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I watched a fantastic (BBC) Documentary that was on PBS last night Elusive Peacel Israel and the Arabs. Just fascinating stuff, easy to understand and very revealing - Palestinian Foreign minister revealed that Bush has told him that God told him to invade Afghanistan and Iraq!!! Bush really was portrayed as just tactical and ignorant. (Lots of never before seen footage of real negotiations) . I must say though even though am not a huge Arafat fan I was even MORE outraged at the support and spin doctoring that Israel have done over the years. Insane! They even managed to wangle the UN to turn a blind eye after one particular masacre as they agreed to negotiate! Totally insane! I was sooo angry after I watched the whole doc I was about to give $ to Hamas! (well not really ... but almost!).
Watch it...if u can... interested to know others view on it...

http://www.thirteen.org/watch/program_info.php?program_id=22232&episode_num=0
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Read the CAMERA review: http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=3&x_outlet=18&x_article=992

While they are obviously viewing the conflict from the Israeli point of view, their point about the exclusion of Dennis Ross is well taken as are the facts about Jenin.

Although the situation in Britain is not as dire as that of France, where Jews are leaving in droves to escape violence, the word on the street is definitely that the BBC is increasingly fanning tensions with subtlely leading pieces.
I saw on last nights new the tabloid version of the Bin Ladin speech... just read on Aljazeera the full transcript.
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/79C6AF22-98FB-4A...21F-2BC36E87F61F.htm

DO TRY TO READ IT ALL.

While i DO NOT condone any terrorist actions I did find this very well written and made me understand allot more. Of course Bin Ladin is always just portrayed as a demented mad man in the media so this was somewhat of an eye-opener (for me anyhow). Have an open mind and just read this.
Interested to know what you think.....

course now I am probably on some thought police list (so will YOU be) for reading Aljazeera! Ahh the land of the free eh! LOL
Thanks for posting that AN..I agree with you. Though Bin Laden is attached to his own mad way of seeing the world, it is indeed the rich money mad people like the Bushes and the Haliburtons
and all the war mongers who benefit from the making of war. We never asked ourselves why the terrorists hate US so much. Now it is easier to understand why they do. But all of this seems so much bigger than out tiny selves except that we do indeed have the power to vote in this country and to vote Bush out of office in the next election. There is so much injustice in the current administration where do we even begin to make sense of it all. The world is so full of self centered behavior these days that the only place to start is right inside our individual selves. Am I fair and honest? Do I treat others with kindness and respect? Can I be a better person? Can I be of greater help to the world around me? Most people easily point their finger at someone else offering blame to everyone else but themselves. To me it starts inside of each person and that means me. But I fear we may be too late in this dog eat dog and Me first world that we've all created.I try to remember that when I point my finger at others I have three pointing back at me. So it starts with each of us. Today is a good day to begin the turning of the tide. Today I seek to attempt to look inside myself first and try to make the changes that need to be made in order to become a better person and to help inspire the world around me to be better too.
And also to stand up and speak out against injustice and greed. Write letters, go to rallys, speak out whenever you have the chance before we loose the right to do so.
Bobby I totally agree with you, I don't know what the answer is either.
I found that speech very interesting as it sort of shed light on his justification... which to me is just as barking revengeful as Bush.... I TRULY think BUSH is just a wacky imperialist as Bin Ladin. I just think Bush has a finer tunes media machine spin doctored to the correct (mainly jew owned) power brokers.
I thought Spielberg really brave to make Munich as it really did spin the futility of it all the eye for an eye. The stupidity. Sadly no answer and sadly damaging and never healing on both sides.
Robert Fisk just wrote a good article in todays UK independent too if y'all have time
thttp://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/article339819.ece
I think Bobby u r right u just have to think I and I .... be the person you wish the world to be .. however naive that may be in changing the world.
I just read in the UK edition of "The Week" that MP George Galloway who is currently on British TV in Celebrity Big Brother is donating his $ from the show from viewers votes to the Palestinian charity InterPal. Whether that is right/wrong, good/bad is not my point. My point is that the US is so badly biased in the media that something like THAT would NEVER get passed the censors. That really pisses me off that media spin that is alway in Israel / jewish favor. Cos its Sooooooooo hard to ever get the 'truth' or the reality of any of this when there is such a spin doctored slant.
Last edited by Anna Nicole
I highly recommend the Palestinian film "Paradise Now." (I think it's only playing at the Landmark Sunshine Cinema on Houstan bewteen 2nd and 3rd here in NYC). It's about two young Palestinian suicide bombers and it airs lots of great dialogue reflecting the real situation in Palestine. The stark contrasts between occupied Palestine and Israel proper is startling. This is a very profound film that will really blow you away.
Agreed about the american born support
Still feel that the Fisk piece is great as its soooo bloody rare to read in the media THAT side of the story....

