Human Rights Violations in Israel and Palestine

Human Rights Violations in Israel and Palestine - by Stephen Lendman

The Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) publishes annual reports on the state of human rights in Israel and occupied Palestine. This article is based on its latest year end 2007 one.

ACRI is Israel's leading human and civil rights organization and the only one addressing all rights and liberties issues. It was founded in 1972, is independent and nonpartisan, and leads the struggle for these issues in Israel and the Occupied Territories through litigation, legal advocacy, education, and public outreach. ACRI also believes that civil and human rights are universal. They must be "an integral part of democratic community building and....a unifying force in Israeli public life" for everyone, especially those most marginalized, disadvantaged and currently persecuted or neglected.

ACRI evaluates the state of human rights annually, and it's latest report coincided with the December 10, 2007 International Human Rights Day. Its purpose is to cite flagrant violations; note positive trends and developments, if any; and "trace significant human rights-related processes (affecting) Israeli citizens and residents." Reports rely on various information sources: government publications, NGO reports, newspaper and other published materials, parliamentary documents and court litigation.

Human rights violations directly result from government policies, actions and inactions, and ACRI's report is gloomy. It found the Israeli government derelict for having allowed the "blanket" of rights it's supposed to ensure for Arabs and Jews to erode. As a result, rights violations grow, more people are affected, and those harmed most are on society's fringes. ACRI's report is comprehensive and documents them in areas of:

-- health;

-- workers' rights;

-- the state of Arab Israelis;

-- education in Sderot;

-- migrant worker rights;

-- citizenship and residency status;

-- human rights in occupied Palestine, highlighting neglect and discrimination in Arab East Jerusalem, Hebron, and the "unrecognized" Negev Bedouins;

-- freedom of expression;

-- the right to privacy;

-- criminal justice; and

-- the overall destabilization and erosion of democracy in the country. Israel claims to be a democracy. Its record disproves it.

ACRI's evidence is disturbing and compelling, yet it's appalled by the Israeli public's indifference. It aims to change this by publicizing its findings so those in government, the media and general population know them and will react to reverse an ugly and damaging trend. Growing numbers of people worldwide know how Israel harms Palestinians. ACRI's report shows that Jews are also impacted.

Health Care in Israel

Israel's 1994 National Health Insurance Law has noble guarantees - quality health services for every Israeli resident in accordance with justice, equality and mutual support principles. Ever since, however, Israeli governments violated their obligation, and unequal access has increased. It's characterized by inadequate funding, privatized health services, a steady erosion in the extent and quality of services provided, and the crowding out of access for the poor and many in the middle class. Defunding public health means private insurance is as essential as it is in the US. The result is two health systems differing markedly in quality - one for the well-off and another for everyone else, including many in the middle class.

ACRI finds it disturbing. The trend undermines Israel's social contract with its citizens, violates basic rights, and reneges on the state's duty under the International Covenant of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. ACRI focuses on the problem with special emphasis on a growing hospital crisis, the need for expensive supplemental insurance, and how various population groups cope inadequately under very limited and expensive health service access.

In recent years, budgets have been cut, and the trend continued in 2007. The Ministry of Health's per capita allocation is 14% lower than in 2001, and the Ministry's development budget is 43% lower. Public hospitals have been hardest hit, patient access to quality health care has eroded, and medical personnel are understaffed and aren't able to provide the best care possible.

The Israel Medical Association January 2007 data highlight the crisis:

-- the hospital beds/population ratio has declined; it was 3.27 per 1000 persons in 1970; a year ago it touched 1.94, the lowest figure among western countries;

-- the approved number of beds hasn't increased, the need for them has, and it's been met by adding "non-approved" beds that comprise up to 30% of the total in hospital internal medicine units (IMUs); the result is growing overcrowding and medical staff unable to cope;

-- on routine days, average hospital occupancy is 100% compared to 85% in the West; in IMUs it reached 130% and in pediatric units 112%; and

-- overcrowding and underfunding force early patient releases before they're ready to go; they also contribute to the spread of infections, viruses and diseases and require doctors and medical staff to be responsible for a growing number of patients, more than they can adequately handle.

Ever since the 1994 National Health Insurance Law passed, health services have eroded in violation of its guarantee. The Adva Center advocates for policy changes favoring disadvantaged Israelis. It tallied the damage through last year and found a 44% decline in health service funding with gaps made up for by supplemental insurance. Over 70% of the public have it while the rest rely solely on dwindling national health services that often fail to deliver.

