One day in the life of a student

I was explaining that we really cannot talk about history.  We cannot explain or discuss history because it is, very much, all subjective.  Events are categorically factual, but almost all else is subjective and open to interpretation and opinion.  Therefore, we cannot study it, or rather, should not be able to due to our inability to set aside opinions and bias.

One student stood up and said we could study history, and that he tries very hard to be objective and he didn't believe it would be that difficult.

The issue of Palestinians and Israelis was raised as an example of how difficult it is for people to set aside their opinions and bias when discussing a situation.  The student responded that no, he prided himself on knowing what was happening 'over there' because he was Palestinian and he prided himself on being able to see that there was a difference between the great power of Israel and the rag tag Palestinians who were (not his words but his sentiment) simply wanting to be free of the Israeli oppression.

Later the issue of Libya came up and the aircraft and al qaida seizing the airport and this student stood up again and asked why all Arabs were being lumped together with bombs and terrorism.

Hmmm.  Maybe that was the original point raised, and maybe this is exactly why studying history is difficult.

Arab Spring is American Fall

What do you get when you elect a man with less foreign policy experience than my mailman, and he brings in his cabal who have equally no experience or a decidely leftist / marxist leaning to their ideological outlook.

What do you get?

Well - Glick makes it pretty obvious in her column -




America lost most in 'Arab Spring'. Sadly, many voters still don't grasp the extent

By Caroline B. Glick


http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |

A year ago this week, on January 25, 2011, the ground began to crumble under then-Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak's feet. One year later, Mubarak and his sons are in prison, and standing trial. This week, the final vote tally from Egypt's parliamentary elections was published. The Islamist parties have won 72 percent of the seats in the lower house.

The photogenic, Western-looking youth from Tahrir Square the Western media were thrilled to dub the Facebook revolutionaries were disgraced at the polls and exposed as an insignificant social and political force.

As for the military junta, it has made its peace with the Muslim Brotherhood. The generals and the jihadists are negotiating a power-sharing agreement. According to details of the agreement that have made their way to the media, the generals will remain the West's go-to guys for foreign affairs. The Muslim Brotherhood (and its fellow jihadists in the Salafist al-Nour party) will control Egypt's internal affairs.

This is bad news for women and for non-Muslims. Egypt's Coptic Christians have been under continuous attack by Muslim Brotherhood and Salafist supporters since Mubarak was deposed. Their churches, homes and businesses have been burned, looted and destroyed. Their wives and daughters have been raped. The military massacred them when they dared to protest their persecution.

As for women, their main claim to fame since Mubarak's overthrow has been their sexual victimization at the hands of soldiers who stripped female protesters and performed "virginity tests" on them. Out of nearly five hundred seats in parliament, only 10 will be filled by women.

The Western media are centering their attention on what the next Egyptian constitution will look like and whether it will guarantee rights for women and minorities. What they fail to recognize is that the Islamic fundamentalists now in charge of Egypt don't need a constitution to implement their tyranny. All they require is what they already have - a public awareness of their political power and their partnership with the military.

The same literalist approach that has prevented Western observers from reading the writing on the walls in terms of the Islamists' domestic empowerment has blinded them to the impact of Egypt's political transformation on the country's foreign policy posture. US officials forcefully proclaim that they will not abide by an Egyptian move to formally abrogate its peace treaty with Israel. What they fail to recognize is that whether or not the treaty is formally abrogated is irrelevant. The situation on the ground in which the new regime allows Sinai to be used as a launching ground for attacks against Israel, and as a highway for weapons and terror personnel to flow freely into Gaza, are clear signs that the peace with Israel is already dead - treaty or no treaty.

EGYPT'S TRANSFORMATION is not an isolated event. The disgraced former Yemen president Ali Abdullah Saleh arrived in the US this week. Yemen is supposed to elect his successor next month. The deteriorating security situation in that strategically vital land which borders the Arabian and Red Seas has decreased the likelihood that the election will take place as planned.

Yemen is falling apart at the seams. Al-Qaida forces have been advancing in the south. Last spring they took over Zinjibar, the capital of Abyan province. In recent weeks they captured Radda, a city 160 km. south of the capital of Sana.

Radda's capture underscored American fears that the political upheaval in Yemen will provide al- Qaida with a foothold near shipping routes through the Red Sea and so enable the group to spread its influence to neighboring Saudi Arabia.

Al-Qaida forces were also prominent in the NATO-backed Libyan opposition forces that with NATO's help overthrew Muammar Gaddafi in October. Although the situation on the ground is far from clear, it appears that radical Islamic political forces are intimidating their way into power in post-Gaddafi Libya.

Take for instance last weekend's riots in Benghazi. On Saturday protesters laid siege to the National Transitional Council offices in the city while Mustafa Abdul-Jalil, the head of the NTC, hid inside. In an attempt to quell the protesters' anger, Jalil fired six secular members of the NTC. He then appointed a council of religious leaders to investigate corruption charges and identify people with links to the Gaddafi regime.

In Bahrain, the Iranian-supported Shi'ite majority continues to mount political protests against the Sunni monarchy. Security forces killed two young Shi'ite protesters over the past week and a half, and opened fired at Shi'ites who sought to hold a protest march after attending the funeral of one of them.

As supporters of Bahrain's Shi'ites have maintained since the unrest spread to the kingdom last year, Bahrain's Shi'ites are not Iranian proxies. But then, until the US pulled its troops out of Iraq last month, neither were Iraq's Shi'ites. What happened immediately after the US pullout is another story completely.

Extolling Iraq's swift deterioration into an Iranian satrapy, last Wednesday, Brig.-Gen. Qassem Suleimani, the commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps Jerusalem Brigade, bragged, "In reality, in south Lebanon and Iraq, the people are under the effect of the Islamic Republic's way of practice and thinking."

While Suleimani probably exaggerated the situation, there is no doubt that Iran's increased influence in Iraq is being felt around the region. Iraq has come to the aid of Iran's Syrian client Bashar Assad who is now embroiled in a civil war. The rise of Iran in Iraq holds dire implications for the Hashemite regime in Jordan which is currently hanging on by a thread, challenged from within and without by the rising force of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Much has been written since the fall of Mubarak about the impact on Israel of the misnamed Arab Spring. Events like September's mob assault on Israel's embassy in Cairo and the murderous cross-border attack on motorists traveling on the road to Eilat by terrorists operating out of Sinai give force to the assessment that Israel is more imperiled than ever by the revolutionary events engulfing the region.

But the truth is that while on balance Israel's regional posture has taken a hit, particularly from the overthrow of Mubarak and the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafists in Egypt, Israel is not the primary loser in the so-called Arab Spring.

Israel never had many assets in the Arab world to begin with. The Western-aligned autocracies were not Israel's allies. To the extent the likes of Mubarak and others have cooperated with Israel on various issues over the years, their cooperation was due not to any sense of comity with Jewish state. They worked with Israel because they believed it served their interests to do so. And at the same time Mubarak reined in the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas because they threatened him, he waged political war against Israel on every international stage and allowed anti-Semitic poison to be broadcast daily on his regime-controlled television stations.

Since Israel's stake in the Arab power game has always been limited, its losses as a consequence of the fall of anti-Israel secular dictatorships and their replacement by anti-Israel Islamist regimes have been marginal. The US, on the other hand, has seen its interests massively harmed. Indeed, the US is the greatest loser of the pan-Arab revolutions.

TO UNDERSTAND the depth and breadth of America's losses, consider that on January 25, 2011, most Arab states were US allies to a greater or lesser degree. Mubarak was a strategic ally. Saleh was willing to collaborate with the US in combating al- Qaida and other jihadist forces in his country.

Gaddafi was a neutered former enemy who had posed no threat to the US since 2004. Iraq was a protectorate. Jordan and Morocco were stable US clients.

