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	<title>arab-gulf &amp;laquo; WordPress.com Tag Feed</title>
	<link>http://en.wordpress.com/tag/arab-gulf/</link>
	<description>Feed of posts on WordPress.com tagged "arab-gulf"</description>
	<pubDate>Fri, 04 Dec 2009 19:43:03 +0000</pubDate>

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<title><![CDATA[State security services: Israel as third subcontractor ]]></title>
<link>http://adonis49.wordpress.com/2009/10/07/state-security-services-israel-as-third-subcontractor-2/</link>
<pubDate>Wed, 07 Oct 2009 08:44:30 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>adonis49</dc:creator>
<guid>http://adonis49.wordpress.com/2009/10/07/state-security-services-israel-as-third-subcontractor-2/</guid>
<description><![CDATA[State security services: Israel as third subcontractor               Learning &#8220;Politics&#8221;]]></description>
<content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class='snap_preview'><p><strong>State security services: Israel as third subcontractor </strong> </p>
<p>            Learning &#8220;Politics&#8221; in one article is feasible.  Consider that the Zionist State is a third security subcontractor in the Middle East region; that Cheney-Halliburton is the second subcontractor and the US multinational oil cartel as the client for contracting out military campaigns in this region and you will get a much clearer picture of the Gaza conditions.  We can go even further in details and consider the Israeli Parliament as the first rank executive of the third mercenary subcontractor, the Israeli government as the second in ranking, and the Israeli &#8220;Defense Force&#8221; as the cheaply paid executing contractors and dotted with the latest weapons of mass murder.</p>
<p>            The politically weak trio of (Olmert-Barak-Livney) in the current &#8220;temporary&#8221; Israeli government was given license, not just to kill, but to commit genocide in order to tame any kind of &#8220;resistance&#8221; to the Greater Middle East Strategy of total hegemony on the Arab Gulf oil production and distribution.  The soldiers in the Israeli &#8220;Defense&#8221; forces are naively indoctrinated to serve a fictitious religious Jewish State as their &#8220;Homeland&#8221; and are also asked to serve their military machine two months every year as reservists after three years of active duty. </p>
<p>No wonder the US/Israeli military-industrial complex are not hot for peace or a variation on peace with the neighboring &#8220;Arab&#8221; States:  security contracts would dwindle drastically.  I hear that if a semblance of peace is forced in the Middle East then Blackwater, Triple Canopy, DynCorp and company will enjoy a large pool of trained and experienced mercenaries in the Israeli reservists.</p>
<p>President Moubarak of Egypt is the support subcontractor with the task of closing off all supply entrances to the Palestinians in Gaza, tightening the siege on one million and a half civilians, allowing the landing of arm shipments to Israel, and then leading the &#8220;cease fire&#8221; negotiations.  The 85 million outraged Egyptians will be permitted to demonstrate in districts outside of the Capital Cairo to vent out their rage and frustration. In Lebanon, demonstrators visit the barb wire surrounding the Egyptian Embassy to hand more assortments of footwear, an adequate symbol for this lousy and treacherous Moubarak dictatorial regime</p>
<p>Jordan (of the Hashemite tribe) is the second support subcontractor with the difficult task of containing Palestinian outrage in Jordan and the West Bank by all means possible. Mass demonstrations in front of the Israeli Embassy in Amman were quashed with utmost vengeance.</p>
<p>The theocratic and oligarchic monarchy in Saudi Arabia is basically the main &#8220;producer&#8221; of the hecatomb gore movie; the Saudi regime is ordered to come up with the finance in lieu of the US oil cartel with no return whatsoever.  In fact, the Saudi monarchy will invest in the &#8220;reconstruction&#8221; of Gaza simply to secure the Wahhabi sect predominance in the Arabic Peninsula and its neighborhood. It is to be known that the Wahhabi sect is darkest, prehistoric extremist religious sect in the history of Moslem sects and the source of modern Al Qaeda (Bin Laden) and Taliban (Afghanistan) movements.</p>
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<title><![CDATA[We All Live in America - 2/5]]></title>
<link>http://iliveinpalestine.wordpress.com/2009/09/16/we-all-live-in-america-2/</link>
<pubDate>Wed, 16 Sep 2009 00:40:48 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Muhammad Saeed</dc:creator>
<guid>http://iliveinpalestine.wordpress.com/2009/09/16/we-all-live-in-america-2/</guid>
<description><![CDATA[In the previous post of this series, I said that the US is like a lion, which rules a big jungle, th]]></description>
<content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class='snap_preview'><p>In the <a href="http://iliveinpalestine.wordpress.com/2009/06/25/we-all-live-in-america-1/">previous post</a> of this series, I said that the <strong>US is like a lion</strong>, which rules a big jungle, this lion has to protect his throne from other lions&#8217; greed.</p>
<p>The US started lately two wars, one in <strong>Afghanistan </strong>as a reaction for the <strong>September 11 attacks</strong>. Another in <strong>Iraq</strong>, which was meant to free the <strong>Iraqi people </strong>from the rule of America&#8217;s enemy<strong> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saddam_Hussein">Saddam Hussein</a></strong> (knowing that <strong>Iraqi people</strong> didn&#8217;t ask for it).</p>
