AAARGH

Numéro 10 -- juillet 2002 >http://ggb.topcities.com/index.html< >[email protected]< Nouvelles en français et en anglais Créée en 1991 par Serge Thion News in French and English Established 1991 by Serge Thion

"The message is that there are no knowns. There are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns, that is to say there are things we now know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns -- things we do not know we don't know."

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, in Brussels, June 6, 2002

<http://www.reuters.com/news_article.jhtml?type=politicsnews&StoryID=1058803>

 

In 1999-2000, according to the Pentagon, the US flew 24,000 "combat missions" over Iraq. John Pilger.

Edito

SALES BOMBES ET BOMBES SALES

Encore et toujours, les Américains prennent tout le monde pour des cons, et même des cons encore plus cons qu'eux. La question qui se pose est de savoir s'ils ont raison.

Prenons un exemple mineur mais récent. la presse annonce à grands sons de trompe qu'on a arrêté à Chicago un envoyé d'Al Qaida qui se préparait à confectionner une bombe "sale". Dans la jargon de ces cervelles embrumées, une bombe "sale" serait une bombe normale, entourée de déchets radioactifs venant des hôpitaux, ou d'autres sources. La chose pourrait péter et disséminer des particules qui rendrait le lieu de l'explosion radioactif pour une longue période. Personne n'a jamais vu un tel objet, ni n'en a jamais fabriqué. Personne ne s'est même posé la question de fabriquer un tel engin, dont le projet même témoigne d'une inefficacité totale.

Un tel objet ne peut avoir été conçu que dans le cerveau enfiévré d'un mauvais auteur de science-fiction. Le thème de la bombinette bricolée a donné lieu à des multiples sous-productions littéraires y compris quelques chansonnettes amusantes, genre Boris Vian. Un pauvre type, portoricain, assassin à treize ans, libéré à dix-huit, en délicatesse avec la police, s'est retrouvé au Pakistan. Toutes les polices de l'empire se sont attachées à ses basques, d'autant qu'il s'affublait d'un nom arabe. A peine avait-il pris un avion pour Chicago qu'il s'est fait coxer. Bientôt, toute la presse mondiale allait bruire de cette rumeur fantastique: ce pauvre mec, qui ne sait sans doute pas lire, allait nous concocter la bombe sale; elle allait retrancher du monde telle ou telle station du métro de Chicago. L'Horreur mondiale. Une sorte de Twin Towers en plus vicieux. Et tout seul, d'une seule main. Très fort. Ce baratin grotesque a été diligemment repris par toute la presse mondiale, comme s'il y avait là-dedans une seule once de vérité. On est dans une situation de révisionnisme immédiat. Cette affaire ne tient pas debout et les journalistes qui propagent ces âneries sont coupables, sans aucune circonstance atténuante. C'est leur servilité qui les condamne.

Non seulement les Américains n'ont pas apporté l'ombre d'un soupçon de preuve de ce qu'ils avançaient, mais ils ont laissé entendre que ce projet n'avait pas encore reçu le moindre commencement de mise à exécution. Et pour noyer définitivement le poisson, ils ont réputé ce citoyen américain (mais un Portoricain est-il complètement citoyen américain ?) comme "combattant étranger" et l'ont livré à l'armée, qui, avec l'appui de W. Bush, fait ce qu'elle veut de ses prisonniers, en dehors de tout arroi de justice. (Les Américains demandent actuellement aux Palestiniens de faire application, sous les obus israéliens, de principes de justice dont ils s'affranchissent eux-mêmes par simple fiat de l'horrible maison blanche.) On nage en plein délire idéologique.

Les journaux nous font aussi l'apologie d'une traduction "révisée" (merci les réviseurs) des ouvrages de Hannah Arendt, sur le totalitarisme et le procès d'Eichmann, publiée en Quarto. On a donc toute une série de diplômés patentés estampillés intellectuels qui vont doctement commenter des concepts aussi fumeux que celui de "totalitarisme" chez les Soviets, chez les Nazis, chez qui vous voulez, mais qui n'en feront surtout pas l'application à la politique qui se fait aujourd'hui, aux régimes qui aujourd'hui vont bombarder l'Afghanistan (un pays qui ne leur a rien fait) et décréter ensuite sous quel régime politique les Afghans devront courber la tête (en particulier les sanglants seigneurs tadjiks), décider quels pays devront être rasés de la carte, quel gouvernement les opprimés de Palestine devront subir, nommer le boucher sanglant de Sabra, Chatila et Jénine un "homme de paix", etc., et tutti quanti. Nous n'avons pas une estime immense pour la besogneuse Arendt, qui a essayé de traduire en mauvais anglais certaine considérations issues d'une philosophie allemande qu'elle traitait plutôt avec ses fesses qu'avec le reste, mais ses thuriféraires, adulateurs et monomaniaques, plus ou moins femmes et plus ou moins sionistes, devraient au moins se poser la question de l'usage que l'on devrait faire des concepts aujourd'hui, en oubliant ce qu'elle a a bien pu dire de choses qu'elle ne connaissait pas, le régime soviétique, et même le régime nazi qu'elle avait fui, sans parler du reste, aimablement souligné par Hilberg et quelques autres qui avaient au moins mis le nez dans des archives. Ce qui n'était pas son cas.

Il n'est pas certain que nous vivions une époque plus menteuse que celles qui nous ont précédés, à en juger par la façon dont certains de nos anciens se sont débattus sous le poids des mensonges officiels et officieux et des tartufferies carriéristes des uns et des autres. Mais la seule chose que nous puissions faire est de dénoncer les mensonges quand on les voit. Et en ce moment, ils sont particulièrement repérables parce qu'ils circulent en vols grouillants, comme les criquets, une des sept plaies d'Egypte.

II Instrument

Gérard Chaliand fut, il y a 30-40 ans, un spécialiste des guérillas qui luttaient contre la domination occidentale parce qu'il était de leur côté. C'était autrefois. Depuis, il est passé beaucoup d'eau sous les ponts. Chaliand a pris quelques couches de lard, les neurones sont légèrement ralentis et il enseigne maintenant ce qu'il a appris des gens qui luttaient pour leur liberté à ceux qui veulent leur en ôter le goût. Il fraie avec les galonnés, donne des conférences "géopoliticostratégiques", fait des ronds-de-jambe en Amérique, vend énormément de papier et vérifie fiévreusement de quel côté sa tartine est beurrée et sur quel azimuth il faut chercher la soupe. Ce sont là des choses ordinaires de la vie. Des gens dont il ne nous dit rien l'ayant envoyé en mission au Kurdistan irakien, à la veille de la guerre, il fait un petit compte rendu de son voyage dans Le Monde du 15 juin 2002. Il nous fournit les données touristiques ordinaires. Deux chiffres sont à noter: les deux administrations kurdes, qui maintiennent une pseudo-autonomie à l'ombre des ailes américaines, ont respectivement 125.000 et 97.000 fonctionnaires, payés sur les dollars détournés par l'ONU des ventes irakiennes de pétrole, et des forces armées que Chaliand situe entre 50 et 75.000 hommes (pour 3,7 millions d'habitants).

Le grand professeur autodidacte de stratégie nous dit: "A condition de disposer d'un armement adéquat, les Kurdes peuvent jouer un rôle important". Il n'ose pas dire clairement en quoi. Il s'agit évidemment de l'invasion de l'Irak par les sauvages américains, qui bombardent tous les jours un peu et qui ont décidé, tous seuls, sans aucun accord international, sans aucune raison avouable, d'envahir l'Irak et de le mettre de force dans leur orbite en changeant le gouvernement de ce pays, qui est en place depuis 1958, depuis la chute du régime pourri de Nouri Said, installé par les Anglais.

Notre nouveau Thémistocle vient manifestement prendre sa part à ce concert. Il reprend le mythe du gazage de Halabja (1988), lancé par la propagande iranienne, qui avait vu tout l'avantage qu'elle avait pu tirer du gazage, réel celui-là, de ses troupes, dans les marais du Sud irakien, par les forces de Saddam Hussein, presque débordées. Les Kurdes ont repris ce bobard de guerre qui leur procure une avantageuse image de victime, légèrement judaïforme, dans l'opinion publique occidentale (voir la mère Mitterrand). On sait qu'à ce moment-là les experts de l'armée américaine avait refusé d'y ajouter foi. Et d'ailleurs Chaliand dit qu'à l'époque 'l'écho avait été plus discret". Il veut dire par là qu'on n'avait pas encore besoin de recycler cette histoire comme bobard de guerre, alors qu'aujourd'hui, c'est pratiquement la première et la seule raison qu'évoque la presse américaine quand elle envisage l'invasion de l'Irak, qui lui paraît une chose tout à fait naturelle.

Il est impossible de prédire ce que les Kurdes vont faire, dans le contexte de l'invasion projetée, mais une chose est sûre: ils vont se diviser, courir au protecteur le plus proche, se laisser acheter et manipuler comme nous voyons qu'ils font depuis bientôt un siècle. Ils paieront évidemment le prix de leurs aveuglements. Ce qui est du ressort des Occidentaux, c'est l'invasion américaine qu'ils seront obligés de décréter bonne et bienfaisante, alors qu'elle est dès sa conception, une véritable synthèse de tous les crimes politiques que le siècle a déjà connus. Chaliand, Arménien infiltré chez les Kurdes, qui, en 1915, ont joué un rôle essentiel dans le massacre et l'expulsion des Arméniens de l'est anatolien, vient tâter le terrain au nom de ses employeurs, des gens discrets, qui manquent un peu d'aviation pour intervenir tout de suite dans cette région, et qui n'auront pas le loisir, comme le général de Gaulle, de dire merde aux Américains, quand ils feront les petits Hitler dans l'Orient sombre et compliqué.

Parmi les animaux de la savane, il y a les chacals qui viennent rôder sur les lieux de la tuerie après qu'elle a eu lieu. Et puis parmi les chacals, il y a les plus avisés qui viennent se prépositionner sur le terrain en attendant la forcerie. On les appelle des chaliands.

LES MYSTÈRES DU 11 09

Les chiens de garde

Paris (AFP) - Guillaume Dasquié et Jean Guisnel, spécialistes de géopolitique et de renseignement, font l'autopsie de "l'imposture" que Thierry Meyssan a défendue en affirmant, dans un best-seller, qu'aucun avion ne s'était écrasé sur le Pentagone le 11 septembre 2001.

Dans leur essai à paraître jeudi, L'effroyable mensonge (éditions La Découverte), ils veulent en finir avec cette "rumeur nauséabonde", cette "contrevérité habilement portée par un illuminé".

Ce livre vient à point nommé quand on constate que "L'effroyable imposture" (éditions Carnot) a été tiré à 215.000 exemplaires et a été, en avril, le document le mieux vendu du pays.

Ce succès est "le symptôme d'une profonde maladie sociale et politique", estiment Dasquié et Guisnel en notant que, jusqu'à présent, le public français ne s'est jamais "trop intéressé" aux théories de la conspiration.

Ils rapportent bien sûr les éléments fournis par les témoins oculaires ayant vu le Boeing s'écraser sur le Pentagone, ainsi que nombre d'analyses d'experts. [Faut voir lesquels ! Ma doué ! Des experts du Mans... ]

Surtout, ils montrent comment le discours conspirationniste de Meyssan, qui préside le Réseau Voltaire, association de défense des libertés fondamentales et de la laïcité, peut parfois rejoindre celui de l'extrême droite ou celui de ces "parias et pestiférés de la négation de l'histoire et du révisionnisme".

Certes, Dasquié et Guisnel considèrent que bien des explications officielles sur le 11 septembre 2001 manquent de clarté. Certes, ils admettent que le Réseau Voltaire s'est souvent engagé dans de vraies luttes pour la liberté d'expression. Pour eux, "le passé de Meyssan le situe à l'opposé" de l'extrême droite. Ils n'en sont pas moins très sévères avec ce qu'ils nomment des "fariboles" et avec la thèse du complot véhiculée dans l'ouvrage.

Thierry Meyssan affirme que l'attentat a été perpétré par des individus ayant eu accès au Pentagone et qu'il visait le nouveau centre de commandement de la Navy. Selon lui, les attentats du 11 septembre 2001 sont le résultat d'une vaste conspiration interne orchestrée par des groupes militaro-industriels américaines alors qu'Oussama Ben Laden serait, lui, un agent de la CIA.

Pour expliquer ses thèses, il a notamment été reçu en mars dans l'émission de Thierry Ardisson sur France 2, "Tout le monde en parle", et a bénéficié de la puissance de diffusion de la Toile (internet), réceptacle de toutes les rumeurs. La nouveauté, écrivent-ils, c'est que les thèses de Meyssan "trouvent avec internet un moyen de propagation sans aucune limitation". [Encore des mentors, mi-flics mi-universitaires, qui aimeraient bien "limiter" internet. ]

"Puisque qu'un tabou avait été soudainement brisé, puisqu'il devenait brutalement possible d'admettre que les vieilles théories du complot ("judéo-maçonnique" ...) chères à l'extrême droite, revisitées au goût du jour, avaient un fond de vérité, dès lors que la télévision en parlait, des dizaines de milliers de Français éberlués se sont rués dans les librairies pour voir de quoi il retournait", disent Dasquié et Guisnel. [Et ils ne se rueront pas sur leur livre, ça c'est sûr. ]

Selon eux, de telles idées n'auraient pas pu prospérer si notre démocratie était forte : "Ce n'est pas Meyssan qui a décrédibilisé la presse au point que les Français ne la croient plus (...), ce n'est pas lui qui doit assumer cette «perte de sens» générale", estiment-ils en ajoutant toutefois que: "Oui, des prestations comme celles de Meyssan ont participé à la percée de Jean-Marie Le Pen", lors de la présidentielle.

Guillaume Dasquié et Jean Guisnel, L'effroyable mensonge. Thèses et foutaises sur les attentats du 11 septembre, éd La Découverte, 126 pages, 11 euros.

<http://fr.news.yahoo.com/020603/202/2m3ly.html>

Ce livre est en lui-même une minuscule imposture. Il prétend qu'il va démontrer que Meyssan, et ceux qui doutent de la thèse officielle américaine, ont tort. Leur "démonstration" est principalement composée d'un torrent d'insultes variées. Ils ne s'adressent d'ailleurs qu'à une mince fraction du livre, déjà très court, de Meyssan. Ils reprennent la thèse de la disparition complète de l'avion du Pentagone. Ils citent un expert pour expliquer que les ailes se sont repliées avant d'entrer dans la façade du Pentagone, puisqu'effectivement, sur les photos, on voit bien que l'entrée de l'avion a fait un trou de 6 à 10 mètres de large alors que l'envergure de l'avion est de 38 mètres et que les bords du trou n'ont pas été entaillés par les ailes. Ils ne disent pas un mot des moteurs de l'avion, qui n'auraient pas pu s'évaporer comme la carlingue l'aurait fait, de leur point de vue. Et ils trouvent un autre "expert" pour dire que l'avion est tombé sur le toit du Pentagone ! Le type n'a même pas jeté un oeil sur les photos. C'est nul de chez nul.

En fait, il s'agit d'un règlement de compte politique où les deux compères s'expriment au nom d'une certaine gauche respectueuse, comme Vipal-Toquet l'avait fait face aux révisionnistes dans les années 80: la réponse est débile mais elle épargne aux gens de gauche de se confronter eux-mêmes à la question; ils peuvent dire: "Ducont et Ducond ont déjà répondu".

En annexe, voici ce qu'ils disent à propos de la Gazette;

«C'est ainsi que Serge Thion, chercheur révoqué du CNRS en 2000 pour cause de négationnisme (il a fait appel de cette décision), défend mordicus le point de vue de Meyssan dans sa Gazette du Golfe et des banlieues, un webzine nauséabond diffusé à partir du site antisémite et négationniste de Radio Islam.»

Sans épiloguer sur les auteurs présumables de la rédaction de la Gazette, on doit noter que les duettistes se trompent. La Gazette du mois de décembre 2001 portait un éditorial signé de Serge Thion, intitulé "Quelques suppositions", daté du 21 novembre, qui donnait toutes les raisons de ne pas accepter sans examen la version officielle des événements du 11 septembre. Il n'était alors nul besoin de personne pour exercer un esprit normalement critique, d'autant que les explications officielles ont été très sommaires, que des preuves ont été annoncées et que, dix mois plus tard, elles n'ont toujours pas été fournies. Il est très possible que la version officielle ait un certain contenu de vérité mais il est absolument impossible de dire lequel aujourd'hui, au vu de l'obscurité totale qui entoure les enquêtes officielles. Ceux qui disent le contraire, comme les deux exhibitionnistes mentionnés ici, font preuve ou d'une incroyable et coupable naïveté, ou sont des idéologues vendus aux Américains. Laissons-leur encore une fois la parole:

«Sous un titre ad hoc, («Prolégomènes pour une patasociologie du onze septembre» Gazette du Golfe et des banlieues, mai 2002) seul écrit de sa plume sur le sujet, Thion rassemble des textes divers, soutenant tous Meyssan, à l'exception d'une très dure diatribe d'Alain Lipietz («L'affaire Meyssan et la destruction de la raison, <www.lipietz.net>, 1er avril 2002), que Thion ne cite que pour pouvoir traiter de «social-sharoniste» l'ex-candidat des Verts à la présidentielle de 2002. L'auteur de L'effroyable imposture, idole inattendue de Thion et consorts, a même droit à la publication intégrale de sa conférence à Abu-Dhabi, déjà citée, dans laquelle il évoque notamment la «fable des terroristes islamistes» du 11 septembre...

«Meyssan n'a sans doute pas sollicité Serge Thion pour qu'il assure ainsi avec tant d'ardeur la promotion de son livre et de ses thèses. [...] (p. 119)»

Meyssan n'a pas sollicité Thion car entre eux l'abîme est infranchissable. Mais on peut trouver qu'il y a de l'ironie à voir des gens très politiquement corrects, qui ont donné toutes les garanties à toutes les beiteddin de la kacheroute politique, se faire ostraciser et traîner dans la boue parce qu'ils s'obstinent dans une idée qui déplaît aux maîtres qui nous gouvernent. Ils se retrouvent avec nous sur le banc d'infamie, ce qui nous fait franchement rigoler.

On pourrait se demander pourquoi les deux barons prennent le soin d'affirmer que ce qui paraît en mai 2002 dans la Gazette est le "seul écrit de sa plume sur le sujet", ce qui est très exactement contraire à la vérité comme nous venons de la montrer. Le numéro 5 de février expliquait que les pompiers de New York non plus n'acceptaient pas la version officielle de la chute des tours. Il comportait une interview de Ben Laden qui niait être responsable de ces événements. Et franchement, s'il faut choisir entre Bush et Ben Laden, il est évident que le plus menteur des deux est l'imbécile texan. Meyssan, lui, croit Bush et quand ce dernier explique qu'il a vu, en Floride, ce que personne n'a vu, à la télévision, c'est-à-dire le choc du premier avion sur la tour nord, Meyssan cherche une explication. Pour nous, cette affirmation est une simple stupidité et une vantardise. L'explication est à chercher dans la mentalité d'enfant de douze du pauvre "Dubya". Le même numéro mentionnait longuement la présence et la tentative de cacher la présence d'un réseau d'espionnage israélien aux Etats-Unis, les "étudiants marchands de tableaux". Cette affaire n'a pas encore abouti dans la grande presse, en dépit de son indéniable authenticité. Le numéro 6 en mars, ajoutait et raffinait les "suppositions" avancées par Thion, qui n'ont évidemment pas été présentées comme des certitudes, mais comme une démarche légitime avant vérification et validation.

Les deux compères parlent donc du "seul écrit" de Thion pour faire croire, mensongèrement, qu'il accourrait au secours de Meyssan, ce qui, à leurs yeux, discréditerait ledit Meyssan. En vérité, il a eu des démarches plus ou moins parallèles, de différentes personnes, tant aux Etats-Unis qu'en France, étant entendu que celui qui, sans doute le premier, a attiré l'attention sur le fait que le trou dans la façade du Pentagone ne permettait pas l'entrée d'un avion de ligne, a été, en France, Emmanuel Ratier. En réalité, l'existence et la structure d'Internet font que les nouvelles et les idées circulent beaucoup, et vite, et dépassent très facilement les frontières des chapelles. Il faut avoir l'esprit curé de cette paire de croquenots pour ne pas le comprendre et établir, par le moyen de mensonges caractérisés, des filiations imaginaires. Mais on sait que le réseau est un objet qui est incompréhensible pour des esprits linéaires.

Signalons la sortie d'un nouveau complément de Thierry Meyssan, plus spécialement centré sur l'affaire du Pentagone: Le Pentagate, disponible en librairie et chargeable en format PDF gratuitement sur le site

<http://www.effroyable-imposture.net/>

C'est un petit travail de révisionnisme, qui n'est jamais, finalement, qu'un point de vue matérialiste. D'un révisionniste qui a beaucoup attaqué les révisionnistes. Ce petit jeu des étiquettes infamantes ressemble de plus an plus à celui des chaises musicales. On finit toujours par être le révisionniste de quelqu'un. Mais de qui ?

NAKBAH

Souvenez-vous de la Nakbah: elle constitue l'apogée de la tragédie palestinienne dont on continue à écrire les chapitres

 

Osama El-Sherif

 

15 mai 2002. Pour les Arabes, aucun anniversaire n'est aussi douloureux que celui qui marque chaque année la catastrophe subie par les Palestiniens (al Nakbah) en 1948. C'est le moment où l'Histoire se fige dans l'humiliation face à l'effroyable crime commis envers le peuple de Palestine sur sa terre ancestrale. Cinquante-quatre ans plus tard, ce crime continue de se perpétuer devant les yeux du monde. Nulle part sur la planète, les lois, conventions et résolutions n'ont été piétinées autant qu'en Palestine historique. Nulle part la conspiration visant à priver une nation toute entière de sa terre, de son identité, de sa culture et de son histoire collective n'est aussi noire ni aussi évidente qu'en Palestine. La Nakbah constitue l'apogée de la tragédie palestinienne dont on continue à écrire les chapitres. Ce qui s'est passé après 1948 n'est autre que le prolongement de ce crime. L'injustice historique se traduit par l'occupation la plus longue de l'Histoire moderne, la punition collective de millions de personnes, les expulsions et la purification ethnique, l'exil et l'assassinat. De Deir Yassin à Jénine, les victimes sont les mêmes, les coupables sont les mêmes et les témoins aveugles sont également les mêmes. C'est un crime qui se perpétue indéfiniment.

Aujourd'hui, des générations de Palestiniens revivent la douleur de cette année fatidique. La première génération de la débâcle se remémore avec force détails précis la même histoire de départ, d'intimidation, de conspiration, de carnage et de peur tandis que les descendants les plus jeunes ont des histoires qui leur sont propres. En Palestine, les lieux de carnage de Rafah et Jénine, de Naplouse et de Bethléhem ne présentent aucune différence par rapport à ceux de Sabra et Shatila, de Qana et de Qibyeh, et de bien d'autres. Je me demande combien de victimes inconnues gisent sous les décombres des villages et des villes, le long du littoral palestinien, en Galilée, dans la vallée du Jourdain et dans le Néguev. Le temps passe mais la douleur dure longtemps. Une mosquée abandonnée à Jaffa, une citadelle décrépite à Saint-Jean d'Acre et un verger confisqué à Haïfa témoignent des attentes et de la trahison. Nous célébrons la Nakbah faute de quoi nous oublierions l'immensité du crime, résumé en quelques paragraphes dans les résolutions des Nations Unies qui se sont succédé (191, 242, 338, 1401) et la saga continue.

Souvenons-nous de la Nakbah

Les camps de réfugiés du Liban, de Syrie, de Jordanie, de Cisjordanie et de Gaza jalonnent un champ de bataille déserté. Il semble que le fait de passer des tentes à des abris de fortune corresponde au cycle d'évolution d'un camp de réfugiés palestiniens surpeuplé. Pour beaucoup, cela rappelle constamment que quelque chose de temporaire peut durer longtemps, toute une vie pour certains. Nous célébrons la Nakbah afin de mieux comprendre ce qui se passe aujourd'hui. De Madrid à Oslo et à Charm el Sheikh, de Wye River à Camp David II et de Ramallah à Jénine: points de transit obligatoires pour une nation en quête de salut et de justice. Pour autant, la justice a encore son mot à dire. Le crime n'est pas encore consommé et il semble qu'il soit impossible de faire coexister la terre et la paix. C'est comme si on essayait d'extraire l'humidité d'une poignée de sable sec en serrant fortement le poing. La mort se niche donc sur la Terre des prophètes et chacun est hanté par cette malédiction.

Le peuple palestinien est victime d'un arrangement politique hors normes qui le laisse dépourvu. Pourtant c'est sa créativité, son ingéniosité, sa détermination et son romantisme pur qui l'a maintenu en vie dans les guerres froides comme dans les conflits actifs, dans l'exil et la dépossession, pendant les sièges et les assassinats. Son amour pour la Palestine est devenu son arme la plus puissante -- sa seule arme. Actuellement, il survit en tant que nation parce que tous rêvent de la même chose quand ils s'endorment. Une Maman palestinienne ne peut-elle pas raconter à ses enfants des histoires à propos de la mer à Jaffa et des vignobles d'Hébron? Un petit Palestinien ne peut-il pas s'asseoir sur un rocher et regarder au loin pour apercevoir les minarets et les clochers de Jérusalem ?

La Nakbah est inscrite dans notre mémoire collective. Elle est gravée dans notre conscience, peu importe où nous sommes et ce que nous sommes devenus. Rien ne peut changer ça et rien ne le fera. Mais, au-delà des souvenirs, il nous faut apprendre à regarder autrement le champ de bataille qui nous hante et à le respecter. Les courants sous-jacents qui avaient constitué la Nakbah et en font un élément ineffaçable de notre Histoire existent encore aujourd'hui. Il nous faut apprendre à dépasser l'opprobre de ce cataclysme et commencer à en inverser les effets. Les germes de cette prise de conscience devraient être semés sur l'immense terrain de la défaite car ce n'est qu'à cette condition que l'espoir deviendra réalité.

16 mai 2002, AL-AWDA-News. traduction: <[email protected]>

<http://www.arabia.com/news/article/english/0,11827,202913,00.html?IE=H1>

L'ÉCHEC PROFOND DE LA PROPAGANDE ISRAÉLIENNE, EXPLIQUÉ PAR UN PROPAGANDISTE

Tout témoigne de la naissance d'un antisémitisme de gauche comme d'un antisémitisme musulman,
de la "durbanisation" des esprits

Interview de François Zimmeray, député européen socialiste français, par Nicole Leibowitz

 

Vous êtes député socialiste européen et vous faites partie, au sein du Parlement européen, de la Commission des Affaires étrangères et de la Défense. Vous participez donc à nombre de débats parlementaires, lesquels réunissent toutes les familles politiques. Quelle est l'attitude des différents groupes par rapport au conflit moyen-oriental ?

