A forceful indictment of a famous Neocon

By Middle east analyst and author Juan Cole.

And will this Neocon be able to bury Israel's war crimes in Gaza ? If "The road to Jerusalem more likely leads through Baghdad than the reverse... "*, it is probably for this only purpose, to bury under another crime the central one, the rape of Palestine.

* Martin Peretz wrote this in his New Republic in 2002. The complete quote is:

"The road to Jerusalem more likely leads through Baghdad than the reverse. Once the Palestinians see that the United States will no longer tolerate their hero Saddam Hussein, depressed though they may be, they may also come finally to grasp that Israel is here to stay and that accommodating to this reality is the one thing that can bring them the generous peace they require.''

Harper's Canada: A Banana Republic ?

George Galloway Banned from Canada.
George Galloway: 'Canada can't muzzle me.'

...for a Scotsman to be excluded from Canada is like being turned away from the family home.

In my opinion, this is the stupidiest thing the immigration minister could have done to himself, his party, and the best publicity for Galloway. Galloway is at its best in this kind of adversity, stupid adversity I mean...
According to a Youtube video link provided by Gert (see comment section), it seems that Galloway was banned after active lobbying from the Canadian Jewish Defense League. At the end of the debate on the video between the representative of the Jewish defense League and Galloway, the representative did not hesitate to speak in the name of the Canadian government. Now, many of my friends here in Canada are Jewish but I never discuss politics with them. They are totally brainwashed by their community leaders, and their community leaders have been the fiercest, and I must say the stupidiest, zionists operating in north America.

Obama and the illegal Israeli Occupation of Palestine

A round-up of Arab commentators on Obama's stance toward the Israeli Occupation of Palestine. Conclusion : 'Barack Obama is caving to the Israel lobby'. I am sorry because I must disagree. Barack Obama had already caved to the Israel lobby when he decided to run for president of the US and win. And any person who harbored any hope that president Obama will recognise the number one injustice in the middle east and the world that is the illegal and brutal occupation of Palestine is a naive fool.

"Colonialism is either legal or illegal, acceptable or criminal," suggested the eloquent Rami Khouri in Beirut's Daily Star. "Laws matter or they don't matter. There is no such thing as 'unhelpful' colonialism, any more than there is merely naughty rape, awkward murder, or unfortunate incest. Why is it that those in the west who celebrate and seek to export their commitment to the rule of law find it so hard to adopt both the rhetoric and policies that acknowledge the criminal illegality and political catastrophe that is the modern and continuing Israeli colonial rampage? What is it that makes giants in the west become eunuchs in the face of Israeli deeds?"

Will Obama go beyond the superficial ?

Israel, the US administration, and the coming war on Iran: Update

The Israel lobby opposed the appointment of Chas Freeman at the National Intelligence Council in the Obama administration and it succeeded. Because the first step for a war on Iran will be to skew the intelligence. And Freeman, according to Juan Cole, didn't seem to be the right choice for this. The Obama administration caved and let Freeman go. Now, fasten your seat belt, maybe there won't be any war on Iran in the next four years, but there will be fabricated intelligence.

Freeman would have been in charge of editing future National Intelligence Estimates. As Andrew Sullivan rightly hinted, the Israel lobbies did not want someone there so unsympathetic to their conviction that Iran is an imminent and existential threat to Israel, and so unlikely to report out conclusions that would underpin a US war on Iran, or US permission to Israel to strike Iran. The NIC chairman's tenure can last for a decade, and the Israel lobbies' best hope for a war on Iran would come if the Republicans regained the presidency and at least the Senate in 2012. They would want cooked-up NIEs ready to go, as the deeply flawed 2002 Iraq NIE supported that war.

UPDATE: Obama's gestures toward Iran are ambiguous, to say the least.
Obama's recent video message which was seen as 'positive' by western analysts was not preceded neither followed by positive action, especially when it comes to sanctions against Iran confirming his secretary of state criticism during the democratic primary campaign that he is all words and no deeds.

Iranian analysts said easing sanctions held the key to allaying Tehran's suspicions.
Some said Obama's decision last week to renew the US boycott of Iran's oil industry was at odds with the message in his video.
Saeed Leylaz, a pro-reform analyst, said security guarantees would be needed to convince Khamenei that the US was serious about engagement. "I think Obama's message can be a significant step but it's not sufficient," Leylaz said.
Sadegh Kharazi, a former Iranian ambassador to Paris and the UN, said Obama's message changed US "body language" but still characterised Iran in a negative way.
"There's still a negative terminology towards Iran as terrorist-supporting and as a military problem and these descriptions aren't fair."

Obama and Israeli Leader Make Video Appeals to Iran I wonder where the idea for this apeal originated ? In Israel or in Washington DC ? The synchronisation of both appeals will be felt as a provocation by many in Iran. Ar least this is the way I personally feel. Expect nasty things from Mr. O.

Willful and deliberate ignorance is crime: Israel, illegal settlements, house demolitions, and the EU

A confidential EU report accuses the Israeli government of using settlement expansion, house demolitions, discriminatory housing policies and the West Bank barrier as a way of "actively pursuing the illegal annexation" of East Jerusalem.

Also, in The same issue of The Guardian: 'You don't have a house any more'

Watch here Rory McCarthy's reportage on house demolitions in east Jerusalem.

