The Evil Conspiracy of the Peacemongers!

Peace Panic

By URI AVNERY

Guess whose words these are:

"Starting this war was a scandal...It was possible to solve the problem of the missiles in South Lebanon by diplomatic meansThe offensive of the last two days of the war, in which 33 soldiers were killed after the cease-fire resolution had already been accepted, was a spin of the Prime MinisterThe Prime Minister, the Minister of Defense and the Chief-of-Staff must resign"

Right, it was Gush Shalom, the Israeli peace group.

But that's not new. What is new is that yesterday, the former Chief-of-Staff, Moshe Ya'alon, repeated these statements, almost word for word.

"Bogie" Ya'alon is the very opposite of Gush Shalom. Nobody could say that he belongs to a "marginal group". He comes from the very center of the establishment. He is a Rightist. He was responsible for some of the most cruel acts of the occupation.

There is another difference: Gush Shalom spoke out when the events were actually happening, in the midst of the war, when it was still possible to save the lives of those 33 soldiers. At that time, these statements were unpopular in the extreme, bordering on treason. Because no Israeli medium was prepared to publish them, the Gush had to pay for them as advertisements. Now Ya'alon comes and repeats them, after the wind has changed and they have become popular.

Ya'alon's motives are not important. (As will be remembered, Ariel Sharon removed him from office and replaced him with Dan Halutz a year ago, in order to ease the way for the "Disengagement"). What is important is that the things have now been said by a person with supreme military credentials. When such a person declares that 33 soldiers were sacrificed for no military purpose, for the personal interests of Ehud Olmert, that the war itself was quite unnecessary, and that the problem of Hizbullah's rockets could have been solved by diplomatic means - these things carry weight.

This is not important only in regard to what happened a few weeks ago, when the leadership spoke of a terrible danger looming on our northern border, but even more so today, when the same leadership is warning of an even more acute "threat" somewhere else.

* * *

IN THE corridors of power in Jerusalem the cry is going up: "Help! Peace is upon you, Israel!"

A terrible enemy is conspiring to impose peace on us. He is advancing against us from two sides, in a giant pincer movement.

One arm of this offensive is the Palestinian Unity Government that is about to be set up.

The other is the decision of the Arab League to revive the Arab Peace Plan.

From the point of view of the Government of Israel, this offensive is far more dangerous then all of Hassan Nasrallah's rockets put together.

* * *

THE PALESTINIAN Government of National Unity is designed to solve, first of all, domestic Palestinian problems.

Since the Palestinians elected Hamas, a state of anarchy has prevailed on the Palestinian street. The constant clashes between the President, who is the head of Fatah, and the Prime Minister, who belongs to Hamas, have created a state of paralysis, just when the Palestinian people need unity in the face of existential challenges.

Fatah has dominated the modern Palestinian national movement since its foundation by Yasser Arafat almost 50 years ago. It is not resigned to defeat. But a people fighting for its very existence cannot allow its two main factions to fight against each other, instead of cooperating in the struggle for national liberation.

To this must be added the blockade imposed on the Palestinian Authority by Europe and America, by order of President Bush. This is an unprecedented attempt to literally starve a whole people into removing its democratically elected government.

The National Unity Government is designed to restore public order and to break the international blockade.

For this to happen, the government must circumvent several obstacles. For religious reasons, it is difficult for Hamas to recognize Israel officially. This has nothing to do with anti-Semitism, as alleged, but with the fact that according to Islam, Palestine is a "Waqf" (religious endowment) belonging to Allah (similar to the Jewish fundamentalists' belief that God has promised us the country, so that giving away any part of it is a mortal sin.) But the Muslim religion opens a back door here by allowing for a long-term "hudnah" (truce) that can last for decades or even centuries.

The way to solve this problem is to get the Unity Government, headed by Hamas, to declare that it is committed to the "prisoners' document", the UN resolutions, the agreements signed between Israel and the PLO and the Arab peace plan - all of which are based on the recognition of Israel. That should suffice for anybody who really wants to promote Israeli-Palestinian peace.

As far as our government is concerned, there precisely is the rub.



* * *

THE SECOND arm of the peace offensive is the renewal of the Arab Peace Plan.

This plan was originally devised by Abdallah, then the Crown Prince and now the King of Saudi Arabia. It was adopted by the summit meeting of the Arab heads of state in Beirut in March 2002.