Went to see Paradise Now last night - Thanks Stacy for that tip...POWERFUL!!! PHEW! as u say its all about learning the truth and what u can do with the truth when America ignores it.
It should be required viewing in America really!!! LOL

http://wip.warnerbros.com/paradisenow/

I truly think that everyone needs to wipe the slate of all preconceived ideas and look at all of this afresh. American is a large Zionist state so you are starting off with all that propaganda in your head, re think it all before you decide. Don't just read the insidious American media. And get to know Palestinians and hear them out. Its SOOOOOOOOOO biased here - even all the newspaper headlines today about Hamas are biased (read European headlines - much dif. take on it). Its alwasy Arafat as terrorist - yet both sides ARE terrorists in my mind. I just want a push for the people of Palestine so that they are heard and heard with an open mind.

Interesting to read interviews with the director of this movie ... how for so long the Oscars et al won't allow Palestinian movies in as its not recognized as a state!! Can u imagine if they did that to Israel!!! Amazing
I really don't want to polarize ... i just feel that it's almost impossible to deal with Americans who aren't Zionists as its what has been fed on this nation for centuries.
Hence my hope that all individuals (especially on these here boards) just take a step back and wiping the mental slate - for just a few seconds at least. I don't feel that people do that, enough.
I do feel that the black and white of the issue is that the US has turned its back on the Palestinians for years - this is basic human rights to me - It's all a big sad failure over there I know but I just hate it here that the balance is always in Isreals favor and this is not because of FACT which lead to opinion but in my belief is due to $ = power of voice.
I think you should watch that documentary I posted about earlier and go see the movie.
I am interested in watching how the Middle East roadmap will change with the new Hamas leadership. I hope that they will renounce violence as I hope that Israel will admit to the violence they too have caused.
hey have u ever read Conor Cruise OBriens The Siege?
Just had to post this news ...seeing as that the US media am SURE won't print it...

This from BBC News - Israeli soldier murder British documentary director
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4876176.stm

The shooting of a British film maker in Gaza was "cold-blooded murder", a security expert has told an inquest.
James Miller, 34, from Devon, was shot by a soldier from the Israeli Defence Force while making a film in a Palestinian refugee camp in 2003.

An Israeli investigation in April 2005 cleared a soldier of misusing firearms.

At St Pancras Coroner's Court in London, former weapons inspector Chris Cobb-Smith said there was no way the soldier fired by accident.


It is a soldier aiming and firing deliberately
Chris Cobb-Smith

"This was calculated and cold-blooded murder, without a shadow of a doubt," Mr Cobb-Smith said.

"These shots were not fired by a soldier who was frightened, not fired by a soldier facing incoming fire - these were slow, deliberate, calculated and aimed shots."

The 10-member inquest jury heard how Mr Miller had been wearing a helmet and flak jacket with the letters TV written in bright fluorescent tape as he approached the soldiers in Rafah at about 2300 on 2 May 2003.

He was holding a torch which shone on a large white flag being held by his interpreter.
For all the cowboy grandstanding the Administration does elsewhere in the world, they are big pussies about Israel. You would think they wouldn't give a damn about offending Jewish voters, yet they have a blind spot where Israel is concerned (and for that matter, so has every past U.S. president). No one is allowed to talk about it honestly here. I guess the world is accustomed to thinking of Jews as victims because of the Holocaust. But in Israel they are the power and are not exactly merciful in using it. Ariel Sharon was a total asshole and zealot who will not be missed.