One year later, the elements of the US's alliance structure have either been destroyed or seriously weakened. US allies like Saudi Arabia, which have yet to be seriously threatened by the revolutionary violence, no longer trust the US. As the recently revealed nuclear cooperation between the Saudis and the Chinese makes clear, the Saudis are looking to other global powers to replace the US as their superpower protector.

Perhaps the most amazing aspect to the US's spectacular loss of influence and power in the Arab world is that most of its strategic collapse has been due to its own actions. In Egypt and Libya the US intervened prominently to bring down a US ally and a dictator who constituted no threat to its interests. Indeed, it went to war to bring Gaddafi down.

Moreover, the US acted to bring about their fall at the same time it knew that they would be replaced by forces inimical to American national security interests. In Egypt, it was clear that the Muslim Brotherhood would emerge as the strongest political force in the country. In Libya, it was clear at the outset of the NATO campaign against Gaddafi that al-Qaida was prominently represented in the antiregime coalition. And just as the Islamists won the Egyptian election, shortly after Gaddafi was overthrown, al-Qaida forces raised their flag over Benghazi's courthouse.

US actions from Yemen to Bahrain and beyond have followed a similar pattern.

In sharp contrast to his active interventionism against US-allied regimes, President Barack Obama has prominently refused to intervene in Syria, where the fate of a US foe hangs in the balance.

Obama has sat back as Turkey has fashioned a Syrian opposition dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood, and the Arab League has intervened in a manner that increases the prospect that Syria will descend into chaos in the event that the Assad regime is overthrown.

Obama continues to speak grandly about his vision for the Middle East and his dedication to America's regional allies. And his supporters in the media continue to applaud his great success in foreign policy. But outside of their echo chamber, he and the country he leads are looked upon with increasing contempt and disgust throughout the Arab world.

Obama's behavior since last January 25 has made clear to US friend and foe alike that under Obama, the US is more likely to attack you if you display weakness towards it than if you adopt a confrontational posture against it. As Assad survives to kill another day; as Iran expands its spheres of influence and gallops towards the nuclear bomb; as al- Qaida and its allies rise from the Gulf of Aden to the Suez Canal; and as Mubarak continues to be wheeled into the courtroom on a stretcher, the US's rapid fall from regional power is everywhere in evidence.












obama

Mentally Ill Sisters: Says a lot.

I believe this says a lot!!

Mentally ill sisters freed from chains in West Bank

August 31, 2011

By Kevin Flower, CNN

We first met Mohedeye and Nedaa Dawabsha sitting quietly on the floor of a small room in their family's modest house in the dusty West Bank village of Duma. Neither of the sisters were able to leave the room.

Connected to harnesses around their waists was a meter-and-a-half of chain links, binding them to a heavy metal locker in the corner of the room.

According to their family Nedaa, 21, had been confined like this for the past 10 years and her sister Mohedeye, 25, for the past two.

Mohedeye and Nedaa suffer from severe mental disability, their older sister Intesar Dawabsha told us, and are incapable of functioning without constant care. Mental illness ran in the family, Intesar explained, but her sister's condition was particularly severe.

"They need someone to take care of them 24 hours, to give them food because they cannot eat properly, they cannot do their basic needs, they cannot change their clothing, they cannot clean themselves, they need someone 24 hours," Intesar told CNN.

The sister's parents, Uthamn and Houda Dawabsha, are both battling illness and are not up to the task of caring for Nedaa and Mohedeye, according to Intesar.

Houda is laid up in bed most of the time and Uthman, who works as an itinerant farmer, says jobs are few and far between and that he's lucky if he makes over fifteen dollars a day.

The Dawabsha family members say the lack of resources mean they were not able to provide the girls with the necessary care -- and it was when the two girls began leaving the home in the middle of the night and entering neighbors' houses that the family resorted to tying them up.

"I'm very worried for my sisters, especially because sometimes they leave at night and they cannot make any difference if anyone will attack them," Intesar explained. "I am very afraid that one day they will be sexually attacked, I'm very afraid they will be raped."

And in this conservative Palestinian village of just over just over 2,000 people, there were also concerns about tradition and family honor.

"I prefer that they will stay in the chains," said Majeda Dawabsha, the girls' cousin told CNN.

"Because the other option is that someone could rape them and you know that the question of honor in this society is very important and the fact that she is disabled doesn't ease the penalty," Majeda said. "All that we have in this place is honor ... to be bound is better than to be killed."





 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
honor and rape

The Arab Street [Hint: doesn't exist]

It is unfortunate that people like Mr. Fenton buy into this marginalization of bin Laden. Nearly three months after justice was brought to bin Laden , as Bush made clear – bring justice to him or him to justice – the evidence indicates Bin Laden was still involved in al qaida, was still involved in overall managerial control, much like a Bill Gates at Microsoft. While day to day control was handed off to underlings, Gates’ vision was still very much on the minds of all those who worked for Microsoft. The treasure trove of intelligence has shown us this much and more. Unfortunately, there are still people, like Mr Fenton, who live on another planet when it comes to this issue – opposed to Iraq and Afghanistan, see al qaida as a quaint little extremist group unrelated to the larger body. And they require all of us to believe this, to believe and accept, to place our lives and our future at risk in believing this foolishness. It would be enough for them to risk their own lives, their futures, their children, but they want everyone else to accept that risk – and I cannot, for the threat is far greater than Mr Fenton can understand.

In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood has slowly been exerting its influence and control.  In Lebanon, in Syria, in Yemen, in Tunisia, in Morocco, in Oman ... the tentacles of Al Qaida or the Muslim Brotherhood have spread, and what was once denied in Egypt, is now about to become part of the political system.  What may have started as a 'I would like some more freedom' is now a tool for extremism. 

The 'Arab Street' is really quite silly - the delusion many Westerners have about the Arabs, their political systems, and how and what the 'masses' think.  It is no wonder the Muslim Brotherhood or al qaida elements are alive and thriving.

Opinion: As the Arab Spring proves, Bin Laden had already lost

Tom Fenton, May 9, 2011

Global Post

By the time he was killed, bin Laden had already lost the battle for the hearts and minds of a new generation of Arabs.

LONDON – By the time Navy SEALs gunned down Osama bin Laden in his hideout in Abbottabad, America's public enemy No. 1 had already lost the battle for the hearts and minds of a new generation of Arabs.

Look at the signs and banners of the frustrated masses that kicked off the Arab uprising in the streets of Tunisia; the eager protesters in Cairo's Tahrir Square who overturned Egypt's modern pharaoh; the resentful Shia who braved bullets in Bahrain; the angry crowds challenging the dictatorial government in Yemen; or the long-suffering Syrians who are so fed up with one-family rule that they are willing to face tanks in the streets.

Look closely at the videos and shaky mobile phone clips of these mass protests that have mobilized the Arab public.

Where are the pictures of bin Laden and the slogans of Al Qaeda? Absent.

What are these angry Arab citizens demanding? Certainly not a return to the Middle Ages or the establishment of a new Islamic caliphate. Their heroes are not Islamic fundamentalists like bin Laden, but people like themselves who have the guts to stand up to dictators. Young bloggers and Facebook activists are replacing bearded kill-joys as the new force in the Middle East.

Bin Laden had great ambitions when he built his organization two decades ago. Back in 1996, CBS News producer Randall Joyce and I began negotiations in London with a Saudi Arabian exile to arrange an interview with bin Laden in Afghanistan.

Our contact explained that bin Laden had a plan. First of all, he wanted to raise his profile in the international media. Then he wanted to provoke the United States into attacking a Muslim nation. He hoped that would cause the Muslim world to rise up against the United States. Bin Laden would lead the uprising and force America to stop supporting corrupt Arab governments, including the royal family of Saudi Arabia, which he especially hated.

Of course things didn't work out quite that way. After Sept. 11, the United States invaded not only one, but two Muslim nations, at huge cost to all parties. But the pan-Arab uprising against America never happened.

