"Settlers removed from illegal outposts on West Bank" by Jodi Rudoren | New York Times, June 27, 2012
BEIT EL, West Bank — The moving trucks arrived here Tuesday morning while the men were in the middle of morning prayers. So began the first peaceful evacuation of a Jewish settlement from the occupied territories in memory.
More than 100 employees of Israel’s Defense Ministry helped families pack books and diapers and then carried boxes to the brick path behind the 33 apartments in the neighborhood known as Ulpana that were declared illegal because they sit on private Palestinian land. The families moved quietly, though not willingly, to temporary homes down the hill that the Defense Ministry had constructed over the last 21 days. They were resentful of losing homes they love but grateful the government had agreed to build 10 times their number in this sprawling religious settlement near Ramallah.
You know, even the image repair is a great big fraud.
Btw, Palestinians have "lost" -- well, had taken from them -- homes they loved.
With Israel’s Supreme Court having ruled that five of Ulpana’s 14 multifamily buildings had to be removed by July 1, the government spent the past several months struggling to find a solution that would appease the settlers without enraging the international community.
Even when Israel does what is good and right it is for its own selfish, self-serving reasons. That's why no one likes them except the bribed and blackmailed bootlickers running western governments.
Last week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced he would not only add around 300 homes to Beit El but also 500 elsewhere in the West Bank and that he would try to relocate rather than demolish the Ulpana buildings.
Of course, if it were a Palestinian home in territory Israel wants it's time for the bulldozers.
So while the court ruling was seen as a victory for Palestinians and the Israeli left that advocates for them, Tuesday was hardly a celebration on either side.
Ummm, Palestinians advocate for themselves quite nicely, thank you.
Many experts and advocates said the handling of Ulpana — and two other settlements on private land scheduled to be evacuated this summer, Migron and Givat Assaf — simply proved Netanyahu’s commitment to the settlement enterprise and made any future two-state solution less likely.
Yes, keep that less likely solution scenario in mind for later, although one wonders (or not) how there will ever be a two-state solution when Israel insists on keeping its "settlements" and apartheid wall.
Most of the international community considers all Jewish settlements in the West Bank territory that Israel captured in the 1967 war to be illegal, but Israel distinguishes between those built with permits on state land and those constructed on private plots or without government authorization.
There isn't going to be a Palestinian state unless it is going to be Gaza (or the size of a thumbnail in the West Bank). Now I understand why Hamas has so fiercely held the place.
And, of course, that has been the plan all along for a Greater Israel.
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Look who else is finally (maybe) getting off their ass and moving:
"UNESCO committee OK’s bid to name Nativity Church as endangered site" June 30, 2012
PARIS — UNESCO’s World Heritage committee on Friday approved a Palestinian bid to place the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem on its list of sites of World Heritage in Danger — a move seen by some nations as dangerously mixing politics and culture.
Oh, I can't imagine who!
Palestinian spokeswoman Hanan Ashrawi said the vote was an affirmation of Palestinian sovereignty over the site that marks the place where Christians believe Jesus was born.
And as a Christian I want Palestinians, not usurping Ashkenazi Jews from Eatern Europe, in control of the site.
Israel denounced the vote, with Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Ilana Stein saying the decision ‘‘has turned UNESCO into a theater of the absurd.’’ ‘‘This is a sad day for the World Heritage Committee,’’ she said.
Oh, that's who, and it sure is.
You know what? If they don't like it, withdraw the charter creating the puke state and make it all Palestine again.
The 21-member committee, meeting in St. Petersburg, Russia, voted 13-6 to include the church and pilgrimage route, located in the Israeli-controlled West Bank, on its list of sites. There were two abstentions.
The drive to get the Nativity church quickly recognized as a World Heritage site was part of the Palestinians’ bid to win international recognition since attempts to establish a Palestinian state through negotiations with Israel are frozen.
Every little bit helps.
The United States was among nations opposed to the Palestinian proposal of an emergency candidacy for the iconic Christian site, shortcutting what is usually an 18-month-long process to apply for World Heritage recognition. Neither the United States nor Israel was on the committee. The US ambassador to UNESCO, David Killion, said the United States is ‘‘profoundly disappointed.’’