C'est clair: tous les pays de l'Union européenne, toutes les tendances politiques à commencer par la gauche sont unanimes dans la réprobation de l'État d'Israël. Les Quinze sont au même diapason, à l'exception peut être de l'Allemagne. Et encore ! Certes, au niveau gouvernemental, elle se comporte bien, mais le groupe parlementaire allemand est totalement décomplexé par rapport au passé; il se montre même particulièrement virulent à l'égard d'Israël. Nombre de gens en France pensent que cette hostilité est le monopole du Quai d'Orsay. Malheureusement, je crains que le phénomène ne devienne mondial. Nous sommes entrés dans ce que j'appelle la " durbanisation des esprits ".

 

Comment, selon vous, s'explique cette situation ?

Par essence, l'État juif insupporte aujourd'hui comme la présence juive insupportait naguère en Europe. Le phénomène est évidemment lié à l'antisémitisme et à ce que les juifs ont de singulier: d'une part, le rapport qu'ils entretiennent à la loi qui leur est propre n'est pas compris; d'autre part, ils sont les témoins d'une mémoire commune, enfouie et, par essence, non assumée. Depuis Durban, un phénomène est apparu, lâche et pervers, qui consiste à faire d'Israël le bouc émissaire du mal développement. Ce que nous venons de vivre à Karachi, comme ce que nous avons vécu le 11 septembre, était à mes yeux déjà contenu dans Durban. Durban préfigure un phénomène durable, profond, donc tragique. Il faudra se battre beaucoup pour qu'Israël ne fasse pas les frais des colères du sud conjuguées aux lâchetés du nord.

Hannah Arendt a été la première à dénoncer ce qu'elle a appelé "la banalité du mal". Ne sommes-nous pas exactement dans cette logique-là ?

Il me semble bien que oui. Nous venons de vivre dans le monde deux années de coups et blessures contre des personnes parce qu'elles sont juives. Deux années écoulées dans le silence avant qu'une molle prise de conscience médiatique et politique semble enfin s'opérer. On voit à quel point le mal est profond. Et surtout combien tout témoigne d'un antisémitisme de droite et, plus encore, de la naissance d'un antisémitisme de gauche comme d'un antisémitisme musulman. Les propos tenus par José Bové me semblent pour le moins tout autant répréhensibles que certains propos de Le Pen. Cet antisémitisme de gauche, déguisé en antisionisme, sévit aujourd'hui en France dans tous les partis de gauche,à commencer par les Verts. Malheureusement, le PS n'en est pas exclu. Mais personne ne semble prêt à le dénoncer Nous sommes dans une situation inédite et paradoxale, puisque l'on peut constater que la France est, à l'heure actuelle, et antiraciste et antisémite. Cependant, il faut préciser, pour être tout à fait juste, que la dimension du phénomène est avant tout internationale. D'autres pays ont moins d'anticorps que la France. Je pense particulièrement à la Belgique où l'antisémitisme s'étale dans les colonnes des journaux, je pense au Danemark, à l'Espagne encore où les choses vont très mal également.

Il y a quelques semaines, le Parlement européen votait un projet de résolution sanctionnant Israël. Résolution très grave puisqu'elle demandait la rupture de l'accord d'association Europe-Israël. Cette démarche-là s'inscrit-elle, selon vous, dans le processus que vous venez de décrire ?

Tout d'abord, il faut que vous sachiez à quel point la situation serait grave pour Israël si cette résolution était adoptée puisque l'Europe est le premier partenaire économique d'Israël. A ce sujet, il s'est engagé au cours de la session parlementaire un combat acharné. Pour ma part, je l'ai mené avec les armes que j'avais. Comme la délégation socialiste française était partagée, j'ai demandé que nos positions soient tranchées par un vote. En un premier temps, une majorité s'est dégagée contre la résolution. Le lendemain matin, changement de cap, la résolution a finalement été adoptée par 269 voix contre 208 et 22 abstentions. La délégation française, alors que rien n'était prévu après le premier vote, avait jugé bon de se réunir de nouveau et avait pris une position contraire. Michel Rocard a même expliqué pourquoi il avait finalement voté cette sanction. Mais je ne voudrais pas lui imputer la responsabilité de ce retournement du PS -- il y a tout de même eu 269 votes en faveur de la sanction. C'est d'autant plus inquiétant car elle a été votée, à les écouter, par une majorité "d'authentiques amis d'Israël".

Ces "amis d'Israël" ne se sont pas élevés non plus contre les attentats antisémites qui, depuis de nombreux mois, se sont multipliés en France et en Belgique.

Ces attentats ne sont pas perçus, même par les plus hauts responsables, comme des faits politiques graves -- mais plutôt comme des manifestations d'houliganisme communautaire. La gravité réelle et symbolique de ces attentats n'a donc été relevée nulle part et l'on peut constater à quel point ils émeuvent moins que les souffrances des Palestiniens. Cela se passe pourtant sur le sol européen, cela concerne pourtant l'Europe. Là-dessus, les socialistes européens devraient être en pointe, les Quinze devraient prendre des résolutions. Mais tout le monde se tait.

Le PS français d'aujourd'hui n'est plus celui de Jaurès, de Blum et de Mendès France. Au niveau européen, la situation est pire encore. Nous vivons dans des démocraties où les images pèsent plus que la mise en perspective des choses. L'image d'un Goliath israélien contre un David palestinien est plus forte que toutes les explications. N'a-t-on pas trouvé à Jénine et à Ramallah des éléments édifiants sur la culpabilité de l'Autorité palestinienne ? Je suis effaré de voir comment Arafat est béatifié alors que toutes les traces de sa culpabilité apparaissent au grand jour -- je pense en particulier aux documents comptables signés de sa main qui montrent son implication directe dans les attentats-suicides.

 

Chris Patten, Commissaire européen aux Affaires extérieures, déclarait encore récemment, alors qu'il est précisément, en possession de ces documents, que si la preuve de leur véracité est avérée, alors Autrement dit, il réclame la preuve, de la preuvedes choses. C'est un cercle infernal.

Avec beaucoup d'arrogance, Patten manie la langue de bois. Il a vraiment beaucoup de mal à se départir de sa perruque de gouverneur de Hong-Kong et c'est avec morgue qu'il aborde la question du Moyen-Orient. Ne répond-il pas, par exemple, que l'Europe n'y est pour rien dans l'éducation des enfants palestiniens car "si l'Europe finance les salaires des enseignants et les bibliothèques palestiniennes, elle ne finance pas l'impression des manuels scolaires antisémites ?

 

Chaque citoyen européen peut logiquement s'alarmer de cette Europe oublieuse de l'essentiel pour son avenir.

Si l'Europe ne reste qu'une zone de libre échange, où les citoyens sont d'abord soumis à une monnaie unique et où les valeurs communes sont niées, alors oui, il y a vraiment de quoi s'alarmer. Cette Europe-là ne sera qu'un château de sable, loin, bien loin de celle de Victor Hugo et de celle des Lumières. En marge des questions moyen-orientales, j'ai tenté de lancer l'initiative "Stefan Zweig" afin que soit dispensé dans les quinze pays de l'UE un même enseignement sur la Shoah. Que quelques pages communes figurent dans chaque manuel d'histoire. Malheureusement, on m'a accusé de vouloir homogénéiser l'histoire comme on a homogénéisé le cacao. Il y a beaucoup à faire pour convaincre !

proche-orient.info. Nicole Leibowitz: <[email protected]>
<http://www.proche-orient.info/xjournal_racism_int.php3?id_article=1147>

MASSACRER TOUJOURS MIEUX

Tsahal inadaptée à la guerre antiterroriste

L'armée israélienne manque, selon des généraux, des moyens nécessaires pour lutter contre les guérilleros et autres kamikazes, explique la revue américaine Aviation Week and Space Technology.

Au travers des opérations menées récemment dans les territoires palestiniens, les forces armées israéliennes se découvrent des faiblesses et des manques en matière de combats de rue. La revue spécialisée américaine Aviation Week and Space Technology (AWST) en a recensé plusieurs exemples après avoir interrogé des experts israéliens parmi lesquels Dan Meridor, ministre sans portefeuille auprès du premier ministre Ariel Sharon, le général Dani Haloutz, chef d'état-major de l'armée de l'air israélienne, ou le général Samuel Yachin, directeur de la recherche et du développement au ministère de la défense. Il apparaît que "l'armée israélienne est bonne à gagner des guerres" face à des armées de pays agresseurs, alors qu'"elle n'a jamais été préparée à lutter contre des kamikazes qui se bardent d'explosifs".

Contre des guérilleros, des irréguliers ou des attaquants décidés à se donner la mort, qui s'en prennent à des cibles non militaires, Tsahal est dépourvue de moyens adéquats. "Chaque rue, chaque maison, constate le général Yachin, deviennent des pièges, de sorte que le moindre mètre à franchir est coûteux en vies de soldats pour un pays qui ne peut s'offrir le luxe d'en perdre beaucoup."

Conclusion générale : "Il y a trop peu d'hélicoptères et d'avions sans pilote", fait dire AWST à ses interlocuteurs, qui parlent de "handicaps" et de "carences". Il faut au plus vite des hélicoptères d'assaut Black Hawk UH-60 supplémentaires, à condition de les équiper de missiles air-sol dont "la puissance de feu devra être plus musclée que celle des avions de combat". Un avion F-16 provoquera moins de "dégâts collatéraux" qu'une pièce d'artillerie ou le canon d'un char, mais "il est moins précis qu'un hélicoptère". De même, les avions sans pilote, ou drones, doivent être armés et le délai entre le repérage de l'objectif et le tir doit être raccourci. Les généraux réclament des drones Searcher 2 améliorés (175 kg de charge militaire pour des missions de 16 heures) et Hermes 450 ou 1 500 (375 kg de charge pour 18 à 24 heures d'endurance), en attendant, dans cinq à dix ans, le "fin du fin", le Heron, qui aura la taille d'un F-16 et embarquera 750 kg de charge pour des missions de plus de 24 heures.

Limitations budgétaires

Autre enseignement : "L'armée israélienne est à court d'armements air-sol guidés avec précision à l'impact et fonctionnant par tous les temps". Les F-15 et F-16 en service ne permettent pas de "placer un missile à longue distance par la fenêtre d'un immeuble" visé. Pas davantage, ils ne garantissent au gouvernement, qui a approuvé la mission, et aux aviateurs, qui l'exécutent, de pouvoir lancer "des bombes de 250 et 500 kg avec un minimum de dégâts collatéraux" conformément aux consignes de sécurité données au départ.

Il est une autre leçon sur laquelle AWST se révèle moins disert. A en croire les généraux israéliens cependant, "il existe une pénurie de systèmes de reconnaissance" censés recueillir du renseignement et contrôler un espace à surveiller, "particulièrement dans les zones urbaines". L'idée pourrait être d'acheter des avions spécialisés ou de permettre à l'industrie israélienne d'en construire sur la base des avions de liaison Gulfstream V qui sont à usage commercial.

"Les dirigeants israéliens, observe la revue américaine, expliquent que leur nouvelle ambition, en dépit d'une augmentation du budget de la défense pour les deux années prochaines, va les inciter à ajuster leurs priorités financières de façon à être capables de mener des combats aux frontières du pays en même temps qu'au-delà de son horizon, voire à des milliers de kilomètres."M. Meridor reconnaît que ce sera difficile, vu les problèmes économiques du pays qui limitent la ponction fiscale, mais "Israël ne peut pas, aujourd'hui, réduire ses dépenses militaires".

Jacques Isnard

www.AviationNow.com/awst

Le Monde, 29 mai 2002

Nous sommes donc allés chercher cet intéressant article:

Israel Refocuses On Urban Warfare

By David A. Fulghum and Robert Wall

Jerusalem -- The world's military leaders are watching closely as Israel becomes one of the few organized armies to commit itself to prolonged, large-scale urban warfare, a nightmare that haunts defense planners.

UAVs and helicopters, underrated in the past, have quickly proven themselves the Israel Defense Force's (IDF's) most valuable assets in a war where the deadliest fighting has occurred in the rabbit warren of narrow streets and randomly stacked apartment houses of the West Bank cities and Palestinian refugee camps in Israeli-occupied territory.

Top Israeli officials candidly admit they had been planning for the wrong next war. It is now obvious, they say, that they made a mistake in ignoring the specter of urban combat while focusing for years almost exclusively on armored warfare and fielding long-range intelligence-gathering and manned strike systems.

Two years ago, Israel formulated its defense plans based on threats from the second and third ring of countries beyond its borders, such as Iran and Iraq, where long-range missiles and weapons of mass destruction were being developed. Now military leaders find themselves embroiled in a war -- often referred to as the "second intifada" -- against irregulars, guerrillas and suicide bombers who regularly strike at nonmilitary targets, often inside Israel's borders, and hide within the closely packed Palestinian villages of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

"With all the vast [Israeli military] investment, all of a sudden you are faced with a problem you never had before," said Dan Meridor, minister without portfolio with responsibilities for national defense and diplomatic strategy in the office of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. "We have a good army that wins wars, but we never prepared for people [who wrapped themselves] with explosives," he said.

The battle in the Palestinian refugee camp in Jenin may prove a seminal event for restructuring the IDF. In the attack, Israeli forces were squeezed into small, confined areas and funneled through a few obvious routes where they were predictably ambushed.

"We didn't want to level the whole area, but I don't think anyone in history [faced a battle where] every street and every house was booby-trapped," said Brig. Gen. Shmuel Yachin, acting director for research and development in the Ministry of Defense. "[The Palestinian militants] knew we would go toward the terrorist camp, so every few meters there was another booby trap or explosive."

Israeli commanders appear to be planning for more urban combat following the latest bombing attack against Israeli civilians. Both Western and Palestinian leaders believe Gaza will be the next target of an IDF attack to root out militant groups.

While space-based surveillance, standoff weapons, aerial refuelers and sophisticated new intelligence-gathering aircraft are still on Israel's shopping list and the missile threat remains, planners are now rapidly shifting their focus. After 20 months of combat against elusive irregular forces and more than a month of particularly lethal urban fighting, Israeli strategists are accelerating the development and procurement of unmanned aircraft and helicopters, and they are calling for more all-weather, air-launched precision weapons.

"An F-16 with a guided bomb will create less collateral damage than artillery, tanks or combat engineers with explosives," said Maj. Gen. Dani Haloutz, commander of the Israel Air Force. In addition, IAF operational experts found that for this type of combat, the helicopter is more precise.

As in any new type of conflict, finding the right array of technologies hasn't been easy. "We have some leads, but I don't think anyone in the world has a solution," Yachin said.

High on the list of favored options are UAVs. "[They] have a major role in short-distance conflicts," Haloutz said. "They give us the ability to use power more effectively. Out of the lesson-gathering [after the fighting in Jenin and other West Bank cities], we've decided to increase the quantities of several types." Some will have "unique capabilities, not only visint [visual intelligence] but other means as well such as synthetic aperture radar and signals intelligence." But the major difference in the various designs will be their loiter time, he said.

The current array of UAVs plus new lines of unmanned aircraft with even larger payload and longer endurance are being demanded to conduct more continuous patrols of Israel's borders, isolated settlements and potential flash points.

Helicopters fly slow enough to use their cannon and lightweight missiles with enough precision to target individual rooms or even windows in a large house. This precision has been enhanced by a system developed by the Israelis that divides the urban battlefield into precise increments and gives each building in a city such as Jenin an individual four-digit designation so both land and air forces know exactly which target they are trying to hit.

THE COMBINATION of UAVs and helicopters proved crucial in extricating IDF soldiers caught in what the Israelis describe as the cross fire and the network of booby traps that lined the few obvious approaches into the confined inner cores of Jenin, Nablus, Bethlehem and other West Bank cities. There the Israel Air Force's F-16s and precision-bombing F-15Is could not provide the long, close look needed to put missiles in the particular window of a target building. Nor could their 500- or 1,000-lb. bombs ensure the minimum collateral damage that both Israeli aviators who flew the missions and government officials who approved them say their rules of engagement demanded.

Instead, Israel's combat forces relied on the small warheads carried by Hellfire and TOW missiles and helicopter-mounted 20-mm. cannon to support the building-to-building, room-to-room fight conducted in the heart of West Bank cities.

UAVs and helicopters with precise munitions were able to put their fire into "cars, windows and rooms to avoid mass destruction," said Brig. Gen. (ret.) Kuti Mor, deputy director general for defense policy planning and foreign affairs. "It was our policy not to use the [fixed-wing] combat air forces" in order to limit collateral damage.

Despite their efforts to improvise a specialized force, the fighting quickly revealed weaknesses in the Israelis' weapons of choice:

-- There were too few UAVs and helicopters. A new flight of longer range, higher altitude UAVs is now being test flown prior to their introduction into operations, and a second squadron of UH-60s will soon be operational. UAVs are considered especially important. "We have a handicap," Meridor said. "We can't afford to lose people. Unmanned is important."

-- The UAVs were unarmed, which slowed the flow of target information from sensor to shooter, although Israeli planners say that will be remedied before long.

-- A second squadron of UH-60s are being hurried into operational use, but IAF planners discovered the Black Hawks, like some other types, are handicapped by not being equipped to carry missiles. Their large load-carrying ability could substantially beef up firepower of the rotary-wing force.

-- Operational weapons for the helicopters have been overly specialized for the antiarmor fight which makes them less effective for urban operations.

-- The IAF has a shortage of all-weather precision air-to-ground weapons.

-- It also has a shortage of intelligence-gathering, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) systems, particularly those that could be effective in built-up urban areas. Part of the solution is to field more UAVs and purchase additional manned ISR aircraft such as the new IAF design based on the Gulfstream V aircraft.

Israeli leaders say their new focus, despite an increased defense budget for at least the next two years, will cause them to adjust their spending priorities to ensure they can adequately fight the battle at home as well as a battle that is a thousand kilometers or more beyond the horizon. Finding the additional funding is causing problems. Israel's budget is already under attack because of economic problems that cut tax revenues. But Meridor insists that "we can't reduce the defense budget now."

THE NEAR-TERM budgetary change is an extension in maintaining defense spending at 10% of the nation's gross domestic product and an increase in spending of $2.7 billion during the next 1.5 years. Army forces will be maintained at the present level, but Israel will recruit five more companies of border police, Meridor said.

Undermining spending on technology is the need to pay for personnel expenses. In addition to unexpected spending to pay for the active duty assignments of large numbers of reserves, the military budget is used to support families of soldiers who have died in combat in all of Israel's wars. Just in recent months that bill has grown with the death of more than 100 soldiers, noted a defense ministry official.

Overall, military spending and weapons development will be "half in the present and half in the future," Meridor said. "The pace is accelerating." He predicted more technological cooperation with other countries, particularly the U.S. Israel won't spend its research and development funds in areas where others are heavily invested. Where there is a convergence of interests and threats, "It's stupid to develop the same things," he said.

Aviation Week and Space Technology

<http://www.AviationNow.com/avnow/autonomy_samples/autonomysuggest/autosuggest.jsp?docid=89034&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.aviationnow.com%2Fcontent%2Fpublication%2Fawst%2F20020513%2Favi_news.htm>

LES COLONIES, CHAMPIGNONS VÉNÉNEUX

Il faut lire le rapport publié en mai par l'organisation humanitaire israélienne B'Tselem qui fait toujours un excellent travail d'analyse et de dévoilement des politiques gouvernementales. Ce rapport s'intitule "Accaparement du sol: la politique de colonisation sur la Rive Gauche [du Jourdain] (Land Grab: Israel's Settlement Policy in the West Bank). On le trouve (en anglais) sur le site

<http://www.btselem.org> ou directement à:

<http : //www.infopal.org/docs/Land_Grab_2002.html>

Le document qui suit mentionne un appel d'offre, du 20 mai 2002, pour construire 957 logements dans les territoires occupés. Israël n'a jamais appliqué une quelconque des centaines de résolution de l'ONU lui enjoignant de cesser la colonisation illégale de la Cisjordanie.

Tenders Issued for 957 Housing Units in the Settlements

 

PeaceNow, May 20, 2002. Israeli Government tenders have been issued for the construction of 957 family housing units in the Israeli settlements in the West Bank. The Ministry of housing issued tenders for 76 land plots in Geva-Binyamin, 24 land plots and 315 apartments in the Givat Hazait neighborhood in Efrat, 244 apartments in Beitar Illit and 224 in Maale Edumim. Furthermore, the "Arim" governmental urban development corporation issued a tender for 74 land plots in Har Adar.

The original tenders can be viewed at:

[Housing Ministry] <http://www.peace-now.org/TendersMay16-2002.rtf>

[Arim] <www.peace-now.org/ArimTenderMay16-2002.jpg>

Defense Minister Ben-Eliezer is directly responsible for this latest wave of settlement expansion. Every approval of construction in the settlements must have the personal signature of the Defense Minister to be rendered valid. These tenders are only the latest example of the immense amount of settlement construction underway with Ben-Eliezer's approval :

- Tenders for 810 housing units were issued in 2001, all of them under the Sharon-Ben-Eliezer administration.

- A Peace Now aerial survey recently revealed that between the February 2001 elections and February 2002, 34 new settlement sites were established throughout the West Bank. Nothing has been done to remove any of the sites and the process is continuing unabated.

- On April 23 of this year, a tender was published for the construction of 31 new housing units in Maale Edumim.

- In late April, for the first time, a permit was issued for the construction of 16 housing units in the extremely problematic settlement of Tel-Rumeida in Hebron.

- Also in late April, work began on a new project totaling 480 housing units spread over 400 dunams in the settlement of Elkana.

Moria Shlomot, Director of Peace Now: "Ben-Eliezer's conduct on this issue raises serious questions concerning his integrity. He recently presented his 'peace plan'. The plan is exceedingly dovish and envisions a two-state solution based on the 1967 border. Apparently, it is not worth the paper it is written on. Not only is Ben-Eliezer continuing to serve in a government whose policies contradict the fundamental grain of the plan, he is also approving construction in settlements which supposedly would be part of the Palestinian State. By sponsoring massive settlement construction, Ben Eliezer, who would like to present himself as an alternative to Sharon, is once again proving that he is no better than the PM's and the settlers lackey. He is acting against the wishes of the vast majority of Israelis who support the dismantling of the settlements."

[see recent poll: <www.peace-now.org/Campaign2002/PollMay2002.rtf>

Further information: <[email protected]>

Les publications de B'Tselem

<http://www.btselem.org/English/Publications/index.asp>

CES GENS QUI HAÏSSENT L'HUMANITÉ

Israel imposes new control regime leading to long term bantustanization of the West Bank

 

In a renewed attempt to control the movement of Palestinians and suffocate all aspects of Palestinian life, Israel is set to divide the West Bank into eight isolated areas, introducing a new control regime in the West Bank. The Israeli army has already informed international representatives and consulates that they intend to divide the West Bank into eight separate areas ; Jenin, Nablus, Tulkarem, Qalqilya, Ramallah, Jericho, Bethlehem and Hebron. Movement of people and transportation of goods between these areas will be subject to a personal permit system and will be enforced through the already exiting network of Israeli military checkpoints and roadblocks.

This territorial division is a further development of the closure and siege policy that has been imposed on the Palestinians since the outbreak of the current Intifada. During the last 19 months, the closure and siege has had severe effects on the Palestinian economy and the humanitarian situation. Several communities have been completely isolated and deprived of basic services from nearby town centres. A high number of Palestinians have died when held up at roadblocks on the way to hospitals or shot by Israeli soldiers enforcing the closure. With a permanent division of the West Bank enforced through military checkpoints, the lives of the civilian population will continue to be jeopardized and dictated by Israeli soldiers.

The Israeli intention to impose this apartheid like system is one of the latest Israeli unilateral measures aimed at consolidating the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories. It will completely paralyse the Palestinian economy and the already limited movement of people within the West Bank with severe effects on social, administrative and educational aspects of Palestinian life.

The Palestine Monitor, A PNGO Information Clearinghouse. May 21th, 2002.

For more information contact The Palestine Monitor +972 2 2985372 or +972 (0)67-325418 and see <www.palestinemonitor.org>

TSAHAL OU LE MENSONGE ORGANISÉ

Excavations in the Spokesman's Site

 

B. Michael

 

Still, some cracks do surface on occasion, soon to be fixed: Today's New York Times runs a story of a new State Department report, that has found "no conclusive evidence" that Yasir Arafat or other senior Palestinian leaders planned or approved specific terrorist attacks on Israel in the six months that ended in December. This assertion, the reporter notes, is "sharply at odds with recent Israeli Claims". Israel has indeed argued that documents captured in the recent operation prove beyond any reasonable doubt that Arafat gave direct orders, and made direct payments, to terrorist acts. Yet, as veteran commentator B. Michael, who has followed this affair closely, noted almost a month ago, such evidence is not at hand. I have translated his excellent article, Excavations in the Spokesman's Site (Yediot Aharonot, April 26) as it reached the same conclusions as State. Importantly, he made no use of secret documents, but merely monitored the IDF (Israel Defense Force, c'est l'armée) website.

It seems that in order to justify the effort to shatter, above all, the PA (Palestinian Authority) and its institutions, the need arose to aggrandize its terrorist image, to make one big mishmash or PA-Islamic Jihad-Hamas-Tanzim-Fatah, and create a picture of an octopus of terrorism of the PA, and Arafat as its centerpiece. The IDF spokesman was also recruited to this mission, and he harnessed his website for itIf you surf superficially over the full pages, it seems a well-constructed site, faithfully serving its master's voice. Excavate deeper, and you will make a fascinating discovery: The whole site is constructed as if the IDF spokesman was convinced that no one would bother to read the documents themselves, and that all would only read its learned interpretation, presumably based on the "captured documents". Yet, if you surrender to your natural suspiciousness, and insist on reading the full documents, you will find a very different picture. Actually, not just different, but truly opposite. Here is a handful, a tiny bit, of the stunning gap between text and interpretation.

We begin with some negligible pieces of trivia:

1. How much explosive material did the IDF discover in the territories it conquered ? If you look at the bombastic declaration, you get the impression that huge quantities are at issue. If you listen to the Minister of Defense you think that hundreds of tons were found. More modest officers and journalists sufficed themselves with tens of tons. Yet if you bother to look at the document in which the spokesman provides updated details, you will discover that throughout the operation, 30 kilos were found. Thirty. Kilos. Like a bag and a half of potatoes. Is somebody talking nonsense here ? The spokesman ? The Minister ? The media ?

