Pro-Israel Lobbies Work on Europe
By David Cronin
February 3, 2010 – Defenders of Israel’s aggressive stance have for many years been recognised as a powerful force shaping United States foreign policy. A less well-known fact is that the pro-Israel lobby has been making a concerted effort to strengthen its presence in Europe. The lobby’s determination to make an impression on European Union policy-makers was exemplified by a new booklet published on Jan. 28. Titled ‘Squaring the Circle?: EU-Israel Relations and the Peace Process in the Middle East’, the booklet advocates that EU should “rebalance its priorities” and pursue closer relations with Israel regardless of whether progress is made in resolving the conflict with the Palestinians…

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My Father was a Freedom Fighter- a book review
by Gilad Atzmon
February 3, 2010 – Ramzy Baroud’s “My Father Was A Freedom Fighter” is more than a book, it is actually a masterpiece. In an overwhelmingly evoking personal style Baroud manages to bring to light the history of the Palestinian people and their battle with Israel and Zionism. Through the story of the Baroud’s family the book outlines every event in the history of the conflict and reflects on the way it transformed the Palestinian reality. The book is a heart breaking depressing story of the Baroud family’s journey from paradise to hell…

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A Response: Why Venezuela Isn’t Iran
Scott Lucas
Febraury 3, 2010 – Some pundits have recently tried to compare the recent upper middle-class mobilizations against the government of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela to the ones occurring in Iran since last summer’s Presidential election…This is a very superficial analysis of events that can be overturned with a range of empirical evidence… So what does bring Venezuela and Iran together? One can and should criticise Chavez´s praises of Ahmadinejad. They have no relation to reality and are based on a completely absurd understanding of the situation. Ironically, they resemble the West’s depiction of Ahmadinejad as an uncompromising “radical”, something that is far from the truth. Islamic Iran has shown that it is able and willing to cooperate with the US and Israel on a number of issues when this suits its interest (Iran-Iraq War, Afghanistan, Iraq)…

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Constant Israeli attacks on graves and shrines
“The Case of Awarta village”
The Land Research Center – LRC
February 3, 2010 – The village of Awarta, Nablus district, is known for its green plains and high hills and long history of Maqamat ( religious shrines and monuments) indicating its ancient history and authenticity. Awarta village was on the new date of the serial attacks by colonizers on its land and people when a dozen of military vehicles accompanied by 8 bus boarded by at least 350 colonizers from several colonies moved into the village after midnight, 20 January, 2010. The Israeli soldiers deliberately, in a move to guard the security of the colonizers imposed curfew on the village and then they ascended the roofs of high houses in the village, destroying the contents of those homes and repeating defamatory words against women in those houses. At the same time, the colonizers took it upon themselves to spread across the village, especially in the vicinity of the three shrines..

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With 47 journalists in jail, Iran sets notorious records
Committee to Protect Journalists
Febraury 3, 2010 – Iranian authorities are now holding at least 47 journalists in prison, more than any single country has imprisoned since 1996, according to a new survey by the Committee to Protect Journalists. While many of the detainees were arrested in the aftermath of the disputed June presidential election, CPJ’s survey found that authorities are continuing to wage an aggressive campaign to round up independent and opposition journalists. At least 26 journalists have been jailed in the last two months alone, CPJ found…

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Raze Illegal Buildings – Unless They Are Jewish
By Jerrold Kessel and Pierre Klochendler
February 3, 2010 – Backed by armed security men, the municipal inspectors race their jeeps through the narrow alleyways and up a hillside crowded with buildings. Some of the homes are well-faced with stone; the naked concrete of others gives off something of a temporary air. One block of flats stands out for its unusual seven-storey height in an area of the city where two or three storied buildings are the norm. And then there is the giant, blue-and-white Israeli national flag draped demonstratively over the front of the building, from the roof down to the ground…

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Obama’s budget reveals the bankruptcy of American capitalism
Patrick Martin
February 3, 2010 – There is one overriding message in the budget proposal released by the Obama administration Monday: American capitalism is in decline and faces national bankruptcy. The budget forecasts the doubling of the US national debt over the next few years, even on the assumption of a rapid recovery from the financial crisis and slump. It projects that high, long-term unemployment will become a permanent fixture of American life…

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Military Resistance 8B1: “Death By Stand Down” – 2 February 2010
Thomas F. Barton
Anger, frustration and a hunger for revenge are running high among US Marines as casualties mount on the frontline of the battle against the Taliban in southern Afghanistan. On a base near Marjah, a Taliban stronghold in Helmand province, Marines are grieving the deaths of a sergeant and corporal killed by the remote-controlled bombs that have become the scourge of the long-running conflict. “It causes a lot of frustration. My men want revenge, that is only natural,” says First Lieutenant Aaron MacLean, 2nd Platoon commander of the 1st Battalion, 6th Regiment Charlie company.