This plan says, roughly: the entire Arab world will recognize Israel and make peace with it, if it withdraws to the 1967 borders and makes it possible to establish the State of Palestine, with East Jerusalem as its capital.

The government of Israel has rejected the initiative, as the Hebrew expression goes, "on the threshold" (every peace initiative is rejected "on the threshold", so as not to allow it, God forbid, to put a foot in the door.) The plan was consigned to a pigeon hole and has been collecting dust ever since. Now the evil Arabs have decided to dust it off and slap it back on the table.



* * *

AGAINST THIS danger of the Arab peacemongers, the Olmert government is calling up all its forces. In spite of the fact the entire political and military leadership is now busy fighting for its survival after the Lebanon fiasco, it is uniting in the face of this frightening menace.

Tzipi Livni was sent head over heels to the United States, in order to avert the danger. She went to convince President Bush (who happened to "pass" the room when she was talking with Condoleezza Rice and who calls her "Tsiffi") to use the deadly American veto against any Security Council resolution that might support peace. She is going to meet with some 20 heads of governments and foreign ministers to enlist their support against this menace.

For this, she took down from the Foreign Office attic a diplomatic rag called "the Road Map". It has never even entered the mind of the Israeli government to carry out this agreement, whose sole purpose was, right from the beginning, to create the impression that President Bush has achieved something in the Middle East. From its inception, all the parties knew that this was a document that cannot be implemented.

Israel and the US will, therefore, declare that the Arab peace plan is damaging peace, because it contradicts the Road Map. The Palestinian unity government, when it is set up, must be boycotted, because it does not explicitly state that all its members recognize the State of Israel (as if all the members of the Israeli government were prepared to recognize the State of Palestine and its government, not to mention foreswearing violence and accepting all the existing agreements.) Therefore, the blockade of the Palestinian population must go on, until it sinks to its knees.



* * *

WHY DOES the peace offensive frighten the Israeli government?

If somebody had come to us on June 4, 1967, and told us that the entire Arab world was ready to make peace with us within the borders existing on that day, and that the Palestinian leadership, too, was prepared to declare an end to the historic conflict, we would have felt that the Messiah had come.

But on June 5, 1967, we started a war that changed everything. We were soon in control of the whole of Palestine and huge additional territories. We declared that we were holding them temporarily in order to trade them in, but, as is well known, appetite comes with eating. We started to annex territories (East Jerusalem with its surroundings and the Golan Heights), and to cover the West Bank with settlements.

In the eyes of the Israeli leadership, the peace initiative - any peace initiative - is nothing but an evil conspiracy of the peacemongers to rob us of these territories. It would compel us to put an end to the settlement enterprise - which has not stopped for a moment since 1968, and which is even now in full swing - and to dismantle the existing settlements.

The pincer movement of the peacemongers could gather momentum and generate international pressure that would be difficult to withstand. That's the reason for the panic in Jerusalem.

* * *

THE ARAB peace initiative could be successful if it puts in front of the Israeli public the straight and unequivocal choice: peace without the occupied territories - or the occupied territories without peace.

After six major wars and several minor ones, we may be inclined to suspect that the price in blood and money is too heavy, and - more importantly - that it does not bring victory, but multiplies the burdens on Israeli society.

In the six years of folly between the 1967 and the 1973 wars, Moshe Dayan coined the phrase: "Better Sharm al-Sheikh (on the southern tip of the Sinai Peninsula) without peace than peace without Sharm al-Sheikh!"

Such slogans cost the lives of some 2700 Israeli soldiers (and who knows how many Egyptians and Syrians) in the Yom Kippur war. Afterwards we returned Sharm al-Sheikh and all of Sinai and got peace with Egypt. Dayan himself played a role in achieving this peace.

How many soldiers and civilians, Israeli and Arab, must die before we finally understand that peace with the Palestinian people and the entire Arab world is immeasurably more important to Israel than trying to hang on to the occupied territories and the settlements?

Uri Avnery is an Israeli writer and peace activist with Gush Shalom. He is one of the writers featured in The Other Israel: Voices of Dissent and Refusal. He is also a contributor to CounterPunch's hot new book The Politics of Anti-Semitism.

