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IRAEL ENFLAMES PALESTINIANS- HATRED WILL LAST LONG INTO THE FUTURE

August 5, 2001

MID-EAST REALITIES © - www.MiddleEast.Org - Washington - 8/04: In the past week the Israelis have substantially escalated the conflict with the Palestinians and risked enflaming not only the Palestinians but Arabs and Muslims around the world. Now senior Palestinian political leaders are being targeted. The other side will do the same one way or another if and when and where they can. Meanwhile Arab and Muslim countries, even all combined, remain far too weak, corrupt, and impotent, to do anything serious even if they wanted to. But the future is far less certain now. And when it comes to Egypt, the reasons for Egyptian co-optation all these years are becoming more apparent as Egyptian realities become better known -- a very important article on that subject follows.
PALESTINIAN LEADER NEARLY KILLED IN MISSILED ATTACK
ISRAEL TANKS ROLL INTO PALESTINIAN TERRITORY

ISRAEL PEACE ACTIVISTS RALLY FOR END TO WEST BANK OCCUPATION

By HADEEL WAHDAN, Associated Press

[RAMALLAH, West Bank (Associated Press - August 4, 2001 7:57 p.m. EDT)] - Prominent Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti was unhurt Saturday after two missiles landed near his car in the West Bank. Palestinians called it an assassination attempt; Israeli sources said Barghouti was not the target of the attack.

Later, a senior Palestinian official said Yasser Arafat sent urgent letters to President Bush and leaders in Russia, China and the European Union calling for intervention in the conflict with the Israelis.

Arafat told Bush the conflict had become extremely dangerous and the situation demanded urgent American intervention, the official said.

"From here in the Holy Land we urge you to take up your responsibility regarding the peace process which your father started and to revive the hope of keeping this process alive," he quoted the letter as saying.

Barghouti, an outspoken leader of Arafat's Fatah movement, was shaken but unhurt in the attack in the West Bank. A Palestinian security official traveling in a second car was injured.

The Israeli military had no immediate comment on the attack in the town of Ramallah, just north of Jerusalem. Israeli security sources said the target was not Barghouti but the wounded official. They accused him of killing several Israelis over the past few months, including Binyamin Zeev Kahane, son of the assassinated anti-Arab leader Rabbi Meir Kahane.

Military sources said they "did not in any way try to kill Marwan Barghouti."

Barghouti, who has received extensive media coverage with his calls for Palestinian resistance against Israel, said he was leaving his office in Ramallah when the attack took place. Palestinian security officials were traveling with him in a second car.

The first missile exploded in front of the two cars, prompting the men in both vehicles to flee. A second missile hit the car belonging to the security officials, smashing in its roof, sending dark plumes of smoke in the air, and injuring the one man as he tried to escape.

The missiles were fired from Psagot, a nearby Jewish settlement which overlooks Ramallah, Palestinian security officials at the scene said.

"We were holding a meeting in the office. As soon as we finished we left the building in two cars," Barghouti told The Associated Press by telephone.

"If they didn't miss us with the first missile we might be dead by now. The first missile gave us the time to run away from the car."

Hospital officials identified the injured security official as Mohanned Abu Halaweh, a member of Arafat's elite presidential guard, Force 17. Doctors said he suffered light burns.

Israeli security sources identified him as Mohanned Diria but said he was also known as Abu Halaweh. They said he was directly responsible for the killing of at least eight Israelis, including Binyamin Kahane and his wife, Talia, who were ambushed on a West Bank road on Dec. 31.

The Israelis have carried out repeated attacks against suspected Palestinian militants during the 10 months of fighting. Israel says it targets Palestinians who have carried out or planned attacks against Israel, as well as those who are preparing attacks.

The raids have provoked outrage among the Palestinians, and have been condemned by the United States, the European Union and other nations. If Israel was targeting Barghouti, he would be the most prominent Palestinian leader to come under attack.

Palestinian Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo accused Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of targeting all Palestinians.

"Sharon and his government are declaring this war against everybody, the Palestinian leadership and the Palestinian people," he said at the scene. "This was a clear assassination attempt."

