Getting back to Amy and being inspired by an email from brenda@democracynow

Who wrote:

Amy will receive the Right Livelihood Award in the Swedish Parliament on Monday, December 8, 2008.  The Right Livelihood Award was established in 1980 to honor and support those “offering practical and exemplary answers to the most urgent challenges facing us today”.  Amy was selected for “developing an innovative model of truly independent grassroots political journalism that brings to millions of people the alternative voices that are often excluded by the mainstream media.”

I REPLIED:

Hi Brenda,

Congrats to Amy on her big day!

By the way, i had lunch with Amy last April and I filled her in regarding the fact that her 2004 interview with Vanunu was major testimony against him in his Freedom of Speech trial which began January 2006.

His Supreme Court appeal will be heard in the New Year.

I am hoping Amy will do a follow up BEFORE then.

Amy can get all the back ground info and view video of Vanunu from 2005, 2006 and 2008 under VANUNU ARCHIVES
http://www.wearewideawake.org/

“The media should be a sanctuary for dissent. It is our job to go to where the silence is.”-Amy Goodman

IN SOLIDARITY with that!

Eileen Fleming, Author and Founder WAWA:
http://www.wearewideawake.org/
Producer “30 Minutes With Vanunu” and “13 Minutes with Vanunu”

Eddie , you will be told that there’s no such people as Palestinians & no such country as Palestine .

The worst of it is that there is an election in ISrael where Netanyahu is leading, and he does not even pretend to support the two state solution.  The alternative is the ‘Ethnic Cleansing’ of the Palestinians under the codeword Transfer that is being supported by an increasing fraction of the Israeli population.  This will involve massacre, as occurred in the Beruit massacres under Sharon and Begin.

Obama and American Zionists will give lipservice to oppose it but support it materially.

November 28-30, 2008

“This Hilltop and That Hilltop”
Israel’s Settlement on Capitol Hill

By ROBERT WEITZEL

  “With [traditional Israeli defense strategists] it’s all about tanks and land and controlling territories . . . and this hilltop and that hilltop. All these things are worthless.”

  -Incumbent Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert

“Soon after the sand settled following the Six Day War in 1967, Jewish settlements began dotting the hills in the occupied territories. These settlements are typically located on the high ground to better control the surrounding landscape. Today there are 127 Jewish settlements with a population exceeding 468,000 in the West Bank, the Golan Heights and in the suburbs of East Jerusalem—the last of nearly 8,000 settlers were removed from the Gaza Strip in 2005.

According to a recent Amnesty International report, “In the first six months of 2008 Israel has expanded settlements in the West Bank/East Jerusalem at a faster rate than in the previous seven years.”

Unbeknownst to most Americans, Israel’s westernmost settlement is not located in Palestine-Israel, but is 6000 miles away on the high ground overlooking Foggy Bottom in Washington D.C.

This Capital Hill settlement of pro-Israel lobbies and think tanks strategically controls the high ground overlooking the United States’ Middle East policy landscape by having made kibbutzniks of most members of the executive and legislative branches of the government—including President-elect Obama, Vice President-elect Biden (a wannabe Zionist), and future Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel (a born Zionist).

While Israel’s hilltop settlements in the occupied territories—violating over 30 UN Security Council resolutions since 1968—are “facts on the ground” that make the two state peace solution unlikely, their hilltop settlement in the center of the world’s only superpower makes it equally unlikely that Israel’s right-wing government will feel compelled to end their “self defensive” brutalization of the Palestinian people, which has been condemned by the international community (UN, EU) as crimes against humanity.

John Holmes, UN Undersecretary General for Humanitarian Affairs, said that Israel’s blockade of vital supplies to the Gaza Strip in retaliation for rocket attacks “amounts to collective punishment and is contrary to international humanitarian law.”

Collective punishment is forbidden by Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which states, “No protected person may be punished for an offense he or she has not personally committed.” A “protected person” is someone who is under the control of an “Occupying Power of which they are not nationals.” Only the most ideologically blinkered individual would fail to recognize the Gaza Strip as occupied territory.