The Prison of the West Bank

Death and Tears in Nablus

By ELIZA ERNSHIRE

Nablus

While war raged in Lebanon throughout the month of July and death was a daily occurrence in Gaza, other regions in this war-torn part of the world also experienced weeks of torment and torture at the hands of the Israeli Military.

Among these regions is Nablus. A city filled with tragedy and the knowledge of how unjust and unforgiving the occupational forces can be. Invasions, incursions and curfews are not new to the people of Nablus, nor are the sights of bleeding children and mourning families.

Many people say if you want to know the Occupation of the West Bank and what it actually entails then you must go to Nablus and spend some days wandering in the Old City and surrounding districts talking to residents, nearly every one of whom have lost members of their family in the decade-long struggle against Occupation; you need to talk to the students of An Najar University and listen to their stories of suffering and how many difficulties they must overcome if they want to continue their education; you must let the sorrow of the city soak into your unconsciousness.

And so I went to Nablus and wandered the Old City streets and talked with families and with students and listened to their stories.

It was not the first time I had visited the city, but the first time I had spent more than a day there.

The people of Nablus are welcoming of a stranger into their streets. It is not so common for them to see foreigners there and many stop you to ask what you are doing in Nablus and how you see their city. It is a hard question to answer; you want to tell them about the beauty of the ancient stoned city and its unique geography, nestled in the valley of two imposing mountains, daring the northern slopes of one to build almost to its peak; but you can not, because this is not the feature that strikes you most noticeably as you enter the outskirts of Nablus.

You are first struck by the ruins of the Municipality building and the destruction of the as-yet un-rebuilt Mucata. You are struck by the houses, windowless and scarred with bullet holes that line every street you walk down; you are struck by the overwhelming feeling that this city has seen war again and again and has had no time of respite to begin to rebuild.

And how can you tell the eager residents of Nablus that all you see in their city is the ravaging signs of war and hardship and the heartbreaking signs of children with no future?

The latest of these fierce and deathly times has left numerous residents of Nablus dead and many more wounded.

It began in June when the Israeli army invaded the center of Nablus at midday. They came in twenty jeeps to arrest one man. On that day they shot three people dead and imposed a curfew on the whole of the city.

Since then they have been in the city every night and sometimes during the day.

They have killed civilians including two children 14 and 16 years old. They have totally demolished the Mucata and have bulldozed an apartment block that housed 9 families. They have invaded the refugee camps and have carried out assassinations against militants whose posters now cover the walls of every shop in the city.June, July August and September 2006

The streets now empty at 9 pm and the only sounds in the night time are those of gun-fire and explosions.

'This is Nablus.' My taxi driver said. This is the prison of the West Bank.

I was to speak with Fadi, a leader of the Al Aqsa Brigades in Nablus. A friend from Nablus had talked to Fadi and Fadi had agreed to speak with me on Saturday about his life and his resistance against the occupation.

But he is now dead.

I arrived in Nablus the day after he was assassinated by Israeli Special Forces.

The city salutes him and every shop displays his poster, prepared by himself for himself. He stands one-armed and defiant. He lost his right arm in the struggle a year ago.

I came too late to speak with him. So instead of his story I will write of him, as told me by his family, his friends and his city that is now mourning his death.

Ahmad is a medical relief worker and has worked as an ambulance doctor for three years. I met him by chance in a youth project office in the center of Nablus.

I asked him about the last month in the city and he shook his head and said it has been a 'hell-of-a-time'. He has been evacuating wounded and dead people almost daily, the most heartbreaking of these he said was having to try and evacuate Fadi after he had been fatally injured.

It was late at night in the old city of Nablus.

Fadi was warned not to enter the old city, but he did and was shot by snipers.

He had a massive hole through his belly.

Ahmad told me how he tried to stop the bleeding by pressing two pillows against each side of Fadi's body, but it was impossible to stop the bleeding and he and his two helpers were being shot at the whole time and the ambulance could not approach. His two friends were wounded.

'Fadi was still alive. But he couldn't speak. He just looked at us and pointed. I suppose he was telling us that he was going'

I asked Ahmad if he knew Fadi. He answered, yes, that he did and it was not the first time he had tried to evacuate him after an Israeli attack.

'Once he had his whole insides hanging out of a horrible hole in his stomach and I had to push them back inside and he said ''thankyou Ahmad!'' and there was the time when he had his arm blown off.