<p>The question I asked last post was: <strong>what would the US directly benefit from fighting in Mideast</strong>, and <strong>What is the relation between the US and Palestine</strong>?</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>But, to answer this question we need to know <strong>what is Mideast</strong>?</p>
<p>It&#8217;s a big area which is inhabited by <strong>400+ million persons</strong>, <strong>95% </strong>of them are<strong> Muslims</strong>, and most of them are <strong>Arabs</strong>.<br />
It contains the Arab/Persian Gulf, which is <strong>the biggest source of Oil</strong> (black gold) around the world.<br />
It contains <strong>Mecca</strong>, the holy land of <strong>Islam</strong>.<br />
It contains <strong>Egypt</strong>, the <strong>strongest Arabic army</strong> (which Israel fought for many times, till they reached a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_David_Accords">peace treaty</a>)<br />
It contains many calls for <strong>unification</strong>, which means a new lion to be created!<br />
<strong><br />
Mideast is an area of millions who share the same: religion, language, ethnicity, politics, financial state, etc&#8230;</strong></p>
<p>That&#8217;s because <strong>since 1300 years ago and till the 19 century, these countries were united in one big empire (Islamic Empire)</strong> but, one by one, they were separated, as <strong>England, France</strong>, and other European countries <strong>converted parts of this big empire into territories</strong>, which later became <strong>independent countries</strong>.</p>
<div class="wp-caption alignnone" style="width: 675px"><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/04/Colonization_in_1945.png"><img title="Colonization in 1945" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/04/Colonization_in_1945.png" alt="Colonization in 1945" width="665" height="304" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">European Colonization in 1945</p></div>
<p><strong>Globalization</strong>, which is a big American-supported idea, <strong>isn&#8217;t accepted by most of the Muslims around the world (especially in Mideast)</strong>, that&#8217;s because they think differently than Americans do, they don&#8217;t like Secularism, or some of the unfair (as seen by Muslims) freedoms of the western world.</p>
<p><strong>Muslims and Arabs people refuse the way US thinks and acts</strong>, also the <strong>US refuses the way they think</strong>.<br />
This means that if the <strong>Arab world is united</strong>, a very big threat would appear to the US and its allies (a powerful lion with different ideas, which means a second <strong>cold war</strong>, or worst)&#8230;</p>
<p>So it&#8217;s very important for the US to be sure, that Mideast is united <strong>if and only if Muslims accept the US way of thinking and living</strong>&#8230;</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>The question now: <strong>what does the US benefit directly from supporting Israel in the Arab-Israeli conflict</strong>, and <strong>why would it be pro-Israeli even if it knows it&#8217;s the bad one</strong>?</p>
<p>That&#8217;s what we answer next post isA.<br />
 <img src='http://s.wordpress.com/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif' alt=':)' class='wp-smiley' /><br />
-</p>
<p>Older posts:<br />
<a href="http://iliveinpalestine.wordpress.com/2009/06/25/we-all-live-in-america-1/">We All Live in America &#8211; 1/5</a></p>
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<title><![CDATA[We All Live in America - 1/5]]></title>
<link>http://iliveinpalestine.wordpress.com/2009/06/25/we-all-live-in-america-1/</link>
<pubDate>Thu, 25 Jun 2009 20:43:07 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Muhammad Saeed</dc:creator>
<guid>http://iliveinpalestine.wordpress.com/2009/06/25/we-all-live-in-america-1/</guid>
<description><![CDATA[It doesn&#8217;t matter where you are.. It won&#8217;t matter if you never visited the US, you]]></description>
<content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class='snap_preview'><p>It doesn&#8217;t matter where you are.. It won&#8217;t matter if you never visited the US, you&#8217;ll still be a citizen of the United States of America (the international version).</p>
<p>America is the strongest army around the globe, the strongest economy, and the widest culture of all.</p>
<p>One good movie of Hollywood would reach all around the world like a flying bird, and convince millions of people of the American Dream without much effort, at least they see how the people in the movie are living and having fun, while they are troubling in their own countries.</p>
<p>American Dream is somehow simple, and affordable (specially in the US), it states that everyone should <strong>be rich and happy</strong>!</p>
<p>In fact happiness includes everything else, like freedom, education, dynamic laws, bla bla bla&#8230;</p>
<p>But <strong>the most important thing, is to be rich&#8230;</strong></p>
<p>That&#8217;s why America had to fight many wars, in many far areas around the world.. you have to spend trillions of dollars in times of wars to make benefit of much more trillions in times of peace.</p>
<p>America chose to start many wars under the name of freedom, equality, and democracy, in many nations like <span style="text-decoration:underline;">Iraq</span>, <span style="text-decoration:underline;">Afghanistan</span>, and others, but most of these wars were<strong> a need for the survival of the US</strong>, not a need for the people of these countries.</p>
<p><strong><span style="text-decoration:underline;">But Why?</span></strong></p>