Most disadvantaged Israelis lack supplemental insurance: one-third are age 65 or older; 53% are Israeli Arabs; 42% are Jews of Russian origin; while 11% are from the Hebrew-speaking community. A 2007 Physicians for Human Rights report describes how various population groups are disadvantaged. Those furthest removed from Israel's social center got poorest access. They include: low wage earners; "unrecognized" Negev Bedouins; East Jerusalem Palestinians; Israelis married to Occupied Territory Palestinians; prisoners; Palestinian spouses of Israeli Arabs; migrant workers; refugees and asylum-seekers; and victims of human trafficking. In total, these groups comprise about 1.25 million men and women.

Income alone is a hugely limiting factor, and two studies document it. A 2005 Brookdale Institute one showed that 15% of Israelis forego some medications. Among low wage earners, the figure was 23%. A 2006 Israel Medical Association survey of Israeli Jews found 23% of them abstain from some form of treatment or essential medication with income and family size the main limiting factors. The same survey reported that 56% of Israeli Jews fear they'll be unable to afford needed medication because of cost, and it estimated that the situation for Israeli Arabs is far worse.

The situation is most acute in peripheral areas, especially in southern Israel that's populated by Bedouin Arabs and new immigrants. Here, socioeconomic status is lowest and so is access to health services that are far below what's available in Central Israeli cities like Tel Aviv and Haifa: fewer hospital beds, inadequate specialized equipment, fewer specialists, and waiting periods for appointments can take weeks. In addition, for more complicated cases, patients are at risk. Hospitals can only provide preliminary exams, patients must incur time and expense to get to where proper treatment is available, and it can be touch and go in life-threatening cases.

ACRI believes that distributive justice demands that the state provide local health services where they're lacking so all Israelis get equal access to it. That will require funding boosts not now available or planned.

Worker Rights and the Unemployed

Subcontracted employment is a growing trend in Israel, the practice exploits workers, labor laws are violated, and human rights organizations are taking note. On average, subcontract wages are 60% of standard, few or no benefits are gotten, and worker rights are routinely violated. Most common abuses include: wages below minimum, illegal overtime without pay, firings without severance, social benefits withheld, leave time disallowed or no pay while on leave, lower pay because of illegal deductions and fines, and organizing efforts crushed.

The situation is deplorable, organizations like ACRI are addressing it, and the government tops their target list. It's the country's largest subcontract employer and the body responsible for making and enforcing the law. Progress for reforms show promise:

-- in March 2007, the Ministry of Finance's General Accountant, Yaron Zelekha, directed government ministries to assure that subcontract bidding includes all social benefits workers are entitled to under protective labor laws. ACRI called it a "significant breakthrough" provided they're enforced; earlier efforts failed because they weren't;

-- the same Ministry now requires subcontract companies to present confirmation they're complying with employment laws;

-- in June 2007, the Knesset produced a draft bill requiring organizations using subcontract labor to assure worker rights aren't violated; and

-- the General Accountant also established a minimum price for employing subcontract workers.

Earlier in 2005, the government established the "Mehalev" program that was known as the "Wisconsin Plan" where the idea originated. In principle, it was sound, but in practice it failed. The idea was this - reduce the number of guaranteed income recipients by integrating them into the job market and thus provide better opportunities for more pay and benefits. In fact, the format was unsuitable for many required to enroll, too little investment went into the program, and bureaucratic obstacles overwhelmed its administration.

A June 2007 inter-ministerial report assessed the plan, concluded it failed, and recommended a new one be established with a menu of proposed changes. As a result, revisions were made, and a new program called "Employment Lights" began in August 2007 with performance under it yet to be assessed.

The Rights of Israeli Arab Citizens

The Palestinian population (excluding refugees) is around 5.3 million. About 3.9 million live in occupied Gaza and the West Bank, and another 1.4 million are Israeli citizens comprising 20% of the population of 7,150,000. They live mainly in three heartlands - the Galillee in the north, along the "Little Triangle" in the center, and the Negev in the south. They get no rights afforded Jews even though Israeli Arabs are citizens, have passports and IDs and can vote in Knesset elections. Even so, they're nonpersons, are systematically abused, neglected, and are confined to 2% of the land plus another 1% for agricultural use.