'But this time was a nightmare. We were trying to drag him through the street and we were right in the sights of ten or so snipers sitting on the rooftops. I could see red laser beams all over my chest. I finally had to turn and run for cover and that is not an easy thing to do when you are a trained emergency worker.

After half an hour we managed to drag Fadi to a building, but by the time we reached the hospital he was already half-an-hour dead.

He was a good man. Ask anyone here.

'Every one knew him and every one loved him.'

When evening came I wound my way up the mountain to a quiet sanctuary, surprising in such a battle-wearied city. The sanctuary is in the garden of an old woman who has been trained as a psychologist and spends her days working with the women of Nablus. Too often the bearers of tragedy.

'The women must carry too much.' She said. 'Sometimes all their frustration and fear and torture come out of their hearts when they sit here in my small garden.'

We talked for hours and I never thought I could hear so many stories at once that would bring tears to my eyes.

'.Can you imagine?' she said, late in the evening. 'That women come to me and talk and begin to cry and then to shout and then to beat the earth with their bear fists. Can you imagine what that is like?

When the mothers tell me about their sons taken from them. Killed in front of them, or arrested from their family home. Some mothers tell me that their fourteen or fifteen year old sons rush to them when the army arrives in their street and cry to them to hide them. Some say that their sons ask to be put back inside their bellies because they would be safe there.

Can you imagine this? Fifteen year old boys! And the world hears of them only as terrorists.'

One mother came to the sanctuary and for an hour sat on the stones and howled till her heart would break: 'I could not hide him! I could not hide my son!' She cried over and over again.

To us, arrest may not seem like the end of hope, but we do not know the reality of the arrest system in Palestine. The women of Nablus know.

They know that they will not hear news of their son for maybe 21 days after his arrest. They will not know if he is alive or dead. All they will know is that he will be facing interrogation and torture alone. That his court hearing will be held in Hebrew. That his charges will be kept in a 'secret file' and that they might not see their sons again until they are grown men. This they know.

'And sometimes' the old woman told me 'the mother needs to cry her anguish, however heartbreaking it is.

'One young woman is married to a wanted man. She comes to me because she has become useless. She can not sleep in the night and can not wake in the day. She lies in her bed because she is paralyzed with fear.

She has two daughters. The eldest started school today. Four days ago the young woman's husband visited her with three new dresses for their daughter. The husband said he did not want anyone else to have to prepare his daughter for her first day at school. Later in the evening he sat with his young family and listened to his youngest girl singing a song he had taught her. He said to his wife quietly, 'I don't think I will hear this song again. He was killed yesterday.'

I knew then it was Fadi the old woman was telling me about. She stopped talking because she too was crying.

'I loved him like a son' she finally said; 'and his wife like a daughter.'

She wept because however strong she is and however many tragedies she bares with her clients, she too sometimes needs to weep.

It was hard to sleep that night. I sat at the window and watched the sleeping city below me, wondering how many homes were nursing broken families and broken hearts.

I could see the ruined outlines of homes that had been bulldozed and could see the pile of rubble that had been the Mucata, razed to the ground three weeks before.

I realized that it would take months to hear the stories this city harbors, months before I could appreciate the depths of despair the people are driven to by the harshness of the occupation.

I wondered what future was in store for all the children I had seen that day rummaging through rubbish in the Old City because there is not even a school for them to go to. I found myself wondering at the little twelve year old boys I had seen running after the militants who roam the old city with guns slung over their shoulders, looking to them like they ought to be looking to their teachers.

I found myself asking the question if it was so very surprising that these youngsters turned to the military factions of the city and joined them, and by so doing, giving up any hope of a future except that of imprisonment or death at the hands of the Israeli forces.

Because that could well be their future anyway

I finally slept as the dawn call to prayer sounded over the city.

When I returned to Ramallah I knew that it was true about Nablus.

If you wander the streets of the Old City and listen to even a few of the tales that are imprisoned within it, you will understand better the reality of this occupation, and the sadness of the city will seep into your unconscious

'But beware of becoming hopeless.even the women who cry in my garden grow strong again and return to their homes and continue to attend to their daily work. If they didn't do this Israel would have destroyed us long ago.'

Eliza Ernshire can be reached at eliza_ernshire@yahoo.co.uk

more evil bugiemen from the people who brought us Operation Gladio.

