Happy Independence Day Amerika
Gabriele Zamparini, The Cat’s Blog
I read in New York Times:American Flags as Big as Fields On the field before the All-Star Game, Major League Baseball plans to assemble the largest gathering of Hall of Fame players in baseball history. And as fans salute their heroes, the former players will join the crowd in saluting the American flag — one that is roughly 75 feet by 150 feet, as long as a 15-story building is tall, spread horizontally over the Yankee Stadium turf. If only Adolf Hitler and Joseph Goebbels were alive!!! At least they had the good taste to use the work of an exceptionally gifted artist, Leni Riefenstahl. In today’s Amerika, all is needed is a big flag. But, as Howard Zinn reminds us, “There is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people”…

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The narrative of a young woman: her eyes, life and hope under occupation
Manar Wahhab, PNN
I will begin with the story of leaving in 1948 with the words of my grandmother. “Before the British left in May 1948, they humiliated the Arabs. We used to think that they sold petrol for only five dinars but when we opened the bottles we discovered that they sold us water!”. She continued, “I want to tell you what had happened to me and my family when we lived in Al-Ramlah [a village the Israelis took in 1948]…my six children and I sat at home [one of her children is my father]. Two men knocked on the door. When we opened the door, they told us to leave the house because there would be clashes. We didn’t believe them. I was cooking for my children. Then we suddenly heard shelling and bombing. I took my children and went to the Catholic convent to hide. There we met a lot of people, both Christians and Muslims. The children were afraid and cried because of the sounds they heard. There was no food or water anymore. So we were obliged to bring what we had in our houses. The Israeli soldiers told the boys and men to visit a specific place if they wanted to get permission to be in the streets, but the Israelis were lying: when the men went to the place they all were taken to prison…

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Iraqi refugees are tragic victims of a perverse war
Cesar Chelala
According to official estimates Iraqi refugees now total almost 5mn people, and are part of one of the most tragic humanitarian crises in the region. According to Amnesty International, countries are evading their responsibility towards Iraqi refugees by promoting a false sense of security in Iraq, which is neither safe nor suitable for their return. The organisation stressed that the world’s richest countries are failing to provide necessary assistance to Iraqi refugees, “most of whom are plunged in despair and hurtling towards destitution”. According to the most recent estimates of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the number of Iraqis who have fled their homes has now reached 4.7mn. This is the highest number since the US-led invasion and the subsequent internal armed conflict in Iraq. Neighbouring countries, particularly Syria and Jordan, have received most refugees. However, lack of support from the international community has obliged those countries to restrict their entry and to deport Iraqis, even those who may be at risk of persecution in their own country…

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Bush administration encouraged oil deal in Kurdistan, undermining Iraqi “national unity”
David Walsh, WSWS
The Bush administration publicly criticized a deal made between Hunt Oil of Dallas, Texas and the Kurdistan Regional Government in Iraq last September for supposedly undermining Iraqi “national unity,” while privately officials were facilitating the oil firm’s activities, documents released this week by the US House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform reveal. Hunt Oil, whose chief executive Ray Hunt has been a major backer of George W. Bush, signed the agreement with the Kurdish government on September 8, 2007 to explore and develop oilfields in the region…

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United by a Bulldozer – And I think to myself…
Gilad Atzmon, Palestine Think Tank
…Here is a little anecdote that has been concerning me in the last two days. Bearing in mind that not a single Palestinian freedom fighting organisation has claimed responsibility for the bulldozer event two days ago, I wonder why the Israelis are entirely sure that it was an act of terror. It may as well be that the man was slightly mad, he might have had a phone row with his wife or alternatively a soaring dispute with his Israeli boss that made him flip. I would assume that in order to declare an incident to be an act of terror, a terrorist motivation or a scenario must be established first. Without establishing such a motivation we are doomed to admit that we are dealing here with a criminal case that must be investigated. We should as well refrain from jumping to conclusions…

However, the Israelis seem to be pretty convinced here. For them, there is not a single doubt that the bulldozer man was nothing less than a murderous terrorist.

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B’Tselem: “Palestinian child abused during arrest, tortured during interrogation”
Saed Bannoura – IMEMC & Agencies
The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories (B’Tselem) reported that a Palestinian child was tortured by Israeli soldiers while arresting him and was also tortured in an Israeli prison during interrogation. The child, Majid Jaradat, 13, was kidnapped by the army on November 13, 2007, after the soldiers claimed that he hurled stones at them during a demonstration in Sa’ir village, near the southern West Bank city of Hebron…