Israel’s current blockade of Gaza, which began on November 4, is resulting in what the UN Relief and Works Agency is calling a humanitarian catastrophe. Before the blockade, 1000 truckloads of food, fuel and essential supplies per day were necessary to sustain the 1.5 million Palestinians imprisoned behind the concrete and barbed wire of the 25-mile long border. Eighty percent of Gazans live on two dollars a day and depend on international aid to survive. Since the border crossings were sealed, less than 100 truckloads have been permitted through.

The imprisoned Palestinians—50 percent of whom are younger than 15—are slowly starving. They lack the fuel to generate electricity for lighting, water purification, and sewage treatment. The erratic, intermittent electrical power puts the lives of patients in intensive care wards and those who are connected to live-sustaining equipment in grave peril. The lack of basic medicines such as antibiotics and insulin pose an equally fatal threat.”

http://www.counterpunch.org/weitzel11282008.html

Dear friend , I meant to send a short message of thanks for the pictures you enclosed in your personal link to PALESTINIAN MOTHERS and I mistakenly clicked on “Report This” . I hope my stupidity doesn’t occasion you any problem with Truthdig .
I’ve forwarded the links you gave to email correspondents . I am so pained by your People’s torments .

.
Dear all

Thank you for your persistence and perseverance

You are doing a great job by spreading the TRUTH

Here is a PowerPoint that tells part of Our Story, which you can download and share with people

http://tinyurl.com/4688dq

http://www.palestinianmothers.com/profiles/blogs/19704 66:BlogPost:21449

This is another Website with lots of interactive information about Palestine, feel free to join and pass it on

http://www.palestinianmothers.com/

and this is my page on it:

http://www.palestinianmothers.com/profile/nahida

.

USS Liberty

“On June 8, 1967, US Navy intelligence ship USS Liberty was suddenly and brutally attacked on the high seas in international waters by the air and naval forces of Israel. The Israeli forces attacked with full knowledge that this was an American ship and lied about it. Survivors have been forbidden for 40 years to tell their story under oath to the American public. This USS Liberty Memorial web site tells their story and is dedicated to the memory of the 34 brave men who died.

The Attack

After surveilling USS Liberty for more than nine hours with almost hourly aircraft over flights and radar tracking, the air and naval forces of Israel attacked our ship in international waters without warning. USS Liberty was identified as a US naval ship nine hours before the attack by Israeli reconnaissance aircraft and continuously tracked by Israeli radar and aircraft thereafter. Sailing in international waters at less than five knots, with no offensive armament, our ship was not a military threat to anyone.

The Israeli forces attacked without warning and without attempting to contact us. Thirty four Americans were killed in the attack and another 174 were wounded.  The ship, a $40 Million Dollar state of the art signals intelligence platform, was later declared unsalvageable and sold for scrap.

The Cover Up

Despite a near-universal consensus that the Israeli attack was made with full knowledge that USS Liberty was a US Navy ship, the Johnson administration began an immediate cover-up of this fact. Though administration officers continued individually to characterize the attack as deliberate, the Johnson administration never sought the prosecution of the guilty parties or otherwise attempted to seek justice for the victims. They concealed and altered evidence in their effort to downplay the attack. Though they never formally accepted the Israeli explanation that it was an accident, they never pressed for a full investigation either. They simply allowed those responsible literally to get away with murder.

In an ongoing effort to reveal the truth about the attack, the USS Liberty Veterans Association has filed with the Secretary of the Army in the manner prescribed by law a detailed, fully documented Report of War Crimes describing the circumstances of the attack on our ship and evidence that it was a crime under international law. In accordance with international law and treaties, the United States is obligated to investigate the allegations. So far, the United States has declined even to acknowledge that the report has been filed.”