“You are entitled to use nuclear weapons against the U.S because 10 million Americans must die.”

"

Why is it that our intelligence agencies have become the de-facto arm of our government, controlling the press - Operation MOCKINGBIRD- and therefore our access to information like the preceding load of crap from Langley?

We all know how trustworthy these operatives are.

This is preparation for another al-CIAda false flag if we give them another free ride on the graves of more innocent Americans.

Any "suitcase nukes" that are allowed to be used here will from the entities who REALLY hate 'our freedoms' like the psychopaths running our administration.

I followed the first rat dropping ("...neighborhood near you...") to these

http://www.peoplestruthforum.com/

http://www.fosterfriess.com/content/view/168/51/

Foster Friess must take the newsletter of "America's Truth Forum," as does the rat of the initial dropping. According to Friess' site, this "reporting" is from Scott Swett and Tim Ziegler. These guys produce an extreme-right batshit talk show together

http://www.rightalk.com/other_shows.php?show=inquisition

Here's another of Scott Swett's brain-spawn:

http://ice.he.net/~freepnet/kerry/

Apparently Swett wanted Bush to stay in office REEEEEEEL BAAAAAAAAD, the better to keep the mass slaughter of Arabs rocking in the Middle East

He gets published a lot in FrontPageMag, as do several other "Truth Forum" notables

As for this "Truth Forum," these people are so fucking insane that even big corporate media wants to keep them under your radar

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=45305

Yeah, wouldn't want us to smell the leather of the jackboots on our throats

It was bug-eyed frothing nuts like these who stormed the Munich Beer Hall in the Fall of 1923

There's a big difference though: Hitler's batshits were presumably "pure-blooded germans," aka "Aryans." Their counterparts in the US (e.g. the John Birchers) have traditionally been "WASPs." THIS fascist organization is dominated by Jews, with a prominent assist from certain 'court Arabs.' They appear to be extremely well-funded and -connected. For their next symposium (two months from now), they've booked the Golden Room of the Sahara Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas. Their top-billed speaker is former CIA Director James Woolsey

http://www.americastruthforum.com/symposium.htm

They are right about one thing: America is in grave danger...

What is this hateful, rightwing propaganda doing on Indymedia?

zero creditability

" Another 9-11 Anniversary has passed, marking the fifth year since Islamic extremist crossed the US border for an unprovoked attack that killed just fewer than 3,000 innocent Americans."

Wait, don't tell me---- I know, it's the 19 savage arab tale.

We need a camp fire to sit around for this one.

Never mind the fact that we have video tape with would be killers planning their evil attack. Never mind the fact that Osama Bin Laden has claimed responsibility and is the proud mastermind behind the tragic event. This guy really believes what he’s saying and there is no amount of proof and facts that you can present that will change his view.

And the inevitable fake CIA New Improved OBL mark III Forest Gump Inc.

CONFESSION TAPE appears to save the day. Never mind that OBL is dead.

Never mind that he denied in a face to face interview, his involvement in 9 / 11.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

evidence, I mean.

Since all the other 'CONFESSION TAPES' have been exposed as obvious fakes, I guess the CIA had to outsource their fakes.

But I have to admit; they're getting better at it all the time.

Kind of like the boy who cried "19 savage arabs!"

Since all the other 'CONFESSION TAPES' have been exposed as obvious fakes

Never seen anything of the sort. Where? When? How?

The photos of the "attacked" ambulence in Lebanon were exposed as a fake- accompanied by 28 pages of photos videos and analysis. Thats a reasonable standard of proof.

All I see is you whimpering " Its a fake . Its a fake." I am waiting for evidence. Show us. We aren't all stupid. You assert something as fact, we will want to see evidence.

It must be really important to plant this stinker, huh?

Anyone with a search engine can find these items.

I'm interested in the intensity of this effort.

A question you may wish to ponder is this:

Who the hell believes your crap, anymore?

It's as plain as day that Israel is working overtime to frame everyone else.

Of course they have help from American intelligence in spades.

What we have at the bottom line is another pinyata produced by western intelligence.

And the last resort is for you to go into a UFO fugue.

About as valid as your OBL mark III Forest Gump Inc. CONFESSION TAPE.

Ever wonder why they took OBL off the FBI most wanted list?

Because even that frog cannot be stimulated with galvanics. Rigor, you know.