A report this week, from Israel, gives grave misgivings as to the integrity of the EU, and its orientation, vis-à-vis the other major, global trading and political blocks of US, India and China.

 That report states that:

 

'Israeli and North Atlantic Treaty Organization officials say Israel will dispatch a warship to join a NATO naval force, marking an upgrade in ties. 

An Israeli missile ship will join NATO's Active Endeavor naval force, which works to prevent the passage of terrorists and weapons of mass destruction as well as improve the security of the region's shipping industry. 

Defense officials say Israel already has a liaison officer with the naval force. They say the dispatch of the ship within months marks an important step up in Israel's relationship with the NATO alliance. 

The move was discussed this week by Israel's military chief of staff and NATO's visiting military commander, Giampaolo Di Paola. 

In Brussels, NATO spokesman James Appathurai said Friday the alliance separates such activities from political events in the Middle East. 

In July Haaretz reported that Israel was to issue a request to allow it to join NATO's Active Endeavor naval force. 

While Israel is not a member of NATO, other non-members are taking part in the operation, including ships from Russia and Ukraine. 

It was reported that a solution would be found to avoid Israeli ships approaching the shores of Arab countries, particularly those with which Israel has no diplomatic relations - including Syria, Lebanon and certain North African countries. 

The intent is for an Israeli gunboat to occasionally join one of the month-long operations of Active Endeavour, which has been underway since 2001. 

Israel would not require major preparation to join the NATO operation, and its delegation would focus on control and monitoring procedures, as well as coordination of communications terminology. 

Sources in the army view joining the operation as important both in terms of stepping up Israel's relations with NATO, as well as its image - as Israel is often accused of aggression in enforcing the siege on Gaza by sea.'

 

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1129612.html

 The presence in a NATO naval force of a (nuclear-armed) submarine from a non-NATO state that has been accused of war-crimes as recently as January 2009, would seem to be an outrageous error of judgement that makes a mockery, not only of international law, but also of the security of the United Kingdom and other EU states.  

Nov 17, 2009   

Poll: Lieberman is Israel's most corrupt minister

By JPOST.COM STAFF 

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman is considered Israel's most corrupt minister, according to the results of a survey conducted Tuesday at the Israel-Sderot Conference on Social Issues.

According to the poll, taken among over 550 people, Interior Minister Eli Yishai is believed to be the second most corrupt, followed by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz.

START, the current Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, expires on December. 5. The pact sets limits on the numbers of warheads and delivery vehicles the U.S. and Russia can maintain and sets up verification mechanisms on the reduction and limitation of strategic offensive arms.

 

However, this totally ignores an undeclared nuclear state, with its massive, secret, underground arsenal, which continues to increase its number of warheads without any restriction. It is already estimated, by some, to be the 3rd most powerful nuclear state on the planet.

 

Are we living in a frightening, Bond-style, surreal movie, where the world's six and a half billion people are controlled, and eventually annihilated, by a rogue state - whilst everyone ignores reality and just drinks coffee and eats donuts?

 

Isn't that the most fantastic scenario?  The only way we can absorb it, is to treat it as fiction.

 

Unfortunately, it's not.  It's happening now, in the Year of Our Lord, Two Thousand and Nine. And, unbelievably, it's endorsed by the United States Congress.

 

Who would benefit from an attack by Israel upon Iran - and what would be the global consequences?

It is virtually now certain that Israel will order a unilateral, illegal strike on Iran's civil, nuclear sites, probably within the next seven weeks. 

This will entail the delivery of massive, US supplied, bunker-busting bombs by Israel's squadron of American F16 fighter/bombers and the deployment of the latest, high- explosive, self-seeking missiles from its three German, Dolphin class, nuclear-armed submarines.

The consequences of such an attack are likely to be catastrophic.  Iran will immediately respond by targeting Tel Aviv and Haifa with long-range rockets and in both the attack and the retaliatory stages, there will possibly be hundreds, if not thousands, of deaths among both civilian populations.

Contemporaneously, Iran will attempt to blockade the Strait of Hormuz which will bring it into direct confrontation with US warships stationed in the Gulf - an event that is, obviously, an essential element of Israel's strategy to involve America and the world.