ACRI assesses the damage that shows up in reports and surveys it reviews. They reveal a disturbing trend - increasing racism toward and discrimination against Israel's Arab citizens. For example:

-- the June 2007 Israel Democracy Institute's "Democracy Index" reported disturbing results explained below, and the data are the highest seen since pre-Oslo;

-- a March 2007 Center Against Racism report showed a 26% rise in racist incidents against Israeli Arabs in 2006. In addition, an overall negative trend toward Arabs is growing, including feelings of discomfort, fear and hatred. Most disturbing is the government's attitude and how the media portrays its Arab citizens - stereotypically negative, threatening and as state enemies. Fear and loathing is then sown that, in turn, is translated into actions - threats, assaults, forced separation of Jewish and Arab communities and racist Knesset legislation;

-- Knesset members (MKs) and public figures want to strengthen the Jewish character of the state and do it legislatively. For example:

(1) to make military or national service a prerequisite to vote and get National insurance benefits; Arabs aren't required to serve in the military, they're not encouraged to do it, few of them do, and Israel's Ministry of Defence has discretion under Article 36 of the 1986 National Defence Service Law to exempt all non-Jews;

(2) to require MKs and ministers to declare their allegiance to the State of Israel as a "Jewish and Democratic State;" and

(3) a 2007 draft bill declaring that Jewish National Fund (JNF) land (about 13% of state lands) should only be for Jews; the bill passed its "preliminary reading" by 64 to 16. In actuality, the government owns about 80% of Israeli land, the JNF another 13%, and Jews and Arabs the rest. The Israel Land Administration (ILA) administers all government and JNF land, controls who gets access to it, and pretty much assures that Arabs can't buy Israeli land.

These and other measures reveal a disturbing pattern - state-sponsored racism against Israeli Palestinians. They're routinely victimized, punished for being Arabs, and denied equality, dignity, privacy, freedom of movement and everything afforded Jews. Their freedom of expression was also challenged after four Arab documents were published with clearly stated aims - to legislatively mandate equal citizenship rights for all Israelis (Jews, Muslims, Christians and others). Outrage was the response because Jews believe these demands threaten state sovereignty. So do officials like head of General Security Service (GSS), Yuval Diskin. He called Israeli Arabs a "strategic threat," and got Attorney General Menachem Mazuz to agree.

Palestinian citizens have no say and are disadvantaged in many ways. They're routinely denied equal access to public resources in all areas of life, and ACRI highlights the northern rehabilitation program budget as an example. Arab villages there are sorely lacking because of government neglect. Budgeted funds are inadequate, they're improperly used, Arabs in the north are marginalized, their needs go unaddressed, and 2008 promises to be worse with planned budget cuts.

It's worse still in the south for the Negev Bedouins who comprise half the area's 160,000 population. They live in villages called "unrecognized" because their inhabitants had to flee their homes during Israel's War of Independence, couldn't return when it ended, and are considered internal refugees and "trespassers" on Jewish land.

These villages were delegitimized by Israel's 1965 Planning and Construction Law that established a regulatory framework and national future development plan. It zoned land for residential, agriculture and industrial use, forbade unlicensed construction, banned it on agricultural land, and stipulated where Israeli Jews and Palestinians could live.

Existing communities are circumscribed on a map with blue lines around them. Areas inside can be developed. Those outside cannot. Great latitude is shown Jewish communities, so new ones are added. In contrast, Palestinian areas are severely constricted with no allowed room for expansion. Their land was reclassified as agricultural meaning no new construction is allowed. It means entire communities are "unrecognized" and all homes and buildings there are illegal, even the 95% of them built before the 1965 law passed. They're subject to demolition and their inhabitants displaced at Israel's discretion. It's so new land for Jews can be provided with Arab owners helpless to stop it.

As a result, no new Palestinian communities are allowed, and existing "unrecognized villages" are denied essential services like clean drinking water, electricity, roads, transport, sanitation, education, healthcare, postal service, telephone connections, refuse removal and more because under the Planning and Construction Law they're illegal. The toll on people is devastating:

-- clean water is unavailable almost everywhere unless people have access to well water;

-- the few available health services are inadequate;

-- many homes have no bathrooms, and no permits are allowed to build them;

-- only villages with private generators have electricity that's barely enough for lighting;

-- no village is connected to the main road network,

-- some villages are fenced in prohibiting their residents from access to their traditional lands; and

-- education is limited, achievement levels are low, and dropout rates high.

It's worse still when home demolitions are ordered. It may stipulate Palestinians must do it themselves or be fined for contempt of court and face up to a year in prison. They may also have to cover the cost when Israelis do it under a system of convoluted justice penalizing Palestinians twice over for being an Arab in a Jewish state.