Palestinian witness Khaled Eisa said he was standing outside his house when Barghouti and his entourage passed by.

"Marwan came down the road in his jeep and waved at us. As soon as he got to the end of the road I saw a missile flying toward me," Eisa said. "We heard the second one and ran up to the house, and people began shouting."

Barghouti later called on Abu Halaweh in a local hospital and was congratulated by well wishers on his lucky escape.

Speaking to reporters Barghouti said the attack was meant to silence the Palestinian uprising. "It will increase and escalate in the coming days and weeks in response to this," he said.

As part of its response to the incident, Fatah's local wing hastily organized a march through the streets of Ramallah. Joining the march, Barghouti held onto part of a giant Palestinian flag and walked beside Fatah gunmen who chanted slogans and fired into the air.

In the Gaza Strip town of Khan Yunis, meanwhile, a Palestinian died in what appeared to be the premature explosion of a bomb he was preparing for use against Israelis.

Hospital officials identified the victim as 25-year-old Suleiman Shabeer, a local Fatah activist. Local mosques broadcast news of his death through their loudspeakers and said he died "in a holy mission."

Earlier the Israeli army briefly sent tanks and bulldozers into Palestinian-controlled territory, destroying a police post, the Palestinians said.

The operation was in response to Palestinian mortar fire from the post, which injured a father and son living in the nearby Kfar Darom settlement, the Israeli army said. ..

GUN BATTLES RAGE ON JERUSALEM'S OUTSKIRTS
By Megan Goldin

JERUSALEM (Reuters- 8 /04) - Gun battles raged on Saturday night on Jerusalem's outskirts and across the West Bank after a botched Israel missile strike against Palestinian activists intensified the wrath of Palestinians revolting against Israeli occupation. In some of the heaviest fighting in months, gunfire on the outskirts of Jerusalem echoed through the Holy City after Palestinian gunmen opened fire at Israeli apartment buildings, drawing a heavy Israeli response.

Tracer bullets sliced through the night sky and the sounds of explosions and the distant rattle of Israeli machinegun fire reverberated through central Jerusalem. The ground occasionally shook as a tank shell landed in a Palestinian area nearby.

As the Saturday night firefight raged at Gilo, a Jewish settlement that Israel regards as a neighborhood of Jerusalem, fighting spread to other parts of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

At least 510 Palestinians, 130 Israelis and 13 Israeli Arabs have been killed since the Palestinian uprising began over 10 months ago.

Senior West Bank Fatah leader Marwan Barghouthi, an influential figure in the uprising, said he was the target of the Israeli missile strike which hit two cars near his office outside Ramallah but not his vehicle. ``This is a failed assassination attempt,'' Barghouthi told Reuters. ``The criminal occupiers will pay for this new crime.''

Israeli military and political sources denied that Barghouthi was the target. Security officials said the missiles were intended for Barghouthi's wounded aide, whose car suffered a direct hit. Police said 14 apartment buildings in Gilo and two cars were hit by Palestinian bullets and an Israeli woman received a very light face wound.

A Palestinian father, whose house was damaged by Israeli tank fire, said his 10 children were hurt from glass fragments. Palestinians in the town of Beit Jala, which is often used by gunmen to fire on Gilo, said a house was damaged by tank fire.

The fighting late on Saturday spread to the nearby Bethlehem area where the army reported heavy fire at Israeli soldiers guarding a bypass road around the West Bank town, as well as several Jewish settlements and a religious shrine nearby.

``There are exchanges of fire throughout the area (in the southern West Bank),'' an army spokeswoman said.

Israeli security officials said the missile strike near the West Bank city of Ramallah on Saturday had been intended to hit the car carrying Mohamad Abu Halaweh, a Barghouthi aide who the officials said was behind a spate of deadly shooting ambushes.

Palestinian Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo said the attack was a continuation of Sharon's ``policy of assassinating Palestinian leaders.'' Barghouthi said the strike would strengthen the Intifada (uprising). ``The Israelis have launched a comprehensive war against the whole Palestinian people,'' he said.