2. How many fighters of Fatah (and whatever other types) were there in Tul-Karem and Jenin ? If you demand no more than learned commentary, you will learn from the lines and from between them that at issue are cities swarming with multitudes of Fatah and Tanzim murderers. If you bother to read the [captured] intelligence reports of the PA you will be astonished to discover that the number of weapon holders of Fatah in Tul-Karem and the refugee camp is 15-20. If your read further, you will learn that half of them refuse to operate, the rest are not under anyone's control, and even between those, there are parasites who only sport arms and make trouble. I didn't say that, it's the PA's intelligence. Another document reveals that throughout the Jenin region, there were 63 Al-Aqsa people.

3. Were Tanzim terrorist acts funded by the PA ? According to the commentary, yes; by the documents, NO. The funding documents are nothing but a collection of complaints about the stingy PA that provides no resources to Tanzim fighters, expressions of jealousy of the wealthy Jihad and Hamas, stories about poor terrorists forced to purchase weapons by selling thei wives' jewelery (no need to burst into tears of pity at this point), and hidden threats that a continued monetary drought would make PA personnel defect to Jihad and Hamas. The documents show that they got nothing from the PA.

4. Did Arafat approve of the transfer of funds to suicide bombers ? If you only taste regurgitated texts, you are welcome to conclude that he did. If you read the documents, you will find no sign of it. All the documents in which Arafat approves sad payments to PLO and Tanzim personnel (in themselves as surprising as a discover that a head of a political party approves payments to its members) come from dates that are months earlier than Tanzim's first suicide bombing. Not one document shows what is claimed, and it is clear that if one was available, the IDF spokesman would have publicized it widely.

5. Was there cooperation between the PA, Jihad and Hamas ? If you surf on the site's waves, you are left with no doubt: cooperation was full; if you dive into the depth of the documents, you discover the absolute opposite. These are clearly reports of PA planted spies, who report to their superiors about the snitches who have infiltrated into their ranks, about collaborators with Hamas and Jihad who disturb the PA intelligence, and on Jihad people who pretend to be PA. If you read all the documents, you are left without the slightest doubt about the nature of the relationship between the PA, Jihad and Hamas: These are bitter rivals, sometimes even real enemies. The use of such documents to prove cooperation between the PA and Hamas is on a par with waving an IDF document that exposes a soldier who sold a weapon for a Hamasnik, and argue that the IDF cooperates with Hamas.

The "Tul-Karem" document, revealed Akiva Eldar in Ha'aretz, contained a translation error which distorted the meaning of a sentence so that it fit the desired message better. Two days after this discovery, a "corrected" version of the document was loaded up. The error remained, yet the whole document underwent chopping, pruning, cutting and reshaping that wouldn't embarrass a beginning clerk in a Soviet encyclopedia, and all that without even mentioning that the document is by no means complete, but rather, an edited, refurbished one. I could bring more examples and quotes, yet space is limited and the choices are hard. This is not to mean that Fatah and Tanzim are Zionist charities, just to wonder about the IDF spokesman who let himself take part in such a transparent web of propaganda, whose sole goal is to create a false picture that the grinding of the PA was a security necessity, not just a political whim. The past 18 months have not added much to the credibility of the IDF; this site adds little dignity to it.

Yediot Aharonot, April 26. Traduction Yosef Grodzinsky.

Extrait:Sun, 19 May 2002 Gush Shalom <[email protected]>

Gush Shalom - POBox 3322, Tel-Aviv 61033 - <http : //www.gush-shalom.org/>

InfoPalestine 43

TESTER LES JOURNALISTES ?

A compliant press is preparing the ground for an all-out attack on Iraq.

It never mentions the victims: the young, the old and the vulnerable

John Pilger

 

The promised attack on Iraq will test free journalism as never before. The prevailing media orthodoxy is that the attack is only a matter of time. "The arguments may already be over," says the Observer, "Bush and Blair have made it clear ..." The beating of war drums is so familiar that the echo of the last round of media tom-toms is still heard, together with its self-serving "vindication" for having done the dirty work of great power, yet again.

I have been a reporter in too many places where public lies have disguised the culpability for great suffering, from Indochina to southern Africa, East Timor to Iraq, merely to turn the page or switch off the news-as-sermon, and accept that journalism has to be like this - "waiting outside closed doors to be lied to", as Russell Baker of the New York Times once put it. The honourable exceptions lift the spirits. One piece by Robert Fisk will do that, regardless of his subject. An eyewitness report from Palestine by Peter Beaumont in the Observer remains in the memory, as singular truth, along with Suzanne Goldenberg's brave work for the Guardian.

The pretenders, the voices of Murdochism and especially the liberal ciphers of rampant western power can rightly say that Pravda never published a Fisk. "How do you do it?" asked a Pravda editor, touring the US with other Soviet journalists at the height of the cold war. Having read all the papers and watched the TV, they were astonished to find that all the foreign news and opinions were more or less the same. "In our country, we put people in prison, we tear out their fingernails to achieve this result? What's your secret?"

The secret is the acceptance, often unconscious, of an imperial legacy: the unspoken rule of reporting whole societies in terms of their usefulness to western "interests" and of minimising and obfuscating the culpability of "our" crimes. "What are 'we' to do?" is the unerring media cry when it is rarely asked who "we" are and what "our" true agenda is, based on a history of conquest and violence. Liberal sensibilities may be offended, even shocked by modern imperial double standards, embodied in Blair; but the invisible boundaries of how they are reported are not in dispute. The trail of blood is seldom followed; the connections are not made; "our" criminals, who kill and collude in killing large numbers of human beings at a safe distance, are not named, apart from an occasional token, like Kissinger.

A long series of criminal operations by the American secret state, identified and documented, such as the conspiracy that oversaw the "forgotten" slaughter of up to a million people in Indonesia in 1965-66, amount to more deaths of innocent people than died in the Holocaust. But this is irrelevant to present-day reporting. The tutelage of hundreds of tyrants, murderers and torturers by "our" closest ally, including the training of Islamic jihad fanatics in CIA camps in Virginia and Pakistan, is of no consequence. The harbouring in the United States of more terrorists than probably anywhere on earth, including hijackers of aircraft and boats from Cuba, controllers of El Salvadorean death squads and politicians named by the United Nations as complicit in genocide, is clearly of no interest to those standing in front of the White House and reporting, with a straight face, "America's war on terrorism".

That George Bush Sr, former head of the CIA and president, is by any measure of international law one of the modern era's greatest prima facie war criminals, and his son's illegitimate administration a product of this dynastic mafia, is unmentionable.

The rest of the answer to the incredulous question raised by the Pravda editors in America is censorship by omission. Once vital information illuminates the true aims of the "national security state", the euphemism for the mafia state, it loses media "credibility" and is consigned to the margins, or oblivion. Thus, fake debates can be carried on in the British Sunday newspapers about whether "we" should attack Iraq. The debaters, often proud liberals with an equally proud record of supporting Washington's other invasions, guard the limits.

These "debates" are framed in such a way that Iraq is neither a country nor a community of 22 million human beings, but one man, Saddam Hussein. A picture of the fiendish tyrant almost always dominates the page. ("Should we go to war against this man?" asked last Sunday's Observer). To appreciate the power of this, replace the picture with a photograph of stricken Iraqi infants, and the headline with: "Should we go to war against these children?" Propaganda then becomes truth. Any attack on Iraq will be executed, we can rest assured, in the American way, with saturation cluster bombing and depleted uranium, and the victims will be the young, the old, the vulnerable, like the 5,000 civilians who are now reliably estimated to have been bombed to death in Afghanistan. As for the murderous Saddam Hussein, former friend of Bush Sr and Thatcher, his escape route is almost certainly assured.

The column inches now devoted to Iraq, often featuring unnamed manipulators and liars of the intelligence services, almost always omit one truth. This is the truth of the American- and British-driven embargo on Iraq, now in its 13th year. Hundreds of thousands of people, mostly children, have died as a consequence of this medieval siege. The worst, most tendentious journalism has sought to denigrate the scale of this crime, even calling the death of Iraqi infants a mere "statistical construct". The facts are documented in international study after study, from the United Nations to Harvard University. (For a digest of the facts, see Dr Eric Herring's Bristol University paper "Power, Propaganda and Indifference: an explanation of the continued imposition of economic sanctions on Iraq despite their human cost", available from <[email protected]>)

Among those now debating whether the Iraqi people should be cluster-bombed or not, incinerated or not, you are unlikely to find the names of Denis Halliday and Hans von Sponeck, who have done the most to break through the propaganda. No one knows the potential human cost better than they. As assistant secretary general of the UN, Halliday started the oil-for-food programme in Iraq. Von Sponeck was his successor. Eminent in their field of caring for other human beings, they resigned their long UN careers, calling the embargo "genocide".

Their last appearance in the press was in the Guardian last November, when they wrote: "The most recent report ofthe UN secretary general, in October 2001, says that the US and UK governments' blocking of $4bn of humanitarian supplies is by far the greatest constraint on the implementation of the oil-for-food programme. The report says that, in contrast, the Iraqi government's distribution of humanitarian supplies is fully satisfactory...The death of some 5-6,000 children a month is mostly due to contaminated water, lack of medicines and malnutrition. The US and UK governments' delayed clearance of equipment and materials is responsible for this tragedy, not Baghdad."

They are in no doubt that if Saddam Hussein saw advantage in deliberately denying his people humanitarian supplies, he would do so; but the UN, from the secretary general himself down, says that, while the regime could do more, it has not withheld supplies. Indeed, without Iraq's own rationing and distribution system, says the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, there would have been famine. Halliday and von Sponeck point out that the US and Britain are able to fend off criticism of sanctions with unsubstantiated stories that the regime is "punishing" its own people. If these stories are true, they say, why does America and Britain further punish them by deliberately withholding humanitarian supplies, such as vaccines, painkillers and cancer diagnostic equipment? This wanton blocking of UN-approved shipments is rarely reported in the British press. The figure is now almost $5bn in humanitarian-related supplies. Once again, the UN executive director of the oil-for-food programme has broken diplomatic silence to express "grave concern at the unprecedented surge in volume of holds placed on contracts [by the US]".

By ignoring or suppressing these facts, together with the scale of a four-year bombing campaign by American and British aircraft (in 1999/2000, according to the Pentagon, the US flew 24,000 "combat missions" over Iraq), journalists have prepared the ground for an all-out attack on Iraq. The official premise for this -- that Iraq still has weapons of mass destruction -- has not been questioned. In fact, in 1998, the UN reported that Iraq had complied with 90 per cent of its inspectors' demands. That the UN inspectors were not "expelled", but pulled out after American spies were found among them in preparation for an attack on Iraq, is almost never reported. Since then, the world's most sophisticated surveillance equipment has produced no real evidence that the regime has renewed its capacity to build weapons of mass destruction. "The real goal of attacking Iraq now," says Eric Herring, "is to replace Saddam Hussein with another compliant thug."

The attempts by journalists in the US and Britain, acting as channels for American intelligence, to connect Iraq to 11 September have also failed. The "Iraq connection" with anthrax has been shown to be rubbish; the culprit is almost certainly American. The rumour that an Iraqi intelligence official met Mohammed Atta, the 11 September hijacker, in Prague was exposed by Czech police as false. Yet press "investigations" that hint, beckon, erect a straw man or two, then draw back, while giving the reader the overall impression that Iraq requires a pasting, have become a kind of currency. One reporter added his "personal view" that "the use of force is both right and sensible". Will he be there when the clusters spray their bomblets?

Those who dare speak against this propaganda are abused as apologists for the tyrant. Two years ago, on a now infamous Newsnight, the precocious apostate Peter Hain was allowed to smear Denis Halliday, a man whose integrity is internationally renowned. Although dissent has broken through recently, especially in the Guardian, to its credit, that low point in British broadcasting set the tone. If the media pages did their job, they would set aside promoting the careers of media managers and challenge the orthodoxy of reporting a fraudulent "war on terrorism"; they owe that, at least, to aspiring young journalists. I recommend a new website edited by the writer David Edwards, whose factual, inquiring analysis of the reporting of Iraq, Afghanistan and other issues has already drawn the kind of defensive spleen that shows how unused to challenge and accountability much of journalism, especially that calling itself liberal, has become. The address is <www.medialens.org>.

It is time that three urgent issues became front-page news. The first is restraining Bush and his collaborator Blair from killing large numbers of people in Iraq. The second is an arms and military technology embargo applied throughout the Gulf and the Middle East; an embargo on both Iraq and Israel. The third is the ending of "our" siege of a people held hostage to cynical events over which they have no control.

New Statesman, 22 mars 2002

<http://pilger.carlton.com/print/100275>

PRENDRE LE PAIN DES ARABES

Ariel Sharon autorise la venue de 6000 ouvriers agricoles étrangers

Le Premier ministre a enjoint à l'Agence pour l'emploi de prendre les dispositions nécessaires à la venue de 6000 ouvriers agricoles étrangers supplémentaires. Il lui a également ordonné d'augmenter le contingent des ouvriers agricoles étrangers et de le porter à 28.000 personnes, conformément à une décision prise voilà plusieurs mois par le gouvernement. Ces décisions ont été rendues possibles par le limogeage des ministres de Shass qui freinaient l'importation de main d'oeuvre étrangère pour lutter contre le chômage et pour préserver le caractère juif du pays.

Arutz 7, 26 mai 2002.

FALSIFICATEURS

le lundi 27 mai à 20h30 une soirée consacrée à

Jean Genet et les Palestiniens

Cette soirée comportera une partie consacrée à des LECTURES de textes de Jean Genet par les comédiens du spectacle Les Paravents, actuellement mis en scène chez nous par Frédéric Fisbach :

 

Quatre heures à Chatila,

Le Captif amoureux,...

 

Ces lectures seront suivies d'un DEBAT animé par Dominique Vidal, rédacteur en chef adjoint au Monde Diplomatique en présence de : Leïla Chahid, représentante de l'Autorité Palestinienne en France, Albert Dichy, directeur littéraire de l'IMEC et responsable des archives Jean Genet

 

Plateforme des ONG françaises pour la Palestine, 14, passage Dubail, 75010 Paris

Est-ce que ces gens qui parlent au nom des Palestiniens auront dit que les Palestiniens ont coupé et censuré le texte de Genet, Quatre heures à Chatila ? On en doute énormément. Ceux qui voudraient avoir le texte complet devraient se reporter au seul endroit où il est disponible, le site solus <http://abbc;com/solus>

RAVE CONTRE L'OCCUPATION

Communiqué de La Paix Maintenant (Israël)

 

Jeudi 23 mai, de 18h à 23h, pour la première fois en Israël, un rave de protestation est organisé sur la place du Musée de Tel-Aviv. Des milliers de jeunes viendront "raver contre l'occupation", et réclamer la coexistence entre Juifs et Arabes, le retrait des Territoires occupés et le début d'une vie normale en Israël.

Des DJ's de premier plan et des musiciens, juifs et palestiniens, joueront de la musique entrecoupée de messages politiques. Du vidéo art, produit par de jeunes artistes, sera projeté sur de grands écrans. Au milieu de la soirée, la musique s'arrêtera, et une minute de silence sera observée, en mémoire des victimes des deux ôtés. Les organisateurs espèrent créer un effet "Woodstock", qui portera à la conscience du grand public le sentiment grandissant chez les jeunes Israéliens que leur avenir est en train d'être bradé.

"Un nombre croissant de jeunes Israéliens sentent qu'on leur dénie la possibilité de mener une vie normale, à cause d'une politique en laquelle ils ne croient pas. Nous refusons de croire que l'occupation et l'humiliation aient quoi que ce soit à voir avec notre existence et notre culture. Nous sentons le sol trembler sous nos pieds, mais nous ne pouvons pas nous exprimer à travers les manifestations traditionnelles de la gauche. Nous voulons être ceux qui font trembler le sol. Voilà pourquoi nous avons choisi de danser", disent les organisateurs.

Pour plus d'information, voir <http://www.therave.co.il>

<[email protected]> <[email protected]>

<http://www.solidarite-palestine.org/flh.gif>

ILS APPELLENT ÇA "LA GUERRE D'OSLO"

Waqf prepares to keep Temple Mount closed to Jews

 

The Temple Mount may soon become a battleground once again. Following a recent recommendation by the General Security Service (GSS) to re-open the site -- the holiest in the world for Jews -- to Jewish worshipers, Jerusalem Police Chief Mickey Levy said this week that the police are preparing for such an eventuality. In response, Adnan al-Husseini, head of the Moslem Waqf at the site, threatened that he would not allow non-Moslems to enter. "Only Palestinians will decide who will and who will not enter," he said. Jews have not been allowed to pray there for the past 20 months, since the beginning of the Oslo War.

Arutz 7, 27 mai 2002.

JANVIER ATTAQUE

L'attaque américaine pour chasser le président irakien Saddam Hussein du pouvoir pourrait avoir lieu l'hiver prochain. En témoigne la présentation de plans préliminaires par le commandant en chef des troupes américaines d'Afghanistan et d'Asie centrale, le général Tommy Franks, au président Bush au début de ce mois. En une, l'édition européenne du quotidien financier américain The Wall Street Journal titre que "les stratèges américains privilégient l'option d'une vaste invasion militaire". "Deux mois de préparation au moins et 200.000 hommes suffiraient à en finir avec Saddam Hussein." Mais les débats se poursuivent au Pentagone et à la Maison-Blanche avec un groupe de civils favorables à une coopération avec des troupes locales, comme en Afghanistan, impliquant un contingent de 10 000 soldats des forces spéciales seulement.

Néanmoins, selon le WSJ, "les partisans de l'invasion massive sont sur le point d'emporter la décision". Etant donné l'engagement des forces américaines dans la région du golfe Arabo-Persique et de l'Asie centrale, un redéploiement est en cours. En fait, le seul souci qui oblige les faucons américains à la retenue est la nécessité de récupérer leurs forces engagées en Afghanistan. Les stocks de drones de surveillance Predator, de matériel de communication et de missiles Hellfire font défaut, et cela "complique la mise en place d'une invasion massive de l'Irak à court terme".

28 mai Courrier International.com

<http://www.courrierinternational.com/actual/drapios/etats_unis.gif>

VANDALES

St Barbara of Aboud

By Israel Shamir

 

"Aboud is one of the prettiest Palestinian villages, strongly reminiscent of Tuscany. Its time-mellowed stone houses grow on the gentle hills. Vine climbs up their balconies, leafy fig trees provide shadow to its streets. The prosperity of this well-established village is seen in the spaciousness of the mansions, in the meticulously clean roads. The old men sit in a small and shady, walled enclosure, on the stone benches, like the aldermen of Ithaca gathered by young Telemachus. That is the biblical `gate of the city', or a diwan. Kids bring them coffee and fresh fruits. Local people are not the refugees of Gaza and Deheishe; here, as in a time warp, one can see the Holy Land as it should and could be.

Three millennia old Aboud received the faith of Christ from Christ himself, says the local tradition, and there is the church ready to prove it, one of the oldest on earth, built in the days of Constantine in the 4th century, or maybe even older, as some archaeologists claim. The church is a dainty thing, carefully restored and well taken care of. The Byzantine capitals of its columns bear the image of cross and palm branches. They recently discovered a plaque in old Aramaic script immured in the southern wall of the church.

Aboud has more than one church: there is a Catholic, a Greek Orthodox and an American-built Church of God. There is also a new mosque, as Christians and Muslims of the Holy Land live together in great harmony. On December 17th all of them, the Muslims and the Christians, go to venerate the village patron saint, St Barbara. She was a local girl who fell in love with a young Christian and was baptized. It happened in the rough days of Roman emperor Diocletian, and she was martyred in the persecutions. The ruins of the oldest Byzantine church of St Barbara are still seen on a hill a mile away from the village. At the foothill, there is her burial cave, and there the peasants lit their candles and ask their wishes to be fulfilled".

I wrote these lines above almost a year ago, when the Israeli army began its campaign of devastation in the hills of Western Samaria. Now, on 31 of May, they dynamited St Barbara, a rare relic of Christian past of the Holy Land. It was one of these bittersweet ruins of churches that still attract worshippers, together with St Anne of Safurie and Emmaus of Latrun. I do not know whether the sappers were the same soldiers who for proverbial forty days and forty nights, from Catholic to Orthodox Easter besieged the Nativity and whether they said the prescribed by Shulkhan Aruch blessing, Blessed you are, God of Israel, the Prince of the World, Who destroys the temples of Goyyim. I have no doubt this destruction is connected with Bethlehem siege: it passed so quietly, with so little attention, that it would be strange not to continue.

My friend Miriam Reik from New York, a wonderful person and a friend of Palestine, wrote to me, "I intuit that you are writing a piece about this example of replacing the Judaic paradigm of revenge for the Christian one of sacrifice and redemption but don't. That's not what it's about - it's about destroying everything meaningful".

For a change, I am going to agree with Miriam. It is true, the Jews can't stop trying to undo Christianity. Our worst enemy is the Church, wrote Freud, and Gretz the historian seconded, Christianity must be destroyed. It is better to serve Hitler than Christ, concluded the most prominent modern Jewish Israeli theologian. One can quote hundreds of such one-liners, but Miriam is still right: they indeed destroy everything meaningful.

Not only churches. In nearby Nablus, they destroyed the Green Mosque, the oldest extant building, build above the cave where Jacob lamented his lost son Joseph. One of the great shrines of Palestine, contemporary with St Barbara, it was a Byzantine church, and later served as a Samaritan synagogue, the centre of worship for local Israelites-not-Jews. Samaritan priests pointed it out to me. A holy place is always attended in the Holy Land, and it again was converted to a church and beautified by Queen Melisende, the pious flirt and the builder of the Holy Sepulchre. It reverted to a mosque eight hundred years ago, when the cathedrals of Chartres and Köln were erected. The mosque celebrated its fifteen hundred years anniversary, when an Israeli tank ravaged it. Just to show their impartiality, they also bombed St Philip Episcopal church in Nablus and put under curfew St Luke Hospital.

Some traditional old-fashioned anti-Semite would see it as a sign of hatred to Gentiles in toto. But Miriam is right. They destroy everything. In Jerusalem there was a great spring, the biggest spring of Highlands. It gave birth to Jerusalem, and it is the reason for the city's existence. It has a plethora of names: Gihon (in the Bible), Ein Sittna Miriam, after the Virgin, Ein Silwan, as the nearby village.

Many events are connected with this living spring. King David's soldiers climbed up its pier, Jesus healed blind men at its pool, King Hezekiah bored a half-kilometre long tunnel to keep its waters within the walls, away from the reach of Assyrian army. It is forever venerated, and an old mosque stands at its lower exit. Many times in the hot days of July I waded breast-deep the tunnel's cool length, drinking its sweet water and biding time to emerge at the fig tree above broken Roman columns of the pool.

Then, over a year ago, Ehud Olmert, self-styled `Mayor' of Jerusalem, the great destroyer of Palestinian homes, seized the spring. He locked the entrance, put a Russian guard, a few soldiers, and transferred it lock, stock and barrel to settlers. The Palestinians were not allowed to approach it anymore. Nowadays, the Gihon spring is dead. Instead of pure water, sewage of the city flows by its tall tunnel. It joined many other springs of Palestine. Some were fenced, others covered with concrete, some eliminated by pumping stations, and others poisoned by sewage, all killed by the Jews.

I hear voice, Oh no, say: Zionists! I would, but it seems unfair to the Jewish people abroad. They work so hard, they demonstrate in support of Israel everywhere from Brussels to San Francisco, they collect funds for Israeli soldiers, they sue everybody who supports Palestine, they keep news about blown up Byzantine churches out of your newspapers don't you think they deserve to be considered as full-blown partners in the Zionist enterprise?

- "They make life so miserable that the Palestinians will leave", wrote ever-so rational Miriam. Here I tend to disagree. A year ago, I saw just outside the village of Aboud two giant American-built Caterpillar bulldozers slowly devouring the olive trees. "They were huge, covered from every side by armour plates. They appeared impregnable, like moving fortresses. They towered above the landscape as the mechanical monsters of Evil Empire attacking Ewocks". That is their purpose: to destroy. Not just churches, not only mosques, but everything alive, from olive to spring, as their service to the Faceless Destroyer. Expulsion of Palestinians is a part of the task, as Palestine can not survive without Palestinians. It will wither, as sure as the spring of Gihon did. Forget the line, `Palestine next to the Jewish state'; it is `the Jewish state or Palestine, for native and adopted Palestinians'.

A few days ago, the lady wife and guiding light of Conrad Black, Barbara Amiel, whined, "the Jews and Israel are increasingly presented as Evil Empire". Well, dear Ms Amiel, Israel and the Jews are not the Evil Empire, but they will do, until real Evil Empire will show up.

P.S. As an anticlimax, I propose to my readers to calculate the ratio of Jewish influence in their newspaper, as follows: divide the coverage of a synagogue wall being dirtied with graffiti (in square inches) by the coverage of the venerable Byzantine church of St Barbara destruction (in square inches). Just to remind you: a ratio with denominator zero equals infinity.

<http://www.israelshamir.net/>

L'on. Luisa Morgantini e gli Amici di Israel Shamir invitano alla conferenza stampa che si terra' il 19 giugno 2002 nella Sala delle Bandiere all'Ufficio per l'Italia del Parlamento Europeo in via IV Novembre 149 dalle ore 12 alle ore 14 in occasione della pubblicazione della raccolta di scritti di Israel Shamir (Carri armati e ulivi della Palestina. Il fragore del silenzio, edizioni CRT , Pistoia 2002).

L'autore ne discutera' con i giornalisti. Presenzieranno:

- On. Luisa Morgantini

- Ali Rashid

- Prof. Roberto Giammanco

- Prof. Claudio Del Bello

LES VOLEURS CONTINUENT À VOLER

Palestinians Wary of Land Seizures

Palestinians Wary of Land Seizures. Israel Says Land Seizures Are Defensive ; Palestinians Fear They Won't Get It Back. The Associated Press

 

Salfit, West Bank June 3 -- The Israeli army is quietly taking over West Bank land privately owned by Palestinians in what it says is a temporary move to protect its citizens from militants. But Palestinians mindful that similar tactics were once used to establish Jewish settlements fear they will never get their land back. According to Israeli military documents, copies of which were obtained by The Associated Press, some of the land seized is in areas where officials want to build a fortified fence to keep Palestinian militants from entering Israel. Other documents indicate Israel is trying to create buffers between Jewish enclaves and Palestinian towns deep within the West Bank including this town of Salfit, which is surrounded by 17 large and small settlements.

