to the Kuwaiti people for the sin it committed against Kuwait."

One of the lawmakers, Mussalam al-Barrak, said Sunday the apology was too brief and "simple."

"We want an official apology in an official statement," he said.

Another lawmaker, Ahmed al-Saadoun, said, "Kuwaitis don't want to see the Palestinian leadership in Kuwait" even after an apology.

As PLO leader, Arafat supported Iraq in its 1990 invasion of this oil-rich country and opposed the subsequent U.S.-led war that liberated it. He never visited Kuwait afterward.

In Iraq, Mithal al-Alusi, leader of the Democratic Party of the Iraqi Nation, welcomed Abbas' overture to Kuwait but argued that Iraqis deserved an apology of their own.

"This is an incomplete apology because it failed to mention the Iraqi side," he said in a statement.

He argued that Palestinian support for Saddam and his "whims" had contributed to the suffering of Iraqi people.

Abbas made a low-key visit to Kuwait in May to attend a conference on the Middle East. His visit did not attract much attention. However, when the late Faisal al-Husseini, then-PLO chief of Jerusalem, came here in May 2001 for a conference, lawmakers slammed the visit as premature.

Last year, Abbas then the prime minister condemned the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in an interview with the state-owned Kuwait News Agency and called the Palestinian leadership's position "incorrect." However, he stopped short of apologizing.

Some 450,000 Palestinians lived in Kuwait before the 1990 Iraqi invasion. Most were expelled or pressured to leave after the country was liberated, and scores of Palestinians were convicted after the war of collaborating with Iraqi occupiers.

Still, Kuwait continued to provide financial aid to the Palestinian people through the Arab League and international organizations.

Abbas' visit to Kuwait is the first leg of a tour of the rich Gulf states Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Oman.

"We tell our brothers in the Gulf we are always in dire need of their support and assistance," he said at the airport.

He did not elaborate on what he was asking for.

Before coming to Kuwait, Abbas visited Egypt, Syria and Lebanon amid signs of movement in the Mideast peace process after Arafat's Nov. 11 death at age 75.

His efforts to heal old wounds began in Syria, where relations with the Palestinian leadership had been sour for years, mainly because of Arafat's signing of unilateral agreements with Israel.

Abbas a leading candidate to replace Arafat in the Jan. 9 Palestinian elections promised Syrian President Bashar Assad the Palestinians would coordinate in future peace efforts. Though a welcome shift from the Palestinians' go-it-alone approach, Abbas' pledge fell short of what Damascus wanted linkage of the Palestinian-Israeli and Syrian-Israeli peace tracks.

In the first visit to Lebanon by a Palestinian leader since Arafat and his PLO guerillas were driven out more than 20 years ago, Abbas spoke of a "positive page" in ties with the country, which views Palestinians with suspicion.

Many blame Palestinian fighters for contributing to the 1975-1990 sectarian civil war and accuse them of running a "state within a state" for more than a decade before being forced out of the country.

In Kuwait, Mohammed al-Jassem, editor-in-chief of the Al-Watan daily newspaper, said Abbas apologized to Kuwaitis because he "needs political and financial support," and it would be difficult for the Kuwaiti government to offer more substantial assistance without an apology.

"My fear and the fear of many Kuwaitis is that Palestinians would return to settle in Kuwait," al-Jassem said. "Palestinians bring with them their political illnesses and they come to stay."




Sharon: Peace Depends on Palestinians

<>Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon Says
<>Peace Efforts Depend on Palestinians Reining in Militants

AP - Dec. 13, 2004 - The new Palestinian leadership is not doing enough to restrain militants, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said Monday, after attackers blew up an Israeli army outpost in Gaza and killed five soldiers.

The comments marked the first time since Yasser Arafat's death last month that Sharon criticized Arafat's moderate successor, Mahmoud Abbas, though he did not mention Abbas by name. It was not clear whether the outpost attack would disrupt the fledgling good will between Israel and the Palestinians.

The Islamic militant group Hamas and gunmen with ties to the ruling Fatah movement claimed responsibility for the attack they dubbed "Operation Angry Volcano." Hamas said it had dug a half-mile-long tunnel over four months to reach the outpost.

The attack at sundown Sunday was seen as a challenge to Abbas, who has been trying to persuade militants to halt attacks on Israelis ahead of Palestinian presidential elections Jan. 9. Abbas has criticized the armed Palestinian uprising and enjoys the support of the international community.

Hamas has not given Abbas any guarantees. However, it has limited its attacks to the Gaza Strip in recent weeks, as part of what appears to be a tacit agreement not to carry out bombings inside Israel.

