South Africa – Breaking News

Obama Steers Toward Endless War With Islam
by Michael Scheuer

[Michael Scheuer is a twenty-plus-year CIA veteran. From 1996 to 1999, he served as the Chief of the bin Laden unit at the Counterterrorism Center.]

In just over 100 days, President Obama is on the verge of ensuring that militant Islams war on America will be waged for decades to come and its forces will never suffer manpower or money shortages. How did he accomplish so much in some little time? He simply behaved as all U.S. political leaders behave; that is, as an ignorant and arrogant interventionist.

Let us take the ignorant part first. Since Jan. 20, Obama and his band of Israel-Firsters have shown the Muslim world moderate, conservative, radical, and fanatic that George W. Bush was no one-off fluke, that Democrats intend to wage war on Islam just like the Republicans. How so? Well, look at Obamas decisions and actions. They can only be explained by accepting that the new president is ignorant of our Islamist foes, either by choice or because the ability to read is not required to graduate at Harvard.

Read More »Obama steers toward endless war with islam

Are Israeli courts staffed by Nazi judges?  

 
By Khalid Amayreh in the West Bank

Just as anti-Semitism became official policy in  Germany in the mid 1930s, it is seems hostility toward  Arabs, including  Israel’s own 1.5 million Palestinian citizens,  is becoming a de facto official policy of the Israeli state.

This ominous orientation is being constantly promoted by a number of manifestly racist cabinet ministers and Knesset members who declare openly that their aim is to make everyone in Israel “submit to the Jewish nature of the state.”

The brash racism is now permeating through the entire apparatus of the Jewish state, from the police, to the justice system, to the army, to the educational system and, of course, the media.

Last week, Israeli courts  showed off  their  racist credentials  when two Israeli settlers, a murderer and a would-be murderer were acquitted  of murdering a Palestinian and seriously wounding two others.

Read More »Are Isaraeli courts staffed by nazi judges?

 Why Are You Supporting Occupation, Settlement & Oppression?

The following open letter has been sent to the South African Zionist Federation (Cape) by the committee members of Open Shuhada Street. It is a response to an email circulated by the Federation.

(source: Writing Writes.org)

We are members of Open Shuhada Street (OSS) an organisation committed to peace and security for Israelis and Palestinians. We have called for a boycott of products made by Ahava [1] – Dead Sea Laboratories Ltd (Ahava) because these products are manufactured illegally in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) by a company owned by illegal settlements in the OPT. The profitability of settlements businesses like Ahava causes suffering for millions of ordinary Palestinian children, women and men. The call to boycott Ahava is a common sense, peaceful expression of the need to reverse the settlement enterprise which stands in the way of the creation of two states, Israel and Palestine, living in peace.

On 25 August 2010, in response to the call to boycott the settlement-made products of Ahava, the SA Zionist Federation (SAZF) Cape launched a vicious personal attack on us. This was coordinated by SAZF head office. We respond in this open letter.

What are the facts?

It is undisputed that Ahava is manufactured in the West Bank, part of the occupied Palestinian territory, outside of the recognized borders of the State of Israel. A letter byY. Ellis the CEO of Ahava [2], sent out by the SAZF, says: “Ahava’s manufacturingfacility is located … within the area usually referred as the West Bank.” Ahava neither pays taxes to the Palestinian Authority, nor does it get its license to operate from the Palestinian Authority.

It is undisputed that Ahava is manufactured in an Israeli settlement. The Ahava CEO says: “Ahava’s manufacturing facility is located at Kibbutz Mitzpe Shalem… within the area usually referred as the West Bank.”Settlements own 44.69% of the stock in Ahava – Dead Sea Laboratories Ltd. Settlement Kibbutz Mitzpe Shalem owns 37.31% and Settlement Kibbutz Kalia owns 7.38%. These figures are calculated, based on certificates from the Israeli Registrar of Companies.

The presence of these settlements means land confiscations, house demolitions, discriminatory water use and harassment by settlers. These cause hardship to Palestinians. Some in surrounding communities were displaced from Nabi Musa where Kalia is now situated and Arab al-Ta’amira near Mitzpe Shalem.

Read More »Open letter to the sa zionist federation

Israeli Bodysnatchers

By Bouthaina Shabaan

(source:Counterpunch)

The investigative report written by Swedish journalist Donald Boström and published in Sweden’s largest newspaper Aftonbladet about Israeli occupation forces killing Palestinians with the objective of stealing their organs has raised a political and media storm in Israel, disclosing up a horrible crime perpetrated for years under the full gaze of the ‘free’ world.   These criminal acts began in 1992 when Palestinians started to witness a sharp rise in the number of young Palestinians disappearing and of bodies of Palestinians killed by occupation forces being returned with organs such as hearts, kidneys, livers and eyes missing.  

“I was in the area at the time, working on a book”, Boström writes. “On several occasions I was approached by UN staff concerned about the developments. The persons contacting me said that organ theft definitely occurred but that they were prevented from doing anything about it….  I travelled around interviewing a great number of Palestinian families in the West Bank and Gaza – meeting parents who told of how their sons had been deprived of organs before being killed. One example that I encountered on this eerie trip was the young stone-thrower Bilal Ahmed Ghanam”. 

Bilal, 19, was one of 133 Palestinians killed in various ways that year; 69 of them went through postmortem examination.  Boström describes in detail how Israeli occupation soldiers targeted Bilal, a leader of the stone-throwing children, at midnight on May 13, 1992, shot him first in the chest and he was subsequently shot with one bullet in each leg. Two soldiers then shot Bilal in the stomach. Finally, they grabbed him by his feet, dragged him, then loaded him in a jeep and drove him to the outskirts of the village, where a military helicopter waited. He was flown to an unknown destination.  Five days later he came back, dead and wrapped in green hospital fabric. It was clear that Bilal’s body was slit from his abdomen up to his chin.  The families and relatives of Khaled from Nablus, the mother of Raed from Jenin and the uncles of Mahmood and Nafez from Gaza, all talked to Boström about their children who had all disappeared for a number of days only to return at night, dead and autopsied.

Read More »Story puts Isaraeli government in frenzied denial mode