<p>America is like a lion.<strong> The lion has to prove its strength with the time, or other lions will simply eat him. </strong>These other lions include, China, Russia, Europe (ya, if they have the chance, they will do it).</p>
<p>There is one rule that was never broken:<strong> it&#8217;s impossible for a lion to last forever.</strong></p>
<p>Through the history, many of the greatest civilizations were decomposed, altered, or simply destroyed. Islamic Civilization, Rome, Britain, and other very big nations, <em>simply vanished</em>.</p>
<p>Maybe yes, there are great chances for some of these civilizations to come back, and be the lion of the world, but when, we can&#8217;t predict yet.</p>
<p>As we might ask, what would the US directly benefit from fighting in Mideast, and What is the relation between the US and Palestine?</p>
<p><strong><span style="text-decoration:underline;">In the next post of this series, we&#8217;ll know isA.</span></strong></p>
<p>// isA: in shaa&#8217; Allah = If God Wishes or God Willing (in Arabic Language).</p>
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<title><![CDATA[No Independent Palestinian State? ]]></title>
<link>http://adonis49.wordpress.com/2009/06/11/no-independent-palestinian-state/</link>
<pubDate>Thu, 11 Jun 2009 09:24:48 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>adonis49</dc:creator>
<guid>http://adonis49.wordpress.com/2009/06/11/no-independent-palestinian-state/</guid>
<description><![CDATA[No Independent Palestinian State? Think again! (January 16, 2009)   Note: Israel pounded yesterday t]]></description>
<content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class='snap_preview'><p><strong>No Independent Palestinian State? Think again! (January 16, 2009)</strong></p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Note:</strong> Israel pounded yesterday the south-west corner of Gaza City and had demolished the UN agency headquarter and the Red Cross hospital; 500 injured Palestinian babies were trapped in these locations.  The death toll has climbed to 1,100 and the injured to 5,200; the world community is finally realizing that apartheid Israel has gone way too crazy against the UN charters. Keeping silent on the facts that this is a war crime being perpetrated in Gaza is no longer tolerable.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>            The US, Europe, the hateful Moubarak of Egypt and the Wahhabi monarchy in Saudi Arabia  do not want a sustainable Palestinian State in the West bank and Gaza; they want a recognized Palestinian State by name only, devoid of the conditions attached to an independent and self-autonomous status.  They want what their puppet of &#8220;Palestinian&#8221; Abbass is willing to bow to, under the excuses that resisting the Zionist occupation should not involve arms struggle, no matter the humiliation and miserable conditions that the Palestinian people are subjected to.</p>
<p>            Hamas represents the dignity and pride of the Palestinian to stand tall and reclaiming their rights as deserving people under the sun, with full recognition and the application of the UN charters on the apartheid Zionist State.  The religious ideology of Hamas is a byproduct for denying the Palestinian people their due rights and recognition; when the liberal approaches of negotiation and democratic results are canceled, trampeled, and made a mockery by the US Administrations and the EU.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I have published in November 12, 2008 <strong>&#8220;The State of Palesrael: a future plausible resolution&#8221;</strong> and I feel compelled to re-iterate my position after the Gaza fiasco and the genocide that has been watched live for over 20 days.<strong> </strong></p>
<p> </p>
<p>            There are reams and reams of plans and counter plans and resolution suggested to containing this everlasting unjust and uncalled for reality of the 20<sup>th</sup> century monstrosity that permitted the establishment of the State of Israel by displacing its original inhabitants (the Palestinians), as one of the worst monstrosities in this century. There are two viable solutions for the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, short of exterminating one party or the other or most probably both, that has been spreading death, disabilities, miseries, indignities and humiliation since 1920.</p>
<p>Before the Gaza onslaught, Israeli Olmert PM had declared that &#8220;the time to facing truth has come&#8221;.  Since the Madrid convention in 1990 among the Arab States and Israeli delegations, (mediated by the Bush Father US Administration), for a resolution of this conflict, it was becoming evident that the &#8220;Biblical&#8221; strategy of Israel, for further expansion and pre-emptive wars, is no longer tenable.  A resolution was contemplated but the US had an old battle plan to prosecute: invading Iraq. The US allowed Israel to scrap the comprehensive agreement of &#8220;land for peace&#8221;</p>
<p>The Bush Junior administration dusted off this war plan and invaded Iraq. This invasion has failed miserably but Israel realized that it is no longer a necessary State for the strategic interest of the US in the Middle East:  The US has military bases in the Arab Gulf, it has many heavy weight allies among the Arabic States, and the price of oil on the market is far cheaper than physically securing its exploitation and distribution in Iraq or elsewhere or even resuming plans to intimidating China and blackmailing her by outdated military presence in Iraq.  The return of the heavy investments of the US in Israel has been reflecting sharp negative rates for decades, politically, economically, and socially within the US society and foreign policies.</p>