Because my nation's government is a slave to the Israeli agenda.
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Israel and their agents are not sitting still, either:
"Palestinians detain dozens in weapons crackdown" July 02, 2012|Karin Laub, Associated Press
The Palestinian self-rule government has detained some 200 people, including security officers, in recent weeks in the biggest crackdown on illegal weapons in the West Bank in five years, a spokesman said Monday.
Officials say the campaign is unusual because it targets include alleged vigilante gunmen linked to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah movement. Previously, security forces went mainly after armed supporters of rival groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
Of some 200 people detained since May, just under 100 have been released after surrendering their weapons while the others remain in custody, said police spokesman Adnan Damiri. In all, about 100 guns have been seized, he said.
The weapons roundup was sparked by a shooting attack in May on the house of the governor of the Jenin district, Kadoura Mousa, who later died of a heart attack. Damiri said suspects in that shooting are among those in detention.
Others are being held on suspicion of illegal weapons dealing, extortion and attacks on security officers, he said.
The operation focuses on the Jenin district, the largest contiguous area under Palestinian self-rule. Israel retains overall control of the West Bank, a territory it captured in 1967, along with the Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem. Palestinians have limited autonomy in 38 percent of the West Bank.
The performance of Abbas’ security forces, key to buttressing Palestinian claims for independence, has won praise by Israel in recent years. At the same time, Palestinian officials complain that Israeli restrictions on the movement of the Palestinian security forces and frequent Israeli army incursions into self-rule areas hamper law-and-order efforts.
Jenin saw some of the worst Israeli-Palestinian violence during the second Palestinian uprising a decade ago.
Yes, Israeli war crimes were committed there.
At the time, gunmen fighting Israel emerged as local heroes, but also acted with impunity at home, terrorizing other members of the community, residents say.
??
In recent years, the Palestinian Authority has gradually taken control in Jenin and other parts of the West Bank.
However, several high-profile shootings in Jenin in the past 15 months signaled that the campaign was far from complete.
In a brazen daytime attack in April 2011, a masked gunman shot and killed Israeli actor Juliano Mer Khamis, who ran a local community theater, after stopping his car in the Jenin refugee camp. The killer remains at large.
Then he wasn't Palestinian. Israel's army would have arrested someone even if they were innocent.
This was followed by the attack on the governor’s house in May.
On Sunday, assailants fired at Palestinian lawmaker Shami al-Shami of Fatah, wounding him in the leg as he approached his home. Damiri said the motive remains unclear and that there are no suspects yet in Sunday’s shooting.
Could this all be Israeli Mossad actions to keep Palestinians divided and fractured? It wouldn't be the first time, nor would obfuscation from my paper be a first.
Al-Shami said in an interview Sunday that he opposes taking weapons away from Fatah loyalists, arguing that the movement needs them for a possible future confrontation with Hamas and other rivals.
You guys were supposed to be talking unity, but that always fades from my prism.
The Islamic militant Hamas seized Gaza by force in 2007, leaving Abbas with only parts of the West Bank.
Actually, THAT is a LIE, and the AmeriKan media KNOW IT IS A LIE!
"Hamas overwhelmingly won Palestinian Parliament elections in 2006.... Hamas won Palestinian parliamentary elections in early 2006.... In 2006, Hamas won Palestinian legislative elections.... Hamas won the last parliamentary elections in 2006.... Hamas won parliamentary elections in 2006.... Hamas won a majority in 2006 elections.... won a parliamentary election in 2006"
That is seizing by force, 'eh? I'll remember that the next time we have a change in government(?) due to selections, 'er, elections.
Related(?):
Six Zionist Companies Own 96% of the World's Media
Declassified: Massive Israeli manipulation of US media exposed
Aaaaaaah!!
In response to the Gaza takeover, Abbas cracked down on Islamic militants in the West Bank, arresting armed supporters and shutting down Hamas-linked institutions. Damiri said the current campaign is the biggest since 2007.
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Also see: Abbas Hailed as Hero
I guezz certain intereztz would zee it that way.
JENIN REFUGEE CAMP, West Bank — Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has launched his broadest weapons crackdown in years, for the first time confronting his own loyalists, including rogue security officers and gunmen linked to his Fatah movement.