The entire international community will likely be affected as Iranian dissident cells will be activated around the world.  The consequences of that action will be unpredictable but could be the spark that ignites the first nuclear war.

There is little time in which to now prepare for the aftermath of this unprovoked, military aggression other than to ensure that the Israeli government is made fully aware that all trading and other links with it will be broken, if and when they proceed with their illegal action.

Unfortunately, specific warnings by the Israeli high command as to their intentions, have all but been ignored, by the UN and Europe, as mere rhetoric.

The permanent members of the UN should pass an urgent resolution demanding that Israel takes no military action against Iran, or any other state, unless it is expressly authorized to do so by the Security Council. Should the US use its veto against such a resolution, then we may face disaster on a global scale. It is up to world governments to act, now.

It is a long time since I have read such a complete load of crap!

I don't know who you are, Daniel Levy, (other than one of us), but you come over as a young intern who has been asked by your boss to write 250 words on the conflict and you have stayed up all night with Wiki etc and produced a load of garbage replete a plethora of polysyllabic text that is absolutely meaningless.

Nowhere do you even mention AIPAC's hold on US foreign policy! As if that is a figment of the fevered imagination of anti-Zionists or rabid anti_Semites - instead of being the glaringly obvious truth that even a 4 year old kid would know.

Nowhere do you acknowledge that it is Likud's agenda to achieve a 'Greater Israel' as if you have never even heard of such a policy! Where have you been - in a plastic bag?

My old Daddy used to say, 'If you have nothing to say, keep your fucking mouth tightly shut so that no one will guess you're real stupid'. I think that's what he used to say.

My advice: get real. Divorce yourself from propaganda and learn the facts and the truth. Then try writing a few words on the subject. Until then, keep stum.

  

The consensus in both America and Europe is that 200 nuclear warheads is the minimum size of Israel's secret, underground arsenal in the Negev.

Informed intelligence in both continents estimates the actual figure as anything from 250-500.

Obviously, if the true figure is at the top of the scale, then Israel would be the THIRD most powerful nuclear state in the world after Russia and the US.

That is why Europe is so concerned at Israel's grossly disproportionate military power - a power sufficient to decimate half the globe.

The question is: why have all US administrations since JFK turned a blind eye to this astonishing position and even colluded in this secret arsenal that is outside the NPT and the IAEA?

The consequence is that the US and the international community has lost any control over this potential Armeggedon.

That is the simple explanation as to why Netanyahu and Ehud Barak can treat the US with such contempt.

"Right and wrong are the same in Palestine as anywhere else. What is peculiar about the Palestine conflict is that the world has listened to the party that has committed the offence and has turned a deaf ear to the victims."
--Famed British Historian Professor Arnold Toynbee

"In the name of justice there cannot be subjection and in the name of peace there cannot be impunity."
--President Alvaro Uribe Velez of Colombia

"Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented." 
-- Elie Wiesel

The Honorable Marit Arnstad, Chairman of the board

The Honorable Rector Torbjern Digernes

Norwegian University of Science and Technology

Trondheim, Norway

Rarely in history do individuals, minority groups, or institutions have an opportunity to courageously adopt a principled unpopular stand that could be transformative in world affairs.

For sometime during the genocide of Gaza it was two extraordinary Norwegian physicians and humanitarians who risked their lives to save the lives of Gazans.

'This is what hell must look like'

Two Norwegian doctors witnessed first-hand the nightmare scenes inside Gaza
Guardian, January 16, 2009

Norway has always been known for its worldwide humanitarian efforts and generous foreign aid. It is no coincidence that Norway is always ranked first in the world by the United Nations.

The Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) has just such a historic opportunity tomorrow when it considers voting for an academic boycott of Israel, a nation that for too long has lived by violence, ethnic cleansing, military expansionism, illegal occupations, subjugation of millions of innocent Palestinians, defied all divine and international laws that respect and value human life, and that since its establishment has committed countless terrorist acts and war crimes, lately documented by the Goldstone Report, all with impunity, never accountable for its actions in courts of justice, the U.N., or to all of humanity. The West, especially the U.S., has constantly protected Israel's interests at the expense of its own interests.