But like so many other catastrophes in world history, religion is at the heart of the whole mess. "God" gave the Israelis their land so that gives them the right to bulldoze Palestinians out of their homes.
Merlin I am floored to hear about the Nevada test to come... googled it... it's to happen June 2nd.

They are calling it --
"The Divine Strake"

http://www.casperstartribune.net/articles/2006/04/14/ne...8725714f005b7c5d.txt

http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/bunker-buster-ready-fo...1/1143441331987.html


"This will be the largest open-air chemical explosion we've conducted," said Darwin Morgan, a spokesman for the Energy Department's test site.

A spokeswoman Irene Smith said it would register between 3.1 and 3.4 on the Richter scale but that there would be "no adverse effects to surrounding facilities either on or off the Nevada test site".

Here we go again...
Can we impeach the psycho now, please


more insanity... goodbye, cruel world...

http://www.hnn.us/articles/23825.html

"Not only does the Bush administration steer clear of any negotiations that might entail U.S. nuclear disarmament, but it has pulled out of the ABM treaty and refused to support ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (negotiated and signed by former President Bill Clinton). According to the Defense Department's Quadrennial Defense Review Report of February 2006, "a robust nuclear deterrent . . . remains a keystone of U.S. national power."

Furthermore, there are clear signs that the Bush administration is shifting away from the traditional U.S. strategy of nuclear deterrence to a strategy of nuclear use. The nuclear Bunker Buster, for example, was not designed to deter aggression, but to destroy underground military targets. Moreover, in recent years, the U.S. Strategic Command has added new missions to its war plans, including the use of U.S. nuclear weapons for pre-emptive military action. Seymour Hersh's much-cited article in the New Yorker on preparations for a U.S. military attack upon Iran indicates that there has already been substantial discussion of employing U.S. nuclear weapons in that capacity.

This movement by the Bush administration toward a nuclear buildup and nuclear war highlights the double standard it uses in its growing confrontation with Iran, a country whose nuclear enrichment program is in accordance with its NPT commitments. Of course, Iran might use such nuclear enrichment to develop nuclear weapons--and that would be a violation of the NPT. But Bush administration policies already violate U.S. commitments under the treaty, and this fact appears of far less concern to Washington officialdom. Logic, however, does not seem to apply to this issue--unless, of course, it is the logic of world power."


.... I searched this AM.. there isn't one article about this in the NY Times.
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I think the US blindly support Israel simply out of geopolitical reasons. When and if the whole region becomes a combat zone about the time oil is going to totally run out the US will have a military logistical foothold in Israel. The question of nukes and the region has been on a boil for some time. It was the late Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin, who started his political career as an Israeli terrorist with the job of dynamiting British Army hospitals in Palestine, who finished his career sending high tech jets to erradicate Sadam Hussein's only nuclear power plant. Now the new leader of Iran talks about how it would only take one bomb to erradicate Israel, which is more traditional nuclear madness since it would also unavoidably erradicate all the Palestinians -but then it is well known that most the Arab and mid-east countries don't really want to deal with the Palestinians themselves either except as a great excuse to bitch about Western Power and Zionist oppression, so they aren't any less hypocrites than the western governments they bark about when it comes to solving the Palestinians' problems with Israel. You don't think the Saudis or Iranians could build all the hospitals, schools, airports, train stations and government administrative infrastructure that the Palestinians need? Please. But they will gladly raise money for arms shipments to the Palestinians. Probably the best way to get rid of the problem since by armed struggle the Palestinians will have thier own population decimated and their own society ruined even further. In fact, 'suicide' bombers are a hallmark of a lost, failing or non-existent society and there isn't one example in all of human history where the people who kill themselves are the winners of a conflict. With Little Bush having only a couple years left in office I am sure we will get to see his swan song of depravity soon. His holy concern for human life is one of the most atrocious hypocrisies he trots around the globe, some of the scars he is inflicting on his own country will certainly never be repaired.
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Israel's High Court has narrowly upheld a law denying Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza married to Israeli citizens the right to live in the country with their spouses.