The arrest raids conducted in recent weeks are a response to high-profile vigilante shootings that threatened to undermine law-and-order successes in this West Bank town, seen as key to Palestinian statehood claims.
Some 200 people were detained and dozens of guns seized in recent weeks, many in the northern West Bank district of Jenin, Palestinian police said Monday.
Just under half the detainees were released after surrendering their weapons, while others remain in custody on suspicion of weapons dealing, extortion, and shooting attacks, police spokesman Adnan Damiri said.
Until the crackdown, Abbas had largely avoided taking on armed men with ties to Fatah, apparently fearing a political backlash and unrest in the ranks.
But Usrael said do it or your done.
The recent shootings, including a May attack on the house of the Jenin district governor, who later died of a heart attack, seem to have left him no choice.
Among those arrested were members of several gangs involved in illegal weapons trading and extortion, as well as those who attacked the house of the Jenin governor. The Palestinian officials have linked the fatal heart attack to the shooting
At the same time, Palestinian human rights groups have criticized Abbas for curtailing basic freedoms in the West Bank under the guise of security.
Yup, he's one of ours.
Over the weekend, his security forces violently dispersed two protests against Abbas’s security coordination with Israel and a planned meeting with Israeli Vice Premier Shaul Mofaz. The meeting was later postponed.
Officers and plainclothes agents scuffled with dozens of young demonstrators and beat several of them.
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And speaking of Palestinian leaders that were done in:
RAMALLAH, West Bank — The Palestinian president cleared the way Wednesday for a possible autopsy on Yasser Arafat’s remains, following a request from his widow after a Swiss lab said it found elevated levels of a lethal radioactive isotope on the longtime Palestinian leader’s belongings.
The developments have reignited a storm of speculation over what killed Arafat, who died on Nov. 11, 2004, at age 75 at a military hospital outside Paris.
Arafat’s widow, Suha, who rejected an autopsy at the time of his death, said she wanted one done now after the lab’s findings, first reported by the Arab satellite TV station Al Jazeera. She did not explain why she waited nearly eight years to have the belongings, including a toothbrush, tested.
French doctors said at the time that Arafat died of a massive brain hemorrhage — weeks after he fell violently ill at his West Bank compound.
Arafat had suffered intestinal inflammation, jaundice, and a blood condition known as disseminated intravascular coagulation, according to French medical records.
But the records were inconclusive about what brought about the blood condition, which has numerous causes including infections, colitis, and liver disease.
The uncertainty prompted many in the Arab world to allege he was killed by Israel, which viewed him as an obstacle to a peace treaty. Israeli officials have vociferously denied any foul play.
That's about as good as any confirmation.
Francois Bochud, who heads the Institute of Radiation Physics in Switzerland, said his lab examined belongings that Arafat’s widow said he used in his final days.
Specialists found what Bochud characterized as ‘‘very small’’ quantities of polonium, an isotope that is naturally present in the environment.
Right, it was natural causes.
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I'll do some exhuming of my own:
"Arafat’s Assassin is… Not a Conspiracy Theory anymore
Certain topics refuse to die. On July 3, 2012, the death of Yasser Arafat on November 11, 2004, returned to the headlines of international media. Arafat was in good health until he suddenly fell ill on October 12, 2004. At the time he was besieged by Israeli tanks in the Palestinian Authority Ramallah headquarters. When his condition deteriorated, he traveled to Paris, where he died in a military hospital. The cause of his death remained mysterious, giving way to a plethora of rather insulting rumors; Israeli media rejoiced in them. Yesterday, al-Jazeera reported that the Institute of Radiation Physics at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland had found significant traces of polonium-210 in samples taken from Arafat’s personal effects, including his trademark keffiyeh. The report is considered credible, having been quoted even by the BBC in its Middle East section. “I can confirm to you that we measured an unexplained, elevated amount of unsupported polonium-210 in the belongings of Mr Arafat that contained stains of biological fluids,” said Dr Francois Bochud, director of abovementioned institute. Today, July 4, Suha Arafat, his widow, asked the Palestinian Authority to exhume her husband’s body from its grave in Ramallah. If tests show that his bones contain high levels of polonium, there would be a conclusive proof that he was poisoned.