But the EU is not acting according to its confidential reports. On the contrary, it is awarding Israel with a special and privileged relationship. I don't know how you call a state or an official in their official duty, or a person, who knew that Jews were sent in extermination camps and choose to ignore it and not act on it ? But it seems that the western moral background to the Nuremberg trial doesn't exist anymore or otherwise some people are humans and others aren't, and that's why we are having double standards when it comes to the case of the Jews in WWII and the Palestinians of today, or even by today's international moral standards when it comes to Palestinian refugees and Sudanese refugees, accusing the Sudanese leader of War crimes and honoring Israel's leaders. The assumption behind this is that Palestinians aren't humans who deserve to be at the receiving end of our high moral standards.

Obama and the ME: No We Can't

While SOS Hillary Clinton is visiting the ME, displaying displeasure toward the expansion of Israeli settelments in the West Bank and mingling with Syrian Foreign Affairs minister, the Obama ME policy is starting to unravel slowly: Condemn but do not act against Israel, Ignore the Palestinians, divide the rest, and keep pressure on Iran.

I was surprised to learn that the first thing on Obama's agenda was to lure the Russians into a deal against Iran. Iran has been Israel's only priority since the destruction of Iraq and the weakening of the Palestinian authority. However, every sane person recognizes that the first priority in the ME are the Palestinians, a stateless people who were robbed of their land and their dignity by Israeli Zionists and other Zionists worldwide. The man who did not dare to speak about Israeli atrocities against Gaza, nor speak a word of sympathy for the Palestinians who were being killed like flies by the Israeli army last December, is now adopting Israel's priority for the region: mounting an alliance against Iran's nuclear capacity in order to eliminate the last perceived threat to Israel's hegemony in the ME. I say 'perceived' because Iran is not a real threat to Israel. However, Iran being the last and only power in the ME opposing Israel and left undestructed by Israel and the US, despite the US attempt at it through Saddam and his golden years of collaboration with the US. And in this regard, Iran is considered a 'threat' to Israel because it challenges Israel's hegemony, total control, and neocolonial attitude in the region.

Ignoring the Palestinians has been for such a long time Israel's and the US central point of their ME policy and still, even after the latest Israeli criminal acts in Gaza. Indeed, as long as a unity Palestinian government is not encouraged by the US and diplomatic contacts restricted only to the ailing Palestinian authority, dismissing Hamas, and as long as the US declarations of displeasure about Israeli settlements are not followed or accompanied by real actions and sanctions against Israel, there is neither a road for a Palestinian state, nor peace and justice for Palestinians. Palestinians are tired of rethoric, they are waiting for real acts.

Although talking to Syria may appear as relaunching the Israeli-Arab peace process, it will not affect the central problem in the ME which is the justice and peace that Palestinians have been waiting for. On the contrary, it will affect negatively the Palestinians, giving a false impression of peace diplomacy while Palestinians are being slaughtered. We all know that peace with Egypt and Jordan did not produce any positive effects for the Palestinians. And I doubt that the US and Israel's intentions in discussing peace with Syria are genuine. Israel endorsed happily the whole concept fo the War On Terror in order to delay indefinitely any prospect of having to return to peace negotiations requiring the return of some land to Syria and Palestine, therefore it will never give up again any land taken during the 1967 war and by its settling activities. Why it should ? It is not being pressured to do so in any way by the US and the international community. On the contrary, and time again, it is the US who is pressured to act in certain ways in the ME by Israel.

I don't expect from Obama and his administration any meaningful development for the central problems that have been destructing the ME and slowly desintegrationg its social and political future for more than sixty years now: Israel's illegal land grabbing, criminal wars, and bullying against the Palestinians and its neighbours in the region. The slogan of the Obama campaign is simply not applicable to the ME as long as the US is keeping silent on Israel's nuclear arsenal and regional ambitions, and as long as it is not willing to shape its own policy and be respected in the region.

Iran is on Clinton's agenda, if not her intinerary.

Related: Obama and the Persian treasures in Chicago

Iranian ambassador to the UN: 'Obama, quit talking like Bush' (Thanks Naj)

There is also this excellent analysis, dated January 21st 09, by Gary Sick in the National Interest, on Obama's Iran and ME dilemma. Given what Mr. Sick has envisioned in his analysis, Obama's first moves in the ME are, at best, still uncertain, at worst, in line with the previous administration

Not Our Top Priority
Contrary to conventional wisdom, Iran is neither the most dangerous nor the most pressing problem to be faced by the new U.S. administration in the Persian Gulf region. The Afghanistan-Pakistan nexus, comprised of two weak or failing states with potential access to a stockpile of nuclear weapons, is clearly the most urgent and the highest risk to U.S. core interests. Iraq is a delicate and urgent problem, which will occupy much of the early attention of the new administration as Washington and Baghdad choreograph a responsible exit strategy. Nevertheless, the decisions the Obama administration makes about Iran in its first few months will have a significant effect on our other commitments.

Update: From Europe, where she met NATO members on March 5th, Hillary Clinton invited Iran to participate in the Afghanistan conference the US will be convening. Nothing new. The US did the same when it faced a mounting insurgency in Iraq, they invited Iran, only to blame it afterward for aiding the insurgency. I don't see why they are inviting Iran now that they are in this mess in Afghanistan. With Iraq and Afghanistan, they created the tense climate that is now behind Iran's alleged desire to acquire nuclear weapons.