Category: News

Israel has dismissed a Middle East peace plan put forward by Spain, France and Italy.

The plan calls for a ceasefire and increased international intervention in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

An Israeli official said parts of the plan were being discussed, but it was not being taken seriously as it was not co-ordinated with the EU or Israel.

The Spanish prime minister proposed the plan, saying the situation required urgent action by the outside world.

“We cannot remain impassive in the face of the horror that continues to unfold before our eyes,” Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said.
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Norway is pushing for an international meeting on cluster bombs that it hopes will lead to a worldwide treaty restricting the use of the munitions.

The move follows the failure of a United Nations conference to agree any curbs on cluster weapons.
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Israel’s liberal intellectuals lament the malaise that grips their country – but refuse to face up to the ethnicide at the heart of it

The world can look forward to more of the same. According to Weizman, the chief of staff of the Israeli armed forces, Dan Halutz, confirms that the Israeli army sees the conflict as “unresolvable”. It has “geared itself to operate within an environment saturated with conflict and within a future of permanent violence … it sees itself acting just under the threshold of international sanctions … keeping the conflict on a flame low enough for Israeli society to be able to live and prosper within it.” So here’s another function for the separation wall Israel is building: to shield Israeli society from too close a knowledge of the brutal acts their army carries out in their name.
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Q: Lately there has been a lot of discussion about the role of the ‘Israel lobby.’ Can you say a little bit about how that impacted you as president? Has it changed over time?

A: Well, I think the Israel Lobby — so-called to use your phrase, that’s not my phrase — is much stronger now and much more effective now than it was when I was in office. I felt, for instance, that we should sell F-16 airplanes to Saudi Arabia so Saudis could defend themselves against threats from Iran, and Aipac and others were adamantly against it, but we finally prevailed. And I called within three months of when I went into office for a Palestinian homeland. And I worked for the Camp David accords, which called for Israel’s political and military withdrawal from the occupied territories, and so forth, and I think that that kind of independence was also exhibited by George Bush Sr., who condemned Israeli settlements in the West Bank and even withheld funds from Israel, which I never did, by the way.… That’s almost an impossibility now in the present political environment of America.
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If the Democratic leadership is ALREADY condemning this book before it is was released mid November, then it MUST be worth reading!

” The overriding problem is that, for more than a quarter century, the actions of some Israeli leaders have been in direct conflict with the official policies of the United States, the international community, and their own negotiated agreements.Israel’s continued control and colonization of Palestinian land have been the primary obstacles to a comprehensive peace agreement in the Holy Land. In order to perpetuate the occupation, Israeli forces have deprived their unwilling subjects of basic human rights. No objective person could personally observe existing conditions in the West Bank and dispute these statements. (pp. 207-9)”

To Order

Powells.com (Portland’s own):
http://www.powells.com/biblio/62-0743285026-0

Amazon.com (via counterpunch’s link) http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0743285026/counterpunchmaga

"Either we stop claiming we are children of Abraham, or we act as brothers and try to reconcile." Peace is not a goal in itself. Peace is the result of a certain quality of human relations. And if you want peace and security, pursue justice and integrity. And justice does not mean to settle accounts. Justice means to learn how to forgive, to make concessions, to reconcile.

Otherwise if I stand for my justice, and the Jew stands for his justice, the only one who decides is the one who has the might. Might makes right. And this is the most cruel thing.
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The election of a Democratic majority in the House and Senate is unlikely to result in any serious challenge to the Bush administration’s support for Israeli attacks against the civilian populations of its Arab neighbors and the Israeli government’s ongoing violations of international humanitarian law.

The principal Democratic Party spokesmen on foreign policy will likely be Tom Lantos in the House of Representatives and Joe Biden in the Senate, both of whom have been longstanding and outspoken supporters of a series of right-wing Israeli governments and opponents of the Israeli peace movement. And, despite claims—even within the progressive press—that future House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is a “consistent supporter of human rights,” such humanitarian concerns have never applied to Arabs, since she is a staunch defender of right-wing Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and his predecessor Ariel Sharon.
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WASHINGTON, Nov. 13 — As Israeli bombs fell on Lebanon for a second week last July, the Rev. John Hagee of San Antonio arrived in Washington with 3,500 evangelicals for the first annual conference of his newly founded organization, Christians United For Israel.

At a dinner addressed by the Israeli ambassador, a handful of Republican senators and the chairman of the Republican Party, Mr. Hagee read greetings from President Bush and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel and dispatched the crowd with a message for their representatives in Congress. Tell them “to let Israel do their job” of destroying the Lebanese militia, Hezbollah, Mr. Hagee said.

He called the conflict “a battle between good and evil” and said support for Israel was “God’s foreign policy.”
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Now that the Democrats have won the House overwhelmingly, the media is falling all over itself to proclaim Rahm Emanuel, head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and dearest friend of Israel, a boy genius. Even that congenital liar and close friend of Ariel Sharon, the ever tendentious NYT neocon William Safire, came out of retirement to hail Rahm as the Karl Rove of the Dems and to spin the election in various ways designed to keep Emanuel’s influence alive.

But is Rahm a boy genius or did the Dem establishments succeed despite him and in fact despite itself? After all, the Dem establishment, partisans of oil, empire and Israel, chose Rahm to lead them. Let’s do the numbers to see how Rahm and his employers really did.
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This obscenity of oppression and murder does not faze the Democrats or any of Israel's Zionist supporters in the U.S. Whatever Israel wants is all right with the Democrats. The 110th Congress will screw the Palestinians just the way the Republican 109th did.
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