Arafat sent ``urgent letters'' to the Group of Eight countries who called in a summit last month for both sides to agree to international monitors to oversee a blueprint for implementing a truce and renewing peace talks, an Arafat aide said.

Israel describes its policy of tracking and killing Palestinian militants, which has drawn widespread international criticism, as ``active self-defense'' against those planning deadly attacks on the Jewish state.

Palestinians say Israel's military has assassinated around 60 activists since their uprising began more than 10 months ago.

About 10,000 Israeli peace activists held a candlelight vigil through the streets of Tel Aviv to protest the violence. Waving banners saying ``Stop the Bloodshed,'' the activists marched to the Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv in one of the biggest rallies by Israeli doves for months.

In Hebron, the Israeli army said a Jewish settler was lightly wounded when Palestinian gunmen opened fire at a military vehicle and at two Jewish settlement compounds in the divided West Bank town.

A spokeswoman said the soldiers did not return fire. Earlier on Saturday, Israeli soldiers and Palestinian gunmen waged two separate gun battles, exchanging firing from buildings in the heavily populated town.

PEACE ACTIVISTS MARCH IN ISRAEL
by JASON KEYSER

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP - 8/4) -- Thousands of peace activists marched through Tel Aviv Saturday, demanding an end to 10 months of Israeli-Palestinian violence. It was the largest demonstration by the shattered Israeli peace camp since Prime Minister Ariel Sharon took office in February.

Carrying torches and shouting together, ''Occupation no; peace yes,'' some 3,000 protesters marched to the gates of the Defense Ministry from a large downtown plaza where former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated in 1995 by a right-wing Israeli opposed to the leader's search for peace with the Palestinians.

Despite the relative size of the demonstration, its numbers fell short of the 10,000 who used to turn out for marches before the failure of last summer's peace talks and the Palestinian uprising that followed. It followed a week of gunbattles, bombing attempts and pinpoint attacks on Palestinian leaders. The peace camp was left bewildered and directionless after the Palestinians rejected an offer by Prime Minister Ehud Barak -- 91 percent of the West Bank and the willingness to discuss dividing Jerusalem. But the Palestinians said Barak's proposals would have sliced the West Bank into three parts cut off from each other by Israeli roads and settlements.

''It (the peace movement) is obviously confused,'' said Colette Avital, a parliament member from the leftist Labor Party. ''But there are still people in Israel who believe that occupation has to come to an end, who still believe that there should be a chance for peace.''

The protesters carried posters showing Palestinian and Israeli flags drawn as jigsaw puzzle pieces fitting together. Other signs read, ''Bring the settlers home.'' Security around the demonstration was tight. Police pushed suspicious demonstrators out of the crowd, searched bags and perched on the roofs of nearby buildings.

Liad Kantrorowicz, 23, from Jaffa, wore a gas mask like a hat above her black hair and pounded a small tin can with drum sticks. She said she is angry at what she described as a narrowing movement that focuses on peace rather than fighting for justice and civil rights for Palestinians. The demonstration's slogan, ''No to an unnecessary war,'' did not go far enough for her.

''War is an act against humanity. It's also ethnic cleansing.'' Still, she believes the peace camp has gained some strength by shedding those ''who did not have their hearts in it.''

Speaking to the crowd, opposition leader Yossi Sarid, of the dovish Meretz Party, said the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land must end, Jewish settlements in the Palestinian areas must be dismantled and Israel must again pursue peace negotiations with Palestinian leaders.

But 10 months of Israeli-Palestinian bloodletting have drowned out that message, even in traditionally liberal Tel Aviv.

Lena Turel, 25, brought her big brown dog, Sherlock, to the march. On the dog's back she wrapped a sign that read, ''Save the peace.''

She said she sees fewer younger people turning up at peace rallies.

''I'm alone,'' she said. ''My friends don't come anymore. That says something.''