Hamas and other militants have stepped up attacks on Israeli soldiers and settlers in Gaza in recent months, as part of an internal Palestinian power struggle ahead of the planned Israeli withdrawal from the strip in 2005.

Sharon said Monday that progress in peace efforts "depends on the Palestinians, if they will act against terror.'

"By now, we don't see any change," Sharon said, speaking in English.

"Myself and my government would like to move forward toward peace, but it depends on one thing, that it should be quiet and I'm really sorry to say that by now we don't see any changes," he added.

Israel has not said whether it will freeze the possible release of up to 200 Palestinian prisoners. In a first response, Israeli helicopters fired five missiles early Monday at what the army said were Hamas weapons workshops in Gaza City. There were no casualties.

The five soldiers killed Sunday were identified as Bedouin Arabs, all members of Desert Reconnaissance Battalion. The battalion, which consists largely of Bedouins, patrols the Egypt-Gaza border, one of the most dangerous areas during more than four years of Israeli-Palestinian fighting.

Five soldiers were wounded in the double blast, which brought down several structures in the outpost. After the initial explosion, Palestinian gunmen rushed the base, followed by another, smaller blast. A gunman who escaped said he tried to kidnap a wounded soldier, but killed him because the soldier resisted.

The preparations for the attack and the explosion were filmed by Hamas, a method used in the past by the Lebanese guerrilla group Hezbollah, which is increasingly training and funding Palestinian militants.

The Hamas video showed masked men lowering barrels presumably containing the explosives into the tunnel. Another shot showed a huge black plume of smoking rising into the air.

The Israeli military said Monday that the tunnels have emerged as a major threat against troops in Gaza, and that there is no easy way to detect them.

Palestinian smugglers have been digging tunnels in Gaza for decades. During the current round of fighting, tunnels have been used increasingly to smuggle weapons into Gaza and also to attack outposts.

Maj. Sharon Feingold, an Israeli army spokeswoman, said the military has spend millions of dollars on technology aimed at detecting tunnels, so far to no avail. "So now the army is using low-teach means, intelligence and searches for houses where the tunnels start," she said. "It's a strategic problem for the state of Israel."

In another development, imprisoned Palestinian uprising leader Marwan Barghouti on Sunday withdrew from the race for Palestinian Authority president, boosting Abbas' chances to win the Jan. 9 election.

Barghouti had wavered in recent weeks, twice announcing his candidacy and twice withdrawing. Barghouti, 45, is a leader of Fatah's young guard, which has complained that it is being kept from leadership positions.

His candidacy had threatened to split Fatah and open the way for a third candidate to win. Since announcing his renewed bid a week ago, he has come under growing pressure, including from his supporters, to withdraw.

Abbas, 69, is part of the old guard of politicians who returned with Arafat from exile in the 1990s. He has promised reforms, including holding internal Fatah elections in August, in hopes of appeasing the restless younger activists.

In a letter from prison read at a news conference Sunday, Barghouti endorsed Abbas, but was harshly critical of the Fatah leadership. Barghouti listed several demands, but said they were not a condition for his support of Abbas.

Barghouti rejected efforts to disarm militant groups, a key Israeli demand, and said no agreement should be made without release of all prisoners.

Israel has said Barghouti, serving five life terms after convictions in deadly Palestinian attacks, will not be freed.

Polls last week showed Barghouti and Abbas running a close race.

In Israeli politics, meanwhile, teams from Sharon's Likud Party were negotiating with the moderate Labor and ultra-Orthodox Jewish Shas parties to expand Sharon's shaky coalition to enable implementation of Sharon's Gaza pullout plan next year.






If you don't get MER, you just don't get it!

MID-EAST REALITIES - www.MiddleEast.Org
Phone: (202) 362-5266 Fax: (815) 366-0800
Email: MER@MiddleEast.Org
Copyright © 2004 Mid-East Realities, All rights reserved




December 2004


Magazine



PLEASE FORWARD this about MER to friends and family.
(December 18, 2004)
Unique and Exclusive: News, Views, & Analysis Governments, Lobbies, & the Corporate Media Don't Want You To Know. MiddleEast.Org

MER Article Causes Conf Cancellation as Palestinian Speaker Abruptly Backs Out
(December 17, 2004)
The organization it seems then quickly changed the homepage of it's elaborate website, removing the main lead picture at the top which showed members of the organization posing with senior National Security Council neocon Elliot Abrams. Also removed quickly was the picture of Khalidi. Additionally all information about the phone conference which was advertised to feature Khalidi at 8pm Thursday evening simply disappeared; all mention of something that had previously been prominently promoted simply vanished without explanation or comment as if it never was to be.