Considering the reputation of the laboratory which conducted the tests, there is little doubt of the results. The exhumation will just provide corroboration to what has been discovered. The date of the poisoning is known. Due to the restrictions imposed by the Israeli siege, the movements of Arafat are known from the poisoning moment onwards, until his death. Considering this, finding the assassin should not be difficult.
Polonium
The poison used is interesting since it is relatively available and yet very obscure; even in this case the checking institute admitted that the existence of polonium traces was tested only after all common poisons were discarded. Polonium is a radioactive element discovered by Marie Curie in 1898. Its first victim was her daughter, Irene. Until yesterday, its most famous victim had been Alexander Litvinenko, a Russian refugee in London who died in 2006 after polonium was slipped into his tea at a sushi restaurant. Now it appears, the Russians took this unusual poisoning technique from somebody else.
There is one scientific detail which is important. Polonium is highly radioactive, to the extent that air surrounding polonium samples exhibits a blue-glow. However, the spectrum of the radiation it produces is unusual. It radiates very little gamma rays, most of its pollution is in the form of short-lived alpha-particles. As such it is difficult to identify it from a distance. In other words, this is a radioactive poison which is easy to move around, even through areas monitored for radioactive substances. One of the uses of this poison is in the nuclear industry, where it serves as an atomic bombs’ initiator. Unsurprisingly, other known victims of it were two workers of the Israeli nuclear program. This has been confirmed by official sources, but no other details on the circumstances have ever been provided. Israel may have discovered then the flexibility of this substance as a killer. Could Israel have assassinated Yasser Arafat by slipping polonium in his food?
Not a Conspiracy Theory anymore
At first this seems impossible. After all, during the relevant period no Israelis had access to Arafat’s deathbed. The other side of the equation is not less baffling. No Palestinian locked up in the Ramallah compound had access to polonium. Palestinian markets seldom offer it. This looks as a dead-end; those who had access to the poison couldn’t deliver it, those who could deliver it, didn’t have access to the poison.
Yet, on August 7, 2011, top officials of Fatah issued a report claiming that Mohammed Dahlan sent poison disguised as medicine to President Yasser Arafat while he was in a Paris hospital, eventually killing him. I expanded on this event in Abu Fadi: A Credible Conspiracy. After Arafat’s death, Dahlan ordered the incineration of the vials he had brought and thus brought suspicion on himself. Yet, we know now, that regardless of the contents of the suspicious flasks, Arafat had been poisoned in Ramallah, prior to his arrival at Paris. Polonium kills slowly and painfully as the few known cases show. Can this complex picture be reconciled into a logical framework?
The Palestinian Preventive Security Force is the official security apparatus of the Palestinian National Authority, in other words the Palestinian Shin Beth, or what in other Arabic speaking countries is called the muhabbarath (spellings may vary). It was established in 1994 by President Yasser Arafat as result of the Oslo Accords. It provides intelligence to the political level, its duties including counter-terrorism, counter-espionage, and defending the national economy. It is regarded as highly professional; its cadres are mostly university graduates who receive intensive training both domestically and abroad. Where did the PPS appear from? Its duties identify a Walsingham-state ideology, inherited from a country that adopted this system of underground political-police from the source: England. I am saying with the complete confidence of knowledge
that the PPS structure was designed by the Shin Beth, under the approval and supervision of Yitzhak Rabin. Moreover, the Shin Beth trained many of the PPS officers, who in the past had served as low-level informants of the Shin Beth during the First Intifada. We are talking of sister organizations, which on more than one occasion had shared staff. The abovementioned Mohammed Dahlan, and many other Palestinians, were trained by the Shin Beth.