What has occurred instead, a decade later, is that long-suffering Arab populations themselves have decided to get rid of their corrupt autocrats, without any help from bin Laden. And American attempts to do the job for them in Afghanistan and Iraq have not been notably successful.

In all the discussions and second-guessing in the American and international media about the manner and meaning of the killing of bin Laden, this point should not be overlooked. Bin Laden and his relatively small band of fanatics succeeded in killing a large number of Americans, and a much larger number of Muslims, over the years. And it did incredible damage to America and its allies by sucking them into two wars, as well as the so-called war on terror. Americans hailed his death. But the unexpected Arab uprisings revealed he had become marginalized, almost irrelevant, on the Arab street.


























Islam

Iran's Meddling

Realized and recognized as contributing in large part to the problems of destabilization in the Middle East, Iran casts the long shadow.  It does so with little regard for internal divisions within Iran, for the ultimate outcome is to leave Iran as a regional power and the Arab states neutered.   Ali wins finally.

It is as old as the Bible - hate and animosity, feelings of betrayal and jealousy.  Now, finally, the shi'a stand on the edge of regional power with a severely weakened Arab state, in a defensive position. 

The Arab dictators have known this for the last two months, some have whispered it, several intelligence journals have written about the concerns and suggested it possible, but mainstream media has not picked up on this because they are too busy with Obama flip-flopping, Charlie Sheen, Japan, and now nuclear meltdown.  Ideas such as this are far too complicated for most journalists and not easily conveyed in a thirty second blurb to a world population unable to concentrate beyond 10 seconds.  Plus, admitting this places most European press at a severe disadvantage - they have long claimed the US reigned supreme in the area of wreaking havoc and destabilizing regimes.  If they admit now that Iran has and is doing so, they undermine the emotional charge attached to charges of American intrigue.  In effect, they undermine many charges they have leveled over the years.

Much easier to pretend it is all Israel.   Syria knows it is Iran, although they do not speak of it directly because of the fear of Hezbollah.  The Arab states are now at a weakened stage allowing Iran to become a regional control partner - one they will show deference and respect to, as they do to the US.



Gulf states denounce Iran's meddling




Apr 4, 2011
Agence France Presse



Gulf Arab monarchies including Saudi Arabia denounced Iran's "flagrant interference" in regional affairs and said Tehran was destabilising their countries, at a ministerial meeting overnight Saturday.

GCC foreign ministers said in a statement they were "deeply worried about continuing Iranian meddling" in their region.

In addition to Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Kuwait, the GCC groups Oman, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates.

At their meeting they accused Tehran of plotting against GCC countries' national security and fanning sedition and religious disputes among their citizens.

Tehran was also "violating the sovereignty" of members of the regional grouping.

The GCC meeting came after the Iranian parliament's foreign affairs and national security committee said Thursday that "Saudi Arabia should know it's better not to play with fire in the sensitive region of the Persian Gulf".

But the conservative Sunni monarchy on Sunday slammed what it described as an "irresponsible" statement containing "void allegations and blatant offense against the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia".

The Iranian statement "fuels sectarianism," the Saudi Consultative Council had said according to state news agency SPA.

Saudi Arabia led a joint Gulf force that entered Bahrain last month, enabling authorities to quell a month-long, Shiite-led protest demanding democratic reforms in the kingdom.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Iran

Arabs: Implement a No Fly Zone, quickly. Obama: I will take it under consideration but it doesn't seem useful. Lets keep with the sanctions.

For Kaddafi, Chavez, Amindinejad, and other despotic tyrants - reality never sits well.  Within the West, we can probably locate people who live well and free, yet believe the idiotic nonsense that flows from the mouths of these imbeciles - that the US or Britain or The West is behind all the unrest.

If so, then the US is behind convincing the Arab league to request the West implement a no-fly zone over Libya.  Mighty powerful we are.  Except we can't seem to convince the Arab states, several of whom have control of much of the worlds oil - to lower their prices.

Can't do that, but we can convince them to allow the West to provide a no-fly zone.



Arab League asks for no-fly zone over Libya




By DIAA HADID, Associated Press
March 12, 2011


.CAIRO – The Arab League asked the U.N. Security Council Saturday to impose a no-fly zone over Libya to protect civilians from air attack by forces of Moammar Gadhafi's embattled government, giving crucial backing to a key demand of the rebel forces battling to oust the Libyan leader.

Foreign ministers from the 22-member Arab bloc, meeting in Cairo, also left the Libyan leader of more than 40 years increasingly isolated, declaring his government had "lost its sovereignty."

They also appeared to confer legitimacy on the rebel's interim government, the National Libyan Council, saying they would establish contacts with it and calling on nations to provide it with "urgent help."

"The Arab League asks the United Nations to shoulder its responsibility ... to impose a no-fly zone over the movement of Libyan military planes and to create safe zones in the places vulnerable to airstrikes," said a League statement released after the emergency session.

The unusually rapid and bold action for a bloc of nations known for lengthy and acrimonious deliberations appeared to reflect the shifting currents of a Middle East in tumult. Many other Arab governments are facing street protests and rumblings of dissent stirred by the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt, and their leaders may have felt compelled to act in favor of Libya's rebellion.

League Secretary-General Amr Moussa stressed in remarks afterward that a no-fly zone was intended as a humanitarian measure to protect Libyan civilians and foreigners in the country and not as a military intervention.

That stance appeared meant to win over the deeply Arab nationalist government of Syria, which has smarted against foreign intervention into Arab affairs.

The statement said the Arab League rejected "all kinds of foreign intervention" in Libya but warned that "not taking the necessary action to end the crisis will lead to intervention in Libya's foreign affairs."

The Arab League cannot impose a no-fly zone itself. But the approval of the key regional Arab body gives the U.S. and other Western powers crucial regional backing they say they need before doing so. Many were weary that Western powers would be seen as intervening in the affairs of an Arab country if they began a no-fly zone without Arab approval.

Still, the Obama administration has said a no-fly zone may have limited impact, and the international community is divided over the issue. 

(Versus sanctions which accomplish: NOTHING against Iran, NOTHING against Iraq, and NOTHING against North Korea, but otherwise they kust work well for Obama to prefer them.)

Moussa said the League would immediately inform the U.N. of its call.

Backing the rebel's political leadership, the League statement said it had faced "grievous violations and serious crimes by the Libyan authorities, which have lost their sovereignty."

It remained to be seen if any Arab forces would participate in air patrols in support of a no-fly zone.

The League's decision comes hours before the European Union's policy chief is set to arrive in Cairo to meet with the Arab bloc's leaders to discuss the situation in Libya.

Catherine Ashton said she hoped to discuss a "collaborative approach" with Arab League chief Moussa on Libya and the rest of the region.

Ashton said it was necessary to evaluate how effective economic sanctions imposed on Gadhafi's regime had been so far and that she was "keeping all options moving forward" regarding any additional measures.

German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle welcomed the EU's "very cautious" stance on possible military intervention.

"We do not want to be drawn into a war in north Africa — we should have learned from the events in and surrounding Iraq," Westerwelle said.

"It is very important that the impression doesn't arise that this is a conflict of the West against the Arab world or a Christian crusade against people of Muslim faith."

Palestinians = Just like us, or maybe more like Mexico

They are just like us.



Tourist's body found near Jerusalem



After overnight search, Christine Logan's body found in wooded area; Kaye Susan Wilson, who was found stabbed and bound on Saturday, regains consciousness and recounts terrifying incident. 'Arabs came to kill,' she says

Ynet reporters Latest Update: 12.19.10, 09:59 / Israel News



Israeli police said the body of a female tourist who they feared was kidnapped by Arab assailants while hiking with a friend outside Jerusalem was found Sunday morning.