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Iraq snaphsot – February 3, 2010
The Common Ills
Wednesday, February 3, 2010. Chaos and violence continue, Iraq is slammed with another deadly blast, the Iraq Inquiry may be hitting the road (that is not a joke), sexual assaults get some attention from the US Congress, election news out of Iraq, and more…

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Yes…I am Suicidal
“Nadia…the Martyr…the Mujahida…”
Hiba Al Shamaree, translation by Hussein Anwar
February 3, 2010 – You may have forgotten Nadia, the girl who was raped by the dogs of the occupation in the notorious prison Abu Ghraib, and to revive your memory, this is her story which she revealed; she did not throw herself in the arms of her family, like any aggrieved, oppressed prisoner would do, a prisoner with a fire inside longing for his family. Nadia ran away the moment she was released from prison, not because of the shame that will follow her, but because of what has happened to Iraqi female prisoners that were abused, raped and tortured at the hands of American mercenaries in Abu Ghraib prison, where the walls of the prison speak the sad and horrifying stories of the prisoners, but what Nadia tells us is not a “Story”…it is the “Truth”…

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Obama’s surge: killing spree on both sides of AfPak border
By Bill Van Auken
February 3, 2010 – CIA drone missile attacks claimed the lives of 123 civilians last month alone in Pakistan, it was reported this week. Meanwhile, on the other side of the border, US Special Forces have launched an assassination campaign against alleged leaders of Afghanistan’s Taliban movement in preparation for an imminent military offensive. These killings are the product of the military “surge” ordered by the Obama administration, which is increasing the US troop deployment in the country by another 30,000. With other NATO countries providing between 5,000 and 10,000 additional soldiers, the occupation force in Afghanistan is set to swell to 150,000 by the fall of this year…

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Child Slavery in Haiti
Stephen Lendman
February 3, 2010 – In November 1989, the UN General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Rights of the Child, recognizing “that in all countries in the world, there are children living in exceptionally difficult conditions, and that such children need special consideration.” Then in May 2000, the General Assembly adopted an Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography. In 1990, the UN Commission on Human Rights appointed a Special Rapporteur on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography with a mandate to investigate the problem and submit reports to the General Assembly…

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Palestinian red crescent society (PRCS): We were the target of 455 Israeli attacks in 2009
Palestinian Information Center
February 3, 2010 — The Palestinian red crescent society (PRCS) announced on Tuesday that its medical teams were the targets of 455 Israeli attacks in 2009 including shooting and physical assaults. A PRCS report said that the Israeli occupation forces (IOF) fired 15 times at its ambulance vehicles in the West Bank and Gaza Strip killing one of the volunteers in Gaza and wounding ten others in addition to damaging 22 ambulance vehicles…

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Mustafa Barghouthi nominated for 2010 Nobel Peace Prize
Ma’an News
February 3, 2010 – Founder of the political party the Palestinian National Initiative Mustafa Barghouthi was nominated for the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize by Mairead Maguire, Nobel Peace Laureate and co-founder of Peace People in Northern Ireland. The nomination was submitted on 15 January. In her letter Maguire cited Barghouthi’s “commitment to nonviolence in his personal and public life” as an effort that “is truly in the Ghandian spirit.”..

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My Father was a Freedom Fighter- a book review
by Gilad Atzmon
February 3, 2010 – Ramzy Baroud’s “My Father Was A Freedom Fighter” is more than a book, it is actually a masterpiece. In an overwhelmingly evoking personal style Baroud manages to bring to light the history of the Palestinian people and their battle with Israel and Zionism. Through the story of the Baroud’s family the book outlines every event in the history of the conflict and reflects on the way it transformed the Palestinian reality. The book is a heart breaking depressing story of the Baroud family’s journey from paradise to hell…