Critics say the scattered and in some cases sizable seizures could carve up the West Bank in a way that would make it difficult for the Palestinians to create a viable state on land Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast War. The Israeli army says the seizures are necessary to counter suicide bombers. "There is a military need to command some areas for security reasons in order to control and observe areas where threats emanate from," said Lt. Col. Olivier Rafowicz, a military spokesman. "This is not annexation of territory." Khalil Tufakji, the Palestinian Authority's chief cartographer, has mapped out recent seizures that include long, narrow strips of land along the invisible line dividing Israel from the West Bank. West of Jenin, the Palestinian city that has produced more than 20 suicide bombers, another 27 square miles of land was taken. South of the Palestinian town of Tulkarem, 3 square miles was taken.

The two patches, both close to the border with Israel, constitute just over 1 percent of the entire West Bank. Dalia Rabin-Pelossof, Israel's deputy defense minister, said construction of a fence between Israel and the West Bank was under way. She did not provide specifics but said "in some areas, the work has already begun. There are many places where fences have been built." Aside from the buffer areas, some confiscations have recently occurred deeper inside the West Bank, according to copies of documents provided to AP by Palestinian officials and lawyers and authenticated by the Israeli army. Such is the case in Salfit in the central West Bank where Mohamed Salim Alkim's 15 acres were seized and his olive groves and apple orchards uprooted by bulldozers.

The town, ringed by 17 Jewish settlements, is suspected to be the home of Palestinian militants who target settlers. Recently, the Israeli army said it discovered a bomb-making factory here. As a result, Salfit has been hit by missiles, tank shelling, gunbattles, house demolitions and arrests. All its access roads have been sealed by the military. Soldiers, tanks and bulldozers encircle the area. So to get to where his fields once were, the 66-year-old Alkim, whose face and hands have been weathered by the Middle Eastern sun and years of physical work, walks on foot for several hundred yards across a stretch of biblical land dotted with wild flowers and shrub.

Standing on a breezy hilltop, Alkim points to the commanding Jewish settlement of Ariel where suburban homes sprung up next to Salfit 25 years ago. Ariel is expanding, Salfit's acreage is shrinking. There is no relationship between the two communities just animosity. Land is at the center of this century-old dispute. The West Bank was supposed to be the heart of a separate state for Palestinians under the 1947 U.N. partition plan that envisioned a Jewish and Arab state living side-by-side in what had been British-ruled Palestine. Instead, war broke out and the territory was annexed by Jordan. In 1967, Israel captured the West Bank and began building Jewish settlements there. Today, some 200,000 settlers live in communities built on territory claimed by Palestinians.

Alkim, 66, wants his property back he wants to leave it to his 12 children. But he doesn't think Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat will be able to get it for him. "The only way is by force," he said. Salfit may look empty and worthless, but under the rocky, untamed surroundings lies a treasure in this thirsty land water. Salfit, which means 'Basket of Grapes,' is situated near several aquifers that, according to Palestinian lore, have been a source of contention since 800 A.D. Manal Hazan, of the Association of Civil Rights in Israel, is trying to help Salfit reclaim its land. So far, the army has responded favorably to a written appeal to freeze construction of a road on the seized land. "To a certain degree this was a success, but I don't think the farmers will get their land back. It's true the orders have expiration dates but they are always renewed," she said.

In a separate case, the Israeli lawyer is suing the military commander of the West Bank over a land seizure near the city of Hebron. The case is before the Supreme Court. Saeb Erekat, the Palestinian official in charge of local governments, said more than a dozen mayors and village elders have received land seizure notices from the army in recent months. The AP obtained several letters, some dated as recently as April, and signed by Israel's military commander in the West Bank. In some cases the one-page letters, written in Hebrew which most Arabs cannot read were posted at village entrances. They begin : "By the authority vested in me as the Israeli army commander of Judea and Samaria, and as I believe it is a military necessity given the special security circumstances now prevailing in the area, I hereby order the following : ...."

The letters include the number of plots and the period ranging from one to four years they will remain seized. Some of the notices dealt with the area south of Tulkarem, to be used for the new buffer zone. In one letter, dated April 24, the army said it was taking a swath of land around Faron, Taibeh, al Ras and Kafr Sur four West Bank villages close to Israel that amounted to 4.74 miles by 56-66 feet. In a second letter, dated the same day, the army said it would be taking another tract of 1.35 miles by 56 feet from Faron. "We have stacks of these letters," Erekat said. "They're taking land around Jenin, Salfit, Ramallah, Bethlehem, Hebron and the Jordan Valley." He accused Israel of "racing to implement unilateral policies." Researchers say the current seizures are reminiscent of the method Israel used to get land for settlements until the Supreme Court ordered it to halt the practice in 1979.

"After '79, Israel continued from time to time to take land for military purposes in order to build bypass roads, army bases or checkpoints, but not for settlements," said Yehezkel Lein, a researcher with the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem which documents land confiscations. Recently, Lein said, the army has built checkpoints, security roads and bases on some of the seized land. Since the latest Palestinian uprising began, he said, the army has had to build checkpoints to enforce their closure of towns and villages, and the settlers "need bypass roads for their bypass roads." Landowners can challenge an order in a military court and the letters also say property holders "are eligible to request information on compensation and user fees." But practically no one does. "It's not a question of money for us," says Salfit's mayor, Shaher Eshteih. "This has been our land for generations."

On the Net : www.salfeet.org ; www.idf.il ; www.acri.org.il

<http : //www.mediamonitors.net/leonard32.html>

<http : //www.abcnews.go.com/wire/World/ap20020603_87.html>

HYGIÈNE DU MASSACRE

After Jenin

Yitzhak Laor

What has the war between us and the Palestinians been about? About the Israeli attempt to slice what's left of Palestine into four cantons, by building 'separation roads', new settlements and checkpoints. The rest is killing, terror, curfew, house demolitions and propaganda. Palestinian children live in fear and despair, their parents humiliated in front of them. Palestinian society is being dismantled, and public opinion in the West blames it on the victims -- always the easiest way to face the horror. I know: my father was a German Jew. Disastrously, the Israel Defence Force is the country's imago. In the eyes of most Israelis, it is pure, stainless; worse, it is seen as being above any political interest. Yet, like every army, it wants war, at least every once in a while. But whereas in other countries military power is balanced by civil society's institutions or by parts of the state itself (industry, banks, political parties etc . ), we in Israel have no such balance. The IDF has no real rival within the state, not even when the Army's policy costs us our own lives (the lives of Palestinians, not to mention their welfare or dignity, are excluded from political discourse). There's no doubt that Israel's 'assassination policy' -- its killing of senior politicians (Dr Thabet Thabet from Tulkarem, Abu Ali Mustafa from Ramallah) or of 'terrorists' (sometimes labelled as such only after being eliminated) -- has poured petrol on the fire. People talk about it, yet no politician from the Right, the Centre, or even from the declining Zionist Left has dared speak out against it. And despite critical articles in the press, the Army has kept on doing what it wanted to do. Now they have had what they were really aiming for: an all-out attack on the West Bank. Since 11 September the words 'war against terror' have been popular, which is why everything Israel does is a war against terror, including the looting of the Khalil Sakakini Cultural Centre in Ramallah. I'm against terror, too. I don't want to die walking my son to the mall. In fact I don't take him there anymore. I don't ride buses, and I'm scared that my family's turn will come, but I know that they -- that is, our generals -- accept terrorist attacks as a 'reasonable price to pay' to reach a solution. What is their solution? Peace -- what else? Peace between the victorious Israelis and the defeated Palestinians. The IDF's ruthlessness should be read against the background of its defeat in Lebanon, when it was driven out after long years of waging a dirty war. Southern Lebanon was burned and destroyed by artillery and an Air Force that no terrorist organisation could fight against. Yet 300 partisans -- should I call them 'terrorists'? -- drove us (that is, our Army) out twice. First in 1985, back into what our Army and press used to call our 'Security Zone' (the foreign media called it 'Israel's self-proclaimed security zone'); and then, two years ago, out of that same Security Zone. The generals who were beaten then are running the current war. They have lived that defeat every day. And now they can teach them -- that is, the Arabs -- their lesson. Our heroes, armed with planes, helicopters and tanks, can arrest hundreds of people, concentrate them in camps behind barbed wire, without blankets or shelter, exploit the confusion to demolish more houses, fell more trees, take away more livelihoods. The bulldozer, once a symbol of the building of a new country, has become a monster following the tanks, so that everybody can watch as another family's home, another future disappears. Israelis look to punish anyone who undermines our image of ourselves as victims. Nobody is allowed to take this image from us, especially not in the context of the war with the Palestinians, who are waging a war on 'our home' -- that is, their 'non-home'. When a Cabinet minister from a former socialist republic compared Yasir Arafat to Hitler, he was applauded. Why? Because this is the way the world should see us, rising from the ashes. This is why we love Claude Lanzmann's Shoah (and even more his disgusting film about the IDF) and Schindler's List. Tell us more about ourselves as victims, and how we must be forgiven for every atrocity we commit. As my friend Tanya Reinhart has written, 'it seems that what we have internalised' of the memory of the Holocaust 'is that any evil whose extent is smaller is acceptable'. But this 'evil of the past' has a peculiar way of entering our present life. On 25 January, three months before the IDF got its licence to invade the West Bank, Amir Oren, a senior military commentator for Ha'aretz, quoted a senior officer:

In order to prepare properly for the next campaign, one of the Israeli officers in the territories said not long ago that it is justified and in fact essential to learn from every possible source. If the mission is to seize a densely populated refugee camp, or take over the kasbah in Nablus, and if the commander's obligation is to try to execute the mission without casualties on either side, then he must first analyse and internalise the lessons of earlier battles -- even, however shocking it may sound, even how the German Army fought in the Warsaw Ghetto. The officer indeed succeeded in shocking others, not least because he is not alone in taking this approach. Many of his comrades agree that in order to save Israelis now, it is right to make use of knowledge that originated in that terrible war, whose victims were their kin.

 

 

Israel may not have a colonial past but we do have our memory of evil. Does this explain why Israeli soldiers stamped ID numbers on Palestinian arms? Or why the most recent Holocaust Day drew a ridiculous comparison between those of us in the besieged Warsaw Ghetto and those of us surrounding the besieged Jenin refugee camp? The satisfaction over the 'victory' in Jenin was part of this constant lie. Some twenty Israeli soldiers (most of them reservists) died in what was supposed to be a zero-casualty campaign, but the defenders of the camp were equipped only with rifles and explosives. On the Israeli side, as usual, there were special units, moving from one alleyway to another, assisted by a drone which supplied sophisticated information to the commanders at the rear. When that didn't work, there was the shelling of the camp, then the deployment of US-supplied Apaches to destroy houses along with dozens (or hundreds) of inhabitants. Was it a massacre? Like everything else in our corrupted life, it comes down to the number of dead: ten dead Israelis are a massacre; 50 Palestinians not enough to count.

The destruction of the camp, whether spontaneous or premeditated by Sharon & Co, reflects the determination of senior officers to finish their military service with a real achievement: the elimination of the Palestinian national movement, under the guise of the war against terror. But terror won't be beaten that way; on the contrary. Enslaving a nation, bringing it to its knees, simply doesn't work. It never did. The long siege of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem is proof that the words 'Israeli generals' no longer refer to men capable of strategic thought, or anything like it. Israeli generals may have fought some complicated battles in 1967, 1973 or even 1982, but in Bethlehem they have surrounded 200 young Palestinians for more than three weeks and let the whole world see their stubbornness and senseless cruelty. How, you may ask, can a disobedient nation like Israel follow so foolish a high command? Here's the beginning of an answer. As the corpses lay rotting in Jenin, and small children were running around looking for food or their missing parents, and the wounded were still bleeding to death, with the IDF preventing any relief or UN officials from entering the camp (what did they have to hide?), the Ministry of Education issued an instruction to all schools that children should bring in parcels for the soldiers. 'The most important thing,' the teacher of my seven-year-old son said, 'is a letter for the soldiers.' Hundreds of thousands of children wrote such letters when the war against a civilian population was at its most extreme, under the critical observation of the world media. Imagine the ideological commitment of those children in the future. This is just one aspect of our oppositionless society.

The Israeli imaginaire is constituted, before anything else, of the belief in Israeli supremacy. When there is a cruel suicide bombing in a hotel in Netanya, we will respond on a greater scale, with a terrorist attack on them, no matter if it inflicts death or hunger on two million people who have no connection with that act, no matter if it will create a thousand more martyrs who will blow themselves up along with their victims. The military logic behind this behaviour says: 'We have the power and we have to exercise it, otherwise our existence is in danger.' But the only danger is the danger facing the Palestinians. Gas chambers are not the only way to destroy a nation. It is enough to destroy its social tissue, to starve dozens of villages, to develop high rates of infant mortality. The West Bank is going through a Gaza-isation. Please don't shrug your shoulders. The one thing that might help to destroy the consensus in Israel is pressure from Western Europe, on which the Israeli elite is dependent in so many ways.

Yitzhak Laor is an Israeli poet and writer.

London Review of Books, Volume 24 Number 09, cover date 23 May 2002

<http://www.lrb.co.uk/v24/n09/laor2409.htm>

RETIRER LE FRIC

UC Faculty Support Divestment from Israel

by Hector Carreon, La Voz de Aztlan

 

Berkeley, Alta California - 6/5/2002 - (ACN) Faculty members from the University of California system have come forward in support of a campaign to divest from Israel. The divestment campaign is spearheaded by the UC Berkeley chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP). The campaign gained momentum recently because of the Israeli massacres in Jenin and Bethlehem and the group's April 9th National Day of Action and Divestment in which the SJP occupied a UC Berkeley building. During this action 79 activists were arrested including 41students. Thus far 143 UC professors have signed the University of California Faculty Petition for Divestment from Israel, which can be found at http://www.ucdivest.org. The petition calls for the UC system "to use its influence - political and financial - to encourage the United States government and the government of Israel to respect the human rights of the Palestinian people" and for divestment until Israel ceases its ongoing violations of international laws, such as the Fourth Geneva Convention and several UN Security Council Resolutions.

"For half a century, Israel has had military dominance in the Middle East but has not had peace. Military occupation, colonization, seizures of lands, destruction of houses and orchards, assassinations, expulsions have not brought security, but terror from both sides that will escalate to disaster," says UC Berkeley Psychology Professor Emeritus Susan Ervin-Tripp. "The US, whose founding ideology should favor side by side independence and self-government, instead increases the tension by providing arms and money without restriction. It is time for us to unequivocally side with peace and Palestinian independence in every possible way."

The divestment campaign was officially launched nationwide at over 40 university campuses on April 9, 2002, with student demonstrations commemorating the 1948 Deir Yassin Massacre. The UC professors were alerted to the campaign by SJP's symbolic occupation of UC Berkeley's Wheeler Hall. The UC-Berkeley administration called in police forces and arrested 71 of the activists including 41 students. The administration then suspended SJP as a student group. The UC administration has since lifted the suspension of SJP but it continues to threaten the 41 UC Berkeley students with harsh student conduct charges and severe academic sanctions, including a year of academic suspension. Several dozen UC Berkeley faculty members have rallied in support of theses students' rights to free speech and peaceful protest.

The UC faculty divestment petition follows a precedent set by the anti-apartheid campaign of the 1980's, when students, professors, and university employees called for an end to university investments in apartheid South Africa. Recognizing that the divestment campaigns of the 1980s played a significant role in the movement to end apartheid in South Africa, SJP-Berkeley began a divestment petition a year and a half ago, that has over 6,000 signatures. The new UC Faculty-led divestment initiative signals a new level of support for the growing divestment campaign. Faculty petitions for divestment from Israel have also been started at other major universities, such as Harvard, MIT, Princeton, and Tufts, where they have received widespread support. The president of Harvard, however, who is a Jew, has made public statements that he will not support the divestment.

There are minor differences between the student and the faculty petitions. The Berkeley student divestment campaign asks UC to divest from companies in Israel and companies doing business with Israel. The faculty petition is slightly different in that it is seeking divestment from companies in Israel and companies involved in arms sales to Israel. However, according Hoang Gia Phan of the UC Berkeley SJP, the actual list of companies is very similar for both groups. The SJP estimate that the UC system has more than $7 billion invested in companies with ties to Israel.

"President Bush continues to issue toothless and ambiguous statements, while the Congress remains largely an 'occupied territory,' " says Molecular and Cell Biology Professor Emeritus Joe Neilands, of UC Berkeley. "This petition is a new initiative for peace in the Middle East and since it goes directly to the people it affords a by-pass around compromised and corrupted individuals and institutions."

"Such support from faculty and community is monumental," says SJP organizer Hoang Gia Phan. "UC divestment from the apartheid state of Israel was the primary demand of our peaceful protest on April 9. The struggle against the university's complicity in Israel's present-day apartheid, its illegal occupation, and its ongoing violations of the human rights of the Palestinian people, is nothing without the faculty's support. Such support demonstrates that people of conscience throughout the academic community, and throughout the U.S, are saying together: 'Not in my name!' "

Petition and current list of faculty signatures are available at:

<http://www.ucdivest.org>

Il n'est pas inutile de se souvenir que les campagnes menées aux Etats-Unis, en particulier par les organisations noires, pour obtenir des grandes firmes qu'elles retirent leurs investissements d'Afrique du Sud ont joué un rôle considérable dans la chute de l'apartheid. Mais ce qui se passe en Palestine est dix fois pire que l'apartheid.

UN FILM SUR LES MASSACRES ISRAÉLIENS AU LIBAN

Why?

di Monica Maurer e Abdel-Rahman Bseissu

Prod: Palestinese Red Crescent Society, 1982, 26'

Un reportage certo datato, ma che documenta in maniera impietosa ed ineccepibile il massacro operato dagli israeliani quando, nel 1982, misero a ferro e fuoco la parte Ovest di Beirut.

I deboli di stomaco sono tuttavia pregati di non guardarlo. Una buona parte del documentario venne difatti girata all'interno degli ospedali della Mezzaluna Rossa Palestinese, dove fu agevole raccogliere un nutrito campionario dei raccapriccianti effetti delle bombe al fosforo e di quelle a frammentazione.

Il documentario è importante perché sfata una delle varie leggende fatte circolare dai sionisti e dai loro lacchè: che i crimini israeliani (perpetrati con armi statunitensi) colpirebbero sempre attivisti, militanti, "terroristi", gente che in un modo o nell'altro "se l'era andata a cercare". Invece no, tutte le persone arrostite o ridotte a brandelli che vedrete erano civili, vittime di un bombardamanto indiscriminato nel quale vennero testati nuovi tipi di ordigni esplosivi (ma la storia è sempre la solita: Dresda, Hiroshima e Nagasaki, il Vietnam, la Serbia, l'Iraq, l'Afghanistan, per citare solo alcuni noti esempi di 'laboratori' a cielo aperto).

Why? è consigliato in particolare agli indifferenti, agli odierni 'struzzi' fautori dell'equidistanza di comodo, che non fa più distinguere gli oppressi dagli oppressori.

Ma la domanda, come quella che dà il titolo al filmato, sorge spontanea: perché uno stuolo di cameraman a New York per documentare un atto - è coerente sottolinearlo - infame (anche se non si sa a chi attribuirne la paternità) con dovizia di particolari, e solo l'impegno al limite del volontariato di una coraggiosa cineasta per l'11 settembre della capitale libanese?

 

Per richiederne copie: (en Italie) 00 39 06 -7210031

mail: <[email protected]>

ILS NOUS PRENNENT POUR DES CONS

Ashcroft Hypes a Dirty Bomber Big, Bad John

by James Ridgeway

 

In announcing this week the arrest of a Chicago-area man for allegedly plotting to set off a radiological bomb, Attorney General John Ashcroft at last did what civil rights activists and lawyers have been demanding for months -- he stood up and named someone caught in his post-9-11 dragnet.

Abdullah al Muhajir, formerly Jose Padilla, was nabbed May 8. Held without any formal charges, the prisoner has been turned over to the military as an "enemy combatant" -- or so the AG trumpets. Ashcroft called him an Osama bin Laden operative with plans to attack Washington, D.C., claimed he traveled to Pakistan and Afghanistan for Al Qaeda training, and said the government had "multiple independent and corroborating sources" for this info.

Muhajir reportedly was kept for a time as a material witness under the supervision of a federal judge. At one point, federal officials suggested, he had a lawyer and proceedings were being conducted in secret. The mystery deepened with news accounts Tuesday that Muhajir had been handed over to the military because he wouldn't waive his rights and talk to a grand jury in New York.

It's hard to believe anyone in Muhajir's position would waive his rights, and anyhow a suspect need not appear before a grand jury for it to indict him. This chain of events raises the possibility that the government does not have the facts to back up a court case. With federal courts clamping down on the use of the material-witness status to retain detainees, law enforcement punted Muhajir over to the military.

If Ashcroft has really uncovered a plot of the horrible dimensions he is suggesting, then surely he can openly charge Muhajir and place him on trial. If we are indeed threatened with death by radiological bomb, then the least we can expect from the attorney general is the facts, not vague frightening accusations, which unfortunately have been the stuff of Ashcroft's entire reign.

The same goes for the hundreds of other detainees, now locked anonymously in U.S. jails. Who are these people and what are they charged with? It seems that Ashcroft is only willing to name names when it benefits his battered reputation as a crime fighter.

The Village Voice, NY, 11 juin 2002.

<http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0224/ridgeway.php>

LE GROS BIDON DE CHICAGO

British security sources raise doubts over US claims about 'dirty bomber'

By Kim Sengupta and Andrew Buncombe in Washington 12 June 2002

 

British and European security officials are highly sceptical of American claims that the alleged "dirty bomb" plotter, Abdullah al-Muhajir, was preparing to unleash a radioactive attack. British sources point out that despite extensive inquiries, no evidence has been produced to show that he had access to the radioactive material needed to build the bomb, or indeed that he had even worked out a time or place to launch the attack. The most that could be said about Mr Muhajir, a former member of a Chicago street gang now allegedly working for al-Qa'ida, is that he had the "intention" of launching such an attack, security sources said. President Bush announced yesterday that a "full-scale manhunt" was under way across the United States for accomplices of Mr Muhajir. "We will run down every lead, every hint. We're in for a long struggle in this war on terror. And there are people that still want to harm America." Before his arrest at Chicago's O'Hare airport on 8 May, Mr Muhajir who changed his name from Jose Padilla stopped in Zurich on the way from Pakistan, where he collected $10,500 (£7,000).

Despite claims by the Attorney General, John Ashcroft, that the FBI had disrupted a plan to launch a radioactive attack against Washington, other officials conceded yesterday that there was no evidence that any such plot had progressed beyond the most basic stages. British security sources, who believe Mr Muhajir might have been acting as a courier, said the Americans investigated Mr Muhajir's activities and tried to find a terrorist network he may have been involved with inside the US. The highly publicised announcement of the arrest only came after the failure to find anything more incriminating. In Washington there was a growing suspicion that the arrest was seized on by the Bush administration in dramatic fashion for political ends. British and European security agencies do believe, however, that there is still a real threat of a possible attack.

The RAIN Newsletter (12-6-2), <[email protected]> 12 Jun 2002

Si même les Britiches pensent comme nous, où va-t-on ?

LES JOIES D'UN RASEUR DE MAISONS

7 Days, a magazine of the prominent Israeli daily newspaper, Yediot Ahronot, discovered a very colourful hero of the tragic days of April 2002. This hero is 40-year-old Moshe Nisim, a military reservist and proud supporter of the Betar Soccer team (a sports club supported by many right wing Israelis). June 4, 2002

Confessions of a Bulldozer Driver

Where is The Hague ? [1]

 

In Jenin Nisim called himself Duby Al-Kurdi (Kurdish bear cub). I recommend to everyone that they read the original interview which appeared under the title, I created for them a Teddy Stadium [2] in the center of the camp, by Zadoc Yehezakli. The following is a summary of the interview. At the time of the Israeli invasion of the Palestinian refugee camp in Jenin, Moshe Nisim was unemployed. He had recently been released from his position with the municipal government under suspicion of taking bribes. Nisim doesn't normally do military service. For the last 18 years his army unit has chosen not to call him to do his annual service. But when he heard that his friends were being called up to serve in operation Defensive Shield, he insisted, this time, on being called up. Nisim's trade in the Army is vehicle electrician, but this time he insisted on driving the armored bulldozer known as the D-9. Usually you need a long course to become qualified to operate the D-9, but from the information he provided, Nisim had only 2 hours of training. He arrived at the site of the Jenin refugee camp at about the time 13 Israeli soldiers were killed in an ambush. Nisim mounted his bulldozer from which he flew the flag of his favourite soccer club and proceeded to bulldoze houses.

When asked by the reporter, What part of your work was difficult ? Nisim responded, Difficult, what difficult, you must be joking. I was always begging the officers to give me another house to destroy. And believe me we destroyed too few. For 3 days I just erased and erased. I erased every house they (Palestinians) were shooting from and others in the neighbourhood. The officers warned them to leave before I entered, but I didn t give anyone a chance to escape. I would come and give a big hit, the hardest I could, so that the house would fall immediately. Some Israelis were telling stories that they restrained themselves, but these are only stories. There were many people in the houses when we began to destroy them. I didn't see people amid the ruins, but if there were any, I wouldn't care. I am sure that people died in these houses, but it was very difficult to see. There was a lot of dust and we worked mainly at night.

I got great pleasure out of every house I took down. I know they (Palestinians) don t care if they live or die but losing their home really hurts them. If I have any regret, it is because we didn t destroy the entire camp. Nisim continues, I derived great satisfaction from my role. I enjoyed myself. I couldn t stop. I wanted to work all the time. I made the officer in charge crazy. After the fighting was over, we were ordered to remove the D-9 because the army didn t want reporters and photographers to see them working. I fought with the army because I was getting great satisfaction from my work and wanted to stay. It was like putting the 18 years I didn t serve in the army into 3 days. The soldiers came to me and said Kurdi, your OK&your OK ! When Nisim was asked by the reporter, How were you able to serve 3 days and 3 nights without sleep ? , he responded, I didn t feel tired at all. I drank whisky all the time. Everyone else packed clothes, but I packed whisky and snacks. Jenin made me strong. Jenin made me forget all my troubles.

[1] Reference to the International Court of Justice based in The Hague, Holland

[2] Reference to the home playing field of the Betar soccer club.

William J. (Bill) Thomson, Ph.D. ([email protected])

Independent Media Centre in Israel

On remarquera que les Israéliens étendent maintenant cette superbe invention, qui a fait ses "preuves" à Jenine, qui consiste à faire écrouler les maisons sur ceux qui sont dedans. Ils ont réédité cet "exploit" en utilisant deux tonnes d'explosif pour faire sauter le bâtiment de l'Autorité palestinienne à Hébron, avec quinze personnes dedans, prétendument armées. Raser les maisons à l'explosif avec les gens dedans, voilà une trouvaille qui défie toutes les conventions de Genève.