The woman has been identified as Christine Logan. Her identity has been given alternatively as British and American. Ynet has learned that her body was found in a wooded area, between bushes, a few hundred meters from the road connecting Beit Shemesh and Moshav Mata. Police suspect she was carried to the bushes by the assailant or assailants.

Logan's friend, identified as Kaye Susan Wilson, a 46-year-old tour guide, was also found bound with her hands behind her back Saturday in a mountainous area outside Jerusalem, bleeding from multiple stab wounds. She was hospitalized in Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital critical condition. On Sunday hospital officials said she had regained consciousness and that her condition has stabilized.

Speaking to Ynet Sunday morning, Wilson, not yet aware of her friend's death, recounted the incident. "Christine and I walked down a path in order to climb a small hill. We sat there, and two Arabs passed by and asked 'Do you have any water?' I said, 'I wish.' I felt something was wrong. I turned to (Christine) in English and told her something doesn't feel right and that we should return to the path.

"I pulled out a small knife from my pocket – a women's knife – and we began heading back. I saw that they (Arabs) weren't around, and I told her, 'Wait a second, I'll check to see where we are.' Suddenly I heard a noise. It happened so quickly – they came and attacked us. One of them pulled out a very long knife – like a bread knife with a sharpened edge," Wilson added.

"I was very scared, but my friend became hysterical. I told her to be quiet, but she told them, 'Take the money, take everything,' and they took everything. One of them took the Star of David necklace off my neck like a gentleman, and then they stabbed me 12 times. They came to kill. Nobody walks around with a knife like that for no reason. He stabbed me, but I sensed the knife did not penetrate my heart. I pretended to be dead; I thought they were waiting for someone else to come so I waited a few minutes and then threw myself onto a slope, my hands tied behind my back, and there was something covering my mouth," Wilson recalled.

"I found myself between the bushes, and I didn’t know if they had left already. I just wanted to sleep and felt as though I were about to collapse, but I knew I could not fall asleep. I managed to walk away and made my way to a parking lot, where a strange thing happened. An Israeli vehicle arrived and parked 10 meters from me. (The driver) was looking straight at me, but I couldn't yell so he continued driving. I had to walk another 20 meters, then I saw children; I turned around so they would see that my hands were tied, and they called the police."

A massive manhunt for Logan was launched after Wilson was discovered. Hundreds of police officers and volunteers, accompanied by soldiers from special IDF units, searched every cave and pit in the area.

During the overnight search, a police official told Ynet, "It doesn't look good. The woman has been missing since 4:30 pm and is feared dead. If she were fine we would have found her by now."

During the search the army set up roadblocks and inspected vehicles travelling to the West Bank. Choppers and a number of drones also assisted in the search.

No arrests have been made as of yet. "So far we have searched a number of areas. The first was near the injured woman's car, where blood stains, hairs and signs of a struggle were found. Unfortunately, these signs could not lead us to the assailants' possible escape route," a senior Border Guard officer said.

"The woman (Wilson) was agitated and had trouble speaking, and refused to tell us anything beyond her first name," one eyewitness from the town of Mata, who summoned rescue forces, told Ynet.

"Her clothes were dirty and showed signs of a struggle."





 
 
 
 
 
 
palestinians

The Jews and Obama

Have American Jews lost faith in Obama?



US president's tough stands regarding Israel seems to be taking its toll as US Jews' support in him falters, contributions to Democratic Party drop 65%



Yitzhak Benhorin
10.12.10
Israel News, YNet.




WASHINGTON – Have American Jews given up on US President Barack Obama? Senior members of the US community Jewish have spoken up against Obama's foreign policy regarding Israel, and it what is considered a rarity, have said that should he continue on his current path, they will stop their contributions to the Democratic Party.

Since taking office, it seems as if Obama has lost ground across every sector in the United States, but throughout, he has always enjoyed wide-scale support from US Jews.

Malcolm Hoenlein, the executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, told the Huffington Post that although the US president enjoyed a 78% support rate among American Jews at the time of his election, he has now lost about a third.

According to the report, the Obama administration has annoyed Jewish leaders to the point where they are thinking of sitting out the 2010 election. Federal Election Commission records show contributions to Democratic candidates from the financial sector, where Jews hold important positions, are down 65% from two years ago.

"I started breaking with Obama ten months ago," Martin Peretz, editor in chief of The New Republic, told the Huffington Post, "And I know that a lot of West Coast Jews are also having buyer's remorse."

Hollywood billionaire Haim Saban echoed the sentiment: "The assumption on the part of the Obama administration is that because Jews are liberals, they simply will not vote for Republicans.

"Obama can invite the ten most prolific Jewish campaign bundlers to the White House for a discussion, and give a wonderful speech, and he'll think that this may resolve all his problems with American Jews. And it may – or it may not."

Abraham Foxman, director of the Anti-Defamation League, has voiced his policy concerns to Obama directly. Foxman later said that when the two met, he told the US president that while he agreed with his overall Middle East agenda, the perception was that he was lashing out solely at Israel and exempting the Arabs.

While Obama refuted Foxman's premise, the latter said he still left the meeting feeling that the White House's new strategy was "dangerous."

The Obama administration, said Foxman, believes that if the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is resolved, the wolf and the lamb shall dwell together and all will be well. To that end, all of his advisors are telling him that he should break away from his predecessors' policies and prove to the Arabs and the Muslims that he is different, that he can distance himself from Israel.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Jews

Egyptian media - tells the truth, sort of.

Of course Egyptian / Arab media is honest and presents such accurate insights into all matters without bias.




15 September 2010
BBC News

Egyptian newspaper under fire over altered photo





Egypt's state-run newspaper has come under fire for altering a photograph to suggest President Hosni Mubarak was leading the Middle East peace talks.

Al-Ahram showed Mr Mubarak walking on a red carpet ahead of US President Barack Obama as well as the Israeli, Palestinian and Jordanian leaders.

The original image, taken at the White House when talks were formally re-launched, shows Mr Obama leading the way and Mr Mubarak trailing behind.

The original image from the White House, taken on 1 September

Talks resumed in Egypt on Tuesday.

The manipulated photograph ran above an article on page six of al-Ahram's Tuesday edition, entitled The Way to Sharm el-Sheikh.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and US peace envoy George Mitchell travelled to the Egyptian Red Sea resort to mediate the discussions, which were hosted by President Mubarak.

'Crossed the line'

The opposition 6 April Youth Movement has accused al-Ahram, Egypt's biggest newspaper in terms of circulation, of being "unprofessional" for publishing the doctored image without mentioning the alteration.

"This is what the corrupt regime's media has been reduced to," it said in a statement on its website, adding that the paper had "crossed the line from being balanced and honest".

The independent daily, al-Masry al-Youm, reported that the state-run daily had "carried out surgery" on the photo "to show Mubarak leading and the rest behind".

Al-Ahram has since replaced the image on its website with a picture of the assembled leaders seated on chairs in the Red Sea resort.

Officials at the paper could not be reached for comment.

Israeli officials said Sharm el-Sheikh was chosen for Tuesday's meeting in recognition of Egypt's key role in regional peace efforts.

The negotiations between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas are the first direct talks between the two sides in almost two years.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Egypt

Israel: From within.

I would argue that part, a small percentage of this radicalization is due to the heartfelt efforts of the Obama administration.



Arab minority in Israel gets more radical


Report also indicates hostility among Jews



By Benjamin Birnbaum
8:41 p.m., Tuesday, June 22, 2010
The Washington Times


While confronting threats abroad, Israel faces a challenge closer to home — the increasing radicalization of its Arab minority, according to a new report.

The report notes several public opinion trends in Israel's Arab sector since 2003 that reflect a growing alienation from the state and its Jewish majority:

• Support for the proposition that "Jews in Israel are a people who have a right to a state" has declined from 75.5 percent to 60.8 percent while support for "two states for two peoples" has plummeted from 88.8 percent to 65 percent.