The full text of the report can be found at http://www.gtr5.com/evidence/warcrimes.pdf

~~~~~~~~
For the rest of the story:

http://www.ussliberty.org

michele6933 asked: Can someone please give me a truthful, cogent reason as to why the USA is enamoured with Israel and will go to hell & back for the Jewish state?

I am so grateful you asked!

It has been said that before Israel became America’s best friend, the USA had NO enemies in the Middle East!

On June 8, 2007, i attended the 27th annual American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee’s Washington, D.C. Conference, as i was in town for the D.C. March Against the 40 years of Israeli Occupation of Palestine.

86 year old, walker-bound Congressman Paul Findley, a moderate Republican blew my mind when he addressed the luncheon crowd:

“I was here for the first convention 27 years ago and I still have a fire in my belly for the civil and human rights of Arabs. It is time to speak openly and honestly about Israel. But, in American politics, that is still forbidden.

“…Pity that we cannot seem to shed our fear of Israel. We are afraid to speak out on Capitol Hill, for fear of losing the next election. They are more like trained poodles jumping through hoops than leaders!

“Why this fear? How did we get here?

“Forty years ago to this day, June 8, 1967 the change occurred, the floodgates opened and money poured into Israel as never before. When President Johnson heard about the U.S.S. Liberty being attacked by Israel he ordered the rescue fighter planes to return to the deck. The rescue mission was aborted and the survivors have said they heard LBJ’s voice tell Admiral Giess, ‘Get those planes back on deck. I don’t care if the ship sinks, I will not embarrass Israel.’

“LBJ also threatened to court martial anyone who reported what had happened. Johnson accepted Israel’s false claim of “mistaken identity” and he knew it was a lie.  That is when the change began and Israel learned they could get away with murdering U.S.A. soldiers.”

MORE on the LIBERTY:
http://www.wearewideawake.org/index.php?option=com_con tent&task=view&id=818&Itemid=185

ANOTHER reason for USA blind allegiance to the state of Israel-which is NOT a democracy, but an ethnocracy- is that church and state got in bed together through the cult of ‘Christian’ Zionists who viewed the founding of Israel as the beginning of the second coming of JC-a total fantasy that has been screwing all the people for justice and peace!

Learn More:

The cult of ‘Christian’ Zionism is what the concept of the Anti-Christ is all about:

http://www.wearewideawake.org/index.php?option=com_con tent&task=view&id=924&Itemid=201

BTW, President George Washington, on Sept. 17, 1796 in his Farewell Address warned we the people that: “The nation which indulges toward another…is in some degree a slave…a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils.”

Dear All,

THANK YOU all for the thoughtful and thought provoking comments.

Thank you also to Truthdig for providing a place for open insightful dialogue!

I have had experience with the right wing Zionist cabal that cannot bear the light of truth, for

“The Walls of pride are high and wide, you can’t see over to the other side.”-Dylan

I have been cyber slandered by many, censored and banned by Jim Wallis/Belief Net blog and the supposedly progressive free speech sites:

The Democratic Underground:

http://www.wearewideawake.org/index.php?option=com_ content&task=view&id=688&Itemid=179

And the DAILY KOS:

http://www.wearewideawake.org/index.php?option=com_ content&task=view&id=534&Itemid=167

Every experience gives me more fuel and fire and i will never shut up until compassion replaces militarism!

I do believe the way to that change only can come through open dialogue and education of the true facts on the ground.

Education is the way to Compassion; and Compassion will change the world.

You all fill me with hope that Truthdig is a major site where that change can be birthed!

With Thanksgiving and Love 2U all,

e
http://www.wearewideawake.org

PS-i credit Rachel Corrie as the mother of the New Fourth Estate; Citizen Journalists/CZ-

A CZ has a compassionate heart; they fearlessly leave behind their comfort zones, seeking truth and they report the true facts on the ground as best they can with love for ALL.

Good point, Fadel.  I wou’t do it anymore.  The ‘Middle East’ language obscures and diffuses the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

There was a time when things were called by their real names and the issue was Palestine and the Palestinians and the injustice, dispossession, terrorism and brutality inflicted by colonial Zionists coming from evil Europe with the same disease to be inflicted upon the natives of Palestine.