SHARON REVENDIQUE LE DROIT DE CONQUETE

Ariel Sharon rejette tout retour aux lignes de 1967

 

Le Premier ministre israélien, Ariel Sharon, est arrivé cet après-midi à Washington. Il doit y rencontrer aujourd'hui la conseillère du président américain en sécurité nationale, Condoleezza Rice. Il s'entretiendra demain avec George Bush, à la Maison Blanche.

M. Sharon qui est arrivé ce matin à Washington a publié dans le New York Times de ce matin, un article intitule "The Way Forward in the Middle East" (Le Chemin du progrès au Proche-Orient) dans lequel il expose sa vision du processus de paix ou il affirme: "Israel ne se retirera pas sur les lignes de 1967 et n'acceptera pas la division de Jérusalem." Dans cet article, le Premier ministre examine la situation politique de l'Etat hébreu depuis la guerre des Six-Jours et analyse notamment la résolution 242 du Conseil de sécurité. Ce texte spécifie notamment qu'Israël se retirera "sur des frontières sûres et reconnues" et M. Sharon souligne qu'il ne peut s'agir des lignes de 1967. [On sait que par définition l'Etat sioniste n'a pas de frontières, puisqu'il estime n'avoir pas encore atteint les "frontières historiques" du prétendu Grand Israël, du Nil à l'Euphrate, qui, bien entendu, n'a jamais existé, tout ça étant de la mythologie à l'état pur. ] "Lorsque les pourparlers israélo-palestiniens reprendront", explique M. Sharon, "ils devront reposer sur un effort commun pour parvenir à un accord intérimaire à long terme et laisser de côté les problèmes qu'il est impossible de régler à l'heure actuelle." Le Premier ministre israélien fait notamment référence ici à la question de Jérusalem. "Les négociations sur un règlement définitif ne pourront avoir lieu que lorsque les relations entre Israël et l'Autorité palestinienne auront changé. Elles ne peuvent se dérouler selon un calendrier fixé à l'avance", souligne encore M. Sharon avant de rappeler qu'Israël est favorable à la tenue d'une conférence régionale destinée à instaurer la paix entre l'Etat hébreu et l'ensemble du monde arabe.

Dans l'entourage de M. Sharon, on indiquait samedi soir qu'il n'évoquerait pas l'éventuelle expulsion de Yasser Arafat avec le chef de l'exécutif américain car le moment n'est pas propice. M. Sharon soulignera en revanche qu'il n'est pas possible de s'engager vers un règlement du conflit tant que le terrorisme persiste et tant qu'aucune réforme réelle n'est réalisée au sein de l'Autorité palestinienne.

Arutz 7 , 9 juin 2002

PAUVRE BOUBOUCHE

Deux âmes

par Uri Avnery

 

Bush est un homme à plaindre. Quand il a été élu, presque par accident, c'était un homme politique sans aucune expérience internationale. Il aurait du mal à situer la moitié des Etats du monde sur la carte. Depuis lors, il a été comme un somnambule à travers le monde, poussé ça et là, écoutant parfois un de ses conseillers, parfois l'autre. Il évolue en cercles, zigzags, en avant et en arrière. Il dit à Sharon de se retirer immédiatement -- "Je répète, immédiatement !" -- et quand Sharon lui rit au nez, il déclare que Sharon est un Homme de Paix. Il demande une conférence internationale et la torpille avant qu'elle soit née. Il fantasme à propos de la "vision" d'un Etat palestinien et humilie le dirigeant des Palestiniens chaque jour. Il discrédite sa personne et sa fonction. Comment cela s'explique-t-il ? Hé bien, Bush est écartelé entre deux forces puissantes qui le tirent dans des directions opposées.

D'une part, il y a la pression politique intérieure. Le lobby juif est, évidemment, un des plus forts aux Etats-Unis. La communauté juive est très bien organisée sur une ligne rigide, autoritaire. Son pouvoir électoral et financier projette son ombre sur les deux chambres du Congrès. Des centaines de parlementaires ont été élus grâce à des contributions juives. Résister aux directives du lobby juif équivaut à un suicide politique. Si l'AIPAC présentait une résolution abolissant les Dix Commandements, 80 sénateurs et 300 députés la signeraient immédiatement. Ce lobby effraie les médias aussi et assure leur soutien à Israël. Mais désormais, même le pouvoir de ce puissant lobby ne rivalise pas avec l'influence du lobby chrétien fondamentaliste, lobby dominé par les prédicateurs évangélistes. Il insuffle la crainte de Dieu dans l'esprit des responsables du Parti républicain. Georges Bush junior se souvient très bien que son père a été lâché par ce lobby quand il lui a désobéi. Ce lobby religieux fanatique semble être extrêmement pro-sioniste. "Semble", parce qu'il y a une part cachée en lui. D'après ses enseignements théologiques, les Juifs doivent se regrouper en Palestine et y établir un Etat juif sur l'ensemble de son territoire afin de rendre possible le retour de Jésus-Christ. Les évangélistes ne s'appesantissent pas ouvertement sur ce qui vient après: avant le retour du Messie, les Juifs doivent se convertir au christianisme. Ceux qui ne le feront pas périront dans un holocauste gigantesque à la bataille d'Armageddon. C'est un enseignement fondamentalement antisémite, mais qu'importe, aussi longtemps qu'ils soutiennent Israël.

La puissance combinée des deux lobbys fait pression sur Bush chaque fois qu'il fait un pas en direction des Arabes. A ce moment-là d'autres facteurs puissants interviennent : les gouvernements arabes et le pétrole arabe. Les rois, présidents, émirs et cheikhs sont soumis aux Etats-Unis, mais ils ont peur que la souffrance des Palestiniens conduise leurs peuples à la rébellion. Ils transmettent leurs craintes à la famille Bush. Tout le monde sait que les Bush sont lourdement investis dans le pétrole. A Washington, comme à Jérusalem, tous les problèmes se transforment en luttes personnelles. La faction pro-Sharon est menée par l'extrémiste Secrétaire à la Défense, Rumsfeld, et son adjoint, encore plus extrémiste, Wolfowitz. Ils ont le vice-président Cheney de leur côté, et également, semble-t-il, la conseillère à la sécurité nationale, Condoleezza Rice, dont les jambes ont provoqué l'expression de l'admiration de Sharon. Contre eux, presque seul, se trouve le Secrétaire d'Etat, Powell, soutenu par les experts de son ministère. Chaque fois que Rumsfeld et Cie convainquent Bush qu'il doit satisfaire le lobby judéo-chrétien pour gagner les élections, Powell se pointe et le convainc au dernier moment que les intérêts nationaux des Etats-Unis exigent le contraire.

Cette semaine, Bush a reçu Moubarak. Sharon s'est aussitôt invité au Bureau ovale, croyant visiblement que Bush est tellement faible d'esprit qu'il est toujours influencé par la dernière personne entendue. C'est cette lutte qui saute aux yeux. Derrière, peut-être, une lutte plus profonde se cache. Mon ami Afif Safieh, le délégué de l'OLP à Londres, croit que deux âmes habitent la nation américaine depuis sa naissance. La première est celle des colons d'origine, les destructeurs des Indiens d'Amérique, les esclavagistes, une âme qui adore la force brute et chérit le mythe de l'Ouest sauvage, qui soutient les tyrans du monde. Cette âme s'identifie automatiquement aux colons sionistes et à l'expulsion des Arabes. Sharon est leur homme. L'autre est l'âme de Thomas Jefferson (bien qu'il possédât aussi des esclaves évidemment) et des auteurs de la Constitution; de Lincoln, l'émancipateur des esclaves; de Wilson, dont les 14 Points ont proclamé le droit à l'autodétermination; de Roosevelt, qui a aidé à libérer le monde d'Hitler; une âme idéaliste, libérale et éprise de liberté. Cette dernière tend désormais vers les Palestiniens. La première âme occupe le coeur de Bush, l'autre frappe à la porte de son esprit. Il sera intéressant de voir laquelle gagnera.

Traduit de l'anglais: RM/SW, Sylviane de Wangen <[email protected]>

COUR PÉNALE INTERNATIONALE

Israël ne ratifiera pas le traité

 

Jérusalem (ats/afp) Craignant d'être mis sur la sellette à cause de la colonisation, Israël ne ratifiera pas le traité créant la Cour pénale internationale (CPI), a annoncé mercredi le ministère de la Justice. La CPI doit entrer en vigueur le 1er juillet.

"Nous estimons qu'il y a un trop grand risque de politisation du tribunal qui pourrait considérer l'installation d'Israéliens dans les territoires (occupés) comme un crime de guerre" a déclaré à l'AFP le porte parole du ministère, Jacob Galanti. Le conseiller juridique du gouvernement israélien Eliacin Rubinstein avait informé mardi la commission parlementaire des Lois de ce refus de ratifier le traité. Israël avait pourtant signé ce texte le 31 décembre 2000. L'Etat hébreu se déclare choqué du fait que la colonisation juive en Cisjordanie et dans la bande de Gaza puisse relever du crime de guerre selon les statuts de la Cour, alors que ceux-ci ne prévoient pas de poursuites pour actes de terrorisme, faute d'une définition du terrorisme acceptée par les parties.

PARABELLUM

Le groupe de Bilderberg s'est réuni à une dizaine de kilomètres de l'aéroport J.F. Dulles de Washington, à Chantilly (Virginie), du 30 mai au 2 juin 2002. Chaque année, environ 120 dirigeants industriels, politiques et médiatiques occidentaux (Etats-Unis et Europe) se retrouvent à huis clos pour débattre d'enjeux politiques majeurs, dans le cadre de sompt u euses résidences ou propriétés à l'écart de tous les journalistes trop curieux. Le thème majeur de cette année était la préparation de la guerre contre l'Irak.

[...] Cette année, les quelques Français présents étaient Jean de Belot, Henri de Castrie, le successeur de Claude Bébéar à la tête d'AXA (premier groupe européen d'assurances et n· 2 ou 3 mondial), Bertrand Collomb, PDG de Lafarge-Coppée (premier groupe mondial de matériaux de construction), Jean-Louis Gergorin, vice-président et directeur exécutif d'EADS, André Lévy-Lang, ancien président de Paribas et homme d'influence s'il en est dans la finance française, Dominique Moïsi et Thierry de Montbrial, respectivement directeur et président de l'Institut français des relations internationales, Olivier Roy, chercheur au CNRS et spécialiste de l'islam, Louis Schweitzer, ex-directeur de cabinet de Laurent Fabius et PDG de Renault, Ernest-Antoine Seillière de Laborde, PDG de la CGIP mais surtout président du MEDEF, Jean-Claude Trichet, directeur de la Banque de France et, sans doute, prochain président de la Banque centrale européenne.

Information transmise par Emmanuel Ratier

On aimerait bien savoir ce que ces magnats ont concocté à propos de la guerre à venir en Irak. Nous les tiendrons évidemment pour personnellement responsables en cas de crimes de guerre. Nous sommes bien d'accord sur le fait qu'il faut éviter de tomber dans des explications "conspirationnistes ". Encore faudrait-il qu'il n'y ait point de conspiration. Le Groupe de Bliderberg est une "réunion internationale privée", soit. Mais si ces pontes veulent garder le secret sur leurs délibérations, alors le soupçon est tout naturel.

SHARON ANTISÉMITE !

Un pamphlet antisémite circule dans les milieux propalestiniens radicaux

 

Le premier ministre israélien, Ariel Sharon, y est faussement désigné comme l'auteur d'une "véritable profession de foi nazie". [Les menteurs professionnels de ce journal frappent fort d'emblée. A l'heure présente, ils ont le droit d'exprimer des doutes mais ils ne peuvent pas affirmer que Sharon n'est pas l'auteur du "texte incriminé" ]

Sur la couverture , une vieille femme palestinienne exprime sa douleur en levant les bras au ciel. Ce petit opuscule de 64 pages a pour titre Le Manifeste judéo-nazi d'Ariel Sharon. Il prétend dénoncer "les origines du génocide actuel des Palestiniens" et s'en prend violemment au premier ministre israélien, qualifié de "nazi".

Le texte se présente comme un long entretien avec le général Sharon, réalisé en 1982 par l'écrivain israélien Amos Oz, repris dans un livre paru en français en 1983, sous le titre Les Voix d'Israël (Calmann-Lévy). On le trouve dans une librairie islamique de la rue Jean-Pierre-Timbaud, à Paris. Il était largement diffusé sur les stands de livres au cours de la rencontre annuelle des musulmans de France au Bourget, début mai.

Le contenu en est terrible. Le personnage interrogé par Amos Oz, dans le contexte de l'opération "Paix en Galilée" menée par l'armée israélienne au Liban en 1982, se définit lui-même comme un "judéo-nazi" et se dit prêt à appliquer aux Arabes les mêmes méthodes qu'Hitler a utilisées contre les juifs : "Moi, aujourd'hui encore, je suis prêt pour le peuple juif à me charger d'exécuter le sale travail, de tuer les Arabes selon le besoin, de chasser, brûler, exiler, tout ce qu'il faut pour nous faire détester. Prêt à chauffer le sol sous les pieds des "yids" de la diaspora jusqu'à ce qu'ils soient obligés de se précipiter ici en hurlant. Même s'il me faut pour cela faire sauter quelques synagogues. Cela me serait égal." Pour les éditeurs de cet opuscule, il ne fait aucun doute qu'Ariel Sharon est l'auteur de ce qu'ils considèrent comme "une véritable profession de foi nazie", qui "résume l'idéologie sioniste".

Amos Oz n'a jamais révélé l'identité de son interlocuteur, qu'il désigne seulement par la lettre T. Il s'en explique dans Les Voix d'Israël : "Comme T. refuse toujours de "se découvrir", je suis contraint de respecter la promesse que je lui ai faite de conserver son anonymat." Mais l'écrivain israélien, militant de longue date du camp de la paix, interrogé par Le Monde diplomatique, a affirmé de façon formelle que le personnage qui s'était confié à lui -- aujourd'hui décédé -- n'était pas Ariel Sharon. Un élément du texte vient confirmer cette assertion: dans l'entretien reproduit dans Les Voix d'Israël, T. affirme être prêt à assumer les violences contre les Arabes "avec Sharon, Begin et Rafoul Eytan". On voit mal Ariel Sharon se citer lui-même... De manière significative, dans le petit libelle diffusé dans les milieux islamistes, la citation a été tronquée et le nom de Sharon a disparu.

[Ces finesses ne convainquent pas. Si l'auteur du texte est décédé, Oz doit pouvoir nous donner son nom. Or, il ne le fait pas. Par conséquent... ]

Publié par des associations

Depuis longtemps, cette " vraie-fausse interview" circulait sur Internet. [Le plumitif n'ose pas "révéler à ses lecteurs" que le texte a d'abord été publié, en français comme en anglais, dans la Gazette du Golfe et des banlieues... ] Un personnage pour le moins ambigu est à l'origine de sa publication: Mondher Sfar est un universitaire tunisien au passé marxiste, opposant au régime du président Ben Ali, qui vit en France depuis 1974. Au début des années 1990, il a publié trois articles négationnistes dans la Revue d'histoire révisionniste. Il s'y livrait à une dénonciation forcenée du "mythe des chambres à gaz", des "prêtres de l'Holocauste qui ont élevé la mémoire d'Auschwitz au rang d'une religion". Dès cette époque, il s'en prenait aussi au "fascisme juif contemporain". Mondher Sfar dirige aujourd'hui le Collectif de la communauté tunisienne en Europe. Interrogé par Le Monde, il persiste à se dire "convaincu que Sharon est l'auteur du Manifeste". "Et même si ce n'est pas lui, ajoute-t-il aussitôt, l'auteur de ce texte doit être dénoncé comme antisémite !"

Les autres associations à l'origine de la publication du Manifeste sont le Parti des musulmans de France, le Parti de la France plurielle, l'Arab Commission of Human Rights et La Pierre et l'Olivier. Créé en 1997 par Mohamed-Nasser Latreche, le Parti des musulmans de France est un groupuscule à l'origine de plusieurs manifestations propalestiniennes, dont l'une, à Strasbourg le 7 octobre 2000, s'est accompagnée des cris de "Mort aux juifs !" (Le Monde du 7 novembre 2000). [Simple provocation du Bétar ]

La Pierre et l'Olivier est une association propalestinienne radicale présidée par Ginette Skandrani. Cette ancienne militante écologiste, qui a appartenu un temps à la direction nationale des Verts, est très active dans les milieux tiers-mondistes. Selon Jean-Yves Camus, collaborateur de l'hebdomadaire Actualité juive, [et collaborateur actif des services de police ] Mme Skandrani a également noué des contacts avec la droite radicale: en 1999, elle signe, au nom du mouvement de gauche Alternatives 21, un appel hostile aux frappes de l'OTAN contre la Serbie, lancé par les cadres de la Nouvelle droite. La présidente de La Pierre et l'Olivier a rédigé récemment pour le site <geostrategie.com> un article sur la situation à Jénine, titré "Au secours, les nazis sont de retour". Elle y compare le camp de réfugiés à un "camp de concentration" et évoque "la fumée et l'odeur de mort" qui y régneraient... [On ne voit pas bien ce qu'on pourrait reprocher à ces évocations qui sont venues à l'esprit de tous ceux qui ont pu s'approcher de Jénine après le massacre. ]

Le Manifeste judéo-nazi s'ajoute à une longue liste de pamphlets contre les juifs, comparable au tristement célèbre Protocole des sages de Sion. Il illustre comment certains milieux propalestiniens radicaux sont passés insensiblement de l'antisionisme à l'antisémitisme.

Le Monde, 13 juin 2002.

On ne voit pas bien comment un discours proféré par un haut responsable de l'armée israélienne, ce qui est avéré par Amos Oz, même si le nom dudit haut-responsable peut prêter à discussion, est subitement qualifié d'"antisémite". De plats cafards écrivant dans les journaux s'arrogeraient ainsi le droit de trier, dans les déclarations des leaders israéliens, ce qui serait "prosémite" et ce qui serait "antisémite". On rêve.

Saisissons cette occasion pour dire que nous tenons de source très sûre, qu'il nous est impossible de désigner publiquement, que le directeur du Monde, Jean-Marie Colombani, et le rédacteur en chef, Edwy Plenel, ont été achetés au nom du Mossad par le requin Gaydamak, un escroc mêlé à l'affaire Falcone de vente d'armes à l'Angola, juif soviétique actuellement réfugié en Israël, titulaire de nombreux passeports, et intermédiaire financier du Mossad. C'est une vieille technique israélienne fondée sur l'idée simpliste, mais qui marche souvent, que "tout homme a un prix" et qu'il suffit de le connaître. La direction du Monde est donc dans les mains de journalistes véreux qui sont payés par «l'Institut» (c'est la traduction du terme «mossad»).

C'est une révélation exclusive de la Gazette du Golfe et des banlieues.

Rappelons que la fascisation, la militarisation et la nazification de la société israélienne a été dénoncée, quand elle n'en était encore qu'à ses débuts visibles, par de grands intellectuels israéliens, il y a vingt ans ou plus, comme Y. Leibowicz et Israël Shahak, des sages fort respectés qui sont tous deux aujourd'hui disparus. Depuis vingt ans, les choses ont considérablement empiré.

GORGES PEU PROFONDES

Policing the Pankisi

 

According to reports, the inhabitants of Georgia are expecting a big police action in the Pankisi gorge, a mountainous region on the border with Chechnya where American troops have recently been deployed, supposedly to fight terrorism. It is alleged, notably by the Americans and the Russians, that the place is infested with Al-Qaida and other Muslim terrorists from over the border. But the mayor of the local town strenuously denies that there are any terrorists at all. The Mayor of Duisi said that Russian and Georgian politicians were deliberately misrepresenting the situation in the gorge for their own purposes. [Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 10th June 2002] The FAZ reporter who went to see what was going on in the gorge reported that all was quiet there -- and then delivered all the usual stuff about how everyone says the place is a hotbed of Muslim fundamentalist terrorism. This report seems to confirm the impression left by General Peter Pace, Vice-Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, who was repeatedly asked on 27th February 2002 why troops were being sent into Georgia. Despite insistent questioning, Pace refused to confirm that there was a specific terrorist threat in Georgia. [Department of Defense official transcript, 30th May 2002]

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Prince Charming

By Israel Shamir

 

What has he found in her? -- jealously gossip the shrills. -- Why does he shower her with gifts? What's she got that we haven't?

She costs him a lot of money and good will, she alienated him from his old buddies, and for a good reason: the little murderous bitch, hers is a brand name for every mean trick, but he, usually tight-fisted and penny-pinching, generously cares and stonewalls for her, lays low her enemies and silences her critics. What is the secret behind the peculiar love affair between Daughter of Zion from Middle East and the superpower across the ocean? These questions tease the mind, and call us to explore the source of the great anomaly of our time. Like exploring the source of Nile in preceding century, it requires an ability to look into lions' eyes with a white hunter 's disdain for death, and Sherlock Holmes' detective talents.

The current favourite explanation is a vaguely defined "strategic interest of American corporations", sometimes deciphered as desire of the US weapon industries to sell their stuff to Arabs. Others prefer America's need to have a base, or a "local cop on the beat" in the troubled area. Idealists believe in Americans' guilt feelings, in the long shadow of Holocaust or psychological similarity. Another prolific school explains the anomaly by oil. Arab oil has to be under American control and who would be better to do the job than ferocious Hassidic Jews?

Although, this school explains everything by oil, whether it is the war in Afghanistan, looming American attack on Iraq, tension between India and Pakistan, or trouble in Palestine. They remind me of ancient Greek philosophers who believed in existence of one basic element the world is built of.

Thales said, water is the basis of all things.

Anaximenes said, air is the basis of all things.

Heraclites said, all is fire.

It is all pipelines, proclaims a chorus of experts whenever there is a discussion of reasons behind American policies in the Middle East. It seems quite convincing, until one is reminded a cheerful line of Afif Safiye, the witty PNA man in London: "Palestine has a lot of oil. Olive oil".

In order to understand the obscure charms of the Daughter of Zion, we should remember that Uncle Sam is but a third lover of the plucky girl. With Bush's predecessors, the British Empire in 1917-1922 and the Soviet Union in 1945-1949, we have an advantage of full knowledge of sources and motives. The archive documents were aired, published and analysed by better men, while we can just sum up the fruits of their labour, and find out "what attracts them".

II

The first Prince Charming to be seduced by her husky voice was British Foreign Secretary Lord Balfour, who promised to turn Palestine into a National Home for the Jews. Britain reneged on promises given to Arabs, seized Palestine, enforced the Jewish rule in the land, killed and exiled every unbending Palestinian leader, destroyed Palestinian economy and trained the future IDF shock troops to deal with natives. They've got preciously little in return. Palestine was an expensive thing to run, and it caused a lot of trouble. Perfide Albion became an object of much dislike in the Middle East. British soldiers and officers were killed by both Palestinians and by not-so-easily placated Zionists.

Traditional explanation for their strange behaviour is an identical one to that given for the US support. It is again "imperialism", "oil", "strategic value", "divide and rule" and similar platitudes, (minus guilt and Holocaust, as it happened well before Hitler.) But a neat "collection of the official documents, memoranda and letters of those in power in London and in Palestine" in the decisive years 1917-1922 contains just one reference to economic value of Palestine as perceived by the British statesmen, "Palestine has no strategic value whatsoever ". There is no "oil" in the index at all.

In private discussions behind the closed doors of the Whitehall, one can't find even a shred of imperialist desires to divide and rule. Contrariwise, the British leaders "anticipated great trouble from Zionists" (General Allenby). As Lord Cecil succulently put it, "we (the British) are not going to get anything out of it [of possession of Palestine]". British did not need Palestine, they would love to get rid of the place, but they did not dare. The Palestine Papers put to rest the "imperialist" explanation, leave alone oil, for the tumultuous affair between Zionists and the British Empire.

Now, a thoughtful Israeli writer, Tom Segev, has proposed quite different motive in his best-selling book One Palestine, Complete. Published in English last year, it was acclaimed by the Jewish pundits of America as "thoroughly researched" (Jewish week), "fascinating" (Hadassa Magazine), "landmark of information" (Houston Jewish Herald), while this great admirer of Sharon, Ron Grossman of Chicago Tribune called it "brilliant. an utterly fascinating narrative of the period".

Segev does not mince words. He rejects oil-strategy explanations and in the very beginning of his book, he affirms: England did it because its rulers "certainly believed in great power of the World Jewry to influence world events, whether in the US or in revolutionary Russia. British government had come to conclusion that it is worth their while to conquer Palestine, to suppress its people and to give it to Zionists in order to curry favour with the World Jewry. The Prime Minister, Lloyd George "feared Jews", and in his memoirs he explained his momentous decision to support Zionists by urgent need to form an alliance, "a contract with Jewry", "a highly influential power whose goodwill was worth paying for", in order to win the war. "The Jews had every intention of determining the outcome of the WWI. They could influence the US to intensify their involvement in the war, and as the real movers behind the Russian revolution, they also controlled Russia's attitude towards Germany. The Jews offered themselves to the highest bidder, and unless Britain would clinch the deal first, the Germans would have bought them".

The astute Lloyd George based his opinion on the reports of British ambassadors, who were unequivocal. "The influence of the Jews is very great, - noted his man in Washington. - They are well-organised and especially in press, in finance, and in politics their influence is considerable". The ambassador in Turkey reported that an international connection of Jews was the real power behind Ataturk's revolution. The Foreign Office undersecretary Lord Cecil summed it up, "I do not think it is easy to exaggerate the international power of the Jews". The Royal Institute of International Affairs asserted that "the sympathy of Jews was vital to winning the war".

Jews fully shared this vision of united and powerful Jewry, writes Segev. The postmaster general Herbert Samuel, a Jew and a Zionist, proposed in 1915 to give Palestine to Jews so "millions of Jews scattered around the world, including the two million in the US, would show lasting gratitude for all generations". (It actually lasted less than 20 years until the beginning of Zionist anti-British terror) In a proper British understatement, Samuel wrote, "the goodwill of the whole Jewish race may not be without its value".

The Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann "did his best to encourage this impression", says Segev. He "conjured up the myth of Jewish power" and "reinforced British predilection for seeing the Jews everywhere and behind every decisive event". But Brits were not biting until in 1917 their military situation became desperate. Russian front had been collapsing under the influence of Bolsheviks, and Germans transferred divisions to the Western front. Britain decided to deal with the Jews so they will push America into European war.