August 2001


Magazine






IDEOLOGICAL CEASE-FIRE OR SELL-OUT AT DURBAN?
(August 31, 2001)
It's not likely this is the end of it, but indications are that the Arafat crowd -- as of the moment still in the pay of the U.S., Israel, and the despicable Arab "client regimes" -- has found a way to back away from the badly needed ideological confrontation, with the help of non other than that slimmy man for all seasons who never misses an opportunity to interject himself Jesse Jackson.

ASHRAWI SPEECH IN DURBAN
(August 31, 2001)
Hanan Ashrawi is no real hero, and she's made some terrible hard-to-forgive political mistakes in the "peace process" years in her search for the limelight and VIP status.

DURBAN AND ROBINSON AND ANNAN
(August 31, 2001)
A pamphlet distributed at the United Nations anti-racism conference in South Africa equating the Star of David with a swastika has prompted the UN human rights commissioner, Mary Robinson, to declare at an official dinner: "I am a Jew".

"GO BACK IMMEDIATLEY OR WE ARE GOING TO SHOOT" - MARY ROBINSON COMES OUT JEWISH
(August 30, 2001)
Talk about humiliation. When the U.N.'s top human rights official was in occupied Palestine last year her car was shot at by Israeli settlers -- the Israeli army doing nothing to stop them. Now we learn that the very same Mary Robinson is herself Jewish and has been using her position to head off the urgently needed world censorship of Israel for its racist and apartheid-like policies.

HABASH AND CARLOS HAVE THEIR SAY
(August 30, 2001)
Aging guerrilla leader Carlos the Jackal called from his French jail cell Wednesday for worldwide attacks on Israel and the United States in support of the Palestinian uprising.

A LAND WITHOUT HOPE
(August 29, 2001)
Gaza is the largest prison in the world. Most of its one million plus inhabitants, in a sense inmates, have never been let out. Whether the term be "ghetto" or "concentration camp" or just "prison", the historical parallels are all too damning.

THE U.S. MAKES IT ALL POSSIBLE
(August 29, 2001)
What we should all be thinking when the U.S. State Department spokesman gets in front of the cameras is -- "You've Got To Be Kidding!" Instead, the American government with its super sophisticated PR apparatus dishes it out. The gullible, or should we say complicitous, corporate media then broadcasts it -- not just CNN, also the rest of the networks along with PBS followed up by the big daily newspapers and newsweeklies --all lemming-like.

TIME TO SUSPEND ISRAEL FROM U.N. GENERAL ASSEMBLY
(August 28, 2001)
The American President and Vice-President both are giving public expressions of support to the Israelis; while the American CIA, military and Congress make Israeli policies possible with a continual flow of money, guns, and information.

"INVITING HELL TO BREAK LO0SE" - PFLP LEADER ASSASSINATED TODAY
(August 27, 2001)
The Israelis are clearly planning to totally crush the Palestinians -- Minister Uzi Landau is publicly saying as much -- probably thinking they can buy themselves still more years to consolidate their grip on the occupied territories and probably scheming for the opportunity to push as many Palestinians as they can across the Jordan and into a Hashemite Kingdom that will eventually, sooner or later, implode into a Palestinian State.

A MOST COURAGEOUS AND DEDICATED ISRAELI JOURNALIST
(August 26, 2001)
If we had an award for Middle East Journalist of the year, the Israeli writer Amira Hass would be very high on that list. A few years ago, long before it became politically correct to term Israeli policies "apartheid like", especially in Jewish and American circles, Amira Hass was doing just that in her writing and speaking.

ISRAEL WINNING PROPAGANDA WAR - MASSIVELY
(August 26, 2001)
The terribly weak, confused, and co-opted Arab regimes, Arafat's included, are miserably losing the "propaganda war". Sure, the Israelis have suffered in some quarters in some ways; but nothing compared to the Palestinians.

THE LATEST FROM GAZA GHETTO
(August 25, 2001)
About 400 fanatical "settlers" have forced their way into homes in the middle of Hebron, a city of 120,000 Arabs. About 6000 fanatical "settlers" contnue to occupy about 35% of the Gaza Strip, amidst more than 1 million Palestinians.