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THE FORGOTTEN TERRORIST ATTACK
Malcom Lagauche
February 3, 2010 – In a little more than a week’s time, Iraq will be reminded of one of the most heinous war crimes ever committed. However, there will be no commemorations because the stooges in power today in Iraq were cheering on the destruction of the country by the U.S. On the morning of February 14, 1991, when I turned the TV on to see the latest lies being told to the public about the U.S. bombing of Iraq, I saw a chaotic situation in Baghdad. The Amiryah bomb shelter had just been struck by two 2,000-pound superbombs. Information was sketchy, but it was evident that many people lost their lives. The first statement from the U.S. administration was that the U.S. hit an Iraqi command and control post and the dead were military. Then, the cameras showed charred bodies of women and children, so the U.S. story had to be revised…

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Women For Sale in Afghanistan
Heidi Kingstone
February 3, 2010 – … In Shinwar, a district of Nangarhar province, there are two markets, one called Shadal and the other, Pikheh. Nothing unusual about that, the country is full of markets. But these markets have one main commodity. And that commodity is women. In Nangarhar markets exist where women are sold. “Big chadors cover their heads and just the women’s hands show. Like animals they are bought and sold.” This information comes from a recent discussion with staff of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission. Cases have been reported where a woman was sold with her five children. Another woman was sold to five different people and returned back to the original man who sold her, then killed her. What happens is that these women get sold multiple times…

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Settlers Vandalism in Bethlehem (Video)
By Mazin Qumsiyeh, PhD – Human Rights Activist
February 3, 2010 – Monday started with the news that the Israeli military has decided to reoccupy part of Ush Al-Ghrab in Beit Sahour after having left it in 2006 and Tuesday saw the army begin clearing land of Ush Ghrab. Ush Ghrab is part public (Palestinian) land but a major part of it is private lands that was put off limit to their owners for nearly four decades and used as a center for the occupation forces in Bethlehem district. From this military camp, nearly 300 Palestinian homes were partially or completely destroyed in 2002 and 2003.

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A Review of Shahid Alam’s “Israeli Exceptionalism”
Zionism Laid Bare
By KATHLEEN CHRISTISON
February 3, 2010 – The essential point of M. Shahid Alam’s book, Israeli Exceptionalism: The Destabilizing Logic of Zionism, comes clear upon opening the book to the inscription in the frontispiece. From the Persian poet and philosopher Rumi, the quote reads, “You have the light, but you have no humanity. Seek humanity, for that is the goal.” Alam, professor of economics at Northeastern University in Boston and a CounterPunch contributor, follows this with an explicit statement of his aims in the first paragraph of the preface. Asking and answering the obvious question, “Why is an economist writing a book on the geopolitics of Zionism?” he says that he “could have written a book about the economics of Zionism, the Israeli economy, or the economy of the West Bank and Gaza, but how would any of that have helped me to understand the cold logic and the deep passions that have driven Zionism?”..

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Amid media blackout
Congressional hearing reveals US intelligence agencies shielded Flight 253 bomber
By Alex Lantier
February 3, 2010 – A January 27 hearing of the House Committee on Homeland Security established that US intelligence agencies stopped the State Department from revoking the US visa of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. The Nigerian student, whom US officials suspected of being affiliated with the Yemeni terrorist group Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, attempted to set off a bomb on Northwest Flight 253 into Detroit on Christmas Day. Revocation of Abdulmutallab’s visa would have prevented him from boarding the airplane. The hearing was reported in a brief article posted January 27 on the web site of the Detroit News, headlined, “Terror Suspect Kept Visa to Avoid Tipping Off Larger Investigation.” The revelation that US intelligence agencies made a deliberate decision to allow Abdulmutallab to board the commercial flight, without any special airport screening, has been buried in the media…

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Palestinian ex-detainee dies of mistreatment while in occupation jails
Palestinian Information Center
February 3, 2010 — Liberated prisoner Mohammed Al-Emle, 26, was pronounced dead on Wednesday in one of Al-Khalil hospitals of kidney failure after he was given wrong medication while in Israeli custody. Medical sources told the PIC that the deceased was given medicines not fit for his condition during his administrative detention three years ago. They said that the detainee suffered pain in the eyes and was given wrong medication that led to kidney failure…