III

Now, Tom Segev did not discover America, but he has introduced a much-needed rhetoric device, called "perception". Wisely, he does not say, "Jews wielded such a power that Britain preferred to deal with them and surrender Palestine sacrificing thousands of British soldiers and millions of Palestinians". Instead, the Israeli writer Tom Segev uses a formula perfectly acceptable even to severe Political Correctness enforcement officers. Not "Jewish power", but "perception of Jewish power", "belief in Jewish power" was the moving factor, akin to belief in witchcraft. His device and its application allow us to continue to deal with our subject peacefully, leaving the adjacent but troublesome question of reality vs. perception to some other time.

A perception is almost as good as a real thing, wrote Mark Twain in his £1 million Bill. An American hero of this short story is universally accepted for a millionaire, though he has not a penny on his soul, and he still makes millions on the base of the perception. The New York Times review of Tom Segev's book describes Balfour and other British supporters of Zionists as "acting from anti-Semitic reasons". It is an interesting definition: even devout Christian Zionists fully supportive of the Jewish state, are considered "anti-Semites", if they perceive and refer to the power of Jews. Before WWII, an anti-Semite would consider Jewish power to be a rather negative After the war, in order to be innocent, one should not even notice Jews. That is why an open, no-holds-barred debate of real extent of Jewish power would not be an easy one, as it is notoriously hard to measure and prove influence and no newspaper or TV network of the Western world would touch it with a barge pole. Segev further protects himself by attributing to the Brits a silly belief that "the Jews control the world" . No sane person, from Lloyd George to Hitler, ever thought so. The world is too big and complex to control. But the Jewish apologists usually attribute this exaggerated claim to their opponents, refute it and consider the case closed. We shan't fall for it, and keep the case open a bit longer. Segev does not reason why hard-nosed British politicians and civil servants succumbed to such an illusion, why they did not ascribe the "decisive influence" to West African witch doctors or Chinese Tao masters, but to the Jews. This lacuna is filled by a thick volume by University of California Professor Alfred S. Lindemann published by Cambridge University Press, Esau' s Tears .

Lindemann refers to the Russo-Japanese War of 1905, when Jacob H. Schiff, the American financier, blocked the Russian attempt to obtain bonds they sought in the international markets to finance the war, and provided financial support for Japan, eventually causing humiliating defeat of Russia. Afterwards, Schiff boasted that "international Jewry is a power after all" Simon Wolf, another important American Jewish leader, confidant of presidents, lectured the Russians: "The Jews of the world control much of it. There is no use in disguising the fact that in the US, the Jews form an important factor in the formation of the public opinion and in the control of finances. they exercise an all-potent and powerful influence". In 1905, after the Russo-Japanese war, their boasts were accepted as justified. Winston Churchill and Theodore Herzl firmly believed that international Jewry has enormous power in international relations. Professor Lindemann concludes, "they were not wrong in believing that Jews were a power in the world, and a rising one, particularly because of influence they could exercise in the up-and-coming US".

Lindemann concurs that the reason behind the Balfour declaration was Balfour 's and the US President Wilson's fear that the Germans might make such a declaration, rally influential Jews to the cause of the Central Powers and put paid to the Anglo-American war effort . That is why English rushed to outbid other potential buyers of the perceived Jewish influence.

IV

It is well outside the scope of this piece to decide or even discuss whether the Jews actually delivered the goods as promised, or were they able to do it, or even whether the Jews exist. It would suffice to say that it certainly appears so. America threw its fresh forces to the battlefields of Europe, tired German armies were defeated, Treaty of Versailles sealed the fate of Germany and Palestine. Long standing traditionally good relations between German Jews and Germans were irrevocably ruined by the perceived alliance of the Jews with the enemy of Germany. Eventually, ordinary Jews, ordinary Germans and ordinary Palestinians were made to pay a terrible price for the ambitions of the American Jewish leadership.

The British did not dare to cheat on the Jews after the war, as they were threatened again by possible Jewish desertion, this time to the Russian cause. Head of British Military Intelligence General MacDonogh warned the highest circles of the Empire, "The most important thing about Palestine is not its topographical relation to Syria or anything else, but that it interests the whole of the Jews all over the world. Zionists tell me that if the Jewish people did not get what they were asking for in Palestine, we should have the whole of Jewry turning Bolsheviks and supporting Bolshevism in all the other countries as they have done in Russia" .

Quite recently, Israeli right-wing, notably Sharon, Lieberman and Netanyahu, repeatedly stated that "if the Jewish people didn't get what they were asking for in Palestine", they will switch their support to Russia of President Putin. It took a few trips by Israeli ministers to Russia to enforce the American leadership's commitment to support Israel, although it was an empty threat. Now, for a first time in centuries, the Jews lost their perceived position of power brokers between two powers. Putin's Russia is too weak to threaten America; radical Left is rather weak and has no identifiable Jews; European Jews did not recover after the WWII. It is luck (or skill) of Israeli leaders that the US is lead by nincompoop Bush, not by people like President Nixon, or Lord Curzon, the man who said in March 1920:

 

"The Zionists are after a Jewish state with the Arabs as hewers of wood and drawers of water. That is not my view. I want the Arabs to have a chance and I do not want a Jewish State" .

But Nixon has been impeached through the efforts of Jewish-owned Washington Post, and Lord Curzon perished in strange circumstances. As he predicted, British Empire got very little good out of the deal with the Jews even in the medium run. British victory over Germany in 1918 was a Pyrrhic one, as it accelerated the decline of the Empire. Many politicians moaned that instead of begging for Zionist alliance and pushing for victory in 1915-1917, it would be better for the British if they would make peace with Germany.

British rule in Palestine gave England no influence, no profits, no strategic advantage, it did not even guarantee the Jewish support, leave alone gratitude. Organised mainstream Jewry supported America, Jewish communists supported Russia, while Jewish right-wing looked towards Mussolini and Hitler for inspiration and assistance. Zionist militant organisations, Hagana, Irgun and Stern Gang humiliated, terrorised and murdered British soldiers, officials and statesmen. Very soon, the English understood that they made a big mistake to enter the deal. They discovered, as many leaders before them and after them, until Yasser Arafat, that one needs a very long spoon to eat with Devil from the same pot.

V

 

The love affair between English Prince Charming and Daughter of Zion was over, but she did not remain lonely and deserted. The place of the British gentleman was taken by Joseph Stalin. In 1945-1949, the Soviet Union became the strong supporter of the fledging Jewish state. Russia voted for partition of Palestine, was first to recognise Israel, and was the main supplier of arms to Zionists (via their Czech satellite) while the West imposed its blockade on the Palestinian side. Eventually, the Russian admirer dumped the girl, like his British predecessor, and returned to support the Palestinian cause. The strange zigzag of Russian policy intrigued politicians and scholars, who offered predictable explanations: "Stalin's desire for Middle East foothold", "Soviet belief in pro-Communist sympathies of Jews in Palestine", "Russia's trying to undermine British imperialism" and surely, "oil", "expansionism" and "imperialism". All these explanations seem plausible. For us, the Israelis, the most favourite one connected Russia's move with the Israeli Left. In 1948, the fighters of Palmach imitated the Red Army, sung Russian songs; some of them had Russian or Polish Communist background. Geo-strategists preferred the Russian search for a harbour in the Mediterranean, while political scientists saw it as the struggle the between Russian Bear and the British Lion for the influence in the Middle East.

We would not know the right answer, but last year the Foreign Offices of Moscow and Tel Aviv jointly published two heavy (I know, I carried them) volumes of documents pertaining to this period. It contains secret and confidential letters by Stalin and to Stalin, and provides a full insight into the Second Lover's Tale.

"Yes, our support of Zionist state is a complete break with the long-standing Soviet tradition of supporting anti-colonial and anti-imperialist movements. Yes, this decision of ours will poison relations with the Arab world. Yes, it will enslave the native people of Palestine. But it can sway the American Jews to the side of the Soviet Union, and the American Jews will deliver the US to us" -- that was the true reasoning of Stalin and his men. In those years, strong sympathies of the American Jews to the Soviet cause led to the Rosenberg Trial, and Senator McCarthy already felt it in the air. Stalin, as the Brits before him, did not care much about Palestine. He did not consider the British Empire an important enemy - after two world wars, England was ruined. He was not interested in oil. He thought, as the Brits, to make a contract with the Jewry, to give the Jews what they want and to get their support in return.

It took him some time to understand his mistake. Israeli strongman David Ben Gurion disabused potential friends of Moscow and stressed that the first and most important friend and master of Israel remains the American Jewish leadership. When the first ambassador of Israel, Golda Meir, arrived in Moscow, Stalin witnessed incredible surge of Jewish solidarity. The Jewish wives of Kremlin commissars, from Mrs Molotov to Mrs Whatshisname, rushed in tears to Mrs Meir as to their long lost sister. The Jews in Russia occupied too many too important positions, and thousands of them crowded the streets in front of the Israeli embassy. Stalin hoped his support of Israel would have helped him to captivate the mind of American Jews, but now he had realised that, by means of Israel, the leaders of American Jews captivated the mind of Russian Jews. Instead of getting the Fifth Column in New York, he allowed Americans (via their Israeli ally) to activate their Fifth Column in Moscow. Stalin underestimated the hold Israel has over Jewish mind. He looked into this abyss and retreated as soon as possible.

VI

 

Two previous important partners of the Jewish state supported it as they perceived Jewish influence in America being a joystick to the superpower control board. They believed: give to Jews what they want (Palestine), and they will give you what you want (America). For real or for perception, they came to grief. In a classic English story, A Monkey Paw, a magic tool fulfils the owner's wish but in such a horrible way that he has a reason to regret asking for it. The alliance with Jews had a similar effect. They got what they asked for, - victory in war or pro-Russian stand of American Jews, but came to regret it.

Still the belief in Jewish power is the most common one among the elites of the world. That is why many countries send to Tel Aviv their best and most experienced ambassadors, usually on their way to or from Washington Embassy.

That is why, whenever a country wishes to beseech Washington, it sends an envoy to Tel Aviv. The Israelis pass the request to the right people in the US, and apparently it works. This belief is the most common one in the US, as well. American politicians support Israel because they share the opinion of Lloyd George and Herzl. They also respect the condition demanded by heirs of Jacob Schiff and never, but never mention the dreadful words, "Jewish power". In the world free of taboos, a new Henry Miller can't shock his readers referring to sex, but to the Jews and their unseen might. Is it only a perception? Perhaps. But the American traditional elites pay for it a real double price: they send their folks to fight a third war within the last hundred years for somebody's else perceived interests, and their positions at the top table disappear daily. This perception bleeds Iraq and Palestine, sends money to Israel, distorts the public discourse. Not in vain, Mark Twain used to say, a perception is almost as good as a real thing.

15 juin 2002. (Based on talks given in Stanford University, California and American University, Cairo)

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FERRAILLE VOLANTE

Predator secrets for sale, or for talks?

On 26/5/02, Baghdad announced that its air defences had managed to force an unmanned reconnaissance plane to land. Iraqi TV aired a video showing the body of the plane intact. According to Iraqi sources, Baghdad forced the drone down by using radar interference. US defence sources admitted that a Predator drone had been lost, but added that it had malfunctioned and crashed in a desert area in northern Kuwait. However, the story does not end here, at least for the Iraqis who say that US oil company ExxonMobil intervened with Iraqi officials to see whether it can make a deal with them to retrieve the plane before the Iraqis dismantle it and analyse its components. Washington, the Iraqis say, is now worried that Iraq might sell the secrets of the drone to Iran, China, North Korea and Yugoslavia. The Iraqis have refused any kind of mediation, but did not rule out the possibility of making a deal with the US Administration on condition that it is done publicly and directly.

Tactical Report, vol. 9, No 21, 14 juin 2002.

LA SUPRÉMATIE RACIALE MENACÉE

Jewish Majority Threatened

 

The Jewish majority in Israel faces a demographic threat. Minister of the Interior Eli Yeshai (Shas) said yesterday that at the current rates of growth, Jews will not be the majority population between the Jordan and the Mediterranean within eight years. As it stands now, Yeshai noted, there is a growing number of IDF soldiers who refuse to take the oath of allegiance on the Tanakh (Jewish Bible), but rather insist on doing so on the New Testament. Yeshai calls for an "emergency public debate on the matter before it's too late."

In order to limit the number of non-Jews who take advantage of Israeli repatriation laws, Yeshai recommends that the Law of Return be changed. Under the current law, individuals with one Jewish grandparent may obtain automatic citizenship - even though Judaism recognizes only the offspring of a Jewish mother or a halakhic [Jewish legal] convert as Jewish. Housing Minister Natan Sharansky (Yisrael Beiteinu), however, says that now is not the time to discuss changing the Law of Return.

In addition to the recent immigration of multitudes of non-Jews under the Law of Return, the Jewish majority is also threatened by the increased influx of foreign workers in recent years and high Arab birth rates. MK Ophir Pines (Labor) responded with a demand to "kill the messenger," saying that Prime Minister Sharon must fire Yeshai from his position as Interior Minister. Pines specifically objected to reports that Yeshai accused non-Jewish soldiers of being less loyal to the State of Israel than Jews.

Arutz 7, 14 juin 2002

PLUS RACISTE, TU MEURS

New Laws Legalize Apartheid in Israel

 

To ensure that the Jewish nature of Israel remains intact, the Israeli government has recently passed five laws that aim to decrease the quality of life and the number of Arab citizens in Israel. According to Jamal Zahalka, general director of the Ahali Center for Community Development in Nazareth, Israel is suffering a demographic phobia and the new laws are a reflection of the current political atmosphere controlling the country. "The demographic issue has become a dangerous one for Israel. Israel is afraid of the national influence its Palestinian citizens may have on the state," Zahalka said at a 10 June 2002 Center for Policy Analysis on Palestine (CPAP) briefing. Zahalka argued that in the process of maintaining its Jewish nature, Israel has passed discriminatory laws against the Palestinian citizens who make up 20 percent of the population. At the same time, Israel is publicly debating three political "solutions" to rid itself of the Palestinian residents of the Occupied Territories.

The first of the discriminatory laws analyzed by Zahalka is the family reunification law. The Israeli government voted to halt the processing of all family reunification applications. The law stipulates that any Israeli citizen who marries a Palestinian from the Palestinian Authority (PA) areas or someone of Palestinian origin will not be allowed to petition Israel for Israeli citizenship on behalf of his/her spouse. As a result, hundreds of Arab families are kept apart. Under a National Insurance Law, Israel voted for a 25 percent cut in child allowance for families without a member serving in the army. This comes after a February vote to decrease the allowance by 12 percent. Ninety percent of Arabs do not serve in the Israeli army. In all, Arab families were slapped with a 37 percent cut in child allowances. Some 52 percent of Arab children already live under the poverty line. Although the law also applies to religious Jews and new immigrants who do not serve in the army, Zahalka argued that these groups are unaffected since they are compensated by the Israeli Ministry of Religious Affairs and the Jewish Agency. While Jews are given financial incentives to have children, Arabs are feeling the financial burden of having children.

The Incitement Law forbids Arabs in Israel from supporting or sympathizing with the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories who are resisting the Israeli occupation. Under this law, anyone who supports acts of violence or terror against Israel will be sentenced to five years in prison. Anyone caught with material considered hostile to Israel can be sentenced to one year in prison. Zahalka described the law as a constraint on freedom of speech. Such a law will have a major impact on any attempt by Israeli citizens to challenge the government's military occupation of the Palestinian territories. The fourth law Zahalka analyzed is the "Azmi Bishara" law. Named after an Arab Member of Knesset (MK) whose immunity was lifted to allow his prosecution for making political statements in Syria-a state Israel considers an enemy-that were unfavorable toward Israel. This law is designed to prevent an MK from visiting an enemy state. According to Zahalka, Jordan and Egypt, the only two Arab states with which Israel has peace agreements, are listed along with Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Algeria, and Yemen-all Arab states where relatives of Arab Israeli citizens live-as enemy states.

The fifth and most dangerous law, in Zahalka's opinion, is the election law. Any person or party that directly or indirectly denies that Israel is a democratic Jewish state and a state for the Jews will be barred from running for the Knesset. The decision to allow a party to run for the Knesset is left in the hands of an election committee. Zahalka believes that since the assassination of former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in November 1995, the "liberalization process" in Israel has declined. Israel is moving away from peace with the Palestinians and toward peace among Jews. This has led to discriminatory laws against the Palestinian citizens of Israel and has had a huge impact on Palestinians living in the Occupied Territories. Zahalka described Israeli political discourse on the Palestinians of the Occupied Territories as revolving around three main ideas : separation, apartheid, and transfer. Transfer, once a marginal issue, is now openly debated on national Israeli television and has become part of the mainstream discourse. Politicians openly discuss the means of transferring the Palestinians out of the territories. Peace, Zahalka argued, has become a marginal issue in Israeli politics.

Separation has become the "most popular word in Israel." Israel's motivation for separation is driven by its desire to maintain its Jewish nature, not because of a conviction that Palestinians have a right to statehood and independence. There are three Israeli understandings of separation. For some it is a withdrawal to the 5 June 1967 borders, for others it is territorial compromise, and others see it as unilateral separation with a fence sealing the West Bank off from Israel. An apartheid system has already taken shape. Zahalka pointed out that Israel has already divided the West Bank and the Gaza Strip into several cantons and requires Palestinians to carry permits allowing them to travel between the cantons. "These laws and the current discourse represent the current atmosphere in Israel," Zahalka said. Israel is not ripe for a just peace.

The above text is based on remarks delivered on 10 June 2002 by Jamal Zahalka. The speaker's views do not necessarily reflect those of the Center for Policy Analysis on Palestine or The Jerusalem Fund. This "For the Record" may be used without permission but with proper attribution to the Center for Policy Analysis on Palestine. To contact Zahalka, write to <[email protected]>.

STUPID !

The Russians got into their Vietnam right after we got out of ours? Isn't that strange?

We supported Bin Laden and the Taleban for years, and viewed them as freedom fighters against the Russians? Isn't that strange?

As late as 1998 the US was paying the salary of every single Taleban official in Afghanistan? Isn't that strange?

There is more oil and gas in the Caspian Sea area than in Saudi Arabia, but you need a pipeline through Afghanistan to get the oil out. Isn't that strange?

Unocal, a giant American Oil conglomerate, wanted to build a 1-000-mile long pipeline from the Caspian Sea through Afghanistan to the Arabian Sea. Isn't that strange?

Unocal spent $10 billion on geological surveys for pipeline construction, and very nicely courted the Taleban for their support in allowing the construction to begin. Isn't that strange?

All of the leading Taleban officials were in Texas negotiating with Unocal in 1998. Isn't that strange?

198-1999 - The Taleban changed its mind and threw Unocal out of the country and awarded the pipeline project to a company from Argentina. Isn't that strange?

John Maresca, vice president of Unocal, testified before Congress and said no pipeline until the Taleban was gone and a more friendly government was established. Isn't that strange?

1999-2000 - The Taleban became the most evil people in the world. Isn't that strange?

Niaz Naik, a former Pakistani Foreign Secretary, was told by senior American officials in mid-July that military action against Afghanistan would go ahead by the middle of October. Isn't that strange?

Sept. 11, 2001 - WTC disaster. Bush goes to war against Afghanistan even though none of the hijackers came from Afghanistan. Isn't that strange?

Bush blamed Bin Laden but has never offered any proof saying it's a "secret." Isn't that strange?

Taleban offered to negotiate to turn over Bin Laden if we showed them some proof. We refused; we bombed. Isn't that strange?

Bush said: "This is not about nation building. It's about getting the terrorists." Isn't that strange?

We have a new government in Afghanistan. Isn't that strange? The leader of that government formerly worked for Unocal. Isn't that strange?

Bush appoints a special envoy to represent the US to deal with that new government, who formerly was the "chief consultant to Unocal." Isn't that strange?

The Bush family acquired their wealth through oil? Isn't that strange? Bush's secretary of interior was the president of an oil company before going to Washington. Isn't that strange?

George Bush Sr. now works with the "Carlysle Group" specializing in huge oil investments round the world. Isn't that strange?

Condoleezza Rice worked for Chevron before going to Washington. Isn't that strange?

Chevron named one of its newest "supertankers" after Condoleezza. Isn't that strange?

Dick Cheney worked for the giant oil conglomerate Haliburton before becoming vice president. Isn't that strange?

Haliburton gave Cheney $34 million as a farewell gift when he left the company. Isn't that strange?

Halliburton is in the pipeline construction business. Isn't that strange? There is $6 trillion worth of oil in the Caspian Sea area. Isn't that strange?

The US government quietly announced on Jan 31, 2002 that we will support the construction of the Trans-Afghanistan pipeline. Isn't that strange?

President Musharraf (Pakistan), and interim leader Karzai, (Afghanistan-UNOCAL) announces agreement to build proposed gas pipeline from Central Asia to Pakistan via Afghanistan. (Irish Times 02/10/02) Isn't that strange?

It's the Oil, Stupid!

MASSACRES ET TORTURES US EN AFGHANISTAN

ILS N'ONT PAS PU S'EMPÊCHER

Documentary Of US 'War Crimes' In Afghanistan Stuns Europe

By Clive Freeman

 

Berlin -- American soldiers have been involved in the torture and murder of captured Taliban prisoners, and may have aided in the "disappearance" of up to 3,000 men in the region of Mazar-i-Sharif, according to Jamie Doran, an Irish documentary film-maker.

Doran's latest film, Massacre At Mazar, was shown on Wednesday in in the Reichstag, the German parliament building in Berlin, and there were immediate calls for an international commission to be set up to investigate charges made in the documentary.

Andrew McEntee, a leading international human rights lawyer, who has viewed the film footage and read full transcripts, believes there is prima facie evidence of serious war crimes having been committed by American soldiers in Afghanistan.

"The Americans did whatever they wanted" McEntee, who was in Berlin for Wednesday's special screening, said war crimes had been committed not just under international law but, also, "under the laws of the United States itself".

Much of the footage shown in Doran's 20-minute documentary was taken secretly, and although witnesses were said to be living in fear of reprisal from within Afghanistan itself they had all agreed to appear at any future international war crimes tribunal to give evidence, it was claimed.

One witness in the film claimed he had seen an American soldier break an Afghan prisoner's neck and pour acid on others. "The Americans did whatever they wanted. We had no power to stop them," he alleged.

Sometimes prisoners who were beaten up and taken outside had "disappeared", he said.

In other sequences witnesses, among them two men, claimed they had been forced to drive into the desert with hundreds of Taliban prisoners.

The living were then summarily shot while 30 to 40 American soldiers purportedly stood by, it was alleged. The prisoners had been taken there on the orders of the local American commander, according to the documentary.

In the film, an Afghan witness admitted to killing prisoners himself, and another officer, allegedly a senior officer in the army of deputy defence minister Dostum's forces, was said to have gone into hiding following threats to his life.

The far-left Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) arranged for the special showing of Massacre At Mazar in the Reichstag. Party chairman Roland Claus was cautious regarding its content but did spoke of its attempt at "authenticity."

Andre Brie, a PDS member of the European Parliament, concerned by reports of ill treatment of Taliban prisoners, said he would be in favour of an international commission looking into "disturbing" questions raised by the film.

At a press conference Brie said he had known of Doran's dangerous film activity in Afghanistan, and had helped to support him financially.

The PDS party faction had wanted to obtain authentic footage of the war in Afghanistan, he said.

The film was due to be screened at the European Parliament in Strasbourg later on Wednesday evening. -

Sapa-DPA 13 juin 2002

<http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?click_id=3&art_id=qw1023894901416B265&set_id=1>

Interview with Jamie Doran, director of Massacre at Mazar

By Stefan Steinberg, 17 June 2002

Jamie Doran is an award-winning documentary filmmaker who has been producing films for the past 22 years. He spent seven years working for the BBC before establishing his own independent television company. He has spent much of the last eight months working in Afghanistan on film projects. The WSWS conducted this interview with Doran on June 14.

WSWS: You deal briefly with the events in the fort of Qala-i-Janghi, but the main part of your film concentrates on the fate of all 8,000 fighters who surrendered to American forces in Konduz.

JD: That,s right. 8,000 surrendered to Amir Jahn, who negotiated the surrender deal. In the film he says he counted the prisoners one by one, and there were 8,000 of them. 470 went to Qala-i-Janghi. The assumption is that seven-and-a-half-thousand went from Qala-i-Janghi to Sheberghan, and the result of that transport was that, according to his words,... Just 3,015 are left. Where are the rest?...

WSWS: What happened to the surviving 3,015? Have they been set free?

JD: No, most of them are still there in prison. They are letting some of them go, but the majority are still in detention.

 

WSWS: Regarding the US involvement in what took place, could I ask about the witnesses who appear in the film?

JD: Three members of the Afghan military appear in the film, two ordinary soldiers and one general. Then there is one taxi diver who witnessed three containers with blood pouring from them. He said his hair stood on end and that it was horrific. Then two of the truck drivers testify who were forced to take the containers into the desert. Based on the statements of the witnesses, the total number of those transported was at the very least 1,500, but more likely the total is up to 3,000.

 

WSWS: Is there any other evidence, apart from the testimony of these witnesses, on the involvement of the American military in the deaths of these 3,000 prisoners?

JD: Absolutely not. The reason the story has been released early is that I received a warning from Mazar-i-Sharif that the graves in the desert were being tampered with. All the evidence is in the graves, and it is essential that those graves are not touched!

 

WSWS: Do you know who was tampering with them?

JD: Yes I do, but I am not saying. What I am saying is that everyone is innocent until proven guilty, and the genuinely innocent have nothing to fear from an independent inquiry. So the Afghans and Americans involved in this have nothing to fear from an independent inquiry, if they are innocent. I am sure they can have no objections to such an inquiry.

WSWS: In your opinion, in such an operation involving the transportation and elimination of up to 3,000 people, is it possible that the American troops did not have knowledge or give their consent?

JD: You want my opinion? My answer is no. One hundred and fifty Americans soldiers were present at Sheberghan prison. That does not include CIA personnel. In my opinion, it would be highly unlikely that they could remain unaware of something taking place of such magnitude.

 

WSWS: In your opinion, how high up in the US army chain of command does complicity in these events extend?

JD: I repeat. When you have 150 American soldiers and a number of CIA personnel in the vicinity of Sheberghan prison, it would be extremely strange if they did not have knowledge of these atrocities taking place.

 

WSWS: In the film, witnesses say that American military personnel were involved in the torture and shooting of Afghan prisoners.

JD: In the film, accusations are made that torture was carried out by American soldiers, but the major accusation in terms of the numbers involved is that an American officer told one of the witnesses to get the containers out of the town of Sheberghan before satellite pictures could be taken. Also, one of the drivers talked of 30 to 40 American soldiers being present at the location of the murder and burial of survivors in the desert.