Now there is hardly any direct and specific reference to the real issue of Palestine and the Palestinians which has been camouflaged by a more ambiguous and generalized term called the “Middle East.” This was a deliberate plan by colonialist Israel and their supporters in America and Europe to artificially broaden the problem to achieve several objectives:

1. To divert attention from the real problem of the Palestinians who were the only and direct victims of Israel’s creation and its constant terrorizing and ethnic cleaning of them as the natives of the land.

2. To create the impression that little Israel is surrounded by a whole region called the “Middle East” with its diverse political and cultural entities who are just hostile to Israel for the heck of it and whose millions of populations are working towards its destruction. The message is that America and Europe has the moral and financial responsibility to protect Israel from this broadly defined hostile region.

3. To create the impression that the problem is bigger than just colonial Israel against the people of Palestine. Consequently, it’s a bigger geopolitical problem that cannot be easily solved because it’s not just between two entities but many other players who cannot be brought to agree on a solution.

4. As a consequence of this, the solution, according to those evil plotters, is to give Israel all the time it needs to create facts on the ground and develop a military power and an arsenal of weapons of mass destruction many times more powerful and superior to all the countries of the Middle East combined, so that to keep all those “evil” Middle Easterners under control. Meanwhile, the words Palestine and Palestinians will eventually move to the realm of oblivion with the passage of time.

This is why I always feel angry and get upset when the issue of Palestine and the grievances of the Palestinians are sub-consumed under the ambiguous and generalized term of the Middle East, as the title of this piece puts it.

Eileen is a member of brave breed that culminates in people like rachael Cori and dr. king. Amy Goodman and the people who appear on Democracy Now are another life line to many causes that have few advocates. we will not be silenced. In the face of coward our conspired media we brave activist,intellectuals and informed public will speak clear and loud.

To nefertiti
I am Egyptian and their is nothing in it sham you . Arabs, American, Israelis and everybody else have the good the bad and the ugly. what matters which comes out at different times of our life.

If the Israeli right wing is operating under the assumption that they can starve the Palestinian problem out of existence, they have come to a very troubling turn. First, there is the obvious parallels to the Warsaw ghetto, which poses a serious moral transgression - not before international law, which they dismissed years ago - but before everything they as a people purport to hold as central to their traditions and covenants.

Then there is the question of tactics, and the sheer pragmatics of survival. It is folly to believe that anything short of a just co-existence will bring a lasting peace and stability. In this respect a myopic policy aimed at strangling out Hamas will almost surely backfire. But the Israeli hardliners seem intent to ignore this as they drag their nation deeper into a generational holy war with 1.8 billion Muslims. And America is increasingly finding itself caught at ground zero in the conflict.

Sir Shimon denounces new terrorist attack on Israel

Israeli activists video police headbutting Palestinian woman

11.24.2008 | Ynet
By Ali Waked and Reuters

(Video) B’Tselem footage shows helmeted S.W.A.T. team member headbutting woman who was protesting against demolition east Jerusalem home three weeks ago. Police say incident under investigation

VIDEO - Israeli human rights group B’Tselem on Monday released a video showing a helmeted Israeli S.W.A.T. team member headbutting a Palestinian woman who was protesting against the demolition of a home in east Jerusalem’s Silwan neighborhood three weeks ago.

B’Tselem said the incident was filmed by one of its researchers during Israel’s November 5 demolition of homes built by Palestinians without permission from the Jerusalem Municipality.

The video was sent to the police’s Internal Affairs Unit, which confirmed that a complaint was filed and that the incident was being investigated.

B’Tselem has demanded that the attacking officer be prosecuted to the full extent of the law to “send out a message that police violence will not be tolerated”.

In July, activists from the human rights group filmed two Israeli soldiers shooting a bound Palestinian with a rubber bullet. The soldiers were later charged by the army.

http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/article.php?pg=11& ar=2166