You may remember this headline in Aftenposten, 12/1/06:

"USA threats after boycott support"

"US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice threatened Norway with "serious political consequences" after Finance Minister and Socialist Left Party leader Kristin Halvorsen admitted to supporting a boycott of Israeli goods."

A quote by the Nobel Prize Winner Alexander Solzhenitsyn encompasses both Israel's non stop violence against innocent Palestinian, Lebanese, Syrian, Egyptian, and Jordanian civilians and its brilliant intimidating propaganda that established the persecutor as the persecuted.

"Violence can only be concealed by a lie, and the lie can only be maintained by violence. Any man who has once proclaimed violence as his method is inevitably forced to take the lie as his principle."

As a former academician I plead and urge you to take the only righteous stand possible against Israel and that is for your esteemed University to vote yes on an academic boycott of Israel. Your courage will open the door for Universities and other institutions around the world to follow your example.

In 1982 Sharon invaded Lebanon committing a widespread genocide that began in Southern Lebanon and ended in a three month devastating siege of Beirut, a city overwhelmed by hundreds of thousands of refugees from Southern Lebanon who fled the Israeli army's advance. This genocide resulted in the murder of 20,000 Lebanese and Palestinian civilians other than the cold blooded massacre of 1,700 Palestinians in the refugee camps of Sabra and Chatila. Under Sharon's protection, encouragement, and direction, the Christian Phalangists shed the blood of men, women, the elderly, and children. Sharon even provided powerful night lights for the murderers' to commit their slaughter. All the world could do is condemn the massacre without laying blame on Israel.

From the air, sea, and land Sharon unleashed his murderous campaign upon a crowded urban city bombing churches, mosques, hospitals, schools, orphanages, retirement homes, electrical and water plants, roads, bridges, the airport and sea port; not even ambulances and medics were spared.

He would bomb bakeries where men, women, and children stood in long lines for scarce bread.

Planes would bomb an area and await the gathering of ambulances, medics, and citizens to pull persons out of the wreckage only to bomb it again to inflict more casualties.

Ambassador Phil Habib, Reagan's personal envoy to stop the genocide in Beirut worked hard to reach a peace agreement between Sharon and Lebanon while promising the safety of the Palestinian civilians upon the departure of Yasser Arafat and the PLO from Lebanon. However, he discovered that Israel could never be trusted to keep its word.

In John Boykin's book, "Cursed is the Peacemaker" (2002, Applegate Press) he quotes Ambassador Habib as saying.

"I had signed this paper which guaranteed that these people in west Beirut would not be harmed. I got specific guarantees on this from Bashir (President of Lebanon) and from the Israelis--from Sharon'. He said he 'had been given assurances... that no action would be taken against the Palestinians remaining in the camps.... On the basis of those assurances we (Americans) had given our word. We had been deceived.... Sharon was a killer, obsessed by hatred of the Palestinians,' Habib said. 'I had given Arafat an undertaking that his people would not be harmed, but this was totally disregarded by Sharon whose word was worth nothing.'"

As is customary with Israel and U.N. Resolutions, Israel defied and rejected over a dozen UN Security Council Resolutions asking Israel to at least allow humanitarian aid into Beirut.

Israel's intransigence to make peaceful concessions to the Palestinians that they too may enjoy the freedom, liberty, and independence their occupiers enjoy makes us all complicit in this tragedy with our silence and inaction.

"He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it."
--Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

It is shocking that the world accepts Israel's genocides and threats against its neighbors as fait accompli without regard to the never ending suffering of Palestinians under its brutal military occupation. Palestinians and Lebanese die, suffer, and endure in silence in a world conditioned to accept Israel's "right to self defense", a euphemism for wanton murder. They die in silence absent from the western conscience due to the blanket support of most western media outlets, none more so than in America ,the nation exporting democracy and freedom through smart bombs and biased politicians who if dare to criticize Israel jeopardize their ambitions and become the recipients of the worst media smears. In the U.S. no debate or action is allowed against Israel neither by our own "never challenge Israel" government nor by our staunchly Pro Israel media.

The academicians and experts invited to your university to speak on this issue know first hand their personal victimization at the hands of Pro Israel forces. They have risked much for the truth and are honorable men and women.