• Those who list Israeli citizenship as the most important aspect of their personal identity have dwindled from 29.6 percent to 19.8 percent, while those who identify primarily with the Palestinian people have gone from 18.8 percent to 32 percent.

• The number who believe that "despite its shortcomings, the regime in Israel is a democracy for the Arab citizens as well" has fallen from 63.1 percent to 50.5 percent while the minority that supports using "all means, including violence" to achieve political ends has jumped from 5.4 percent to 13.9 percent.

The report is the latest installment of renowned Haifa University sociologist Sammy Smooha's annual "index of Arab-Jewish relations" and shows a continuation of some hostile attitudes among the Jewish majority, including that only 66.9 percent of Jewish Israelis support preserving the right of Arab citizens to vote.

In the context of ethnic conflict, the report states, "Arabs and Jews are bound to have a basic distrust in each other." But there are degrees of distrust. Matters have gone from bad to worse since the collapse of the peace process in 2000 and the wars and terrorist attacks that followed.

"By any account this was a lost decade for coexistence between Arabs and Jews," Mr. Smooha said in the report. "The situation worsened and bodes badly for the future of their relations."

Given the blood ties between Israel's Arab citizens and their Palestinian brethren in the West Bank and Gaza, Mideast experts see an important parallel.

"The Israelis face two Palestinian problems," said Aaron David Miller, who has advised several presidents on the Arab-Israeli conflict. "The first issue — the question of occupation — deals with where they are. The second — the status of the country's Arab minority — deals with what they are.

"Sixty-plus years after its creation, Israel — where it is and what it is — is still not collectively accepted, clearly by the outside world, but by a vast number of its own citizens," he said.

In turn, those citizens feel less welcome, particularly after the 2009 Israeli elections, which saw a collapse in the standing of left-wing Zionist parties (and of historical Arab support for them) and the rise of the Yisrael Beiteinu party of Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who campaigned on an explicitly anti-Arab platform, with slogans like "Only Lieberman Understands Arabic" and "No Citizenship Without Loyalty" (a reference to the party's proposal to strip the citizenship of those who do not sign an oath of loyalty to Israel as a Jewish state).

"This is, for us, the worst Knesset since the establishment of the state of Israel," said Jafar Farah, director of the Mossawa Center, one of many Israeli nongovernmental organizations that advocate for Israeli Arabs. "Twenty-three laws have been submitted in one year by Knesset members that further the discrimination against our community."

However, the Knesset members from Israel's Arab parties have not been shy about showscasing their hostility to the Jewish state. Freshman MK Hanin Zuabi, who last year expressed support for Iran's quest for a nuclear bomb, is facing criticism for taking part in the Gaza-bound flotilla.

The former head of her party, Azmi Bishara, is a fugitive from Israeli charges that he spied for Hezbollah. Years before Helen Thomas told Jews to "go home" to Poland and Germany, Bishara told a Lebanese audience much the same thing. "Return Palestine to us," he said, "and take your democracy with you. We Arabs are not interested in it."

At the time, it seemed Bishara was out of step with his constituents; whether that is still so, given reports like Smooha's, is no longer clear. And, for that, there is blame to go around.

The conflict between Arabs and Jews, Mr. Miller said, "has never been one hand clapping. It really takes two peoples who don't understand one another terribly well or, alternatively, understand one another all too well."

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
israel

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Gas Fields.

Look who needs to start conserving.  Kind of funny.  We have had to conserve due to THEIR actions.  Now they will have to conserve DUE TO THEIR actions.  OR they could build a lot more refineries and mine for more gas.  That might actually be the cheaper option.  I wonder what an Islamist would say ... hmmm ... we are not using their gas, nor are we forcing them to be so ... extravagant.  Perhaps the Islamist would behead the whole lot and be done with the need for conserving.  This does not however address the need for nuclear quite the way Iran's possession of nuclear weapons does.




Comment: Cheap energy addiction must end




By Jim Krane
Last updated: April 7 2010 16:36
The Financial Times


The Gulf Arab countries have never had much fresh water or democracy, but the inhabitants have always had energy to burn when it comes to cooling large homes and sparkling office towers.

During the six-year economic boom that ended in 2008, it was domestic energy that powered the sprawl of Abu Dhabi, Riyadh, Doha, and Dubai.

But the promise of cheap energy has gone wrong. Consumption has risen 7 per cent a year, reaching levels that even the vast reserves of the Gulf cannot match.

Five of the six states – Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Oman and Bahrain – are unable to meet their own fast-rising demand for natural gas feedstock for electricity generation.

Only Qatar, owner of the world’s largest single gas field, has sufficient gas to generate electricity for the foreseeable future.

For the first time since their towns were electrified in the 1950s and 60s, the Gulf states – with 23 per cent of the world’s proven gas reserves – are confronting the need for energy conservation. This agenda was articulated by the Dubai School of Government in February, when it recommended conservation schemes for Gulf governments.

First among these is a price rise, especially on electricity, which, when it is not given away, sells for as little as a 10th of the price that it does in Britain and the US.

For instance, electricity prices range from zero in Qatar (for nationals; expatriates pay 2 US cents per kilowatt-hour) to initial rates of 1.5 US cents per KwH in Saudi Arabia; 2.5 cents in Oman; and, in Dubai, 2 cents for nationals and 5.5 cents for expatriates.

Prices like these are the reason that per-capita consumption of electricity in Kuwait and Qatar has surpassed that in the US.

Natural gas, too, is sold to utilities at a fraction of Henry Hub price, the US benchmark. This underpricing exacerbates consumption and kills incentives for upstream production.

If prices reflected global norms, consumption would ease and domestic energy efficiency increase. Higher revenues would encourage investment in gas production, which could alleviate future shortages.

Even better, renewable power would become more competitive, increasing the potential for powering the grid with a mixture of energies – and slowing the growth of the Gulf’s world-beating carbon footprint. The Gulf countries hold 0.6 per cent of the world’s population but produce 2.4 per cent of global emissions, according to the World Resources Institute.

But raising prices is tricky. Cheap energy is considered a right of citizenship in all six countries. Rulers rely on these giveaways to ensure political support. The Dubai School of Government recommends raising tariffs on nationals and expatriates alike, while mitigating the political costs by compensating citizens with an alternate subsidy.

Another way to cut energy use is through government-backed retrofits of inefficient buildings. In Dubai, Dilip Rahulan, who heads Pacific Controls, a specialist instruments business, believes energy use in the city’s buildings can be cut by a collective 20 per cent by fitting insulation, efficient windows, shading, reflective roofing and automated controls that adjust lighting and thermostats.

Environmental building standards would also help, but so would “green” loans that incentivise energy-efficient building plans. And “green zoning” could call for denser housing in low-rise buildings that maximise shade and breezes, while reducing lifts, cars and air-conditioners. The beautiful old caravanserais and merchants’ homes in Jeddah are examples of sustainable Gulf housing that have been left to crumble.

Other options could see rulers simply mandating energy conservation across their bureaucracies. and businesses regulated by government. Even simpler would be a ban on inefficient air conditioners, dishwashers and washing machines.

The notion of energy conservation – still largely an alien idea – will have to be brought into popular discourse and taught in schools.

There is one even greater resource that the Gulf could use: sunshine for solar-generated electricity.




The writer is the author of City of Gold: Dubai and the Dream of Capitalism

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
arab oil

Gulf Women: REALLY fat - all due to children say women. Husbands prefer family goat.

Can't imagine why!




Up to 70% of Gulf women are obese


September 29, 2005
Middle East Online


Study released in Qatar reveals obesity is also taking toll on children in oil-rich Gulf states.



DOHA - Up to 70 percent of women and 50 percent of men living in the oil-rich Gulf Arab states are overweight or obese, according to a study released at a seminar in Qatar on Thursday.

