Archive 2012

Obama orders assassination ofUScitizen

January 1, 2013July 25, 2013

By Tom Eley

(source: World Socialist Web Site)

For the first time in history, an American president has officially ordered the assassination of a US citizen.

President Barack Obama has approved the “targeted killing” of Anwar al-Awlaki, a US-born Muslim cleric who is reported to be in hiding in Yemen. No substantial evidence has been brought to bear against Awlaki, 38, who is accused of terrorism, and he will be afforded no legal recourse against the death sentence.

Word of Obama’s decision has been intentionally leaked by multiple intelligence officials to various media sources. Reuters and the Wall Street Journal published news articles on the story on Tuesday, and these were confirmed by stories in the Washington Post and New York Times on Wednesday.

Mashal hamas wont recognize Isarael

January 1, 2013July 25, 2013

(source: Ma’an News Agency)

Hamas leader Khalid Mash’al said Monday that Arab officials had urged the movement to accept the International Quartet’s conditions and recognize Israel in exchange for amendments to the Egyptian-backed unity deal.

"Whoever asks us to recognize Israel will be disappointed," Mash’al, the senior-most Hamas leader said during a speech marking a week of Prisoners Day activities in Damascus, where he has lived since his August 1999 expulsion from Jordan.

"I tell the Americans, the Zionists, and everyone … we will not succumb to your terms. We won’t pay a political price no matter how long the blockade lasts. God is with us and he will grant us victory."

Hamas accuses Egypt of poisoning palestinians in smuggling tunnel

January 1, 2013July 25, 2013

(source: telegraph.co.uk)

Hamas has accused Egyptian security forces of pumping poisonous gas into a cross-border smuggling tunnel, killing four Palestinians as a result

An Egyptian intelligence official has denied they pumped gas into the tunnel although admitted security forces blew up the entrances to several tunnels earlier this week and were not aware of any casualties.Egypt, which has been under pressure to shut down the cross-border tunnels into Gaza, routinely blows up entrances to seal the tunnels off.

Palestinian medics working for the Hamas-run health ministry said the four had died from suffocation and that there was evidence of poisonous gas.

Israels fated bleak future

January 1, 2013July 25, 2013

By John J. Mearsheimer

(source: Chicago Tribune.com)

President Barack Obama has finally coaxed Israel and the Palestinians back to the negotiating table. He and most Americans hope that the talks will lead to the creation of a Palestinian state in Gaza and the West Bank. Regrettably, that is not going to happen. Instead, those territories are almost certain to be incorporated into a "Greater Israel," which will then be an apartheid state bearing a marked resemblance to white-ruled South Africa.

There are four possible futures regarding Israel and the occupied territories. The outcome that gets the most attention is the two-state solution, where a Palestinian state would control 95 percent or more of the West Bank and all of Gaza, and territorial swaps would compensate the Palestinians for those small pieces of the West Bank that Israel would keep. East Jerusalem would be its capital.

The alternatives to a two-state solution all involve creating a Greater Israel — an Israel that effectively controls Gaza and the West Bank. In the first scenario, it would become a democratic binational state in which Palestinians and Jews enjoy equal political rights. This solution would mean abandoning the original Zionist vision of a Jewish state, since Palestinians would eventually outnumber Jews.