ISRAEL'S IDEOLOGICAL FOUNDATION
(August 25, 2001)
If you want to understand what the Israelis are doing, and why, you have to understand the ideological underpinnings of what is called "Revisionist Zionism". This article was published many years ago in The Washington Post by Mark Bruzonsky, today the Publisher of MER.

JUST IMAGINE, A MILLION + INJURED IN A YEAR
(August 24, 2001)
If adjusted for differing population sizes, these would be the dead and casualties figures if a foreign military power occupied the United States and did to Americans what Israel, with U.S. money and arms, is doing to the Palestinians. And that's just in the past year or so.

WITH ARAFAT AND COMPANY IN COMMAND, THERE IS NO HOPE.
(August 24, 2001)
As usual there is no serious introspection and self-criticism here. Arab and Palestinian Americans have failed miserably over a very long period of time to even establish viable organizations and publications. Moreover they have no lobbying and professional presence even worth discussion in the crucial capital of Washington, DC, even today.

SUICIDE BOMBERS - MADE BY ISRAEL AND THE USA
(August 23, 2001)
It didn't begin this way. A few generations ago Arabs and Jews lived together in the same neighborhoods of the once Holy Land. In the 40's the famous Arab mayor of Haifa Hassan Shukri's only son married a Jewish woman.

ISRAELIS "DEBATE" BOTH "SEPARATION" AND "DEPARTURE"
(August 23, 2001)
Two rather insightful articles follow about how confused and insecure many Israelis have become, even though this often comes across to others as heightened arrogance and self-centeredness. In the first from Ha'aretz some Israelis are hedging their bets and wondering just what the future holds. There is a deep down awareness, not quite conscious for many, that what they are doing to the Palestinians could possibly in the future backfire in an orgy of hatred and recriminations far beyond today's situation.

KILLING AND DESTROYING - THE ISRAELI WAY
(August 21, 2001)
Even as the U.N. Security Council gathered to demonstrate once again how badly it has been neutered and cast aside when it comes to the Middle East, the Israelis are further unleashing their basic policy of killing, destroying, repressing. General Barak, the previous PM, is busy taking credit for having "exposed" the Palestinians and "fathered" the concept of "unilateral separation" (i.e., apartheid forever).

UN NOW AND THEN
(August 20, 2001)
Today's United Nations is pretty much an "appendage of the (U.S.) State Department". And that's not our phrase, it's one used by a senior U.N. official not that long ago in one of those quiet unpublicized off-the-record Washington discussions.

THE "PEACE PROCESS" FRAUD AND CONSPIRACY
(August 20, 2001)
Professors Noam Chomsky, Edward Said, Tanya Reinhart -- Jewish American, Palestinian American, and Israeli -- all have explained this month why the "Peace Process" was a fraud, a deception, a conspiracy, from the start.

PLEADING FOR PEACE; ANALYSIS IS WAR
(August 18, 2001)
Everything stops for tea in Britain, or so they say. So when Angie Zelter and her fellow foreign protesters found their way from Palestinian-ruled Bethlehem to Jerusalem blocked by Israeli soldiers and police on Saturday, Zelter ever so politely ventured a few words of advice.

A SUICIDE BOMBER'S WORLD
(August 18, 2001)
In a sense, a very important sense, the "Suicide Bombers" now so much in the news should have stamped on them "Made in Israel, Encouraged by USA". There were few if any "Suicide Bombers" just a few years ago. The phenomena first arose out of Israel's destructive invasion of Lebanon in and before 1982, then the occupation of about 10% of that country which only ended last year.

DATELINE WASHINGTON: ONE ARAB DISASTER AFTER ANOTHER
(August 17, 2001)
Months ago now the relatively new group of Muslim "client organizations" headquartered in Washington repeatedly promised at one press conference after another a wave of civil disobedience throughout the U.S. in view of what Israel and the U.S. are doing to the Palestinians.

ANTI-US/ISRAEL DEMOS IN SOUTH AFRICA
(August 17, 2001)
The pathetically weak and terribly mislead Arab and Muslim groups in the US aren't doing any protesting worth mentioning about this or anything else; but thousands of South Africans are doing the work for everyone...and "internationals" are on the way.