Please do the right thing and vote for an academic boycott of Israel, a nation that is neither civilized nor democratic, by setting an educational precedent for your university, faculty, alumni, but most importantly for your students, that standing up for principle is the foundation for all just laws and human rights for all peoples and not just the powerful few.

Teach them to adopt "freedom from fear" as their guiding principle in life while facing all challenges, especially challenges that discriminate between the powerful and the weak, the haves and have nots, that no people should be victimized by the power of money and weapons.

""Freedom from fear" could be said to sum up the whole philosophy of human rights"
--The late Honorable Dag Hammarskjold

"Giving Flight To Dreams"....Yes, we dare to dream, we dare to act.

November 2, 2009,

President Obama's decision to withdraw his demand for the cessation of illegal settlement on the West Bank, in the face of the intransigence of Israel's Benyamin Netanyahu, has left him exposed, vulnerable and weak - and has almost certainly cost him, and the Democratic Party, a second term in office.

It has also scuppered any chance whatsoever of peace in the Middle East within the next decade, and that is very grave news for both the region and the world.

One can only speculate on the extraordinary hold the pro-Israel lobbies, such as AIPAC, have on the present administration in the White House although we know that two of his lieutenants, Rahm Emanuel his chief of staff and his top advisor, David Axelrod, are loyal AIPAC supporters.

It is, of course, common knowledge that Obama owes his election to president, almost entirely to the machinations of a pro-Israel cabal in Chicago - reputedly, within the legal and banking fraternities in that windy city.  Unfortunately, it is increasingly difficult not to take away the impression that the Israeli government is controlling US foreign policy, not only in regard to Israel itself, but also in regard to Egypt, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Turkey and to some extent, also Afghanistan and Turkmenistan.  That alleged sphere of influence, astonishingly extends from the Mediterranean eastwards, all the way to northern India and China.

In view of President Obama's capitulation to the right-wing, Netanyahu government, it would appear that it is now up to the European Union to exert pressure upon the Israeli government to conform to and comply with international law and agreed conventions on human rights.  Israel enjoys substantial bilateral trade with the EU, that accounts for nearly one third of its GDP.   That is the stick that the EU can bring to bear on the recalcitrant Israeli state.

Unfortunately, the EU has no similar stick to persuade the Obama administration to act like a world-power, rather than being subservient to a state less than one fiftieth of its size that is, in reality, kept afloat entirely by American aid.  

 Now is the time for Europe to divorce itself from the AIPAC-controlled, American foreign policy on Israel that accepts gross human rights violations i.e. the killing of 900 civilians in Gaza, in January last, which included the deliberate killing of 320 children and the illegal use of white phosphorus as a chemical weapon.

 

The official United Nations Report of the Fact Finding Mission. April/May 2009 by independent South African jurist, Judge Goldstone, concluded that there were:

1. Deliberate attacks by the Israeli army on civilians

 

2. 1400 Gazans were killed in three weeks

 

3. There was illegal use of white phosphorus

 

4. Israel violated the right to free movement

 

5. Dehumanization was carried out

 

6. There was illegal torture and punishment

 

7. There were violations of international human rights and humanitarian law

 

8. There was arbitrary deprivation of life

 

Obviously the United States will act as it, or the American Israel lobby group, sees fit - but Europe will hopefully conform to the principles of democracy, international law, the Geneva Conventions on Human Rights and basic morality.

 

The armies of western democratic nations would never be ordered to target civilians, unarmed women and innocent children.  It is incumbent, therefore, for Europe to show its condemnation of such acts of barbarity.

 

 

OPEN LETTER TO THE ISRAELI GOVERNMENT

Did you order the killing of the 900 civilians, in Gaza, in January, in self-defense or did you kill them to save others?

Did you kill these non-combatants in order to terrorize the civilian population?

Were you aware that to kill civilians, except in self-defense, is a war crime?

Did your troops use banned white phosphorus as a chemical weapon to injure and kill?

If your soldiers are alleged by an independent enquiry to be guilty of war crimes,will they be handed over voluntarily to the ICC for trial?

In which event, will Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert, the ministers directly responsible, be voluntarily be handed over to the authorities in The Hague, or will it be left to other governments to arrest them ?