The judges voted by six to five not to cancel a four-year-old amendment to the Citizenship Law which outlaws "family unification" in Israel between Palestinians and Arab citizens of Israel.

It was passed as a one-year emergency measure in 2002 on the ground that it was needed to protect Israeli security. But the amendment, described yesterday by the Knesset member Ran Cohen, of the left-wing Meretz party, as "rooted in racism", has been renewed every year since then.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article484122.ece
Great article by Robert Fisk -
I first realized the enormous pressures on American journalists in the Middle East when I went some years ago to say goodbye to a colleague from the Boston Globe. I expressed my sorrow that he was leaving a region where he had obviously enjoyed reporting. I could save my sorrows for someone else, he said. One of the joys of leaving was that he would no longer have to alter the truth to suit his paper's more vociferous readers.

"I used to call the Israeli Likud Party 'right wing,' " he said. "But recently, my editors have been telling me not to use the phrase. A lot of our readers objected." And so now, I asked? "We just don't call it 'right wing' anymore."

Ouch. I knew at once that these "readers" were viewed at his newspaper as Israel's friends, but I also knew that the Likud under Benjamin Netanyahu was as right wing as it had ever been.

This is only the tip of the semantic iceberg that has crashed into American journalism in the Middle East. Illegal Jewish settlements for Jews and Jews only on Arab land are clearly "colonies," and we used to call them that. I cannot trace the moment when we started using the word "settlements." But I can remember the moment around two years ago when the word "settlements" was replaced by "Jewish neighborhoods" "” or even, in some cases, "outposts."

Similarly, "occupied" Palestinian land was softened in many American media reports into "disputed" Palestinian land "” just after then-Secretary of State Colin Powell, in 2001, instructed U.S. embassies in the Middle East to refer to the West Bank as "disputed" rather than "occupied" territory.

Then there is the "wall," the massive concrete obstruction whose purpose, according to the Israeli authorities, is to prevent Palestinian suicide bombers from killing innocent Israelis. In this, it seems to have had some success. But it does not follow the line of Israel's 1967 border and cuts deeply into Arab land. And all too often these days, journalists call it a "fence" rather than a "wall." Or a "security barrier," which is what Israel prefers them to say. For some of its length, we are told, it is not a wall at all "” so we cannot call it a "wall," even though the vast snake of concrete and steel that runs east of Jerusalem is higher than the old Berlin Wall.

The semantic effect of this journalistic obfuscation is clear. If Palestinian land is not occupied but merely part of a legal dispute that might be resolved in law courts or discussions over tea, then a Palestinian child who throws a stone at an Israeli soldier in this territory is clearly acting insanely.

If a Jewish colony built illegally on Arab land is simply a nice friendly "neighborhood," then any Palestinian who attacks it must be carrying out a mindless terrorist act.

And surely there is no reason to protest a "fence" or a "security barrier" "” words that conjure up the fence around a garden or the gate arm at the entrance to a private housing complex.

For Palestinians to object violently to any of these phenomena thus marks them as a generically vicious people. By our use of language, we condemn them.

We follow these unwritten rules elsewhere in the region. American journalists frequently used the words of U.S. officials in the early days of the Iraqi insurgency "” referring to those who attacked American troops as "rebels" or "terrorists" or "remnants" of the former regime. The language of the second U.S. pro-consul in Iraq, L. Paul Bremer III, was taken up obediently "” and grotesquely "” by American journalists.

American television, meanwhile, continues to present war as a bloodless sandpit in which the horrors of conflict "” the mutilated bodies of the victims of aerial bombing, torn apart in the desert by wild dogs "” are kept off the screen. Editors in New York and London make sure that viewers' "sensitivities" don't suffer, that we don't indulge in the "pornography" of death (which is exactly what war is) or "dishonor" the dead whom we have just killed.

Our prudish video coverage makes war easier to support, and journalists long ago became complicit with governments in making conflict and death more acceptable to viewers. Television journalism has thus become a lethal adjunct to war.