Prof Rashid Khalidi helps Israeli and American Jewish Zionist groups
(December 16, 2004)
While courageous Israeli academics like Tanya Reinhart at Tel Aviv University, long time Israeli writers like Uri Avneri, and brilliant journalists like Robert Fisk are in fact speaking up loudly warning about what Sharon and Peres and their armies of propaganda agents and client organizations are up to; tragically Palestinian academics like Rashid Khalidi are cowering more than ever even to the extent of allowing themselves to be more blatantly used by the Zionist organizations than ever before.

Egypt pushed and bribed to Economic 'Intercourse' with Israel
(December 15, 2004)
Since the first Camp David Middle East summit estimates are that overall, including economic, military, CIA, and AID American monies, Egypt has received in one way or another approaching $100 billion for agreeing to the American-pushed 'peace agreement'... The once proud though poor greatest of the Arab countries, Egypt, constantly feels the stain of historic political prostitution.

ABBAS/ALA/SHAATH Regime Running Fast - Half Palestinian People Not Allowed to Vote
(December 14, 2004)
In a few weeks the U.S. and Israeli approved and financed 'election' will take place. The most credible and respected Palestinian leaders are gone. The widely supported Hamas organization is boycotting. 'Israeli Palestinians' are not allowed to vote. 'Jerusalem Palestinians' will have to vote absentee. And forgotten most of all are the majority of Palestinians -- most of them still living in refugee camps throughout the region from Jordan to Syria to Lebanon -- who will have no vote at all thanks to the policies of Israel, the United States, and the 'new Palestinian leadership'.

Latest Washington Israeli Spy Scandal Escalating
(December 13, 2004)
There are some in Washington who think that the current spy investigations, possibly now expanding further, can be used to put a little pressure on the Israelis when it comes to the political deal making that may lie ahead both in the region and with the Palestinians. But there are others who think the Israelis are far better at this game than the Americans and that their list of Washington skunks and scandals involving many senior government officials now and past is considerably more extensive than what the Americans can pin on them should it ever come to that.

MER Track Record and the Assassination/Coverup of Yasser Arafat
(December 13, 2004)
Looking ahead, the historical stakes have become much higher, the costs in bloodshed and treasure already far greater, and the new 'peace process' already considerably more convoluted with even greater ominous implications for all in the international community of nations.

AMERICA the TITANIC
(December 11, 2004)
From the heart of the Washington Republican 'National Security' establishment, Harlan Ullman warns that the U.S. has sailed into very dangerous times and appears like the TITANIC headed for disaster. The dangers Ullman warns are in many ways as much from within as from without. The TITANIC metaphor is a powerful one, and Ullman repeats it a number of times for emphasis.

Palestinian Push - Over and Under
(December 10, 2004)
The big U.S. and Israeli Palestinian push is on. Put in place a new 'moderate' under control Palestinian regime, pump in some money for bribes and payoffs, train more regime 'security police', declare an end to the uprising against occupation (the Intifada), hard repress any and all opposition, kill and arrest those who continue to fight, and presto maybe you have a new police-state client-regime dutifully labled 'moderate' and 'democracy' however quisling in reality.

CHENEY Did It! Smoking Gun Court Case About WMD Scandal
(December 9, 2004)
In this eye-opening story today about a very unusual court case brought by a former senior CIA analysis which could serve as the smoking gun that the Bush/Cheney administration purposefully cooked the WMD books there's not a single mention of the unprecedented 9 or more once secret visits to the CIA of VP Cheney or the real potential significance of this legal political bombshell.

Ghosts of Vietnam and the 'Evil Empire'
(December 8, 2004)
More and more even in Washington circles these days one hears...but in spoken whispers certainly not in the corporate print or TV media..."police state", "fascism", "Good Germans". As for Capitol Hill, it looks more like a "no-go-zone" these days -- beyond being 'Occupied Israeli territory' -- than the Congress of a free and brave democracy.

Iraq and Palestine - Gloomy Predictions
(December 7, 2004)
Whether the further explosions and greater yet bloodshed and civil war will erupt in weeks, or months, or years, the course is now far more clear than the corporate media usually deals with. But today the New York Times is used for major leaks from the under-purge under-blame CIA about what to really expect in occupied Iraq, and recently the brilliant British journalist Robert Fisk wrote in The Independent about what to really expect in occupied Palestine.