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Vanunu on Faith before Final Court Date of 2 ? Year Long Freedom of Speech Trial
Eileen Fleming, thepeoplesvoice.org
[East Jerusalem] On July 8, 2008, the final act in Mordechai Vanunu’s current trials plays out, when Israel either puts Vanunu behind bars for six more months, or “something else” as Vanunu wrote. Mordechai Vanunu’s historic freedom of speech trial began in January 2006. In July 2007, Israel convicted him on 14 [out of over a hundred interviews with foreign journalists] counts of violating the court order prohibiting him from speaking to any foreigners since his 2004 release from 18 years in prison for exposing Israel’s secret nuclear weapons program in 1986…

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The Nakba of Ni’lin
Land-owners Losing Their Olive Trees to the Wall
Palestine Monitor
The ancient olive tree is considered holy, mentioned in the Torah, the Christian Scriptures, and the Qur’an. This tree has also become an emblem of the connection between Palestinians and the land. But this sacred tree, a symbol of peace and abundance, is disappearing from Ni’lin. The village of Ni’lin has been greatly affected by the construction of the Wall since its commencement on May 20th. Portions of the Wall near the village were built on the Green Line, but not in Ni’lin, which is bordered to the southwest by the settlements of Hashmon’im, Modi’in Illit, and Mattityahu. Israeli authorities claim that the Wall is being built as security for these three settlements. Not only will the Wall impede easy movement to schools and workplaces in neighboring areas, but it will also destroy approximately five thousand olive trees. “How does this olive tree threaten the security of Israel?” exclaimed land-owner Asad Amera, pointing to a small tree on his property…

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Obama’s Slight of Tongue On Iraq… What the Press Missed
Heywood U. Reedmore
…But there was another slight of hand that the press missed. Obama slipped one more condition into the list of reasons why his policy might change. Obama said: “My guiding approach continues to be that we’ve got to make sure that our troops are safe and that Iraq is stable.” When he addressed the press a second time to clarify his remarks he reiterated the point: “My guiding approach continues to be that we’ve got to make sure that our troops are safe and that Iraq is stable. I’m going to continue to gather information to find out whether those conditions still hold.” Iraq’s stability is a new condition and his assertion that he “has always said” this is a flat out lie…

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Hunkering Down in Afghanistan with Field-Marshall Obama
Mike Whitney
…Presidential candidate Barak Obama, “The Peace Candidate”, supports a stronger commitment to the war in Afghanistan and has proposed “sending at least two additional combat brigades — or 7,000 to 10,000 troops — to Afghanistan, while deploying more Special Operations forces to the Afghan-Pakistan border. He has also proposed increasing non-military aid to Afghanistan by at least $1 billion per year.” (Wall Street Journal) Obama, backed by Brzezinski and other Clinton foreign policy advisers, has focussed his attention on the “war on terror”, that dismal public relations coup which conceals America’s desire to become a major player in the Great Game, the battle for supremacy on the Asian continent. Obama appears to be even more eager to repeat history than McCain. In November, voters will be asked to pick one of the two pro-war candidates. McCain has made his position clear; his focus is on Iraq. Now it is up to Obama to point out why it’s more acceptable to kill a man who is fighting for his country in Afghanistan than it is in Iraq…

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Iranian Parliament to Debate Death Penalty for Bloggers
Marshall Kirkpatrick
The Iranian parliament is set to debate a draft bill that would add a number of crimes to the list of those that can result in execution, among them “establishing weblogs and sites promoting corruption, prostitution and apostasy.” Apostasy means the abandonment of a religion. The official Iranian news agency reports that the bill is intended to “toughen punishment for harming mental security in society.”…

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The “Kafkaesque” Trial:Imposed on Shawan Jabarin, Al-Haq’s General Director
Hiyam Noir, PalestineFreeVoice
The Israeli High Court of Justice today heard the latest petition brought by the General Director of Al-Haq, Mr. Shawan Jabarin, against the Commander of the Israeli military forces in the West Bank. The petition sought to overturn the travel ban imposed on Mr. Jabarin by the Israeli military authorities, in order for him to be able to leave the West Bank to attend a number of international conferences and seminars, including an event to which he was invited by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. Mr. Jabarin’s lawyer, Advocate Michael Sfard, demonstrated that the restrictions on Mr. Jabarin’s freedom of movement, and, by extension, freedom of expression, violate international humanitarian and human rights law, as well as Israeli constitutional law…

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Iraqi Kurds Out-Lobby Iraqi Arabs In Washington
Andrew Tilghman
This week, we learned that the White House knew about last year’s deal between Texas-based Hunt Oil and the Kurdish Regional Government. Apparently the threat it posed to the fragile negotiations in Baghdad didn’t concern the president as much as he suggested in public. The Kurds have made a lot of friends in Washington during the past few years — especially among Republicans…

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Big Oil’s Iraq deals are the greatest stick-up in history
Naomi Klein
…Several of the architects of the Iraq war no longer even bother to deny that oil was a major motivator for the invasion. On US National Public Radio’s To the Point, Fadhil Chalabi, one of the primary Iraqi advisers to the Bush administration in the lead-up to the invasion, recently described the war as “a strategic move on the part of the United States of America and the UK to have a military presence in the Gulf in order to secure [oil] supplies in the future”. Chalabi, who served as Iraq’s oil undersecretary of state and met with the oil majors before the invasion, described this as “a primary objective”. Invading countries to seize their natural resources is illegal under the Geneva conventions. That means the huge task of rebuilding Iraq’s infrastructure – including its oil infrastructure – is the financial responsibility of Iraq’s invaders..