 

WSWS: Is there any evidence to point to the participation of American soldiers in shooting victims in the desert?

JD: I have absolutely no evidence that American troops were involved in the shooting that took place in the desert. At the same time, there are other witnesses to the mass grave in the desert. There are human rights activists who found the mass grave in the desert even before me, and they now describe my film as "the missing link". They found the grave and, under the auspices of the UN, dug up a small section of earth containing 15 bodies. They estimate that in that one section of the desert there were about a thousand bodies. They too are calling for the grave to be protected, because at the moment it is being protected by no one. So the evidence can be easily tampered with.

 

WSWS: Based on the evidence of your film, what are you calling for?

JD: I am a journalist. I do not make calls. What I am saying is that evidence must be protected. It is essential that the grave is protected until an international inquiry can be carried out.

 

WSWS: What has been the reaction to your film?

JD: It has been incredible. I have had worldwide inquiries. There has even been interest in America. It has been astonishing. I have had inquires from South Africa, Australia, as well as every country in Europe.

WSWS: What are your plans for showing the film to a wider audience?

JD: As you know, this is a short film that I have released in order to prevent the graves being damaged. The main film will be finished in about five to six weeks, and will carry greater implications against the people involved.

 

WSWS: Could you say something about the risks involved in shooting your

film?

JD: I was working as an independent journalist in Afghanistanthat says everything. I do not give a damn about my own position, but I am concerned about my journalists there and, in particular, I am concerned about the witnesses who risked everything to appear in the film. They had no reason to give these interviews. It has put them in great danger. None of them received a single cent for their contributions. I repeat that they received absolutely no payment for their appearance in the film and have only, in fact, put themselves in extreme danger. It is urgent that immediate action is taken to protect the graves, protect the evidence. The innocent have nothing to fear.

<http://www.wsws.org/de/2002/jun2002/dora-j18.shtml>

World Socialist Websit (se donnant comme la Quatrième Internationale); Le texte de l'interview sur le site WSWS est en allemand.

UN LIVRE ÉCLAIRANT

Détruire la Palestine, ou comment terminer la guerre de 1948, de Tanya Reinhart, aux éditions La Fabrique.

[13,00 euros, ISBN : 2913372228 - Parution en avril 2002] Il est probable que le stock a brûlé en juin.

Tanya Reinhart est professeur de linguistique aux universités de Tel-Aviv et d'Utrecht. Depuis sa thèse au MIT en 1976, elle est mondialement connue pour ses contributions à la linguistique théorique. En 1994, après les accords d'Oslo, elle a commencé à écrire sur la politique. Elle a une chronique régulière dans le quotidien israélien le plus lu, Yediot Aharonot, et publie également des articles sur internet et dans des forums internationaux.

Les événements actuels en Israël-Palestine sont généralement présentés comme une série d'incidents tragiques, aggravés par la psychologie perverse de l'actuel Premier ministre, Ariel Sharon. Mais l'examen attentif des faits tels qu'ils ressortent des médias israéliens révèle que, dès les premiers jours du soulèvement palestinien, derrière la folie apparente il y avait des ordres terrifiants qui avaient été donnés. Israël a mis en oeuvre de façon systématique le projet de faire tomber Arafat, de détruire les institutions palestiniennes et d'en finir avec les accords d'Oslo.

En fait, cette politique remonte à plus loin dans le temps. Depuis le début du "processus d'Oslo" en 1993, il y a eu deux conceptions divergentes dans les milieux politiques et militaires israéliens. La première, soutenue par Yossi Beilin, cherchait à mettre en application une version du vieux plan du parti travailliste (plan Alon), qui consistait à annexer environ 35% des territoires occupés et à donner aux Palestiniens un certain degré d'autodétermination sur le reste. Mais pour la partie opposée, c'était encore trop. L'opposition aux accords d'Oslo était focalisée autour des militaires -- dont le porte-parole le plus virulent à l'époque était le chef d'état-major, Ehud Barak -- et dans le cercle politique de Sharon. Barak et Sharon appartiennent à une lignée de généraux politiques, nourris par le mythe de Ben Gourion, la rédemption par la terre. Comme ils l'ont déclaré à maintes reprises l'an dernier, " la guerre de 1948 n'est pas encore terminée ". Pour eux, il est encore possible de mettre à exécution le plan de Sharon : écraser les Palestiniens, en pousser le plus grand nombre hors des territoires occupés, et imposer un ordre régional comme il a essayé de le faire au Liban en 1982. Cette confiance a été renforcée par la nouvelle philosophie occidentale de la guerre, mise en application en Irak, au Kosovo et en Afghanistan.

En 1999, l'armée est revenue au pouvoir, par Barak puis Sharon. Pour corriger ce qui était pour eux la grave erreur d'Oslo, la première étape était de convaincre l'opinion publique israélienne, fatiguée de la guerre, que les Palestiniens ne voulaient pas la paix et mettaient en cause l'existence même d'Israël. Sharon tout seul n'y serait peut-être pas parvenu, mais Barak y a réussi. Par une magistrale mystification, il a convaincu les Israéliens et le monde entier qu'il avait fait à Camp David des concessions sans précédent, que les Palestiniens avaient refusé (on trouvera dans le livre une étude détaillée des négociations, montrant qu'en fait Israël n'a rien proposé d'autre qu'une version aggravée de la situation existante). Après un an et demi de propagande, de terreur et de mensonges, Sharon et les militaires sont désormais convaincus que rien ne peut plus les arrêter.

AMFP 201 17 juin 2002. <[email protected]>

MÊME APPROCHE

Le plan de Sharon ? Chasser les Palestiniens

au-delà du Jourdain

par le Pr. Martin Van Creveld

L'éminent historien israélien Martin van Creveld prédit qu'une attaque américaine contre l'Irak ou un attentat terroriste en Israël pourraient déclencher une mobilisation massive visant à débarrasser les territoires occupés de leurs deux millions d'Arabes.

Voici deux ans, moins de huit pour cent des Israéliens juifs interrogés par l'agence Gallup d'études de l'opinion publique ont répondu en se disant favorables à ce que l'on dénomme de l'euphémisme de "transfert" -- et qui n'est rien d'autre que l'expulsion d'au minimum deux millions de Palestiniens au-delà du Jourdain. Ce mois-ci, le même sondage fait apparaître un chiffre de 44 pour cent.

Cette année même, à un journaliste qui demandait à Ariel Sharon s'il était en faveur d'une mesure telle que celle-là, le Premier ministre israélien lui avait répondu qu'il ne pensait pas exactement en ces termes. Un coup d'oeil à ses mémoires, toutefois, permet de vérifier qu'il n'a pas toujours été aussi regardant.

En septembre 1970, le roi Hussein de Jordanie décida d'en finir avec les Palestiniens, dans son royaume, tuant de cinq à dix mille d'entre eux. Le général Sharon, commandant en chef en exercice de l'armée israélienne, sur le front sud, jugea que la politique israélienne consistant à aider le souverain hachémite était une erreur; pour lui, au contraire, ce qu'Israël aurait dû faire, c'était en profiter pour le renverser ! Il a souvent répété depuis que la Jordanie, laquelle, à ses dires, est majoritairement peuplée de Palestiniens, encore aujourd'hui, est le vrai Etat palestinien. La conclusion -- à savoir que les Palestiniens devraient tous aller en vivre en Jordanie -- coule de source.

Durant sa guerre d'indépendance, en 1948, Israël a chassé 650.000 Palestiniens de leurs foyers, vers les pays voisins. Si Israël voulait tenter quelque chose d'approchant aujourd'hui, cela pourrait bien déclencher une guerre régionale. De plus en plus de gens, à Jérusalem, pensent que tel est bien, pourtant, l'objectif de M. Sharon. Voilà ce qui pourrait expliquer pourquoi M. Sharon, célèbre pour son habileté à faire des projets à long terme, semble ne pas avoir de stratégie. En réalité, il nourrit depuis toujours un plan très clair: il s'agit de rien de moins que débarrasser Israël des Palestiniens.

Peu de gens, et moi le dernier, iraient jusqu'à souhaiter que de tels événements se produisent dans la réalité. Mais un tel scénario pourrait très aisément voir ses conditions réunies. M. Sharon n'aurait qu'à attendre que l'opportunité se présente -- telle une offensive américaine contre l'Irak, offensive que d'aucuns, en Israël, verraient bien se produire au début de l'été. M. Sharon a dit en personne à Colin Powell, Secrétaire d'Etat, que l'Amérique ne devrait pas permettre que la situation prévalant en Israël risque de retarder cette opération...

Une insurrection en Jordanie, suivie par l'effondrement du régime du roi Abdullah II, serait aussi une opportunité intéressante -- de même qu'un attentat terroriste en Israël, causant plusieurs centaines de victimes. Dussent de semblables circonstances se trouver réunies, Israël mobiliserait à la vitesse de l'éclair -- aujourd'hui même, alors que ces circonstances sont loin d'être réunies, la quasi-totalité de la population israélienne (mâle et femelle) en âge de porter les armes est sur le pied de guerre...

Comme hors-d'oeuvre, les trois sous-marins ultramodernes d'Israël iraient rejoindre des positions de tir, au large des côtes. Les frontières seraient naturellement fermées, un black-out serait imposé aux informations par la censure militaire, tous les journalistes étrangers seraient consignés dans leurs hôtels et se verraient gratifiés du titre d'"invités du gouvernement à titre gracieux". Une armada composée de douze divisions, dont onze divisions blindées, plus diverses unités territoriales adaptées à des missions d'occupation, seraient déployées: cinq face à l'Egypte, trois face à la Syrie et une face au Liban. Cela laisserait trois unités disponibles pour le "front est", ainsi que suffisamment de forces pour mettre un tank dans chacun des villages arabes d'Israël ("de 48"), juste au cas où leur population aurait quelques lubies bizarres (comme celle de se révolter, ndt). L'expulsion des Palestiniens ne nécessiterait que quelques brigades. Celles-ci ne prendraient même pas la peine de faire sortir les gens de leurs maisons. Elles utiliseraient massivement l'artillerie lourde afin de les chasser; les destructions de Jénine ressembleraient à un coup d'épingle, en comparaison à ce qui se passerait dans ce cas de figure...

Toute intervention venue de l'extérieur serait repoussée par l'aviation israélienne. En 1982, dernière en date de ses opérations de grande envergure, elle avait détruit 19 batteries anti-aériennes syriennes et abattu cent Mig syriens contre un seul Mirage perdu de son côté... Aujourd'hui, sa supériorité est beaucoup plus écrasante qu'elle ne l'était alors, et elle représenterait une menace tellement dissuasive qu'elle interdirait pratiquement toute attaque blindée (syrienne) sur les hauts-plateaux du Golan. Quant aux Egyptiens, ils sont séparés d'Israël par environ deux cent kilomètres d'étendues désertes. A en juger à ce qui s'était passé en juin 1967, feraient-ils mine de vouloir les traverser qu'ils seraient écrasés. Les armées jordanienne et libanaise sont, quant à elles, trop faibles pour seulement compter, et l'Irak n'est pas en position d'intervenir, puisqu'il est vrai qu'il n'a pas récupéré sa force militaire d'avant 1991 et qu'il est soumis au chantage américain. Saddam Hussein pourrait éventuellement lancer quelques-uns des trente ou quarante missiles, tout au plus, dont il dispose vraisemblablement.

Les dommages que ces missiles pourraient infliger seraient, toutefois, limités. Dût Saddam être assez fou pour recourir à des armes de destruction massive, la réponse d'Israël serait "si horrible et terrifiante" (comme l'avait déclaré jadis feu le Premier ministre Yitzhak Rabin) qu'elle "défierait l'imagination". D'aucuns pensent que la communauté internationale ne laisserait pas procéder sans réagir à un tel nettoyage ethnique. Je n'en donnerais pas ma main à couper. Si M. Sharon décidait d'aller plus loin, le seul pays qui pourrait le stopper, c'est les Etats-Unis. Les Etats-Unis, toutefois, se considèrent comme étant en guerre avec des composantes du monde musulman qui ont apporté leur soutien à Ossama Ben Laden. L'Amérique ne verrait pas nécessairement un quelconque inconvénient à ce qu'une bonne leçon soit donné au monde - en particulier si cela peut être mené aussi rondement et brutalement que lors de la campagne guerrière de 1967 ; et d'autant plus, si cela ne devait pas interrompre le flot du pétrole trop longtemps. Les experts militaires israéliens estiment qu'une guerre de cette nature pourrait être conclue sous huitaine. Si les pays arabes n'interviennent pas, elle se terminerait avec les Palestiniens totalement chassés et une Jordanie en ruines.

S'ils intervenaient, cela ne changerait absolument rien au résultat, sauf que les principales armées arabes seraient détruites, elles aussi. Israël essuierait, bien entendu, quelques pertes, en particulier dans le nord, où la population israélienne serait soumise aux bombardements du Hizbollah (depuis le Liban, ndt). Toutefois, le nombre des victimes israéliennes serait limité et Israël serait une fois encore triomphant, comme il l'a été en 1948, en 1956, en 1967 et en 1973. Vous m'entendez, Monsieur Arafat ?

The Telegraph du dimanche 28 avril 2002, traduit de l'anglais par Marcel Charbonnier.

(Le Professeur Martin van Creveld, vit à Jérusalem. Il est l'auteur de The Sword and the Olive ; a Critical History of the Israel Defense Force, NY, 1998)

PARODIE DE JUSTICE

The Judge as Prosecutor:

two days at the "Trial" of Slobodan Milosevic

By Ian Johnson

Introduction: Ian Johnson recounts an incident that occurred while he was attending the Milosevic 'trial' at The Hague on June 7th:

 

"During the morning break I met a young Dutch lad in the lobby. He was studying medicine in Vienna but was staying for the summer with his grandfather in Holland. He was curious about the Milosevic case. Of course he couldn't find it on the television. So he'd come over to watch with his own eyes. He saw me taking notes and approached me. He wanted to see if I was thinking what he was thinking. His English was excellent. He said, "I don't know that much about the issues, but anyone can see this isn't a proper trial, is it? The Judge is totally against him. In fact he's openly contemptuous of Mr. Milosevic, isn't he? What's going on here?"

I work as a paralegal in the UK. So for me, the perversion of justice I had just witnessed -- and with a British judge presiding! -- was infuriating. But here was this young Dutch lad, not in the legal profession or involved in defending Mr. Milosevic at all, but a thinking person, and he was horrified as well. He wanted to know why his country was supporting such a travesty. This is why they have stopped showing the proceedings on television. Because the people, and especially the young people, wouldn't stand for it, would they?"

Here is Ian Johnson's account:

<http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/ian/day.htm>

[Posted 19 June 2002]

NOTE: For audio of 'trial' go to <http://hague.bard.edu/video.html>

For transcripts, go to <http://www.un.org/icty/latest/index.htm>

BARBARIE ORDINAIRE

Impunity and Its Discontents

by Kareem Fahim

 

This is the A-Rum checkpoint, a few miles outside of Jerusalem, where two reporters wait on the side of the road for a taxi back to the Old City. The family standing next to us borrows our cell phone; their cab is late. Jehad, the photographer, is making faces at their youngest, who clings coyly to her beleaguered father's pantleg and plays along.

The Israeli army jeep with several soldiers pulls up to the corner where we all stand, and Teenage Soldier 1 (I'll call him TS1) gets out of the passenger side and playfully tosses a soda can at the family. Then, still having fun, he tosses a concussion grenade in the same direction, prompting the father to grab his children and run. The Voice reporters, unused to dodging explosives, stare dumbly at the smoking orange cylinder a few feet away, and then it blows up. Concussion grenades can break bones. Everyone gets off easy this time, slightly disoriented and temporarily deaf.

But TS1 is not done. He hops back into the jeep, and the soldiers tear off for 100 feet to the concrete blocks that mark the checkpoint proper, where a Palestinian van waits for permission to pass. TS2, sporting the same peroxide-blond coif as his partner, asks the driver a question, and then the two soldiers charge over to the passenger side, pull out a Palestinian teenager, and while TS1 steadies the lethal end of his M16 an inch from the boy's nose, TS2 kicks the shit out of him with his boot. I look at Jehad, whose usual thirst for bang-bang has fled; his camera stays in his bag, and he whispers, "They're going to shoot him." But they don't shoot him, instead hauling him off, shackled, blindfolded, and surely bruised, to the waiting jeep.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesperson is available 24 hours to journalists, which is a real help. A pleasant woman answers the phone, and I ask her about the incident at the A-Rum checkpoint.

"I don't know about this," she confesses. "But probably this boy was carrying a bag?" I'm not sure, I reply, thinking that I usually carry a bag. Does she carry a bag? But we're getting nowhere, and another genial spokesperson finally suggests that I call the prime minister's office for more information.

The Israeli human rights group B'Tselem has tracked Israel's investigations into abuse by its soldiers from the start of the current intifada in October 2000 through the beginning of May. The group reports that of the 125 cases opened, 12 criminal indictments have been handed down, and eight cases have prompted disciplinary proceedings. Three of the indictments were for "firing offenses (one killing and two injuries)," but the guilty soldiers have yet to be sentenced. Another three were related to "violence and brutality," and concerned an incident in which soldiers detained two taxis, severely beat the male Palestinian occupants, and then ordered the Palestinians to beat each other.

"When you talk about statistics, the numbers of investigations that were opened compared to the number that should be investigated is amazingly low," says Lior Yavne of B'Tselem. "Up until April 1, only 12 death cases were opened, from the several hundred civilians killed during the intifada."

An investigation last December by the Los Angeles Times into abuses by the IDF came to similar conclusions, finding that killings by the army are given "cursory, on-site review, and, if any fault is found, chalked up to justifiable error or the fog of war. Fuller inquiry is seldom pursued." Both studies cite Israel's contention that they are engaged in an "armed conflict short of war" as at least partially responsible for the greater impunity its soldiers seem to display. The conflict is "short" of war because the Palestinians do not have an army.

Of course, the incident at the A-Rum checkpoint is a minor one compared to most Palestinian tales of abuse. One Palestinian woman tells me that four Israeli soldiers beat her one day for "mouthing off." Although she is an Israeli citizen, she has not reported the incident, and cannot really explain why. Many who have heard victims' testimonies say this is commonplace, as Palestinians who possess either Israeli citizenship or the coveted identification cards that actually allow them to work keep quiet for fear these privileges will be taken away.

In search of more bang-bang, we decide to travel to Bethlehem, which is officially closed for IDF operations. We find a way through neighboring Beit Jala, and travel a whole 200 meters before our taxi driver stops and points to an Israeli jeep. This is a "targeted operation": IDF soldiers going house to house to grab the men they want. The neighborhood is watching the whole thing from balconiesthis part of Beit Jala has missed most of the latest action. For the next five hours, we sit in the bushes and watch as the Israelis blow up doors, shoot up houses, and arrest people.

To make sure no one misses the fun, the army rounds up some 30 Palestinians who live in or near the houses they've targeted, and make them watch the show. But some of them are blindfolded, so they'll miss the best parta sighting of what appears to be a real-life "human shield," not three weeks after the IDF declared that it was "absolutely forbidden" for its soldiers "to use civilians of any kind as a means of 'living shield' against gunfire or attacks by the Palestinian side, or as 'hostages.' " But there one is, a Palestinian man in his mid thirties, knocking on the door, his hands raised, with soldiers cowering behind him.

The IDF spokesman takes a couple of days to comment on our pictures of the Beit Jala incursion, but does call back, good-natured as always. Captain Jacob Dallal thinks the real issue is terminology. "I reject the use of the term 'human shield,' " he says, steering me to the preferred "guides for informational purposes". He points out that the operations we witnessed netted the taxi driver of the Rishon Letzion bombings, and says that the use of civilians to grab suspected terrorists "is reasonable."

"We're living under terrible circumstances here," Dallal says, casually.

"What do you want?"

Moshe Nissim's easygoing demeanor earned him the nickname "Kurdi Bear." Last month, Nissim, an army reservist, gave an interview to the Israeli daily Yediot Ahronoth, in which he recalled his experience operating a bulldozer in the Jenin refugee camp. He told the paper that after placing the flag of his soccer team, Beitar, atop his American-made Caterpillar D9 bulldozer, he started flattening houses. "When they told me to destroy a house, I took advantage of it and ruined a few more . . . the soldiers warned with a speaker, that the tenants must leave before I come in, but I did not give anyone a chance . . . others may have been more restrained. Or they say they have. Don't believe their stories."

For those unfamiliar with the D9, it is a wonder to behold, sort of the Great White of bulldozers. Manufactured by the Caterpillar company of Peoria, Illinois, it weighs over 50 tons without armor. "D9" is now a fixture in the growing American lexicon of Palestinian teenagers, along with words like "Apache," "Cobra," and "F-sittosh" (F-16). Usually, the Israeli army requires lengthy training before allowing soldiers to operate the D9. Moshe Nissim says he trained on the beast for only two hours.

Nissim says the army brass ordered the D9s out of the camp quickly, lest the international press get a look at them. "Jenin empowered me," says Nissim, who drank whiskey and munched on snacks in order to stay awake while he bulldozed. "I answered to no one."

Village Voice, NY, Week of June 19 - 25, 2002

BARBARIE SUITE

Rapport de la mission civile à Gaza

Voici le rapport, "Nouvelles de Palestine sous barbarie", que nous a transmis une des missions civiles actuellement présentes à Gaza :

Jeudi 13 juin 2002. Deuxième jour dans la bande de Gaza. Au programme les camps de réfugiés du sud de la bande, Khan Younes, Rafat, présentation de la situation à l'antenne de Khan Younes des Droits de l'homme. En fait, à notre arrivée, il y a déjà un agriculteur, Mohamad, complètement bouleversé: des bulldozers ont retourné sa propriété (potager et verger) dans la nuit et arraché tous ses arbres fruitiers. Déjà l'an dernier ils étaient venus et avaient détruits tous ses arbres (155 oliviers, 45 orangers, et différents arbres fruitiers) vieux de 70 ans, sur cette terre qu'il avait achetée il y 15 ans sous administration militaire israélienne. Ils les avait replantés cette année. Son exploitation fait vivre 16 personnes Originaire du nord, lui et sa famille avaient déjà été chassés en 1948. Selon ses propres mots : "Un arbre peut-il provoquer un colon? Pourquoi se vengent-ils sur mes plantes ? Nous ne sommes pas des héros, nous demandons seulement un pays et des droits comme n'importe quel peuple. Vue la noirceur de notre vie, nous finirons tous par devenir des terroristes. Pourquoi n'y a-t-il aucune commission d'enquête? Je vous demande de venir au village de Qarara et de voir ce qu'on a fait de mes plantations. Je vous invite tous à venir manger sur les ruines de mon jardin. Je vous demande de faire pression sur vos pays. Mon terrain est à côté de la ligne verte, on se disait bonjour (avec les Israéliens) et voyez ce qui nous arrive. C'est quoi cette folie de s'en prendre à un arbre qui lance ses branches vers le ciel ? On leur a laissé nos terres, alors qu'est-ce qu'ils veulent? Si j'avais une tête nucléaire je m'exploserais avec." En fin de journée nous nous rendons sur les lieux. On aperçoit au fond du champ un nuage de poussière soulevé par un énorme bulldozer militaire accompagné de 2 jeeps. Nous nous approchons vêtus de nos T-shirts et en brandissant nos passeports. Long face à face tandis que les soldats nous observent à la jumelle et pointent leurs armes vers nous. Finalement, ils font mine de partir. Mais 5 minutes après nous voyons débouler une colonne de jeeps, de camions militaires, et deux tanks qui se dirigent vers nous et s'arrêtent à environ 5 mètres. Le fils aîné de Mohamad est devant, nous, ivre de désespoir, un jeune olivier déraciné à la main, et interpelle les militaires. Nous ne sommes pas très fiers. Nous restons calmes et attentifs à ce qui est en train de se jouer. Nous évitons toutes provocations, mais nous demandons aux militaires la raison de leur présence. C'est, parait-il, pour "éviter que des terroristes ne se cachent derrière". Ils nous pressent de quitter les lieux "pour notre sécurité". Nous remontons alors rejoindre les paysans et les militaires palestiniens arrivés sur les lieux. Mohamad nous montre son système d'irrigation goutte-à- goutte (15000 dollars) définitivement hors d'usage. Pourtant, malgré le choc, il nous dit "Je vais tout replanter avec mes fils" tandis que son aîné exprime sa rage "Je ne veux plus de cette terre. Il vaut mieux la quitter et y mettre une mine ".

Cette situation est loin d'être exceptionnelle, elle est même tristement quotidienne et banale. Dans la même matinée et dans le même secteur, nous parlons avec deux familles qui ont subi des spoliations semblables, dont une vieille femme seule sous une tente. Sa maison et ses plantations ont été rasées. Avec l'aide des voisins, elle s'était installée sous une tente avec un confort relatif, et avait retrouvé une certain "bonheur". Les bulldozers sont revenus et ont tout enseveli de nouveau, la tente, les vêtements, la vaisselle. Elle est maintenant complètement démunie. Pendant les 3 derniers mois, il y a eu plus de destructions de maisons, d'arrachage d'arbres, de blessés et de morts que pendant les 20 dernières années.

Après avoir quitté le Centre des droits de l'homme le matin, nous nous rendons au check-point de El Mawassi avec Jaber Wichah et Abdel Hamid Abou Samrah, responsables du Centre. El Mawassi est un village côtier implanté en zone d'occupation israélienne et séparé de la bande de Gaza par la grosse colonie de Gush Katif. Ce check-point est célèbre pour les humiliations répétées qu'y subissent les habitants palestiniens du village. Pour rentrer chez eux, ils doivent même maintenant utiliser une carte magnétique! Ce village est complètement "fermé", aucun visiteur ne peut y pénétrer. Le check-point, fermé depuis 2 mois, a été réouvert quelques heures par jour depuis 36 heures. Ce matin en arrivant, nous avons vu une foule rongeant son frein, soumise au bon vouloir des militaires. Aujourd'hui, seuls les camions de ravitaillement les hommes de plus de 55 ans (5 par 5, ni plus, ni moins) sont autorisés à passer. La seule ombre, abritant 4 femmes et des bébés, était celle d'un camion. Nous avançons doucement, main dans la main suivis par le canon d'une mitrailleuse camouflée dans un bunker, franchissons le muret et négocions notre passage vers la plage (prétexte, bien sûr). Tout ce que nous obtenons, c'est le droit de faire quelques photos. Nous faisons demi-tour, et retournons vers la foule qui apprécie visiblement notre présence. A notre départ, le check-point s'ouvre et tout le monde se précipite (ce qu'ils sont sympas ces israéliens, quand même). On apprend un peu plus tard que seules les femmes ont pu passer, et pendant une heure seulement !