<p><strong>My plan is of two phases</strong>: the first phase is recognizing the State of Palestine by the United Nation, a State self-autonomous, independent and all.  It is of primordial interest by the world community and the Jewish State that the Palestinian people recover their dignity and rights as a full fledge State and be permitted to exercise the complex task of administering and governing a State.  At least from a psychological necessity, the Palestinian people should feel that persistent resistance and countless &#8220;martyrs&#8221; for re-establishing their rights as legitimate and independent people have brought fruits, as any genuine national resistance ultimately should. <strong>The burden of proof for peaceful co-existence is on the occupier force, the apartheid Zionist State.</strong></p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p>            The second phase is the merging of the two States of Palestine and Israel into a confederate State with a central government and several self-autonomous &#8220;cantons&#8221;.  I can envisage the following cantons: West Bank, Gaza (including Escalon), Galilee (including Haifa and Akka), Judea (around Jerusalem and Bethlehem), the &#8220;East Shore&#8221; (Tel Aviv, Yafa), and the Negev (including Akaba).  I have this impression that the tight religious extremists on both sides would opt to move to Gaza and Judea, the very secular citizens would move to the East Shore or Galilee and the economically minded people might reside in the Negev backed by strong financial incentives.  The second phase will witness the return of the Palestinian refugees as ordered by the UN resolution of 193 in 1948 and the refugees would have the right to select the canton of their preferences.</p>
<p>            I can foresee that the key offices in the central government would be equally, including gender, shared by the Palestinians and Israelis and a rotation imposed.  The representation in the cantons would be proportional to the general census of the period (at 5 years intervals).  The representation among sects, factions, or other types of social divisions within each &#8220;people&#8221; would also follow the proportions in the census.</p>
<p>I suggest to the interest of the future &#8220;Palesrael&#8221; State that Israel let Lebanon experience, without foreign interventions, the full extent of its caste structure so that the State of Palesrael might study the pitfalls and strength of such a system of co-existence and avoid the unnecessary miseries of minor civil wars and countless frustrations in its future unfolding.  The <strong>&#8220;Wall of Shame&#8221; </strong>constructed by the vegetative Sharon has to come down.</p>
<p>It would be inevitable that the State of &#8220;Palesreal&#8221; be guaranteed a neutrality status (no pre-emptive wars within and outside its borders) by the world community and the regional powers.  Then, it is hoped and strongly desired that the State of Lebanon would secure this neutrality status.  Amen.</p>
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<title><![CDATA[Iran's former President Mohammad Khatami: attempt to change name of Persian Gulf is a move by Arab expansionists]]></title>
<link>http://almasakinnewsagency.wordpress.com/2009/04/29/irans-former-president-mohammad-khatami-attempt-to-change-name-of-persian-gulf-in-a-move-by-arab-expansionists/</link>
<pubDate>Wed, 29 Apr 2009 19:52:27 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>almasakinnewsagency</dc:creator>
<guid>http://almasakinnewsagency.wordpress.com/2009/04/29/irans-former-president-mohammad-khatami-attempt-to-change-name-of-persian-gulf-in-a-move-by-arab-expansionists/</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Arab states moves on Persian Gulf, political action: Khatami Service: Foreign Policy 1388/02/09 04-2]]></description>
<content:encoded><![CDATA[Arab states moves on Persian Gulf, political action: Khatami Service: Foreign Policy 1388/02/09 04-2]]></content:encoded>
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<title><![CDATA[grading hiatus]]></title>
<link>http://bodyontheline.wordpress.com/2009/04/13/grading-hiatus/</link>
<pubDate>Mon, 13 Apr 2009 12:21:43 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>marcy/مارسي newman/نيومان</dc:creator>
<guid>http://bodyontheline.wordpress.com/2009/04/13/grading-hiatus/</guid>
<description><![CDATA[i spent the past few days grading sets of papers and exams for all 4 of my classes. that is around 4]]></description>
<content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class='snap_preview'><p>i spent the past few days grading sets of papers and exams for all 4 of my classes. that is around 400 papers. in an ordinary situation this would be a nightmare. but here it is especially challenging as my students english language skills are so weak that it takes an eternity to decipher what they mean. at times these mistakes are a bit funny as in one student who wrote in her land day essay assignment about the &#8220;sex martyrs&#8221; (there were 6 martyrs on 30 march 1976). others are interesting as with a student who took the wrong meaning from arabic to english (their assignment sheet on land day had arabic and english on it so there should not have been any confusion) when translating الأرض which means both land and earth. the problem is she did her research on the subject in english and not in arabic. thus, she wrote a paper about earth day, which is entirely different than land day. this assignment had some nuances to it depending on which class (postcolonial literature, drama, and research methodology). my research students, for example, had to use this assignment as practice with respect to citation, selecting a primary text for analysis, and determining how to figure out what sources to trust. so imagine my surprise when a number of students&#8211;at least 30&#8211;thought that a zionist take on land day, a palestinian day on which we commemorate resistance in 1948 historic palestine, would be an appropriate source! not only that: my students&#8211;most of whom plagiarized anyway and who accordingly received no credit for the assignment&#8211;<em>plagiarized</em>the zionist website, disguising itself as &#8220;plaestine facts,&#8221; thus acting as if these were there own words:</p>