The trial of Radovan Karadzic, on charges of complicity in war crimes in Bosnia, started today in the International Criminal Court in the Hague.
I, and thousands of others, fully expect to see Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert in the same court on charges of complicity in war crimes in Gaza that commenced on 27th December 2008. 
During the three weeks that followed, 900 civilians were killed by Israeli forces under the command of the above named, allegedly including 320 children and 110 women.

Being that Israel's politicians apparently want to change the internationally agreed 
rules of war so that they can order the killing of civilians, perhaps we could ask 
other alleged criminals what changes they would like to be made in the criminal 
code?

'I sincerely believed that because of my own record and the terms of the mission's mandate we would receive the cooperation of the Israeli government. Its refusal to cooperate was a grave error. My plea for cooperation was repeated before and during the investigation and it sits, plain as day, in the appendices of the Gaza report..'

 

There can be little doubt in the mind of any reasonable person, that the deliberate failure of the Israeli government to co-operate in the UN investigation into alleged war crimes in Gaza, indicates its guilt in the horrific killing of 320 children, in December and January last.

 

It is clear from the international media in recent days, including hundreds of pro-Israel websites, that Israel's Foreign Affairs Ministry has gone into overdrive in an attempt at damage limitation to try to discredit the independent report from a respected South African judge. 

 

Hundreds of thousands of dollars have been spent in an advertising campaign to discredit the allegations of deliberate civilian killings by the IDF under the command of Minister of Defense, Ehud Barak. Notwithstanding that pressure, the UN has voted to adopt the report for deliberation by the Security Council.

 

If Americans, the British, the EU, Australia, Canada and other democracies worldwide, wish to learn the truth as to who was killed in Gaza, and why, then they should make it plain to President Obama that this is far too an important matter for the US to use its veto to protect any person alleged guilty of war crimes

 

The international community are unlikely to forgive or forget anyone or any state that protects alleged war criminals from the due process of law.

 

That would turn democracy upon its head.

 The United Nations Human Rights Council on Friday endorsed a report calling on Israel and Hamas to conduct credible investigations into alleged war crimes by their combatants or face possible prosecution by the International Criminal Court in the Hague.  That would envisage, among others, both Ehud Olmert and Ehud Barak, the then Israeli prime minister and defense minster, respectively, appearing before the Court on charges of commissioning war crimes.

 

With only the United States and five European allies objecting, the council fully endorsed the findings and recommendations of an expert panel led by South African jurist, Judge Richard Goldstone, that investigated the Gaza conflict.

Twenty-five nations, including Russia and China, voted for the resolution and 16 nations abstained or did not vote. The Goldstone panel said Israel used disproportionate force, deliberately targeted civilians and destroyed civilian infrastructure.

 

Israeli officials worry that investigations will further isolate the Jewish state and encourage private lawsuits against Israeli officials and soldiers in countries that accept jurisdiction for war crimes beyond their borders. Last month, British activists tried, but failed on account of claimed diplomatic immunity, to get a British court to order Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak's arrest during his visit to London.

 

The Israelis have rejected the U.N. report's recommendation for a special inquiry on their conduct in Gaza.  While welcoming Friday's vote and calling for trials of Israelis, Hamas said it would investigate the U.N. allegations against it.

 

The US, however, has promised to use its veto in the Security Council to block any Resolution against Israel, notwithstanding that a clear majority of the world's population of 6.5 billion people, have endorsed the Goldstone report on war crimes in Gaza. 

 

Such an action by the United States goes contrary to all democratic process and opposes the Geneva Conventions to which she is a signatory.

 

It dramatically highlights the urgent necessity for change in the UNSC procedures that allow one nation to impose its decision upon the world.  It should be possible to pass any resolution by a simple majority of the council, in accordance with established and accepted democratic principles.  The present system is anachronistic, undemocratic, encouraging to dissent and detrimental to co-existence between nations and to world peace.

The list of countries that voted FOR the Goldstone report to be accepted, includes amongst others, Russia, China and India, and represents substantially more than 50% of the entire global community of 6.5 billion people.

Not a majority opinion to be ignored or treated lightly - and that global constituency demands answers, notwithstanding the opposition of the US.