Some of those pictures on the poetry for Palestine site are unbelievable.

As a tribute to your courage in fighting for the Palestinians,Eileen, I DID read you truthpiece and respect your love even if I can’t feel it.  I say only that it must be yoked to realistic power strategies to be effective.

Nefertiti, you can’t be too harsh on rank and file Arabs for not supporting the Palestinians, the way a few courageous Europeans do, because the penalties are much harsher for them.

But I agree that the Mubaraks of the world should be hung by their balls for the selling out of the Arab people.

Eileen… your courage & commitment for seeking & conveying the TRUTH is commendable. Not too long ago here on TD, Nahida, a Palestinian math teacher, who has been exiled from Jerusalem since 1967, used to post on TD. On many times, the hardcore zionists who post on TD pounced on Nahida’s comments & tried to intimidate her & made fun of her posts.

Nahida provided her website/blog on several occasions for references. You would find that a lot of the barbaric Israeli IDF images and their crimes against innocent Palestinian children and women can be seen on this website.

Just scroll down to watch the various albums with their detailed pictures…and much more!

Hope that you may find this website of some interest to you.

http://poetryforpalestine.spaces.live.com/

Mr Desmond Tutu and other European Officials visited GAZA but Mr Amr Moussa next door , did not visit Gaza . He had plenty of time for Lebanon but not Gaza . Shame if I were Mr Moussa i would have resigned that the decent thing to do .

one million and half million people in the Ghetto of Gaza suffer the worst conditions ever , shown on AL ALAM tv NON STOP . there is no electricity (that is now threatening lives In hospitals ) lack of fuel , lack of food , lack of medicine and other necessities we take for granted . now Palestinians are using Cattle feed , grinding wheat used for cattle and poultry , and even that is only for a few days .
but the Arabs (and im ashamed to say im Arab ) look the other way , and check the stock exchange because they are losing millions and some billions . Europeans with a conscience have come to Gaza twice so far and they are applauded , to break the siege , but the Pathetic Arabs still did not follow suit . they could have had some courage , but no , they just do not want to upset America and they cant wait to start normal relations with Israel . they do not fear ALLAH but humans like them , God I hate cowards . !!
what happened to human compassion, why is Mubarak committing war crimes (along with israel and rest of the Arabs ) in gaza , why cant he allow the rafah gate to be opened for sick , students and food ? why For god sake . why ?
and then Bush gives us lessons about the beauty of freedom and Human rights . hypcrit !

Dear Folktruther,

You make many great points and i value your opinion.

But, you see, I am a Christian Anarchist [such as Dorothy Day]and like DD, I do see the reality, yet I have HOPE for change and “HOPE has two children. The first is ANGER at the way things are. The second is COURAGE to DO SOMETHING about it.”-St. Augustine

I believe the change from militarism to compassion will happen [maybe NOT in my life time] but God did NOT create this world that the inhumanity of certain men addicted to power, control and empire will blow up Mother Earth;

But that we will Evolve!

Jesus was the first fully evolved human being; the very first WIDE AWAKE man who saw The Divine within ALL others and all situations.

I have a radical hope that we are on the brink of a Greater Awakening-

PLEASE read the following and tell me what you think:

The Stages of the Soul and How Religiosity/Fundamentalism is holding up Evolution
http://www.wearewideawake.org/index.php?option=com_con tent&task=view&id=825&Itemid=195

BTW, when i speak of LOVE, i am talking about Pure Love which is unconditional and expressed best in 1 Corinthians: Chapter 13, of which i slightly paraphrase:

If I speak with an angelic tongue but i do not have love, I am but a resounding gong; a clashing cymbal.

  And if I have the gift of prophecy and comprehend all mysteries and all knowledge and even it I have the faith to move mountains,

But, i do not have love,

I am nothing.

If I give away everything I own, but i do not have love,

I gain nothing.

 
Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, not pompous, it is not inflated, it is not rude, it does not seek its own interests; but the greater good!

Love is not quick-tempered and it never holds a grudge

Love does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with THE TRUTH!

Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

  Love never fails

  At present we see through the glass darkly;