Direction Rafat via l'aéroport de Gaza, toujours hors d'usage. 200 mètres avant l'entrée dans la ville, la route est coupée, et on doit faire le tour de la colonie: 20 minutes de route supplémentaires. Rafat, spectacle de désolation, rue principale déserte, magasins fermés, façades criblées de balles, et plus on s'approche de la frontière égyptienne, plus les maisons sont en ruines jusqu'à ce que l'on atteigne le 'no man's land' additionnel en terre palestinienne, qui suit la frontière sur 20 à 30 mètres de largeur, sous la surveillance des mitrailleuses automatiques. Cette bande est minée et le danger est tel que les grands frères rappellent les plus jeunes dès qu'ils s écartent des maisons. Pour tracer ce no man's land, 60 maisons ont été détruites le 10 janvier 2002 à 2 heures du matin, sans parler du réseau téléphonique, électrique et d'eau. Une famille vient nous chercher pour nous montrer les dégâts occasionnés par les tirs, et surtout nous parler du grave problème posé par la station d'épuration des eaux, hors d'usage depuis les opérations militaires. Les eaux usées stagnent donnant des odeurs nauséabondes et remontent dans les maisons. Les habitants vivent dans la peur des épidémies, surtout avec l'été qui arrive. Ils ont obtenu l'accord des israéliens pour effectuer les réparations, mais les militaires ne respectent pas cet accord, et lors de plusieurs tentatives ils leur ont tiré dessus. L'ingénieur municipal chargé des eaux nous demande une protection des missions civiles durant quatre heures seulement pour le démontage des pompes afin de réinstaller la station plus loin de la frontière. Il se charge d'organiser la partie technique, d'obtenir des voitures UN, d'appeler la presse pour le 24 juin, et compte sur la 18eme mission civile pour assurer leur protection. Cette population terrorisée, qui n'a plus aucune activité économique, se sent abandonnée. C'est le seul endroit en Palestine où chacun de nous a senti qu'ils avaient perdu espoir.

Prangé, Chercheur, CAPJPO

Youssef Haji, Travailleur social, ATMF/CCIPP

Anne Clair, Retraitée

William Martinez, Peintre décorateur, AFPS

Charlotte Hennebicque, Etudiante

Michèle Lalanne, Retraitée, Palestine 33

Sylvette Amestoy, Syndicaliste, ATTAC

Jean-Paul Pommier, Préretraité, AFPS

Hadja Chelabia, Retraitée, Association algérienne

LES CAVES SE REBIFFERAIENT-ILS ?

Is U.S. too supportive of Israel?

Yes, many Americans say in poll

By Sharon Samber

Washington, June 13 (JTA) -- A growing number of Americans say the United States is too supportive of Israel, according to a new poll.

For the first time since last October, a plurality of Americans -- 43 percent -- say the United States is too supportive of Israel, while 40 percent say the country gives Israel the right amount of support.

However, 10 percent still feel the United States is not supportive enough, a Gallup poll shows.

Gallup characterizes the figures as "a significant decline in a pro-Israeli point of view" over the last eight months.

In the month after the Sept. 11 attacks, Americans said the United States was giving Israel the right amount of support -- rather than too much -- by a 2-1 margin, or 58 percent to 29 percent. In April, the figures dropped to 49 percent and 35 percent.

The numbers reflect confusion in the American public, according to Jason Isaacson, director of government and international affairs for the American Jewish Committee.

Americans naturally are allied with and supportive of Israel, but they don't understand the whole nature of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, Isaacson said.

"It's not surprising that people give knee-jerk responses based on inadequate information," he said.

The results are from telephone interviews with 800 adults conducted June 7-8. The margin of error for the poll is 3 percent.

One poll does not tell the entire story, and it's more instructive to examine how Americans have responded over a period of time, said Rebecca Needler, spokeswoman for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

"There are many examples across the country that show American support for Israel," Needler said, pointing to rallies and demonstrations in recent months expressing solidarity with Israel.

The difference between political parties is more explicit. Forty-seven percent of Republicans say the United States supports Israel the right amount, and 36 percent believe the United States is too supportive. Among Democrats, a majority 51 percent say U.S. support is too high, and 32 percent say it is just right.

Some 12 percent of Republicans and 10 percent of Democrats say the United States is not supportive enough of Israel, according to the poll.

Republicans clearly identify with and support Israel, said Matt Brooks, executive director of the Republican Jewish Coalition.

"The traditional alliance between support for Israel and the Democratic Party is showing signs of age and wear and tear," he said.

David Harris, deputy executive director of the National Jewish Democratic Council, dismissed any decrease in support for Israel within the Democratic Party, noting that Terry McAuliffe, the head of the Democratic Party, visited Israel in February.

He also played down the significance in the difference between the Republican and Democratic numbers in the poll.

"None of those numbers -- for Republicans or Democrats -- are very encouraging," he said.

Jewish Telegraphic Agency. 13 juin 2002

PANPANPAN

La Grande Bretagne refuse d'exporter des cartouches pour l'équipe de tir israélienne

 

Le Daily Telegraph rapporte que la Grande Bretagne bloque la licence d'exportation de cartouches pour l'équipe israélienne de tir qui doit participer au championnat du monde en Finlande le mois prochain. Il s'agit de 350.000 cartouches de calibre 22. Le Département du Commerce et de l'Industrie prétend que ces cartouches pourraient servir "à des fins agressives" pour justifier son refus! Le responsable de l'équipe de tirs a déclaré quil commande des cartouches depuis 1983 à cette même société sans aucun problème.

Arutz 7, 20 juin 2002

350.000 cartouches, il y a de quoi faire quelques cartons...

NAZISME ORDINAIRE

Eitam at funeral: the Lion of Israel is preparing to pounce

 

The newest government minister, National Religious Party leader Brig.-Gen. (res.) Effie Eitam, spoke yesterday at the double funeral of Noa Alon and her granddaughter Gal Eisenman in Ofrah. The two were among the seven victims of Wednesday's Palestinian terrorist attack at Jerusalem's French Hill junction. Addressing the hundreds of mourners, Eitam said:

"...I look up at you [Arabs] on the hilltop, and I see your large houses, and your closed shutters... We know that behind those shutters, you are now happy - [but it is] the happiness of Philistines, the joy of the uncircumcised, the merriment of little people. You are happy at our sadness - but your joy is too soon. For we know who you are. You are the sons of Balaam, the sons of 'bela' (destruction and deceit), the sons of 'bli-am' (no people), the sons of 'bliyaal' (wickedness, worthlessness), and the sons of 'bli eretz' (no land). You are experts of impurity, cursedness, and evil...

"But -- even if you stand on every hilltop around, and even if you enlist all your powers of cursedness and evil [in terrorizing Israel], you know - and we know that you know -- that we are the blessed. You know that we have returned home for our rendezvous with the Lion of the World and the Lioness that is our Nation.

"You know that your ancient and evil father, Balaam, took up his discourse and said [in this week's Torah portion, Numbers 24], 'Alas, who shall live when He does these things.' Rav Yochanan taught that this means, Woe unto whichever nation is around when G-d comes to redeem His children -- for who would ever try to put his cloak between a lion and a lioness?"

"Woe unto you! You will not be able to live here when you place a barrier between us and our Land, between us and our Torah, between us and our Father in Heaven!

"There are moments when this lioness appears to you to be weak, torn, bent - but within this crouch, this bent-over position, is being formed our jumping-off position; our muscles are being flexed and our spirit is being strengthened. And when we pounce on you - and it will happen - when we come with vengeance against your terrible evil, woe will be unto you.

"You perhaps don't know who we are, and why we are here. Sometimes, it's not even sufficiently clear even to us, and it is your evil that helps us to filter out the light from our darkness. But, the hidden roar is already starting to be heard - the roar of pain of the Lion of the World, the roar of terrible vengeance against those who stand in the way of this great process of 'perfecting the world' and 'perfecting mankind' that we are now in the midst of.

"In the middle of this, are people -- a grandmother and granddaughter, a young man, young women, a pregnant mother -- who die 'al kiddush HaShem' (for the sanctification of G-d's Name), on this long and very difficult road home, on which we see many graves on the hillside.

"We here, and all of Yesha, and the entire Nation of Israel, we are all flexing our muscles, and our spirit -- and we will pounce. We will make a reckoning with you. And this terrible loss of life will become a call for life, for the strength of eternity.

"And you, Gal and Noa, who are joining this row of graves - you are the roots of a great tree, a strong nation, and we will continue along this way that leads to G-d's House, and we will not tire, stop, or weaken. We'll wipe our tears, we will strengthen each other, we will be friends united, and we will merit a great victory and great life of faith. We promise you that with our great faith, we will win."

Arutz 7, 21 juin 2002

NAZISME ORDINAIRE suite

Une journée prise au hasard:

Jeudi 13 01h00 L'occupant pénètre à 150m sur le lieudit Tabba 86, du village de Al Qarara. Il fait irruption dans la maison de Salah Abu Zhaher en fracturant les portes. Les 14 membres de la famille sont enfermés dans une pièce et l'occupant envahit la terrasse de la maison. Les soldats montent en si grand nombre qu'un certain nombre passe au travers et se retrouve à l'étage en dessous. Vexés, les soldats battent 2 membres de la famille, Eyad, 23 ans et Arafat, 17 ans. Dans un triste état ils sont conduits à l'hôpital. La maison est méticuleusement fouillée. L'occupant se retire à 04h00 Au même moment, aux abords de la colonie de Neve Dekalim l'occupant ouvre le feu sur le bloc " I " du camp de réfugiés de Khan Younis. Adham Huneideq, 23 ans, quitte sa maison qui est touchée par des obus. Il est visé. Blessé par balle. Plusieurs maisons sont endommagées. Encore à la même heure. Ders bulldozers pénètrent dans Abassan village à l'est de Khan Younis au sud de Al Qarara pour poursuivre le travail de nivelage entrepris ces dernières semaines. 2 hectares de blé de pastèques de figuiers et d'oliviers ainsi que les réseaux d'irrigation sont défoncés 02h00 Uraiba (N.O. de Rafah Véhicules blindés et chiens policiers pénètrent à 300m à l `intérieur du village. L'occupant fait irruption dans une maison de 4 étages abritant 20 personnes. Fouille sans ménagement ; meubles défoncés à coups de crosse. Par les fenêtres, l'occupant tire sur les maisons voisines semant la panique dans le secteur. En partant il emmène Khader Dahliz, 52 ans, le chef de famille et ses 5 fils NIZAR, 26 ans ; Bashir, 30 ans ; Mohammed, 24 ans ; Nadi, 21 ans et Naji, 18 ans ; sans oublier les 2 téléphones portabnles et le collier en or de sa femme. 17h00 Tallat Hamada au nord de Beit Lahia Un bulldozer blindé pénètre à 500m à l'intérieur du village. 3 serres en plein production passent sous ses chenilles. La maison de Sa'id al Da'our est fouillée méticuleusement 18h00 Depuis la colonie de Neve Dekalim et 3 heures durant le camp de réfugiés de Khan Younis est la cible des mortiers. 7 blessés dont 3 dans un état sérieux : Hamdi Salibi, 12 ans, à la figure ; Ibrahim Huneideq, 15 ans et Nayef al Zarabi, 47 ans, à l'abdomen. De nombreuses maisons sont endommagées au même moment, depuis la colonie de Morag N.E. de Rafah le secteur de Gizan Al Najjar est bombardé. De nombreuses maisons sont endommagées.

Fri, 21 Jun 2002 Jacques Salles <[email protected]>

Infos Gaza - 87 - Palestine 33 tel & fax : 05 56 62 05 78

[email protected]r http : //palestine33.chez.tiscali.fr

Condensé du rapport hebdomadaire du 13 au 20 juin 2002 Issu par le "Palestinian Center for Human Rights" de Gaza.

ISRAËL ET SA CLÔTURE HIGH-TECH

C'est à l'occasion de la foire commerciale Eurosatory, Salon international de la défense terrestre et aéroterrestre, qui se tenait la semaine dernière à Paris, que le ministère israélien de la Défense a dévoilé quelques détails techniques sur la clôture qu'il entend ériger sur une longueur de 345 kilomètres pour, dit-on, protéger le pays des attentats terroristes. Il en coûtera, affirme le représentant du ministère à Washington, Yossi Draznin, environ deux millions de dollars par kilomètre pour construire et équiper ce périmètre de sécurité. Le système, en soi, n'est pas nouveau; il est déjà utilisé au nord d'Israël, à la frontière du Liban. Ce qui innove, c'est l'intégration à grande échelle des éléments et l'installation d'un poste de commande central avec transmission de données en temps réel.

Sur son site Web, le ministère israélien de la Défense présente son Système de sécurité frontalier (SSF), opération de marketing en soutien à sa présence au Salon de Paris et visant à intéresser d'autres États qui seraient aux prises avec des problèmes de contrôle des frontières. Issu du complexe militaro-industriel israélien, le SSF comporte, entre autres : des senseurs passifs déployés en des points tactiques pour détection précoce; un aérostat d'observation (qui ressemble selon l'illustration à un Zeppelin) doté d'une capacité de surveillance nocturne; miradors d'observation dotés de radar et de matériel de surveillance nocturne; aéronefs sans pilotes pour activités de surveillance et d'observation; systèmes mobiles de surveillance; et évidemment tout ceci articulé autour de la clôture électronique pour détecter les intrusions. Toutes l'information recueillie par ces systèmes est transmise au poste de commande qui les retransmet aux échelons de commandement appropriés.

Déployée, donc, sur 345 kilomètres le long des frontières israéliennes d'avant la guerre des six jours en 1967 (voir carte du Monde diplomatique), au coût de 690 millions de dollars, Israël aimerait bien amortir la note en trouvant des acheteurs pour d'autres systèmes semblables. Sur son site Web, le ministère de la Défense déclare: "La solution est un ensemble intégré qui tient compte du "scénario du pire" d'un client en fonction du budget dont il dispose."

La construction de cette clôture on ne peut plus high-tech provoque, même à l'intérieur du pays, un vif débat. Micah Halpern, directeur fondateur du centre d'études européennes de Jerusalem, écrit dans le magazine Israel Insider : "En fait [la clôture] isolera presque tous les 200 000 Israéliens qui vivent à l'extérieur du périmètre prévu et les laissera à la merci des terroristes. Sur le plan politique, de la défense, de l'histoire, la construction de cette clôture ne réglera pas le problème. Construire une clôture c'est, dans les faits, imposer un embargo économique."

Eurosatory

http://www.eurosatory.com/

MOD : Border Security System

http://www.airshow.mod.gov.il/eurosatory/border.htm

Monde diplomatique : La guerre des six jours (1967)

http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/cartes/procheorient1967

Israel Insider : The fence, da fence, defense

http://makeashorterlink.com/?K3BA21D11

LES BONS MOTS DE DU GENERAL CHAROGNE

Control Issues

By Michael Miner

 

In the world's eyes, syndicated columnist Georgie Anne Geyer warned Americans last month, the U.S. bears "co-responsibility" for Israel's conduct in the Middle East. "This uncritical and unthinking acquiescence and even encouragement of every Israeli tendency is disastrous for both countries," she argued. "In fact, it led Prime Minister Sharon to tell his Cabinet recently, «I control America.»"

Did Ariel Sharon really say that? Did he say something similar but even more offensive? Geyer's most critical readers are certain both answers are no. When her column appeared on May 10 in the Chicago Tribune, the Boston-based Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America, CAMERA [une organisation purement judéo-sioniste ] promptly protested to Bruce Dold, the Tribune's editorial-page editor, and posted a statement on-line calling Geyer's claim "preposterous on [its] face."

The quote was a "hoax," said CAMERA. If so, it was a virulent hoax that had spread underground for seven months before Geyer brought it to the mass media. CAMERA traced the quote to a press release last October 3 from the Islamic Association for Palestine -- which is based in suburban Palos Hills and which CAMERA, citing research by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, describes as "pro-Hamas."

IAP had offered a more odious version of Sharon's boast. Claiming as its source a broadcast on the Israeli radio network Kol Yisrael, it had Sharon snapping to Shimon Peres, his foreign minister, "Don't worry about American pressure on Israel. We the Jewish people control America, and the Americans know it." The difference in language suggested that Geyer had tidied up Sharon's boast so it wouldn't be red meat for anti-Semites.

But according to CAMERA, Kol Yisrael broadcast nothing of the sort. CAMERA E-mailed Dold the cell phone number of the Kol Yisrael political correspondent who would say so and E-mailed its members (it claims 45,000) instructions to write Geyer and her Universal Press Syndicate editor and demand either substantiation or a correction.

CAMERA got neither. At the urging of Dold, Universal Press did release an "editor's note" that the Tribune published on June 14. It said the "I control America" quote had been "widely reported in the Palestinian press but cannot be confirmed in independent sources. Geyer and Universal Press Syndicate regret not having attributed the quote more specifically."

This was too weasel worded for CAMERA. Again it told its members to write Geyer and the syndicate, this time "to protest their refusal to candidly and honestly set the record straight." And if members had time, they should also tell the editors of the handful of papers that had carried Geyer's column that she'd lost her credibility on the Middle East. (CAMERA estimates that "hundreds of letters" criticizing Geyer "were written to a variety of destinations," though public editor Don Wycliff tells me the volume of protest at the Tribune "wasn't all that heavy -- not at all compared to stuff I've seen in the past.") [On voit bien le genre de manoeuvre des sionards ]

CAMERA wanted Universal Press to "make it clear that Sharon never uttered the words." But hadn't he? Geyer can't prove it, but she says she still thinks that maybe he did. Her original sources sound a little sketchy. "I had that whole story on several different E-mails and faxes," she tells me, and there was something either out of Ha'aretz or at least quoting the liberal Israeli daily. A source she's sure of is the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. She was writing literally on the fly -- she finished the column in an airplane May 8 on her way to Europe -- and when she got back June 2, her column under siege, she couldn't nail down the quote.

"I spent at least two full days checking it out," she says. "I found a number of Israeli diplomats -- foreign diplomats in Israel -- who said they'd read it in Ha'aretz. But the fact is, I could not pin down the event. I can't get the original sources. I don't have the right kind of inner-sanctum contacts in the cabinet. So that's why we decided to run the clarification."

Washington Report on Middle East Affairs is a glossy magazine established 20 years ago by retired Arabist foreign service officers. ["Arabist", en américain, est une sorte d'insulte pour désigner les diplomates qui auraient davantage de sympathies pour les pays arabes que pour Israël. Un synonyme serait "monstre à corne". Exemple ci-dessous ] To Geyer they're a "very serious, respectable pro-Arab group." To CAMERA's associate director, Alex Safian, they're "very, very anti-Israel," have mixed with the far-right Liberty Lobby, and have carried the odd article questioning the scale of the Holocaust. "What hasn't yet made it into the American media," began the item that the Washington Report put up on-line last November, "is the account on Hebrew-language Israel radio (Kol Yisrael), as relayed Oct. 3 by IAP News, of an «acrimonious argument» between Sharon and his foreign minister."

The Washington Report was faulting the American media for not reporting something the Washington Report only heard about thirdhand. A spokesperson told me that the Washington Report is normally "awfully careful" never to run such a story without independently confirming it. Had it confirmed this one? She asked around at the office and reported that she couldn't say.

By the time Sharon's "quote" reached the Tribune it had long since spread to some of the darkest crevices of cyberspace. Some sites offered the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs as their authority, others Kol Yisrael, still others no one at all. My Google search of "Jewish people control America" brought up nearly 190 links, and despite that editor's note from Universal Press, they were far from all belonging to the Palestinian press.

The Web site <www.longcountyrebel.homestead.com> added Sharon's alleged sentiment to a cluster of anti-Semitic quotations including Martin Luther's "How can a nation of vampires exist among themselves?" Sharon was cited by <www.davidduke.com> as evidence of "the Jewish control of American foreign policy." At <americandefenseleague.com/onaleash>, the IAP item was posted by a group that declares "Americans of all races and religions join us, Jews hate all of us equally."

This is the sort of vicious stuff that explains why CAMERA fears letting a single falsehood pass.

Ali Abunimah, a University of Chicago researcher, is a prolific essayist who monitors news coverage of the Middle East and runs the Web site <www.abunimah.org>. He told me he didn't touch Sharon's alleged boast to Peres: "I have not seen a source that has convinced me that quote is legitimate."

To Abunimah, it wasn't an important question. "I don't think these things are worth debating," he said. "Do you make a mistake with a quote? You correct it and move on. I think what [groups like CAMERA] are trying to do is take these occasional mistakes people make and blow them up into evidence of anti-Israeli bias. The question is, is there consistent bias in the media?"

Abunimah began reading to me from a Ha'aretz profile of Alon Pinkas, Israel's consul general in New York and a frequent spokesman for his country on American television. The article quoted leaders of both CAMERA and the Anti-Defamation League mourning the failure of Israel to get its story across. But Pinkas disagreed.

"The criticism in this sphere is emotional, not substantive," he told Ha'aretz. "It reflects an uncomfortable psychological state. I think that in the battle over publicity in the U.S., we are winning." He parroted the Jewish media watchdogs. "«CNN hates Israel. It's well known that Peter Jennings has always hated Israel. The New York Times is no more than a collection of self-hating Jewish liberals.» That is all nonsense. [But] if Israel decides that it has to launch a military campaign against terrorism, it has to take into account that it won't come across well in the media. Entering Jenin is not figure skating. A military operation never looks good, especially when you are ten times stronger than the Palestinians."

Chicago Reader, For the week of June 28, 2002

<http://www.chireader.com/hottype/>

NN

Site de l'Irgoun -- une histoire aseptisée:

<http://www.etzel.org.il/english/index.html>

ERRATUM

Nous avons dit en février: "le type du monde, un juif égyptien nommé Robert Solé, paré du titre grotesque de "médiateur"...

Plusieurs lecteurs, indignés par notre bourde, nous signalent que Solé est un chrétien égyptien. Dont acte. Mais nous maintenons le "grotesque". C'est peu contestable.

Les bonnes questions. How Did United Flight 93 Crash?

<http://www.flight93crash.com/>

Rigoler un brin: la travadja des refondateurs

<http://www.toutelagauche.org>

Recueil des âneries de "dubya" (=W," dobelyou" en sudiste) Bush:

<http://www.dubyaspeak.com/>

Serge Thion sur le caillassé Jospin; En hongrois. Faut le faire:

<http://www.freepress-freespeech.com/~holhome/kiscikk2/jospinm.htm>

Consultez régulièrement les sites francophones de référence :

<http://www.solidarite-palestine.org>

<http://www.paix-en-palestine.org>

<http://www.france-palestine.org>

<http://www.protection-palestine.org>

<http://www.paixjusteauproche-orient.com>

Ou les sites d'information suivants:

<http://www.markazdawa.org/englishweb/palest/index.htm>

<http://www.rense.com/general21/tro.htm>

Il "link dei links" sugli orrori israeliani

<http://www.musalman.com/palestine/>

Macellerie di "terroristi"

<http://www.dewaarheid.nu/wereldcrisis/saleh.htm> e cliccate a destra su FOTOREPORTAGE

<http://www1.tip.nl/~t696635//palestina/aanval.htm> nate per data.

Se avete lo stomaco abbastanza corazzato, scegliete "Jenin, 17 aprile 2002": <http://www1.tip.nl/~t696635//palestina/17_04_je.htm>

Dopo aver visto questo, predicherete la "tolleranza" ai palestinesi?

Se non ne avete avuto abbastanza, avanti con

<http://compuserb.com/israel/>

La "soluzione finale" per i palestinesi: Per la LDJ ("League de Defense Juive") c'è solo il 'rimedio' della deportazione (dove, non è chiaro)

<http://www.liguededefensejuive.com/article.php?sid=6>

Aiutati che... la Cia ti aiuta!

Ma che ci fa la Cia a Betlemme assieme all'esercito israeliano?

<http://www.channel4.com/news/home/20020403/4is.ram>

Israele come il Sud Africa : Per chi non vuole limitarsi a boicottare i pompelmi Jaffa

<http://www.BoycottIsraeliGoods.org/index.php>

I rapporti tra Sionismo e Terzo Reich: Della serie "le hanno bussate tutte"

<http://www.angelfire.com/folk/library/zionism_fr.htm>

La "cultura della memoria" : Il massacro di Jenin: la solita "propaganda palestinese"...

<http://www.aljazeera.net/news/arabic/2002/4/4-16-3.htm>

<http://www.etherzone.com/2002/jenin.shtml>

Una miriade di checkpoints: Mappa del lager (o gulag, vedete voi) a cielo aperto del terzo millennio: la Cisgiordania

<http://www.rekombinant.org/article.php?sid=1641>

Monitor "antisemitismo": Siete "antisemiti"? Qui se ne son o accorti!

<http://www.radar-ebraico.org/>

I motivi profondi dell'alleanza tra Usa e Israele: Avete mai sentito parlare del "cristianosionismo"?

<http://www.jewsweek.com/society/232.htm>

<http://globalfire.tv/nj/e2002/judaism/israelfirst.htm>

<http://www.kelebekler.com/circasit.htm>

<http://www.kelebekler.com/occ/tempio.htm>

<http://www.kelebekler.com>

<http://www.religion-onlineorg/cgi-bin/relsearchd.dll/showarticle?item_id=216>

Moteur de recherches biblique:

<http://bible.gospelcom.net/cgi-bin/bible?language=Français>

=========================

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Gazette du Golfe et des banlieues / 10 / juillet 2002

Afficher un texte sur le Web équivaut à mettre un document sur le rayonnage d'une bibliothèque publique. Cela nous coûte un peu d'argent et de travail. Nous pensons que c'est le lecteur volontaire qui en profite et nous le supposons capable de penser par lui-même. Un lecteur qui va chercher un document sur le Web le fait toujours à ses risques et périls. Quant à l'auteur, il n'y a pas lieu de supposer qu'il partage la responsabilité des autres textes consultables sur ce site. En raison des lois qui instituent une censure spécifique dans certains pays (Allemagne, France, Israël, Suisse, Canada, et d'autres), nous ne demandons pas l'agrément des auteurs qui y vivent car ils ne sont pas libres de consentir.

Nous nous plaçons sous la protection de l'article 19 de la Déclaration des Droits de l'homme, qui stipule:
ARTICLE 19 <Tout individu a droit à la liberté d'opinion et d'expression, ce qui implique le droit de ne pas être inquiété pour ses opinions et celui de chercher, de recevoir et de répandre, sans considération de frontière, les informations et les idées par quelque moyen d'expression que ce soit>
Déclaration internationale des droits de l'homme, adoptée par l'Assemblée générale de l'ONU à Paris, le 10 décembre 1948.

[email protected]