<blockquote><p><a href="http://www.palestinefacts.org/pf_1967to1991_land_day_1976.php">March 30th is &#8220;Land Day&#8221;, commemorated by Palestinian and Israeli Arabs. In 1976, the first Land Day was a protest over confiscation of Arab land for Jewish settlements in northern Israel. </a>Demonstrations, accompanied by a general strike of the Arab sector, erupted into violent clashes with police with six Arab fatalities.</p>
<p>What actually happened in 1976 has been distorted as the annual event has become an instrument of propaganda. On March 11, 1976, the Israeli government published a plan to expropriate approximately 21,000 dunams (5,250 acres) of land in the Galilee. Only 31 percent of the land in question, or less than one-third, was Arab-owned, some of which was to be used to expand the Arab village of Majar near Acre and to build public buildings in Arab towns. This action by Israel was no different than the eminent domain process that is regularly used in the United States or other countries to acquire land for public projects.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, the most prominent political party in the Arab sector at the time, Rakah (The New Communist List), cynically decided to seize upon the decision and called a general strike for March 30. Riots broke out the night before &#8211; in which soldiers and police were attacked with stones and firebombs &#8211; and continued the following day, resulting in the deaths of six Israeli Arabs. Though the media portrays Land Day as a day when Israeli Arabs peacefully vented their frustrations, Land Day was in fact born in violence, the product of the machinations of a political party that proudly waved the dubious banner of Marxism-Leninism.</p>
<p>Since 1976 the date has become an annual event for Palestinians and Israeli Arabs who have turned Land Day into a general protest against what they claim are discriminatory practices by the Israeli government. Land Day has often been marked by angry demonstrations and country-wide violence. Land Day demonstrations are also the focus of open support for Hamas and Hizbullah, showing of flags from Syria and other Arab countries, and denunciations of the Israeli Prime Minister and the government&#8217;s policies toward the Palestinians.</p></blockquote>
<p> one of the things we have been going over in class ad nauseum is plagiarism. literally, almost every day. as well as discussing how to trust sources, incluidng zionist sources masquerading as palestinian or &#8220;middle east&#8221; sources. indeed, they had an exam question like this where they had to read 3 different paragraphs from 3 different internet sources and decide which one was the most trustworthy and then they had to explain why. so imagine my shock to find this. </p>
<p>i do not blame my students. i get insanely frustrated by the plagiarism, but i don&#8217;t blame them. i blame many sources: the palestinian authority, the israeli/american terrorists who control palestinian curricula, parents who do not make up for the gaps in the education by teaching their children, students who do not make learning a priority in ways that puts reading first (before their haifa wehbe addictions). and really i&#8217;ve been thinking about the role of the saudi/gulf media in all of this. i started talking to my students about mbc and melody hits and other stations on satellite in the region. i really feel that this generation has been dumbed down by these sources. and i do think it is like an addiction to other substances like alcohol, for example. these programs the students watch dumb down their thinking. they check out mentally. and i think that there must be some larger saudi/khaleeji conspiracy going on here. i mean, it is not in their interest to help palestinians liberate their land (or any other arabs in any other regime in the region for that matter&#8211;egypt shooting up to the top of my list this week). so by producing these programs or music videos that people watch and lose themselves in they help to placate a public who would otherwise be in the streets resisting. </p>
<p>interestingly rawya rageh on al jazeera the other day interviewed some youth in egypt and asked them about their role models. i love that one of them said hugo chavez! why? because unlike the cia puppet hosni mubarak, chavez stands up for justice of palestinians and others fighting for their rights around the world. here is the report (interview is at the end):</p>
<p><span style='text-align:center; display: block;'><object width='425' height='350'><param name='movie' value='http://www.youtube.com/v/RfhK-bvY_T8&#038;rel=1&#038;fs=1&#038;showsearch=0&#038;hd=0' /><param name='allowfullscreen' value='true' /><param name='wmode' value='transparent' /><embed src='http://www.youtube.com/v/RfhK-bvY_T8&#038;rel=1&#038;fs=1&#038;showsearch=0&#038;hd=0' type='application/x-shockwave-flash' allowfullscreen='true' width='425' height='350' wmode='transparent'></embed></object></span></p>
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<title><![CDATA[dining with freedom fighters]]></title>
<link>http://bodyontheline.wordpress.com/2009/03/13/dining-with-freedom-fighters/</link>