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Condoleezza Rice: ‘I Am Proud Of The Decision’ To Invade Iraq
Think Progress
…Woodruff presented Buckley’s argument to Rice that Bush’s legacy will be Iraq. “That’s just fine,” said Rice. “We tend to forget very quickly what Saddam Hussein meant. … In the post 9/11 environment, you couldn’t let a threat to international peace and stability like that remain.” She added: Yes, it’s been very, very tough. But I know that great historical events go through difficult phases and often emerge with the world left for the better. And I am proud of the decision of this administration to overthrow Saddam Hussein. I am proud of the liberation of 25 million Iraqis…

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Zionism: The Highest Stage of Imperialism
By Dr. Hassan A. El-Najjar
…Consequently, if Zionism is not based on a true religious principle, what is it based on? What is its reality? Zionism is the highest stage of imperialism, which is the third stage of the development of capitalism. Its ultimate goal is hegemony over the world economies, using its control over the United States foreign policy. Its continuous wars in the Middle East for more than half a century have aimed at controlling the world power house, the Arab oil, and consequently the Arab oil wealth, which is estimated at about $14 trillion by current (May 2002) oil prices. Zionism involves all the horrors that characterize this terrible stage of the development of capitalism. It is a combination of racism, greed, and exploitation. It is in a continuous state of hunger for wars and thirst for oil. Like its destructive European counterparts, Nazism and Fascism, Zionism has caused massive human suffering. As a result, a collective global effort is needed to contain it and rid the world of its terror…

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ACRI: Citizenship Law severe racial prejudice against the rights of Palestinians
PNN
The Israeli Knesset moved to amend the Citizenship Act and the provisional entry into Israeli boundaries for an additional year. This comes despite the criticism of Israeli Supreme Court judges, and despite the existence of another petition to the Supreme Court against the law. This law, which was extended by 21 members of the Knesset and objected by eight, prevents Palestinian citizens of the occupied areas, who married Palestinians who are also Israeli citizens, to reside within the current Israeli boundaries with their spouses and children…

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U.S.-led air raid kills 22 Afghan civilians
Reuters
Twenty-two civilians, including women and children, were killed in an air strike by U.S.-led forces on Friday in Afghanistan’s eastern province of Nuristan, an official said. The attack happened on a road in Want district while the noncombatants were traveling in two vehicles, the district chief, Zia-Ul Rahman, told reporters. “The civilians were evacuating the district as they were told by the U.S.-led troops to do so because they wanted to launch an operation against the Taliban,” he said. “The civilians were in two vehicles when killed by the air raid,” he added…

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The only state in the world that officially commits these crimes
PCHR Publishes a Report on Extra-judicial Execution of Palestinians
Window Into Palestine
PCHR published a new report titled, “Extra-judicial executions … Official, Declared Israeli Policy” covering Israeli extra-judicial executions against Palestinians during the period from 1 August 2006 till 30 June 2008. The report is the ninth of its kind in a special series on extra-judicial executions by Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) against Palestinian activists during Al-Aqsa Intifada. The first part of the report discussed international standards prohibiting extra-judicial executions. These included the Fourth Geneva Convention (1949) and additional protocols and the Rome Statute. The second part discussed the official Israeli position vis-à-vis extra-judicial executions. Israeli legislative, executive, and judicial authorities officially support this policy, making Israeli the only state in the world that officially commits these crimes…

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Hamas suspends negotiations on Shalit until Israeli occupation implements truce
Palestinian Information Center
Hamas has decided to suspend the indirect negotiations with the Israeli occupation on a prisoner exchange deal until the latter complies with the conditions of the Egyptian brokered truce. Osama al-Muzaini said in a press statement on Friday: “We will not go [to Cairo] for a new round of negotiations on a prisoner exchange deal before the occupation shows commitment to implementing all the articles of the truce, which will be reviewed by the movement in a couple of days.”…

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ASSOCIATED PRESS ‘COVERS’ THE EVENTS IN ISRAEL
Desertpeace
A week ago my dear friend and Brother, Mohammed Omer, was nearly beaten to DEATH and tortured by Israeli Security officers. This week, two Palestinian children were killed in cold blood by Israeli forces. Eight others were wounded. Did you read about any of the above in any reports issued by the Associated Press? NO! There is a reason for that… Their Jerusalem ‘reporters’ have been busy writing crap like this… Jerusalem attacker had Jewish girlfriend…

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