Sunday,
March 22, 2009
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Dead Palestinian Babies and Bombed Mosques – IDF [Israeli
Defence Forces] Fashion 2009 |
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By Uri Blau Haaretz – Tel Aviv, Israel March 20, 2009 |
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(Excerpt) The office at the Adiv fabric-printing shop in south Tel
Aviv handles a constant stream of customers, many of them soldiers in
uniform, who come to order custom clothing featuring their unit's insignia,
usually accompanied by a slogan and drawing of their choosing. Elsewhere on
the premises, the sketches are turned into plates used for imprinting the
ordered items, mainly T-shirts and baseball caps, but also hoodies, fleece
jackets and pants. A young Arab man from Jaffa supervises the workers who
imprint the words and pictures, and afterward hands over the finished
product.  “Israel’s
Leaders Are Not Only War Criminals; They Are Fools.” ~Sir Gerald
Kaufman: MP, UK (Video Statement
- British House of Commons, January, 2009)  Freeman - Israel Has Hammer Lock On US Policy The
Guardian – UK March 20,
2009 (Excerpt) Chas Freeman, a former US ambassador to
Saudi Arabia, told CNN that
organisations representing the right wing of Israeli politics had "a hammer lock on both public discussion and policy",
and that their campaign to force his withdrawal as the chair of Obama's
national intelligence council had been intended
to "reinforce the taboo against
any critical discussion of Israeli policies". Freeman also reiterated his view that American policy on Israel had contributed to the 9/11
terrorist attacks, part of a litany that prompted several
members of Congress to speak out against his appointment. The US was
"paying a price" for its Middle Eastern policies, he said,
"because our actions have catalysed - perhaps not caused, but catalysed - a radicalisation of
Arab and Muslim politics that facilitates the activities of terrorists with
global reach, like those who struck us on 9/11." His opponents "should probably be called the Likud lobby"
rather than the Israel lobby, he added. "The atmosphere is such in this
country now that, whereas Israelis in Israel routinely criticise Israeli policies that they think may prove to be suicidal for their
country, those who criticise the same policies here, for the same reasons,
are subject to political reprisal." (More…)  Israel’s Ex-President Katsav Indicted For Rape and Other
Sexual Offences Reuters March 19, 2009 (Excerpt) TEL AVIV (Reuters) - Former Israeli President Moshe Katsav was
indicted on Thursday for rape and other sexual offences against three women
who used to work for him, charges that he denies. The indictment filed at Tel Aviv District Court accuses Katsav
of twice raping and, on another occasion, molesting a staffer while he was
tourism minister in 1996-1999. After he became Israel's ceremonial head of state in 2000,
Katsav sexually molested two other employees, according to the indictment,
which also alleged that he obstructed justice and tampered with a witness
after the scandal became public in 2006. Katsav, 63, resigned in 2007 and, a year later, rejected a plea
bargain under which he could have avoided rape charges and a possible jail
term in exchange for admitting lesser sexual offences. (More…)  Intelligence Made It Clear Saddam Was Not a Threat,
Diplomat Tells MPs •
Government left 'paper trail' in build-up to war David
Hencke, Westminster correspondent The
Guardian, Friday 20 March 2009 A former diplomat at the centre of events
in the run-up to the Iraq war
revealed yesterday that the
government has a "paper trail" that could reveal new information
about the legality of the invasion. Carne Ross, who was a first secretary at
the United Nations in New York for the Foreign Office until 2004, told MPs:
"A lot of facts about the run-up to this war have yet to come to light
which should come to light and which the public deserves to know." There
were also assessments by the joint intelligence committee which had not been
disclosed, Ross told the Commons public administration select committee. He told the inquiry that the intelligence
made it "very clear" that Saddam Hussein did not pose a significant
threat to the UK, as was being claimed at the time by ministers, and that
tougher enforcement of sanctions could have brought his regime down. He said he tried to inform ministers about
his misgivings over the developing momentum towards war, taking them aside
during their visits to New York or having brief conversations in their car to
the airport. But he said he was aware that speaking out too often or too
openly - even in internal debates - about his concerns about the government's
policy direction would damage his career by winning him a reputation as a
"naive troublemaker". Ross's evidence, by video link from New
York, came days after Jack Straw, who was foreign secretary at the time, used
the first ministerial veto under the freedom of information
act to ban the release of cabinet minutes on the decision to go to war. "I feel very strongly that there has
still not been proper accountability and scrutiny into what happened in
Iraq," Ross said. "There should be a full public inquiry
or parliamentary inquiry into the decision-making that took place. Hutton and
Butler are by no means sufficient to that purpose and it is disgraceful that
the government pretends that they are... if we had those systems of
accountability and scrutiny then leaking and other more aberration behaviour
from civil servants would be less necessary." He was one of four
"whistleblowers" who yesterday gave evidence to the committee. They also included Katharine Gun, a former
GCHQ translator who revealed the
organisation was tapping phones of countries that were against the Iraq war;
Brian Jones, the most senior expert on chemical weapons at the Defence
Intelligence Staff; and Derek Pasquill, a former Foreign Office official who
leaked documents about rendition and Muslim groups who were hostile to the UK
receiving government money. Jones and Ross never leaked any information
to the press. Jones instead complained to his superior that he thought the
intelligence dossier on weapons of mass destruction was being exaggerated but
was told that there was "one secret piece of information which could not
be shared with [him]" because it was too sensitive. He
told MPs that when the WMD dossier was published and he saw the difference
between the foreword by the prime minister and the contents he "thought
the intelligence services were going to be crucified". But he instead he found that most MPs, with
a few exceptions, supported the government. "I feel that you gentlemen [the MPs]
have been either deliberately or accidentally misled and these incidents have
not been followed up. I think that there has been a great laxity and that
won't encourage people like me or my colleagues to come to you," he said. Tony Wright, the chairman of the committee,
agreed with the allegation. "I think you are absolutely right to
castigate parliament, which I think has behaved abysmally in this matter -
endless bleating about the need for an inquiry but a complete failure to
insist upon one," he said. Gordon Brown has promised to look at an
inquiry after
all the troops come home from Iraq. guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media
Limited 2009 |
(Video)
As The World Squirmsã
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