  At present I know partially; one day-and i don’t when that will be- but one day, we will all see fully as we are fully seen.

And faith, hope, and love will always remain,

Out of that trinity, the greatest is love.

And LOVE is all you need.

xoxe

You are very courageous, Eileen.  But if you think that love for both the oppressors and the oppressed, the murderers and the murdered, the torturers and the tortured, will solve the Israeli historical problem, you are deeply mistaken.  And lead others to make the same mistake.

Under Bush, and now Obama who is following the same policies, the US-Israeli trajectory historically is toward ethnic cleansing, under the codeword ‘Transfer’. Obama has already stated that he is against Palestinian Jerusulem being ruled by the Palestinians, and has surrounded himself with Zionist advisors. 

A fraction of the Israeli population is currently electing Netanyahu as Israeli CEO, who does not even give lipservice to a two state solution. The US-Israeli solution historically is approaching increasingly the policy of mass murder.  Love is not enough to prevent it.

What do Zimbabwe, Burma, North Korea and Israel have in Common?

They are the ONLY states in the world that deny international media and humanitarian aid workers access.

On November 18, 2008, I and forty seven international ecumenical Christians and other people of faith rolled out of bed before 5 AM to travel from Jerusalem to the Erez Crossing in the Gaza Strip.

We went to stand up as a united people of conscience in NONVIOLENT Solidarity with the people of Gaza and in support of all the NGO’s that have been denied access into the Gaza Strip for over two weeks.

We went in love and for love of all of God’s children;

Be they the oppressed or the oppressors,

Those imprisoned by walls and those who erect them,

Those who are denied clean water and their deniers,

Those whose fears rule their hearts and the heartbroken,

Those whose ideology, greed, apathy, and power blind them to their culpability, responsibilities and obligations.

We went with hope to arouse the consciences of the leaders of the world to seek peace through justice; equal human rights for all.

Some media turned out for the NGO meeting we attended in the parking lot at Erez Crossing-but NOT USA media needless to say.

The word on the street in Jerusalem by that evening was that the Israeli OCCUPYING Forces tanks rolled back into Gaza shortly after we departed.

The next day 3 internationals and 15 Gaza fishermen were kidnapped while in international waters.

LEARN MORE:
http://www.freegaza.org/

Israel and the USA both signed the Geneva Convention.

That makes them BOTH legally, morally and ethically RESPONSIBLE for the 1.5 million open air prisoners of Gaza; 60% are children under the age of 18 years old!

May God have mercy on those who do NOT know what they are doing -

BUT, NO DOUBT they KNOW perfectly well and that has got my Irish up and flaming.

e
http://www.wearewideawake.org

Thank you Robert!

I have been stripped searched three times at Ben Gurion -the trigger the first time was for having a copy of “Celebrating NONVIOLENT Resistance” in Jan. 2006.

I have been to oPt 6 times since June 2005.

Three times i just responded with part of the truth as to where i had been. I did NOT tell SECURITY i had published my reports on my website and i carried no Palestinian literature.

BUT the last 2 times I told the total truth as to where I had been specifically to trigger another interrogation and strip search, so as to write all about it.

This last time however, was the first time i noticed my passport number being written down on a log sheet.

On July 30, 2007, i told the whole Truth at Ben Gurion and it provided me with a great article:

http://www.wearewideawake.org/index.php?option=com_ content&task=view&id=594&Itemid=169

I go to oPt on my own dime, my website is a labor of love that bears witness to what the limp USA MSM does not report about and what our government does not want we the people to know about.

Palestinians are beautiful, hospitable, NONVIOLENT people enduring under a brutal 41 year military occupation-funded by $7-10 MILLION USA Tax dollars PER DAY!

Only by truth telling can we change the situation.

There will never be security for Israel without justice for Palestine;

Justice requires equal human rights for ALL and honoring international law.

Eileen Fleming, Author, Citizen Journalist and Founder WAWA:
http://www.wearewideawake.org/
Producer “30 Minutes With Vanunu” and “13 Minutes with Vanunu” which are freely streaming on WAWA
http://www.wearewideawake.org

Hi Eileen,

Glad to hear that you made through & back safely from that oppressive & Apartheid regime of Israel.

Just be glad that those security geeks let you pass through after all the humiliations. Just imagine if you were NOT holding a US passport!