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Fatah leader enters Gaza for talks with Hamas
Ma’an News
February 3, 2010 – Fatah Central Committee member Nabil Sha’ath arrived in Gaza on Wednesday afternoon via the Erez crossing, it was his first visit to the area since the Hamas take-over in 2007 and marks the first time a Fatah member visited the Strip since the Sixth Fatah conference in August. The trip came amidst controversy in Gaza, with Hamas officials threatening to require permits authorized by the government before Fatah leaders would be allowed to enter. The governor of the central Gaza Strip Abdullah Abu Samhadana publicly objected to the rumored ban, saying Palestinians should always have the right to return to their homeland no matter what political party they were from…

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Bomb kills 3 US military trainers in NW Pakistan
Associated Press
February 03, 2010 – A roadside bomb killed three US soldiers and partly destroyed a girls’ school in northwest Pakistan on yesterday in an attack that drew attention to a little-publicized American military training mission in the al-Qaeda and Taliban heartland. They were the first known US military fatalities in Pakistan’s lawless tribal regions near the Afghan border and a major victory for militants who have been hit hard by a surge of US missile strikes and a major Pakistani army offensive…

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Netanyahu – West Bank Settlement of Ariel “Will be part of Israel”
Middle East Monitor
February 3, 2010 – The illegal settlement of Ariel, south of Nablus and well inside the occupied West Bank, will be part of Israel in any agreement reached with the Palestinians. This claim was made by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last Friday, according to Israeli media reports. Netanyahu was visiting the settlement and planting a symbolic tree when he said that Ariel, “the capital of Samaria, will be an integral part of the land and state of Israel in any future peace deal”. His government intends to assist in its development, he added…

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Two U.S. Soldiers Killed in Southern Afghanistan
By TAMIOOR SHAH
February 3, 2010 — Two United States soldiers were killed Tuesday by an improvised explosive device in southern Afghanistan, a focal point of the fight between international troops and Taliban militants, NATO officials said. The deaths were announced Wednesday in a news release from the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force in Kabul, but in line with standard practice, no further details were revealed pending notification of the soldiers’ next of kin…

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Video: Blood Lust: Israelis back new strike on Gaza amid calls to prosecute ‘war criminals’
RussiaToday
February 3, 2010 – A recent poll has revealed more than half of Israelis approve of another attack on Gaza. That’s despite widespread international condemnation of last year’s offensive which killed more than 1300 Palestinians. It comes as recent Goldstone Gaza report said Israel committed war crimes, and there’ve been many claims of the use of banned weapons…

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Karbala blasts target Iraq pilgrims
Aljazeera.net
February 3, 2010 – At least 23 Shia pilgrims have been killed and another 140 injured in two blasts in the holy city of Karbala in central Iraq. In the deadliest attack on Wednesday, a suicide bomber on a motorcycle detonated explosives in a crowded area. The bomber blew himself up at about 11am in an area known as Ibrahimia near the east entrance – one of three – into Karbala, about 80km south of Baghdad, Iraqi police sources told Al Jazeera…

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Iraq court reverses candidate ban
Aljazeera.net
February 3, 2010 – An Iraqi appeals court has struck down a ban imposed on hundreds of candidates for suspected ties to Saddam Hussein’s regime, possibly allowing them to run in next month’s election, an official has said. The move could neutralise a major source of tension ahead of key March elections. Hamdia al-Husseini, an electoral commission official, announced the reversal of the ban on Wednesday in remarks broadcast on state Iraqi television. “They have the right to run in the election,” al-Husseini, said. “The appeal court will look at their file after the election,” and if they find them to have links to Saddam’s outlawed Baath party, “they will be eliminated”, she said…

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Advocacy group: Israel is a pedophile’s paradise
By Dana Weiler-Polak , Haaretz Correspondent
February 3, 2010 – The National Council for the Child welcomed the arrest of Avinoam Braverman and called on government ministries to take steps to prevent pedophiles from trapping children on the Web. “We have been saying for a long time that Israel is a pedophile’s paradise and everyone said we were exaggerating,” council head Yitzhak Kadman said. “But we see how this thing happens again and again, and that the safety net for children has more holes than net,” he said…

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Israeli jets strike southern Gaza
Ma’an News
February 3, 2010 – Bethlehem – Ma’an – Israeli warplanes carried out airstrikes on at least two targets in the southern Gaza Strip overnight, witnesses said and the Israeli military confirmed. Three Palestinians were reportedly wounded and three others reported missing shortly after six separate strikes, which targeted the Yasser Arafat International Airport in Dahaniya and a tunnel along the Gaza-Egypt border…

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