"Obesity occurs much more often in women in Gulf states where it affects 50 to 70 percent of married women and 30 to 50 percent of married men," said a study presented by Qatari expert Issam Abd Rabbu at the "Facts About Obesity" seminar.

Rabbu said the problem was also taking a toll on children, "affecting five to 10 percent of pre-school children" at a rate that grows "to 10 to 15 percent of primary school children ... then 20 to 40 percent for secondary school children".

These obesity rates are "much higher than in developed countries", he said in his study, called "Obesity: The Illness of the Century."

He blamed obesity among Gulf women, in part, on "repeated pregnancies without a reasonable interval" of time.

Otherwise, obesity is due to poor nutritional habits and lack of exercise by Gulf residents, Rabbu said.

Rabbu said the statistics in his study covered people suffering from being "overweight, obese, excessively obese and morbidly obese".

Some 32 million people live in the Gulf monarchies - Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates - and foreigners account for more than a third of the population.








fat

Honor Killings: The Disgrace of a People

Ending the silence on 'honour killing'

The number of young women – and men – being killed or assaulted after supposedly bringing shame on their families keeps on rising. But more than ever before, those who have escaped violence are speaking out to break the code of silence. Old attitudes of accepting the crimes in the name of cultural sensitivity have also disappeared and the police are targeting the abusers.




Tracy McVeigh, chief reporter
The Observer, Sunday 25 October 2009


Zena had been following a murder trial in London with an interest verging on obsession."I really wanted to go to court myself but I can never risk going to the city and being seen by someone," she said.

"But I feel such a bond with other women who may have been through what I went through, even though you never meet these girls; you just hear about them when these 'honour killing' trials come up. I wish I could get involved with the support groups and help but you know, I'm just a coward."

Having first walked out of an abusive marriage at the age of 17 and then from a hostile family who had had a meeting to discuss whether or not she should die, Zena does not lack courage but she is still very scared.

She has every reason to be. Her Bangladeshi-born mother had suggested that Zena might be allowed to poison herself rather than be murdered for bringing shame on the family. Zena, born in England, is second-generation British Asian and her accent betrays where she was brought up although it is far from where she lives now.

"I'm sorry to be so cloak-and-dagger but you never know what they might be capable of, I know there are plenty of young men who would love to play bounty hunter just for a bit of kudos in the community."

Another court case six years ago had shocked Zena into climbing out of the window of her locked bedroom and leaving home with £46 and a change of clothes, an impulsive act she believes saved her life.

It was the story of Heshu Yones, 16, from Acton, west London, who was stabbed 11 times and then had her throat cut by her father who said he had to kill her because other men in his circle of Kurdish friends thought she had a boyfriend and his honour was shamed. Abdalla Yones was convicted of murder and jailed for life in 2003.

"A family member told me that there had been a meeting about killing me but it was seeing that case in the paper that made it real," said Zena. The threat to women in this country from such violence is very real and the list of names of girls and women killed in the name of "honour" is growing.

Police estimate at least 12 are dying each year in the UK but others will be hidden – forced suicides and murders made to look like suicide are widely believed to take place undetected. Women aged 16-24 from Pakistani, Indian and Bangladeshi backgrounds are three times more likely to kill themselves than the national average for that age and it is impossible to tell what pressures some must have been under. And for every woman who dies, it seems certain that there are many, many more living with honour-based abuse and hidden away in shuttered communities.

Support groups are springing up. The Henna Foundation is based in Cardiff and Jasvinder Sanghera, who fled a forced marriage and made a new life for herself, set up a charity called Karma Nirvana in Derby after her sister Robina killed herself to escape the misery of her loveless marriage.

When it opened its helpline in April 2008, Karma Nirvana received 4,000 calls in the first year and is now taking 300 calls a month from people under threat of honour-based violence, often linked to forced marriage.

After the government's forced marriage unit was set up in April last year, it received 5,000 calls and rescued 400 victims in the first six months.

Sanghera believes about 3% of women manage to escape forced marriage in the UK and when they leave they have to live with fear and rejection of not only their families but also their communities and sometimes their friends.

They also face being hunted down, said Detective Chief Inspector Gerry Campbell of the Metropolitan police. "It's not uncommon to have bounty hunters out hunting down young people who have left forced marriages or fled from a family where they are at risk. It's rare for [one person] to take unilateral action, it's all done in consultation and there is logistical support and collusion in the extended community," he said.

Campbell, head of the Met's violent crime directorate, has lead a number of investigations into honour-based violence and hate crimes. He believes the Met has learned some tough lessons from tragedies such as that of Banaz Mahmod, who made contact with police five times to say she thought her life was in danger but always drew back from pressing charges. Banaz, 19, a Kurd, was murdered by family members at her home in Mitcham, Surrey, in 2006.

She had been raped and beaten by the older man she had been forced to marry, and had left him. Her elder sister, Bekhal, had also left home to escape their father's violence and the extended family was beginning to regard Mahmod Mahmod as a man who had lost control of his daughters. The shame became so unbearable that he held a meeting to discuss killing his daughter and her new boyfriend.

"We have had previous investigations where mistakes have been made but we at the Met have improved the frontline training for our officers and been quite clear around the issues with community groups that we're working with too," said Campbell. "I'm confident that no victim will ever be turned away in London and that officers know that to do nothing is not an option.

"Honour is about a collection of practices used by the family to control behaviour, to prevent perceived shame, but there's no honour in murder, rape, or kidnapping and with 25% of the [cases] we are seeing involving a person under 18: this is a child abuse issue too. The simple message is: If you do this you will be caught and brought to justice.

"Young woman are predominately the victims of honour-based violence but we are seeing an increase in young men and boys – it's now about 15% of the total numbers," he said.

"Honour-based violence is complicated and a sensitive crime to investigate. It's fathers, brothers, uncles, mums and cousins and the victim, or potential victim, has a fear of criminalising or demonising their family so they can be reluctant to come forward."

He said that in many cases it was not new immigrants but third or fourth generation families where the worst problems lay. "People who actually are hanging on to traditions that in the country of origin have gone, things have moved on back home but they don't know that.

"We don't know how many victims are out there suffering in silence but as an example in the financial year of 2008-9 we had 132 forced marriage and honour-based violence offences reported to us. From April to the end of September this year we have had 129 cases so it's rising all the time. We've been learning about this for 10 years and have been really galvanised over the past four years so while we are not complacent we have come on leaps and bounds.

"This crime genre transcends every nationality, religious faith or group, nor is it unique to the UK, every country in the world has honour-based violence. But we want to make it clear that people can come forward to us; they will be believed."

Things have undoubtedly improved since the cases that campaigners see as the low points in the fight against honour killings, such as the sentence of six-and-a-half years handed down to Shabir Hussain who in 1995 deliberately drove over and crushed to death his cousin and sister-in-law, Tasleem Begum, 20. The acceptance of a plea of manslaughter through "provocation" by the court was widely attacked by women's groups. Tasleem was killed because she had fallen in love with a married man she worked with.

Roger Keene, QC, prosecuting, told the court: "The family as a whole, including the defendant, had been distressed for some time about the behaviour of the deceased."

The behaviour of women seen to have dishonoured their families can be as harmless as wearing make-up or talking to boys. One suspected murder is believed to have been caused by a girl having a love song dedicated to her on a community radio show.

Diana Nammi, who runs the Iranian and Kurdish Women's Rights Organisation in London, has been working to encourage more women to seek help when they are in danger. "The number of women that we know of and hear about and the cases dealt with in court is really just a handful of the full picture," she said. "But even one case is too many. For someone to be killed for their make-up or clothes or having a boyfriend or for refusing to accept a forced marriage is so brutal and unacceptable.

"A few years ago when Heshu Yones was killed it was silent, but her sister gave evidence against her father and that was a turning point. Those same communities who were silent seven years ago when Banaz was killed, when people were aware she was in danger and did nothing, they are not happy to stay quiet any more, this silence is being broken.