that the PPS structure was designed by the Shin Beth, under the approval and supervision of Yitzhak Rabin. Moreover, the Shin Beth trained many of the PPS officers, who in the past had served as low-level informants of the Shin Beth during the First Intifada. We are talking of sister organizations, which on more than one occasion had shared staff. The abovementioned Mohammed Dahlan, and many other Palestinians, were trained by the Shin Beth.Palestinian inner wars are as bitter as their wars against the Jews. In 2007, Dahlan assisted an American plan to overthrow the elected Hamas government in Gaza, known as the Battle of Gaza. The coup failed when Hamas carried out a counter-coup that threw the Fatah forces out of Gaza, a fitting end to his ongoing violence towards Hamas (during the entire 1990s Dahlan forces were accused of torturing Hamas detainees, to the extent that Gaza became nicknamed "Dahlanistan”). His corruption was made public in the Karni scandal of 1997, when it was revealed that Dahlan was diverting 40% of the taxes levied at the Karni Crossing (an estimated one million Shekels a month) to his personal bank account (he had Israeli bank accounts also). Hamas has claimed that two Palestinians arrested in Dubai for suspected involvement in the assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh (Ahmad Hassanain and Anwar Shheibar) are former members of a death cell which carried out violent suppression of Hamas members. Both work at a construction company in Dubai owned by Dahlan. A senior Hamas official told Al-Hayat newspaper that the two provided logistical aid to the Mossad hit team alleged to have carried out the assassination, renting them cars and hotel rooms. Dahlan denies the charges. When Dahlan led the PPS Gaza branch, the West Bank one was run by Jibril Rajoub, who later became a prominent Palestinian politician. The New York Times published an article named “Once Neighbors, Now Rival Palestinian Leaders,” by James Bennet on April 29, 2003, mentioning that Jibril Rajoub openly accused Dahlan of being an Israeli agent.
Israel could have given the poison to one of its Palestinian agents with access to Arafat’s food. There is little doubt that an agent willing to perpetrate the crime could be found.
Who is the assassin?
It is practically impossible to find out how states carry out assassinations, or the illegitimate rules governing them. As with polonium and other poisonings, Israel is also a leader in this field. On September 25, 1997, Khaled Mashal—a prominent Hamas leader—was the target of an assassination attempt carried out by the Israeli Mossad under orders of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Two Mossad agents carrying Canadian passports entered Jordan and injected Mashal with an unknown nerve toxin. A few days later, Netanyahu gave in to international pressure and provided the antidote. Toxin and antidote were developed by the Israel Institute for Biological Research (see Mossad, Sonic Weapons & Khaled Mashal). What is clear is that in such events the political level signs the death sentence and thus is morally responsible for the crime. By attacking Mashal, Netanyahu became a bio-terrorist.
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Also see: Arafat poison-plot transcript causes storm in Palestine
Arafat’s Assassin Admits
The Assassination of Yasser Arafat had been Ordered by the Israeli Cabinet
Related:
"Israel’s Jerusalem Post came up with its own conspiracy theory this week, claiming Mr. Abu Sharif’s contributions to the poisoning debate were part of an attempt to pin blame on Israel and divert any possible link to Mahmoud Abbas, Mr. Arafat’s successor as president of the Palestinian Authority.
An Al Jazeera report in 2009 quoted Farouk Qaddumi, a senior exiled Fatah dissident, accusing Mr. Abbas of having conspired with Israel to kill Mr. Arafat. The broadcast led to a ban on Al Jazeera in the Palestinian territories....
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Yeah, back to those guys and their garbage:
"Clinton, Abbas seek path for Mideast peace" July 07, 2012
PARIS — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Friday that she has held productive talks with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and hopes to build momentum for another peace push when she visits Israel in 10 days.
Where she will receive the U.S.'s marching orders for the next wave of Jewish-inspired wars in the region.
Clinton and Abbas met one-on-one in Paris, where the top American diplomat attended a 100-nation conference on Syria. She said they discussed how to build on a recent letter exchange between Abbas and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel.
Clinton said the United States is committed to a two-state peace agreement....
In Jerusalem on Friday, Israel said a UN Human Rights Council mission on West Bank settlements is ‘‘flawed and biased’’ and said it would not cooperate with it.
Israeli officials accused the human rights body of corruption for again singling out the Jewish state while ‘‘systematically ignoring massive human rights violations’’ elsewhere.
Now that is chutzpah!
The agency appointed three officials Friday afternoon to conduct a fact-finding mission on how Israel’s West Bank settlements affect the lives of Palestinians. The council president, Ambassador Laura Dupuy Lasserre of Uruguay, named three women to the panel: Christine Chanet of France, Unity Dow of Botswana, and Asma Jahangir of Pakistan.
Yup, can't even investigate the matter.
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