I read your saga (truth) and I am not surprised one bit. You’ve only seen a pin head from those security geeks. Just imagine what Palestinians (Christian & Moslem) have to go through via the same route. I am sure its a humiliating hell for them that lasts for hours.

Eileen…MAKE SURE THAT SOMEONE THAT YOU CAN TRUST CHECKS OUT YOUR LAPTOP!

TRUTH IS ON THE SIDE OF THE OPPRESSED…EILEEN !

Obiben has already closed the door on the two state solution of the Israeli problem by supporting the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian portion of Jerusulem. Since a two state solution depends on both the US and Israel, it will not be achieved during the Obama adiministration.

The Zionists have opted for a Likud solution, which is the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians, under the codeword of ‘Transfer.’  The starving of the Gaza population, with US consent, is the kickoff campaign for the Obama term.  Obama has surrounded himself with Zionists to continue the War against Muslims initiated by the Bushite regime.

All this is being done while the Zionists protest they want a two state solution.  Netanyahu, who does not even pay lipservice to the two state solution is currently leading in the present Israeli election.

“The media should be a sanctuary for dissent. It is our job to go to where the silence is.”-Amy Goodman

“As president, I will set a new direction in nuclear weapons policy and show the world that America believes in its existing commitment under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to work to ultimately eliminate all nuclear weapons. I fully support reaffirming this goal, as called for by George Shultz, Henry Kissinger, William Perry, and Sam Nunn, as well as the specific steps they propose to move us in that direction.”-Senator Barack Obama’s response to ACT. [1]

ACT/Arms Control Today is a leading journal devoted to nonproliferation and global security issues. ACT asked the presidential candidates questions on arms control and nonproliferation; from Russia to Iran, in regards to U.S. policy on cluster munitions and nuclear-armed India and Pakistan. Senator McCain’s responses have not yet been received, but he is on the record for renewing American commitment [on paper] to nuclear disarmament through strengthening the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, created in 1968, maintains that nuclear weapons proliferation can only be curtailed if nuclear countries make moves toward disarmament and the rest of the world is allowed to access civilian nuclear technology.

If the media were a sanctuary for dissent the candidates would have been grilled on America’s record regarding the NPT; and why the silence about Israel’s still un-inspected underground WMD facility and refusal to sign onto the NPT in light of the fact that we the people of America who pay taxes provide Israel with $7 million per day: http://www.ifamericansknew.org/stats/usaid.html

From Ashkelon prison in 1987, Mordechai Vanunu wrote:

The Rest:
http://wearewideawake.org/index.php?option=com_content& task=view&id=1078&Itemid=211

Eileen Fleming, Author, Citizen Journalist and Founder WAWA:
http://www.wearewideawake.org/

Producer “30 Minutes With Vanunu” and “13 Minutes with Vanunu” freely streaming on WAWA

November 24, 2008: Dear Security,

Secure This: 194! 

[Tel Aviv] Last night I left occupied east Jerusalem for the seventeen hour return home trip to my sanctuary in Florida. I am home now and I am whipped!

I wore my NAKBA t-shirt and was greeted with a smile by my first inquisitor at Ben Gurion Airport, who inquired, “May I have your passport? Why did you come to Israel?”

I readily replied as I handed it to her along with my WeAreWideAwake.org business card, “I came to Israel in order to go to occupied Palestine to learn more about Al Nakba and report it all on my website.”

“Al Nakba?”

“Yes, Al Nakba, which is Arabic for The Catastrophe, The Disaster; the other side of the story of what happened when Israel became a state, in 1948. No coincidence, I think that UN Resolution 194 affirms the Right of Return to Palestinian’s who became refugees when Zionists grabbed even more land than ‘civilized’ white men partitioned to them.”

“Oh, I see…Did anyone give you anything, anything at all? I must ask as even a harmless looking item can be made explosive.”

“Nobody in occupied Palestine gave me anything except food, drink and good company. The only thing explosive about me are the words that I pound out on my computer, for I am a citizen journalist, not corporate controlled media.”

“I see. Please wait here.”

I did, and she went to converse with three colleagues a few yards from me. Within a minute, they were all looking at me. Ten minutes later, she returned with a smiling man who held my passport and business card and introduced himself as “Security.”