"It is not a problem of culture or religion or education – it is happening in educated families. It's not one person but several who are dangerous for that woman; sometimes even the woman might underestimate the danger she is in.

"Here in the UK younger people are at risk because they have grown up in this country and they want to adapt and live in the modern world, they don't want barriers to who they can be in love with or not be in love with, whether they wear traditional clothes or not, basic freedoms that many traditional families don't like.

"Honour is a very old tradition but it cannot operate in this country. The children do not even understand it. It's two lives for these children and the differences put huge emotional pressures and guilt on them and leave them very vulnerable," she said.

"Before Heshu, honour killing was not a serious crime and perpetrators were treated leniently under the name of cultural sensitivity. Now there are no reductions in sentence. In the case of Banaz, the judge said that if this is the culture then the culture needs to be changed, not the women sacrificed for the culture." Nammi believes that patriarchal religious leaders are failing women.

"Those who are lagging behind now are the religious leaders. They may pay lip service to change but they have networks and contacts and they are not trying to change anything. Sharia courts are letting Muslim women down and I am sorry to say that the British government is turning a blind eye to these courts. We have civil laws that cover every individual; none of these religious courts provide the same rights and protections for women."

Irfan Chishti, a leading imam in Manchester, said the phenomenon was so secretive that it could be hard to identify who was at risk: "It is not an Islamic issue, it's more of a tribal tradition that cuts across several faiths, but I can say categorically that it is not acceptable.

"It's difficult to ascertain the extent of this problem but I like to think that faith leaders are speaking out against it. Honour is a way of measuring dignity and respect and it is a very individualistic thing. Dishonour to one person is not the same as to another but we have to be very clear that there is never any justification for such horrific crimes."

Honour-based violence can be a socioeconomic issue. Experts say there is a strong correlation between violence against women and issues such as inequality between men. In deprived communities where men are struggling to earn a living they can feel subordinated and lacking in respect, and so try to get their authority back by dominating anyone below them, usually women.

In Pakistan the practice of honour killing – called karo-kari – sees more than 10,000 women die each year. In Syria, men can kill female relatives in a crime of passion as long as it is not premeditated. It is legal for a husband to kill his wife in Jordan if he catches her committing adultery. Crime of passion can be a full or partial defence in a number of countries including Argentina, Iran, Guatemala, Egypt, Israel and Peru.

Confusion in immigrant communities where people feel adrift in a new culture and try to anchor themselves to the past is a key factor, says Haras Rafiq, a former government adviser on faith issues and the co-founder of the Sufi Muslim Council. "Religion becomes infused with cultural practices and honour takes on an overinflated importance," he said.

He agreed with anti-forced marriage campaigners that women were being let down by their religious and community leaders.

"The Sharia courts are not doing anything about the forced marriage or honour killing issue as a whole," he said. "Other countries, the places many immigrants have come from, have moved on, but the immigrant doesn't know that and he needs to be told."

He wants his children to do whatever he tells them to do and this he sees as right but from a religious perspective it is not. "The reality is that honour killing is a crime and a crime of deep shame," he said.

For Zena, she has her life but does not have her freedom. "When I first ran away I would go to the library and read loads of spy books to pick up tips. You have to teach yourself how to best keep hidden," she said. "My life is about keeping a very low profile now and about looking over my shoulder, but at least I know I am alive and I grieve for those poor girls who are not."

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
honor killing

Swedish Mockery

Of course it was a silly writer and no one paid any attention to it, with no evidence, only slander and hate - the next step was taken - to call the Israeli Ambassador to answer.









Sweden summons Israeli ambassador


21 Aug 09

The Local.se





Israel's ambassador to Sweden, Benny Dagan, has been summoned by Sweden's foreign office to discuss the diplomatic discord following an article in a national newspaper claiming Israeli soldiers harvest the organs of dead Palestinians.



The meeting, with the foreign ministry cabinet secretary Frank Belfrage, had already been planned to discuss routine matters but has now taken on an altogether different importance, according to a TT news agency source.



The diplomatic spat has its source in the decision by the Aftonbladet newspaper to publish the article which details allegations of the systematic harvesting of the organs of Palestinian men.



The argument has escalated further after comments on Thursday by the Israeli foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman slamming Stockholm for distancing itself from a statement by Sweden's Ambassador to Israel Elisabet Borsiin Bonnier expressing outrage at the article.



Lieberman compared the allegations in the article to old antisemitic lies, such as Jews offering up Christian children for the ritual sacrifice to collect their blood.



"It is regrettable that the Swedish foreign ministry does not intervene when it comes to a blood libel against Jews, which reminds one of Sweden's conduct during World War II when it also did not intervene," a Israeli government statement quoted Lieberman as saying.



The comments have caused irritation at the Swedish foreign ministry, according to the TT source.



Lieberman stated that he intended to send a strongly worded protest to Sweden's foreign minster Carl Bildt, but this protest had not been received by midday on Friday.



Avigdor Lieberman, who is also the leader of the ultra-nationalist Yisrael Beiteinu party, also issued a sweeping criticism of Sweden and the foreign ministry over moves to distance itself from comments made by the Swedish ambassador to Israel, Elisabet Borsiin Bonnier, in which she condemned the newspaper's decision to publish.







In 2006, the Swedish government closed a website down that had images of Mohammad. It condemned the insensitive nature of the materials.



I would expect the Swedish government to apologize a) for the newspaper, b) for the writer of the article, c) for the Foreign Minister who called the Israeli Ambassador into his office, and d) for offending every Israeli citizen.



What are the chances.







Swedes

Swedish Stories: Lies versus Truth

Several stories, different sources -


Jewish soldiers harvesting Palestinian organs? Reporter has 'no clue' if the claims are true



By Stephanie Gutmann
August 20th, 2009

The writer of the article entitled “They Plundered the Organs of Our Sons,” which ran in Sweden’s largest circulation daily newspaper earlier this week, now says he has “no clue” whether the explosive allegations he levelled at IDF soldiers are true or not. “It concerns me, to the extent that I want [Palestinian accusations of IDF theft of organs for harvesting] to be investigated, that’s true,” he told Israel’s state-run radio station on Wednesday, “But whether it’s true or not - I have no idea, I have no clue.”


CNN has helpfully weighed in, stressing over and over in its account that the Aftonbladet article was merely “an op-ed.” “[Article author Donald] Bostrom stressed that he has no proof that Israeli soldiers were stealing organs,” said CNN, “and that the purpose of his opinion article was to call for an investigation into numerous claims in the 1990s that such activity was going on.”


If the article was just “opinion”, just musings on the passing scene, then the Swedish newspaper handles op-eds very differently than papers in the US and the UK. “They Plundered the Organs of Our Sons” was a “double truck”; in other words, it was splashed over two full facing pages, topped with a large banner headline, and illustrated with ghoulish full-colour photos. In most newspapers, such treatment is used to highlight an article whose allegations are the product of months of scrupulously careful reporting, which would mean something more substantial than the claims of several people in an area where wild conspiracy charges are common.


But all is not totally rotten in Sweden. One of the most eloquent denunciations of the Aftonbladet insinuation fest has come from rival daily, Sydsvenskan:


“We have heard the story before, in one form or the other. It follows the traditional pattern of conspiracy theory: a great number of loose threads that the theorist tempts the reader to tie into a neat knot without having been provided with any proven connection whatsoever,” wrote Mats Skogkär of Sydsvenskan.


“Whispers in the dark. Anonymous sources. Rumors. That is all it takes. After all we all know what they [the Jews] are like, don’t we: inhuman, hardened. Capable of anything. Now all that remains is the defence, equally predictable: Anti-Semitism? No, no, just criticism of Israel.”