WHY WE HAVE ALL BECOME SUICIDE BOMBERS, DR EYAD SARRAJ-MER FLASHBACK
(August 16, 2001)
A few weeks ago I said that the struggle of Palestinians today is how not to become a bomb and that the amazing thing is not the occurrence of the suicide bombing, rather the rarity of them.

HAVE WE A PREDICTION HERE? YASS?
(August 16, 2001)
Beneath that thick Israeli arrogance, many Israelis are really far more confused, and far more fearful, than they are going to admit. Theirs' is a complicated psychology especially as the scars of the Holocaust remain deeply buried and only occasionally visible.

DEATH IN BETHLEHELM, MADE IN AMERICA
(August 15, 2001)
While the Israeli Army surrounds Bethlehem and many of the "autonomous Palestinian population centers" created through the Apartheid-style "peace process", it is American weapons and money that make the brutal military occupation possible.

ISREALI STORM TROOPERS BEAT, SHOOT, TORTURE, KILL
(August 14, 2001)
How ironic that the Jewish Israelis are acting like modern-day storm troopers, perpetrating ongoing Crystal Nachts, their victims akin to dark images from the Warsaw Ghetto of yesteryear...and so many "Good Israelis", so sadly reminiscent of the "Good Germans" of their own terrible past when they themselves were powerless victims, are cheering with mindless hatred

USED "PEACE PLAN" FOR SALE CHEAP - CAVEATE EMPTOR!
(August 14, 2001)
Gee..isn't this interesting. With the legitimacy of the Jewish State of Israel -- i.e. Zionism -- about to be challenged by much of the world in Durban; and with the "peace process" itself about to be finally condemned as a "new form of apartheid" -- just as so many of the independent experts have been saying for years now -- the Israelis are embarking on a major international public relations campaign whose top dogs are none other than soft barkers Shimon Peres and Yossi Beilin, chief architects and salesmen of the very same.

SALAMI ESCALATION
(August 14, 2001)
The Israelis are preparing everyone psychologically for more. Rather than everything at once, Sharon's tactics are a war version of "triangulation" which has become so famous in American political infighting. In this way he gets to be called "restrained" by many, creates the climate of confusion and anticipation that he wishes, uses Peres and Eliezer to confuse world opinion and even some of the more gullible Arab "leaders", and craftily prepares for that day when the tanks will roll in and roll over...and not just leave after a few hours of death and destruction.

NOW RUSSIANS PREDICT MID-EAST WAR SOON
(August 13, 2001)
The Israelis have been trying for years now to "reconfigure" the Middle East to their further advantage. That's really what the war for Lebanon that erupted most fiercely in 1982 was all about; and its what the various responses to the Intifada have always been about as well -- most especially the disengenous "peace process" which has now worse than collapsed.

A PEOPLE CRUSHED, DISPOSSESSED, TORTURED...
(August 13, 2001)
"His was not an act of 'mindless terror', the words Israeli spokesmen use. He was the logical product of a people who have been crushed, dispossessed, tortured and killed in terrible numbers." Fisk on the 'Suicide Bomber'

ON TO DURBAN...WITHOUT THEM - PART II
(August 12, 2001)
Well we weren't expecting United Nations officials to heed our advice about Durban and get on with things, with or without the constantly threatening and vetoing Americans (see Part 1 published yesterday). In recent years some of their colleagues at the very highest levels of today's U.N. have in fact resigned in moral disgust -- and even said so in public.

EGYPT MIGHT MOVE ARMY INTO SINAI?
(August 12, 2001)
It's not likely to happen -- Egypt's Third Army moving into Sinai for the first time since 1973 -- but it could. And in the Middle East there are historical precedents that this is sometimes the way big wars start with an initial bombardment of threats, bluffs, feints, and then the confusion takes on a life of its own.

SYMBOL OF PALESTINE CAPTURED AND RAPED
(August 11, 2001)
"Israeli riot police on horseback yesterday charged into protesters sitting outside Orient House, the barricaded mansion that serves as an unofficial Palestinian capital, reopening the battle for Jerusalem. The occupation of Orient House, headquarters of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation in Jerusalem, by the Israeli army is one of the biggest acts of aggrandisement since the intifada began 11 months ago."