Back in the old days, we used to believe "” did we not? "” that journalists should "tell it how it is." Read the great journalism of World War II and you'll see what I mean. The Ed Murrows and Richard Dimblebys, the Howard K. Smiths and Alan Moorheads didn't mince their words or change their descriptions or run mealy-mouthed from the truth because listeners or readers didn't want to know or preferred a different version.

So let's call a colony a colony, let's call occupation what it is, let's call a wall a wall. And maybe express the reality of war by showing that it represents not, primarily, victory or defeat, but the total failure of the human spirit.

ROBERT FISK is Middle East correspondent for the London Independent and the author, most recently, of "The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East," published last month by Knopf.
Four United Nations observers were killed last night in an Israeli raid on their post at the border town of Khiam in south Lebanon. The UN secretary general suggested last night that it had been deliberately targeted.

The observers, said by Lebanese officials to have been an Austrian, a Canadian, a Chinese and a Finn, were killed when the post's building and shelter were bombed.


-------------- errr! HELLO! How come this isn't front page on all the US news sites!? I don't seem to find it here! This is crazy! Or was it censored as it was an Israeli bomb that killed the UN workers? I found this on the www.independent.co.uk site.
What does the Hezbollah mean by this exactly? There are no greater cultures of death than Israel and the US-- nations that can extinguish much of life on earth by simply pressing a few buttons.

But you are right, there is no solution. If Solomon were to offer to cut the baby in half, both sides would eagerly nod their heads in agreement.
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The whole problem began when they did in fact "cut the baby in half" but some people didn't want the other people to have the other half.

Yeah America and Israel are the greatest cultures of death!! WTF

Though Americans rights and freedoms are unfortunatley shrinking by the minute under our current administration try drawing an anti Allah, Anti Jesus and an anti Moses cartoon and see which country leaves you with all your limbs intact. Or if you are a girl try driving a car in Saudi Arabia or wear some Tom Ford design and see what happens.
I truly don't think you can believe much if anything that is on the newstands in America or that is on the television. I think u HAVE to read the alt. press and the European media as these sources are NOT controlled by Jews.
America FUNDS Israels force so ALL news here is pretty slanted.
Who knew here that before Hez kidnapped Israelis that there were FOUR Palestinian CIVILIANS who were kidnaped and are still missing. This was widly reported in the UK press but doesn't seem to even appear in the US media.
So i take any US media with a pinch of salt here as its too slanted.
I saw a pundit on tv saying Hiz and Ham should 'fight' this with the ballot not the bullet - yet when Hamas was voted in the US and Israel refused to accept and Isreal arrested members of its parliament!!!
Although i do believe the bombing must stop am certain if I lived under such oppression as the Palestinians have lived for such a long time I would be fuelled into such crazy acts.
American should stop funding Israel, and should get out of the Middle East. This is about oil and $ it's nothing to do with their care of human rights and oppression, if that was the case America would have rushed into .... "Liberia" (replace that last word with one of MANY countries)
Last edited by Anna Nicole
This from BBC
British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett has protested to the US about its use of Prestwick Airport in western Scotland to transport bombs to Israel........it was ill-advised to send bombs "to arm one side in that conflict to the teeth, at a time when hundreds of civilians, many children, United Nations observers, have already been eliminated.......it is particularly provocative for the United States to have acted in this way
_____________________

Hold onto yer hats kiddos with the US funding and helping Israel like this it's only a matter of time before AL-Qaeda seek revenge.
Ok, I dropped out of this board for a time.

When I came back I am reading that some of you would probably vote for Hamas? This is a political-military arm of radical islam which would not hesitate to hang most if not all of the members of this board. We are not talking of Che Geuverra and any romantic cigar smoking political figures. We are talking about a group who is dedicated to the utter destruction of the only democracy in the middle east that actually protects the rights of women and gays. Absent any foreign intervention the proponents of this political theology had women's clitorae removed with rusty razor blades and a woman hanged for being raped.

WTF? or is this naive misunderstanding of the actual historic events of the last 65 years?