America's Mubarak Regime
(December 6, 2004)
Moreover Mubarak is cooperating with the Israeli-American plan to now bring in Egyptian military forces to guard Gaza's southern border and help police the Palestinians into submission. If allowed to proceed by the Palestinians they can expect European and/or U.N. forces to be forced on them in the future in the deceptive guise of an expanded 'roadmap peace plan' to control the West Bank if the new Palestinian regime isn't up to the job.

Anti-Semitism? Rubbish!
(December 4, 2004)
Now what's going on with the Presbyterians is not at all "anti-semitism" as that term has been known over the years. It is anti-Israel, and many of the American Jewish Zionist organizations will insist it is anti-Jewish -- which in a sense is true if the positions these Jewish organizations take are fair game for protest, which indeed they are.

Ziad Asali - Latest Washington Palestinian Quisling
(December 3, 2004)
One of the many reasons the Palestinian people are in the terrible predicament they find themselves has been the extraordinarily co-opted quisling persons that so tragically have been allowed to represent them in Washington and to the American media for so many years. For those wondering about this choice of words, the definition of 'quisling', admittedly very pointed and harsh, does not give the full explanation of what has happened in Washington but it will have to do for now. During the German ooccupation of Norway in World War II the head of the Nazi-installed regime was Vidkun Quisling. His very name has since come to mean: A traitor who serves as the puppet of the enemy occupying his or her country.

9/11 was foreseeable one way or another
(December 3, 2004)
What has happened in recent years, indeed what happened on 9/11 and then it's aftermath, were in general quite foreseeable, no matter how much official Washington keeps pretending otherwise. The aggressive, imperialistic, self-righteous, deceptive, and oh-so-arrogant policies of the United States and Israel were at work for decades provoking and creating a kind of historical blowback that the whole world is now forced to live with. The following MER Editorial was published on Thanksgiving day in November 1997.

To Book Publishers and Literary Agents
(December 3, 2004)
MER is now looking for a literary agent and a publishing house. With events in the Middle East now gripping the headlines, with another round in the Israeli-Palestinian 'Peace Process' now at hand, and with the crusading 'neocons' firmly empowered in Washington, serious book publication on these subjects is more timely and more needed than ever. We have a unique compendium of exclusive MER articles, plus program and speech transcriptions, in addition to a number of highly qualified individual expert authors, which we are now interested in publishing.

FBI and Israeli-Jewish Lobby Square Off
(December 2, 2004)
You'd think that when the Capitol Hill offices of the most important foreign policy/Middle East 'lobby' are invaded by the FBI, computers and files seized and subpoenas served against top officials, this would be important news in Washington.

War Crimes Escalating - From Guernica to Fallujah
(December 2, 2004)
The new American-Israeli crusade, masquerading as the bringing of 'democracy and freedom' to the Muslim and Arab peoples, is marching on with new targets now in sight: Iran, Hezbollah, Syria, Hamas, N. Korea, Pakistan (if, or is it when, Musharraf falls)...and who knows who else as all are being coerced or forced to march into the bleak unknown. Fallujah is not meant to be an end for the coalition of fundamentalist and Zionist Neocons who now have Washington firmly in their grip; it is rather another new escalating beginning.

NewsFlash - Barghouti IN! After All
(December 1, 2004)
Now with Barghouti's entrance into the Palestinian election race and with Hamas in part threatening to 'boycot' if their own interests are not met -- and with Iraq exploding in greater hatred and violence against the Americans -- the entire U.S.-Israeli strategy for January 'elections' in both occupied Palestine and Iraq is very much in doubt.

Sharon - Past and Future - MER FLASHBACK
(December 1, 2004)
"Sharon was a killer obsessed with hatred of Palestinians. I had promised Arafat that his people would not get any harm. Sharon, however, ignored this commitment entirely. Sharon's word is worth nil." -Ambassador Philip Habib, Ronald Reagan's Special Middle East Envoy*

America's 'GUERNICA'
(December 1, 2004)
Pablo Picasso's haunting painting, 'Guernica', has immortalized that Spanish city whose brutal destruction was a precursor to all the horrendous death and suffering of World War II, now a finally fading generation ago. It was on Thanksgiving Day that we published detailed foreign reports about what has been done this month by what many in the world now consider to be the imperial crusading forces of the United States and Great Britain, 'on our watch', to the Iraqi city of 'Falluja' -- Falluja in Memoriam on Thanksgiving. Now this haunting essay, "Fallujah: America's Guernica", suggests a historical twist in time and fate we all should be pondering.




© 2004 Mid-East Realities, All rights reserved