ON TO DURBAN...WITHOUT THEM
(August 10, 2001)
Conclusion first: Let the Americans and the Israelis stay home. So be it. There's been enough blackmail and bribery and vetoing for such a very long time now. The Americans and the Israelis have been two against the whole world so many times when it comes to the international community of nations. It was just a few years ago that the U.S. single-handedly black-balled Boutros Ghali and sent him packing.

SHARON OF ISRAEL - DANGEROUSLY CUNNING
(August 10, 2001)
Ariel Sharon has a terrible history of brutality and murder, and indeed by the usual definitions these days he is at the very least indictable as a war criminal. Even so, especially now in his new role as Prime Minister of Israel, Ariel Sharon is an extraordinarily crafty and sophisticated strategist as well as tactician.

ISRAEL FLAG FLIES OVER ORIENT HOUSE
(August 10, 2001)
They never ever let Yasser Arafat come to Jerusalem. And Arafat missed his moment on the day of Feisal Husseini's burial earlier this summer when he could have, and should have, called their bluff. Now the Israelis, commanded by General Sharon, have done what they have been planning to do for some time, using the excuse of yesterday's terror bombing on Jaffa Road -- they have closed Orient House, the very symbol of things Palestinian in East Jerusalem, as well as many other organizations associated with the PA.

ORIENT HOUSE CLOSED - STRATEGIC BLOW AGAINST PALESTINIANS LIKELY
(August 9, 2001)
NEWSFLASH -- 8/09/2001, 9:30pm -- For first time Israel has closed down Orient House in Jerusalem along with nine other offices associated with the Palestinian Authority

USS LIBERTY - ABANDONED AT SEA AND AT HOME BECAUSE?
(August 9, 2001)
Tonight at 8pm (ET) on the History Channel part of the story about the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty on 8 June 1967 is going to be told. But from preliminary indications, just part, and not necessarily the most important historical parts which really involve top secret intrigue at the highest levels of the CIA, NSA, and White House complete with super secrets of state the Americans continue to want to keep out of sight out of mind.

THE REAL USS LIBERTY STORY
(August 9, 2001)
The real questions -- and answers -- have been avoided for a very long time by the American Government, and in this case also by the "free and independent" American media. And from the preliminary indications, tonight's History Channel documentary about the USS Liberty doesn't actually answer the key questions (as it could) nor even deal with the key subject of the crucial role of the CIA (as it should).

THE CRUCIAL ISRAELI-TURKISH-US MILITARY ALLIANCE,THE ARABS ARE SURROUNDED
(September 9, 2001)
It was just a few years ago that in all likelihood the Mossad and CIA helped the Turk's capture Kurdish Leader Abdullah Ocalan after first pushing him out of exile in Syria, the Moscow, then Greece, and then grabbing him in Nairobi. It was three years ago last month that MER first published an article about the great importance of the new military alliance that has developed between Israel and Turkey -- "New U.S./Turkey/Israel Alliance Circumvents and Bottles Up The Arabs." And it was two years ago that the prolific and courageous British journalist, Robert Fisk, first gave us some of the details behind the new strategic military relation Turkey actually courted with Israel.

WITH THE HELP OF U.S. ARMS MANUFACTURERS, THE CIA, CONGRESS, AND THE PENTAGON
(August 8, 2001)
The Israelis are controlling, repressing, dispossessing, and assassinating the Palestinians not on their own. They are doing so with the constant and considerable help of American arms manufacturers, the CIA, and of course the U.S. Congress (which of course is supposed to represent the will of the American people) which constantly appropriates billions yearly for Israel and sanctions (or the threat thereof) against Israel's foes

HIZBULLAH ON A ROLL
(August 7, 2001)
Israeli security forces have completely shut down access in and out of five large Palestinian towns following the killing of a pregnant Jewish settler, Israeli public radio said Monday, quoting security officials. The army sealed off the West Banks towns of Nablus, Tulkarem, Jericho, Ramallah and Qalqilya, the radio said, adding that it had partially closed the towns of Hebron, Bethlehem and Jenin.