A valid disagreement with the current administration is healthy, however, a complete disassociation and moral support for those who would see you flayed and tortured isn't. It isn't any more a Republican or Democrat thing as it is a clash of civilizations and moral relevance isn't the answer. Some things remain and have always been Wrong!

my .o2

T
This from the BBC today

Israeli security forces killed 660 Palestinians in 2006 - three times more than in 2005, according to an Israeli human rights group.
B'Tselem, which monitors human rights in the occupied territories, said the figure included 141 children.

At least 322 had taken no part in hostile acts, the group said.

In the same period, the number of deadly Palestinian attacks on Israelis has fallen - 23 Israelis were killed in 2006 compared with 50 last year.

The Israeli military renewed ground operations in the Gaza Strip after militants captured an Israeli soldier in a border raid in June.

Since June, Israeli troops have killed about 405 Palestinians in Gaza, including 88 children. More than half of the casualties were civilians, B'Tselem said.

As of November, 9,075 Palestinians were being held in Israeli jails. This number included 345 minors, it said.

Of these, 738 (22 minors) were being detained without trial and without knowing the charges against them, the group said.
The left isn't anti-Semitic, The left isn't anti-Semitic,The left isn't anti-Semitic,The left isn't anti-Semitic,The left isn't anti-Semitic,The left isn't anti-Semitic,The left isn't anti-Semitic,The left isn't anti-Semitic,The left isn't anti-Semitic,The left isn't anti-Semitic,The left isn't anti-Semitic,The left isn't anti-Semitic,The left isn't anti-Semitic.
I find it no shock but it does sadden me .... how fast they were to execute Saddam. I certainly am NO supporter of his and don't believe he was good for the country at all... (although I must say my chum's Iraqi mother was here about 7yrs ago telling me how wonderful her life was in Iraq and how she would hate to be in America full time... now the poor woman lives in ruins after what the UK/US did to her town). If Saddamm wasn't arab he wouldn't have been executed so fast. There have been so many genocides around the world that the US/UK have NOT reacted to. Did 'they' kill Papa/baby Doc Duvallier in Haiti? Did they execute Idi Ami, Pol Pot, Tutsi/Huto's in Rwanda
what about the tyranny's in Liberia or Darfur? I could go on. His execution was tactical for the war and the pressure ($$$) that the US gives to Israel to fight the arab/israeli conflict and OIL and also some kind of moral booster for the troops or some other sick nature. His trial happened when his country was occupied. He never faced all the allegations. He was just executed fast. Again, I DO NOT support this man. But I don't believe that his swift execution is anything but trying to make two wrongs make a right. It wont.
I'm with you, Anna. This speedy hanging is so barbaric and so twisted. On a Muslim holy day, no less - it's one big "fuck you" to the Arab world by Bush, and it's not like the guy was going anywhere before he got to stand trial for other crimes, for goodness' sake. It's all so sick the glee with which politicians and media show off their arrogance. Smug bastards. Of course, I hardly think of anyone on these boards as a Saddam supporter (except Messy Bonnie, who partied with him back in the day)...it's just this whole "eye for and eye" mentality is nothing but counter-productive and solves nothing whatsoever. Who's that U.K. bitch yesterday who said that Saddam "has been held to account." Um, last time I checked, criminals faced their charges in a court of law in a civilized society...he never stood trial for all of the charges brought against him, and as was pointed out, he was tried in a country under occupation...
Shocked to hear of Saddam's downfall--what the fuck? So soon? Is it real? Is it made up by the conservative media press machine. A hanging, yes it does sound wild west like--Dubya probably said, Hang 'em high, followed by Git 'er done!---a shock to hear about it, but he did suck. I don't advocate what he did to his people, but then again he didn't bomb us 9/11--osama did. Where is that fucker, huh?
and why don't we put the entire Bush admnistration on trial as well--Dubya Rummy Cheney Condi, hell even Tony Blair! Still Saddam is dead, At least he won't fuck around with his people anymore. he'll fulfill the South Park guys' propechy, he'll be serviing Satan sexually in hell. And Darla, the left sure as hell ain't anti-Semitic, it never was, did you hear that from Ann and Bill?

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