<pubDate>Fri, 13 Mar 2009 16:30:35 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>marcy/مارسي newman/نيومان</dc:creator>
<guid>http://bodyontheline.wordpress.com/2009/03/13/dining-with-freedom-fighters/</guid>
<description><![CDATA[here is the latest episode of al jazeera&#8217;s &#8220;dining with terrorists&#8221; called &#8220;]]></description>
<content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class='snap_preview'><p>here is the latest episode of <a href="http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/general/2009/02/20092565012929122.html">al jazeera&#8217;s &#8220;dining with terrorists&#8221;</a> called &#8220;return of the freedom fighter.&#8221; phil rees travels to northern ireland and lebanon in this episode. and he interviews some of the world&#8217;s leading terrorists like tony blair and john bolton. you can listen to them squirm in their chairs as they lie through their teeth.</p>
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<p>it is especially interesting to watch this footage and to see how vapid their arguments are when you consider how ridiculous the real terrorists are&#8211;here i mean the americans and the israeli colonists&#8211;acting as if hummus and toilet paper can be used to make weapons. reuters reporter adam entous</p>
<blockquote><p><a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE52A5TA20090311?sp=true">In one case, Israel blocked for weeks a World Food Program (WFP) shipment of chickpeas, used to make the Palestinian food staple hummus, the U.N. food agency said&#8230;.</a></p>
<p>&#8220;It is totally surreal,&#8221; one European diplomat said of Israeli decision-making. &#8220;One day we had 600 kg (1,300 pounds) of pasta at the Kerem Shalom crossing but they said, &#8216;Today, pasta can&#8217;t go in&#8217;.&#8221;</p>
<p>Another Western diplomat said: &#8220;It&#8217;s ever-changing. One week jam is okay and the next week it&#8217;s not.&#8221;</p>
<p>In addition to soap and toilet paper, the officials cited restrictions that come and go on imports of certain types of cheeses, toothbrushes and toothpaste.</p>
<p>Israeli defense official Peter Lerner said in response: &#8220;I&#8217;m not aware of any problems with toilet paper, toothpaste, dairy products &#8230; and other food stuffs. Basic necessities are being met and are going in on a daily basis.&#8221;</p></blockquote>
<p>this siege on gaza is such an obvious form of terrorism. i don&#8217;t know what it would take for the world to wake up and see this reality&#8230;a reality that includes the european and american allies who arm the israeli terrorist state as elias akhleh outlines in this article for palestine think tank:</p>
<blockquote><p><a href="http://palestinethinktank.com/2009/03/11/elias-akleh-arming-terrorist-israel/">Israel did not become the fourth largest army in the world by its own merit, but by the Western countries supplying it with all kinds of weapons.</a> In its February 23rd report &#8220;Foreign Arms Supplies To Israel/Gaza Fueling Conflict&#8221; <a href="http://amnestyusa.org">amnestyusa.org</a> named 18 EU member states, which authorized 1,018 arms export licenses to Israel worth a little less than 200 million Euros. All these arms exports are in violation of the EU Code of Conduct on Arms Exports under Criterion 2, which states that member states are supposed to &#8220;deny an export license if there is a clear risk that the proposed export might be used for internal repression or be used in the commission of serious violations of international humanitarian law&#8221;. Israel had committed such violations throughout its entire existence.</p>
<p>France, Germany, and Romania were the top three arms suppliers to Israel worth of 126 million Euros, 28 million Euros, and 17 million Euros respectively. Other significant arms suppliers to Israel since 2001 also include alphabetically Austria, Australia, Belgium, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Brazil, Columbia, the Czech Republic, Finland, Hungary, India, Italy, Poland, Romania, Serbia-Montenegro, the Slovak Republic, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain, and UK.</p>
<p>The report also indicated the well-known fact that &#8220;Since 2001, the USA has been by far the major supplier of conventional arms to Israel&#8221; It also stated the logical conclusion that &#8220;Put simply, Israel&#8217;s military intervention in the Gaza Strip has been equipped to a large extent by US-supplied weapons, munitions and military equipment paid for with US taxpayers&#8217; money&#8221; What the report failed to indicate is that Israel had violated all the US laws governing arms transfers.</p>
<p>Examining the American military aid to Israel we find that since the end of WWII Israel had been the largest recipient of US aid (Armed &#38; Dangerous Report). From 1949-2007 Israel had received more than $101 billion in total US economic and military aid. A previous Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the two countries started phasing out the economic aid and increasing the military aid, and in 2008 all US aid to Israel turned into military aid only. The current MOU, singed by Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns in August 2007, has increased military aid to Israel by 25% a year for the next ten years FY2009-2018, totaling to $30 billion.</p>
<p>During the Bush administration 2001-2007 American military aid to Israel came under three primary programs; Foreign Military Sales (FMS) ran through the Pentagon totaled $25.2 billion in arms sales and contracts, Direct Commercial Sales (DCS) ran through the States Department totaled $6.16 billion in weapons and equipment, and Excess Defense Articles (EDA) also ran through the Pentagon totaled $36 million in used weapons and equipment. The total comes to a little more than $31.4 billion.</p>