WILL THE REAL YOSSI BEILIN PLEASE STAND UP
(August 4, 2001)
Like in the movie LION OF THE DESERT, those who profess sympathy and understanding can often cause the most harm. The well-meaning Lieutenant Colonel who befriends Omar Muhktar, lures him into deceptive "peace negotiations" in the desert, and then salutes him as his own involvement leads to Muhktar's being hanged from the gallows, is an illustrative symbol from the past.

SHARONS PUBLIC RELATIONS WAR
(August 7, 2001)
One thing about countries that have democratic features and most especially a professional and independent press -- sometimes insightful even amazing little tidbits result either from leaks or investigations. Like today's story about how Ariel Sharon himself is also the Commanding General in Israel's public relations war, shaking up and countermanding his troops in this arena as well.

ISRAELI INTELLIGENCE PROJECTS WAR IN 2002
(August 6, 2001)
Israeli sources said military intelligence has drafted a report that warns of the increasing likelihood of regional war in 2002. The report said the war could be sparked by either an Israeli offensive against the Palestinian Authority or an escalation in tension along Israel's border with Lebanon

TARGET EVERYONE EVERYWHERE
(August 5, 2001)
It has not happened yet, but it is now the direction things are heading. Soon the Palestinians may start responding to Israel's increasingly brutal military occupation, unprecedented anywhere else in the world of our day, by targeting Israeli political leaders and maybe Zionist leaders outside of Israel.

EGYPT IN THE ERA OF THIEVES
(August 5, 2001)
The Egypt of Hosni Mubarak and associates has terribly betrayed itself. It is a regime of sadistic torture and omnipresent corruption. It is a country of gross repression and escalating fear. And to a certain extent all this is at least in part the legacy of the Camp David agreement Egypt was tricked and bribed into signing two decades ago, and for which Anwar Sadat was assassinated by his own soldiers on military parade.

IRAEL ENFLAMES PALESTINIANS- HATRED WILL LAST LONG INTO THE FUTURE
(August 5, 2001)
In the past week the Israelis have substantially escalated the conflict with the Palestinians and risked enflaming not only the Palestinians but Arabs and Muslims around the world. Now senior Palestinian political leaders are being targeted.

ASSASSINATION POLICY EXPANDED- EXPECT A NEW LEVEL OF CLANDESTINE WARFARE
(August 4, 2001)
In a sense it would be like the going after the associates of Jerry Adams and his Sein Fein colleagues in Northern Ireland. It was a policy followed to a lesser extent by the White South African government when it tortured and murdered persons associated with the ANC, almost in fact secretly poisoning Nelson Mandela in his prison cell

"SECRET PLAN" TO SEND OBSERVERS TO ISRAEL
(August 3, 2001)
The very idea that the Americans and the Brits, after their long history of treachery and deception in the Middle East, are now going to do something other than continue on in that tradition is rather ludicrous. All the current talk at the moment -- especially from the Europeans and the usually gullible "peace" and "human rights" NGOs -- about helping the Palestinians by sending them "observers" is indeed a fitting CIA response to the predicament the American government finds itself in at the moment.

ISRAEL THREAT TO INVADE PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES IS REAL
(August 3, 2001)
The Palestinians and their allies and supporters are extremely ill-prepared for what is happening. Israeli military might remains overwhelming, and political support remains amazingly strong, especially in view of today's situation with Ariel Sharon Prime Minister, the "peace process" undergoing slow and tortuous cremation, and Israel attacking Palestinians in the occupied territories with tanks and gunships heretofore reserved for real warfare between armies.

11 YEARS, 1.5+ MILLION DEAD, SEETHING HATRED EVERYWHERE
(August 2, 2001)
Eleven long bloody years. In the years just before the Gulf War there was the destruction of Lebanon, the terrible bloodletting of the U.S.-instigated Iran-Iraq orgy, the Kissinger-legacy of the Kurdish sell-out.




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