*****************************


Swedish daily: IDF killed Palestinians for organs


Article published by Aftonbladet reporter claims soldiers snatched Palestinian youths and returned their dismembered bodies a few days later. Foreign Ministry: Shocking example of Israel's demonization


Roni Sofer 08.18.09
YNetnews

Leading Swedish daily Aftonbladet claimed in one of its articles that IDF soldiers killed Palestinians in order to trade in their organs.


On Tuesday the Israeli Foreign Ministry responded by saying that the article "is a shocking example of Israel's demonization." According to the ministry, the Stockholm-based paper accused the Israeli army of organ theft.


The report mentioned Brooklyn resident Levy Izhak Rosenbaum, who is accused of involvement in the recent human organ-trafficking case that caused a storm in the US and Israel. The report said Palestinians claim youngsters were forced to give up theirs before being executed. This suspicion, the report said, may lead to an international war crimes investigation against Israel.


The report went on to say that about half of all kidneys used in transplants in Israel since 2000 were purchased illegally in Turkey, Eastern Europe and Latin America, adding that the Israeli Health Ministry was aware of the phenomenon but did nothing to curb it.


Aftonbladet also said Palestinian youths who were snatched from their villages in the middle of the night were buried after being dismembered. The reporter, Donald Boström, said he was informed of the alleged atrocities by UN employees while he was working on a book in the West Bank.


According to Bostrom, a Palestinian from Nablus who for a number of years headed stone-throwing attacks against IDF soldiers was shot to death in May because he interfered with the activity of the "Israeli conquering forces."


The reporter quoted Palestinian witnesses as saying that Bilal Ahmad Ranian was shot in the chest, leg and stomach and then evacuated in serious condition by helicopter to an unknown location.


Five days later, Bostrom said, Ranian's body was returned to his village, wrapped in hospital bandages.


Aftonbladet published a photo of the body, which had a scar running from the face down to the stomach.


********************************

Swedish Tabloid: IDF Kills Arabs to Trade their Organs



by Gil Ronen


(IsraelNN.com)



he tabloid Aftonbladet, one of Sweden’s most popular newspapers, published a report Tuesday that claimed IDF soldiers execute Arabs in Judea and Samaria, harvest their organs and sell them. The report carried a photograph that purportedly shows the body of a victim of such an execution, with a large scar running from his chin to his abdomen. It notes the IDF’s explanation that the scar is from an autopsy which is routinely performed on people who are killed in fighting – but seems not to give it much credit and prefers a completely unsubstantiated claim by Arabs regarding forced organ harvesting.


The report, which appears under the heading, in quotes, "Our sons plundered for their organs,” begins with snippets from a transcript of an FBI recording of a Jewish man who was arrested in July, in connection with a corruption scandal in New Jersey involving elected officials, rabbis, money laundering and illegal organ trading.

Immediately after providing a short description of the FBI’s suspicions against that group, reporter Donald Boström takes his readers across the ocean to discuss the organ trade in Israel, without explaining what connection there may be between the two matters. He describes “a strong suspicion” among Palestinians that young men’s organs were harvested by the IDF “as in China and Pakistan.” Boström repeats that this is “a very serious suspicion” and suggests that the International Court of Justice should open an investigation into it.


The paper says that half of the kidneys that are used in transplants in Israel are purchased illegally from Turkey, Eastern Europe or Latin America and that Israeli health authorities have full knowledge of the matter, but do nothing to stop it. It then connects the shortage of body parts in Israel to stories of Palestinian men who, it says, are killed and returned to their villages five days later by the IDF.

17 year old eyewitness account

The reporter then gives what he says is his own eyewitness account from 1992 -- 17 years ago -- of an IDF raid on a village in which a rioter named Bilal Achmed Ghanaian was shot and severely injured. He was taken away by a military helicopter and brought back by the army five days later, dead. As his family members buried him, they saw a large scar running from his stomach to his chin.The report then quotes Arabs who claim that their sons were used as forced organ donors but provides no support for this claim.

Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said that the newspaper had “turned the demonization of Israel into a sacred cause.” He called upon Swedish citizens to express their disgust with “the incitement to hate crimes that the report includes.”


Aftonbladet claims to be the leading daily newspaper in Sweden and in Scandinavia, with a readership of more than 1.5 million.



********************************************



and to ensure we get the truth, why not a report from the Palestinians themselves ...







Aug 23, 2009


Palestinian news agency 'confirms' organ snatching story

By KHALED ABU TOAMEH

The Bethlehem-based Palestinian news agency Ma'an published a report over the weekend which it said confirmed allegations that IDF soldiers kill Palestinian civilians to harvest their organs.

The charges appeared last week in Sweden's left-leaning Aftonbladet newspaper and have since been widely quoted in Palestinian and Arab newspapers.

"They plunder the organs of our sons," read the headline in Sweden's largest daily newspaper, which devoted a double spread in its cultural section to the article.

Ma'an, which is funded by Denmark and the Netherlands, headlined its feature:

"Disappearances, Holding Bodies, Organ Theft - Intertwined Crimes."

The feature is based on an interview with Abdel Nasser Farwaneh, a former security prisoner in Israel who is described by the news agency as an "expert on prisoners' affairs."

Farwaneh is quoted as saying that the "findings" published by the Swedish newspaper are true.

"All the facts, evidence and testimonies over the past few decades regarding the way the occupation forces were treating and killing innocent civilians don't leave room for doubt about the credibility of the report in the Swedish newspaper," he said.

The "expert" claimed that hundreds of Palestinian and Arab prisoners have disappeared in Israeli detention centers and prisons.

"This policy of hiding prisoners is surely connected to what the Swedish newspaper published," Farwaneh said. "It's possible that all those missing prisoners, or a large number of them, were deliberately killed so that their organs could be stolen and used illegally. The remains of these prisoners are then hidden in secret cemeteries known as the Cemeteries of Numbers."

Farwaneh told the agency that there was also good reason to believe that the allegations were true because many bodies of Hizbullah gunmen that were returned by Israel were missing organs.

He also claimed that IDF soldiers had "executed" more than 50 civilians after arresting them during the second intifada, which began in September 2000. "This could be related to what the Swedish newspaper reported about organ harvesting," he said.

Farwaneh expressed deep admiration for the Swedish newspaper and the journalist who reported the allegations, Donald Bostrom, and called on the international media to follow suit and expose Israeli "atrocities and war crimes" against Palestinians.


I am sure if we look into the columns written in the Swedish and Palestinian newspapers, we would find evidence to prove the existence of Bigfoot, the Loch Ness monster, and aliens. Palestinians and Swedes - on top of every breaking story.

I am waiting for a new rash of stories on the Israelis sending prostitutes with AIDS into Egypt to force Arab males to contract AIDS unwillingly, and the unquestioned truism for many in the Arab world, that the Jews use the blood of non-Jewish babies in their pastries. All these stories are reported and retold as if fact also, right up there with organ harvesting and aliens.

Arabs

EGYPT: No Arab country will recognize Israel as Jewish

Give peace a chance.

We are the change that we seek!

How in the world do you, Mr. Obama ...



Jun 15, 2009

'Netanyahu is ruining peace chances'

By JPOST.COM STAFF


Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak blasted Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's speech on Sunday saying "Netanyahu's demand that Palestinians recognize Israel as the Jewish state is ruining the chance for peace," Egyptian news agencies reported on Monday.

Mubarak further added that "not Egypt, nor any other Arab country would support Netanyahu's approach."

Earlier Monday, a Syrian government newspaper slammed Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's speech, and likened Israel's policies towards Palestinians to those of the Apartheid government in South Africa towards its black population.

Syria's state-controlled Tishrin published an editorial claiming that the prime minister's foreign policy address proved that Israel's interest is to allow Palestinians to live only in isolated areas, similarly to black people in Apartheid South Africa.

"The Zionist government, according to Netanyahu's speech last night, is willing to establish Palestinian cantons reminiscent of the black people's cantons in South Africa when the racist regime was in power," the editorial stated.







Israel