<p>The Foreign Military Sales (FMS) provided Israel with air, missile &#38; munitions, naval, design, vehicles, and miscellaneous military aid. Israel received $19.81 billion for their air forces that included F-35 joint strike fighters, C-130J-30 aircrafts, JP-8 aviation jet fuel, and T-6A Texan aircrafts. In missiles and munitions Israel received $2.73 billion worth of GBU-28 &#38; 39 small diameter bombs, TOW, Hellfire, bunker buster munitions, AMRAAM, Harpoon, Sidewinder, JDAM&#8217;s, and MK-80 series. US gave Israel $1.9 billion worth of the new series (Littoral) naval combat ships, $164 million worth of troop carrier armored vehicles and trucks, and $253 million worth of miscellaneous in the form of Patriot Missiles upgrade and M72A7 Light Anti-Armor weapons. Also included in this FMS package were $350 million worth of design and construction of two infantry bases.</p>
<p>The Direct Commercial Sales (DCS) program contained about three hundred different categories of weapons transfer to Israel. The main top ten categories for FY2001-2006 were $557,896 million in aircraft spare parts, $449 million in missile spare parts, $439 million in engine jet F-100 spare parts, $254 million in engine jet F-100 series (F-15 &#38; F-16), $210 million in ship components and spare parts, $186 million in aircraft fighter F-15 spare parts, $163 million in electronics components and spare parts, $128 million in ammunition raw materials, and $120 million in training equipment.</p>
<p>The Excess Defense Articles (EDC) program shipped to Israel $36 million worth of used Cobra Helicopters, personnel carriers, carrier command posts, and miscellaneous articles.</p>
<p>The most outrageous American military aid to Israel is the billions of Dollars worth of refined fuel to the Israeli army. Israel&#8217;s own oil refineries in Haifa and Ashdod, which could supply Israeli military with all its fuel needs, are instead producing and selling its refined products on the open market. The Israeli army gets all its military fuel from the USA through the FMS program. The US Defense Department uses American tax money to buy oil crude from Arab Gulf States, ship it to American refineries to refine it, and then ship it to Israel.</p>
<p>According to documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, from 2004 to 2008 the Bush administration had granted the Israeli army 500 million gallons of oil products worth $1.1 billion. During this period the American tax payers were faced with energy crises and had to pay $4 per gallon of gas at the pump while Israel was getting free gas from the Bush administration. Somebody has to pay for this gas, and it wasn&#8217;t the Israelis.</p>
<p>Moreover, the US provides loan guarantees to Israel so that Israel can take out loans in the international money market with lower interest rates, and if Israel happens to default on any of these loans the US will bail Israel out with American tax money similar to the latest $700 billion bailout for the American banks. There is a condition on these loan guarantees. It states that these loans can only be used to support the activities within the sovereign areas in Israel (pre-1967 war), and cannot be used in the occupied Palestinian territories. This is a facetiously misleading condition, since such loans can free other monies in the Israeli budget to be used in building illegal colonies (settlements) in the occupied territories.</p>
<p>The US has three laws that govern arms transfer to other countries. The first is the Arms Export Control Act (P.L.80-829). This law states that American weapons given or sold to any foreign country can be used only for legitimate self-defense or for internal security. They are not to be used in occupational operations.</p>
<p>The second is the Foreign Assistance Act (P.L.97-195), which states that any country is not illegible for any form of US aid if it engages in consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights. The third is the Leahy Law (Foreign Ops Appropriations Act). This is an annual part of the Foreign Appropriations Act, and states that no aid will be given to any unit of the security forces of a foreign country if the Secretary of State has credible evidence that such unit has committed gross violations of human rights. Expanding their occupation of the land the Israelis had violated numerous UN Resolutions, broke international laws as well as their own local laws, violated all human rights, committed grave war crimes, and perpetrated terrorism against Arabs in general and Palestinian Arabs in specific.</p>
<p>It has been, numerously, documented by Israeli, Palestinian, and international NGOs that Israel had consistently violated international laws and human rights since 1948. In all its seven wars Israel, contrary to the false Israeli/American propaganda, had initiated the conflict in one way or another. Israel had attacked all its neighbors, committed war crimes, and occupied parts of their land. The Israelis had evicted hundreds of thousands of Palestinians out of their country, completely wiped off many Palestinian towns and built Israeli colonies in their place, had stolen Palestinian farm land and forcefully controlled the economy. Israel had shoved thousands of Palestinian leaders and freedom fighters into prisons, and kept the rest of the Palestinian populations confined into open air virtual town-prisons within a separation wall.</p>