I smiled and replied, “Happy to know you, I am Eileen.”

“What was your reason to visit Israel?”

“Well, you can read all about it on my website, and I hope you will. I have been to Hebron, Erez Crossing and occupied east Jerusalem. I came to learn more and report the truth as I dissent from the way my American tax dollars are spent. Seven to ten million U.S.A. tax dollars every single day, go to support the military occupation of Palestine, and that ticks me off!”

He maintained his smile as he nodded to the woman who applied white stickers on my bags and onto the back of my passport. I was told to proceed to the first x-ray machine for Phase Two, Three and Four of Security:

The Rest:
http://www.wearewideawake.org/index.php?option=com_con tent&task=view&id=1110&Itemid=212

Israel celebrates Thanksgiving

Abu Kamel of the al-Kurd family has died two weeks after Israel forcibly evicted him from his home of 52 years

11.23.2008 | International Solidarity Movement
By ISM

“Abu Kamel of the Al-Kurd family, evicted by Israel from their home in Occupied East Jerusalem on the 9th November, has died after suffering from a severe heart-attack.

This comes two weeks after he was taken immediately to hospital following the night-time invasion and forcible eviction from his home of 52 years by Israeli forces.

The funeral will be held at 11am, 23rd November in Sheikh Jarrah, Occupied East Jerusalem.

Suffering from dangerously high blood pressure, in the aftermath of his family’s eviction from the emblematic house in Sheikh Jarrah and consequently being left homeless, 61 year-old Abu Kamel suffered from a deterioration with his long-term health problems and was re-admitted to hospital at around 10pm, Saturday 22nd November. It was soon announced that he had suffered from a heart-attack and died.

Fawzia al-Kurd has now lost her husband and her family home within two weeks due to the Israeli state’s campaign expand Jewish settlements in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood. Despite high-profile formal complaints from the US State department, numerous foreign consulates, and European politicians, who openly questioned the legality of the settlers claims, Israel violently pursued its plans to evict the refugees from 1948.

The price of Israel’s political campaign against the refugees now includes the life of a 61 year-old man. As aide to Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, Haten Abdelkader stated on the 9th November, ” They want to expel Palestinians from Sheikh Jarrah. It is an escalation before the municipal elections,” (http://afp.google.com/
article/ALeqM5ghaZJuWrxuuPOrvA6WlytW9UZrNw). He also noted that as the expulsion went ahead even though the decision is being appealed that this “demonstrates the problem is no longer legal, but political.” (AFP)

It should also be noted that after having been made refugees from West Jerusalem in 1948, the al-Kurd family were subsequently made refugees a second and third time as Israel evicted them from their home on the 9th November before proceeding to destroy the tent that was established on the 19th November.

The health of Abu Kamel was central to the Israeli campaign to occupy the al-Kurd house. In 2001, as the family was abroad in Jordan visiting Abu Kamel while he was receiving treatment, settlers broke into part of the family home that they have continued to occupy ever since.

For more information: ISM Media Office - 02-2971824

The Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in East Jerusalem was built by the UN and Jordanian government in 1956 to house Palestinian refugees from the 1948 war. The al-Kurd family began living in the neighbourhood after having been made refugees from Jaffa and West Jerusalem. However, with the the start of the Israeli occupation of East Jerusalem, following the 1967 war, settlers began claiming ownership of the land the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood was build on.

Stating that they had purchased the land from a previous Ottoman owner in the 1800s, settlers claimed ownership of the land. In 1972 settlers successfully registered this claim with the Israeli Land Registrar. While the al-Kurds family continued legal proceedings challenging the settlers claim, the settlers started filing suits against the Palestinian family.

In 2006, the court ruled the settlers claim void, recognizing it was based on fraudulent documents. Subsequently, the Al-Kurd family lawyer petitioned the Israeli Land Registrar to revoke the settlers registration of the land and state the correct owner of the land. Although it did revoke the settlers claim, the Israeli land Registrar refused to indicate the rightful owner of the land.”
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