<p>Attacking Palestinian civilians, mainly defenseless children and women, has become the daily entertainment of Israeli government -backed and armed extreme Zionist colonizing terrorists (settlers?). Israeli soldiers developed the sport of hunting (shooting) Palestinian children on their way to schools or while playing in front of their homes. The Israeli army is using the 1967 occupied Palestinian territories and its Palestinian inhabitants as testing fields and subjects for theirs and for the American newly developed weapons as was exhibited in Israel&#8217;s latest 22-days onslaught and massacres in Gaza.</p>
<p>Successive Israeli governments had consistently sent their armies to massacre Palestinian civilians. Israeli army had used all types of American supplied weapons; including depleted uranium tipped bombs and missiles, DIME bombs, chemical weapons such as phosphorous bombs and conventional weapons, to specifically and deliberately target Palestinian children and women. We need only go back to the Israeli last two wars; July 2006 against Lebanon and December 2008 against Gaza, still fresh in memory, to witness clear evidence of Israel&#8217;s terrorism, war crimes, disrespect and contempt of international laws and human rights.</p>
<p>The driving force for the Zionist Israeli crimes and terrorism has been the extreme racist religious ideology of establishing a pure theocratic &#8220;Jewish&#8221; state for a prejudice- god&#8217;s chosen people &#8220;narcissist Zionist Jews&#8221; in the real-estate- brokering-god&#8217;s promised land of Greater Israel &#8220;Eretz Israel&#8221; extending from Nile to Euphrates. This theocratic dream necessitates a holy war (not the first one against the Middle East) to evict and remove the original inhabitants of the land to make living space for world Jewry to come and live in this Promised Land. This is how Israelis perceive their &#8220;final solution&#8221; to their &#8220;Palestinian problem&#8221;; destruction, massacres and mass evictions.</p>
<p>Although Israel has violated all EU and US arms transfer laws yet none had conducted any investigation to hold Israel accountable to these laws. The two rare incidents when under pressure the American State Department investigated Israeli violations where completely suppressed and quashed. The first was in 2002 when Israel dropped a one-ton bomb on an apartment building in Gaza City in order to extra-judicially assassinate a Hamas leader, Salah Shehadeh, and killed 14 other civilians, women and children, in the process. This investigation was quashed by none other than John Bolton, the Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security at the time. The investigation was never sent to the Congress in violation of US laws.</p>
<p>The second investigation was in 2006 when Israel dropped an estimated one million cluster bombs on the civilian areas of South Lebanon in the last 72 hours of the war, even after a seize-fire was agreed upon. This was made a top secret State Department investigation and was released to only a few senior members of the Cogress such as the Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi and &#8220;Zionist&#8221; Joe Biden, the present Vice President. Needless to say that this investigation had never came to light.</p>
<p>Israel is a terrorist entity without any specific borders. It is an expansionist colonizing regime. Its successive governments had disregarded all UN resolutions, broken international laws, violated all human rights, committed holocaustal-level genocides, and perpetrated war crimes against all its neighbors and against mother earth and against the environment.</p>
<p>Yet the Western political power elites justify Israeli terror as a self-defense, and keep transferring more devastating arms to this terrorist entity to wage more future wars and to wreck more havoc in the Arab World. They also distort facts and describe the victims of the Israeli terror, the Palestinians, as terrorists, deny them their legitimate right to bear arms for self-defense, and send their naval war machines and surveillance equipment to tighten the illegal Israeli blockade against Gaza Strip under the guise of preventing &#8220;arms smuggling&#8221;, while at the same time shedding some crocodile tears and call for humanitarian aid to Gaza&#8217;s Palestinians.</p></blockquote>
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<title><![CDATA[Why the single Gulf currency will not happen...]]></title>
<link>http://mylastresort.wordpress.com/2008/04/07/why-the-single-gulf-currency-will-not-happen/</link>
<pubDate>Mon, 07 Apr 2008 16:37:18 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>mylastresort</dc:creator>
<guid>http://mylastresort.wordpress.com/2008/04/07/why-the-single-gulf-currency-will-not-happen/</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Following the central bankers meeting in Doha this week its clear they are all enthusiastic and conf]]></description>
<content:encoded><![CDATA[Following the central bankers meeting in Doha this week its clear they are all enthusiastic and conf]]></content:encoded>
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<title><![CDATA[Gulf central bankers to discuss revaluation]]></title>
<link>http://mylastresort.wordpress.com/2008/04/03/gulf-central-bankers-to-discuss-revaluation/</link>
<pubDate>Thu, 03 Apr 2008 07:19:56 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>mylastresort</dc:creator>
<guid>http://mylastresort.wordpress.com/2008/04/03/gulf-central-bankers-to-discuss-revaluation/</guid>
<description><![CDATA[On April 6 and 7 Gulf central bank governers plan to meet to discuss removing obstacles to planned m]]></description>
<content:encoded><![CDATA[On April 6 and 7 Gulf central bank governers plan to meet to discuss removing obstacles to planned m]]></content:encoded>
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