In 2007, around 200 Bedouin homes were demolished, compared to much lower numbers in previous years: 23 in 2002, 63 in 2003, 15 in 2005 and 96 in 2006. Most of the homeless are "invisible," the media hardly covers them, Jews are largely uninformed, and planned Negev Judaization assures things will get worse. It's to be a "A Miracle in the Desert" with a clearly defined aim - to populate the area with a half million Jews in the next decade. Plans are for 25 new communities and 100,000 homes on cleared Bedouin land. Unless efforts coalesce to stop them, the human toll will be horrific.

Various advocacy organizations are trying, and one is the UN Committee on the Elimination of all forms of Racial Discrimination. It published its recommendations in March 2007 that called on Israel to reconsider its development plans and recognize "the rights of the Bedouins to own, develop, control and use their communal lands, territories, and resources...." ACRI calls them a "national, religious, and cultural(ly) indigenous minority." Under international law, Israel is obligated to respect their right to preserve their culture and provide them adequate housing, education, livelihood and dignity. Israel, on the other hand, disdains international law, so hoping authorities will respect it looks impossible.

Education in Sderot, Israel

Sderot borders Gaza and has been struck by Palestinian Qassam rockets. ACRI's study focuses on protecting schools from them, rather than on the education they provide. It reported that despite the state's obligation to defend its citizens, it's done it poorly in Sderot, including for its schools. They were built in the 1970s, have shingled roofs and lack security rooms. In July 2006, the government adopted the Home Front Command's protection plan that called for reinforcing 24 of the city's schools. Then after a Parents Committee of Sderot petition to the High Court of Justice in October, it was announced that protected space construction would be provided for all preschools and first through third grade classrooms in the Gaza-border region.

In May 2007, the Court ruled that the government must provide "full protection" for all classrooms by the start of the 2007-2008 school year. By mid-October, the Sderot Municipality reported work was proceeding satisfactorily on seven schools with plans to build 13 news ones by 2010.

ACRI also reported on a shortage of educational psychologists to provide counseling services to students, parents and educators because of the trauma caused by rocket landings in residential areas. A better strategy would be for Israel to stop attacking Gazans, they wouldn't respond in self-defense, and that would ensure safety on both sides. Israel ignores that option, however, chooses conflict instead, so the Ministry of Education and Sderot Municipality need bigger counseling budgets for what they should never have to deal with in the first place.

Migrant Worker Rights

In October 2006, Israel enacted legislation prohibiting trafficking in persons for slavery, forced labor, prostitution, human organ sales, human reproduction, or immoral publications. Ignored were other types of trafficking, such as "binding" workers to employers and requiring onerous fees to brokers that are still common. More on that below. A victory was achieved in part, however, for 63% of those requesting it in 2007 - granting legal status to migrant workers' children who were born in Israel or have lived there since very young, use Hebrew as their primary language, and have adopted Israel as their culture.

The High Court granted another one as well on the way agricultural firms, nursing care services and other industries "bind" migrant workers to a single employer. It ruled this infringes on workers rights, must be discontinued, and gave the government six months to draft new a employment arrangement for its migrant workers. As of last October, nothing was implemented, 18 months after the Court ruling. Abuses still occur, and ACRI concludes that evidence about them paints a "bleak picture for future employment conditions for Israeli migrant workers."

Then there's the matter of brokers' fees that can be "astronomical" and a way to earn profits at workers' expense. Israel allows them even though the law forbids it. They're an oppressive burden, can cost several months wages, and they may require high interest rate loans to be able to pay them. A solution may be near, however, under an agreement between Thailand and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) regarding agricultural worker recruitment. Beginning this year, only migrant workers from countries with which Israel has bilateral brokerage fee agreements will be allowed into the country. It remains to be seen if this will work.

Citizenship and Residency Status

Sovereign states are entitled to decide who can immigrate and get permanent status. But they must consider human rights, issues of family, and not exclude refugees, asylum-seekers, stateless persons or those coming under duress. Israel fails on all counts and makes things worse. It has no immigration policy for non-Jews who aren't welcome, and family member status rules are changing and becoming hardened.

In 2005, the government appointed Professor Amnon Rubinstein to head a committee to assess the immigration issue, examine relevant legislation and regulations, and propose new policies and laws. In February 2006 a report was issued, but the committee wasn't reappointed, and bureaucratic guidelines replaced policy with Population Registry civil servants in charge. An administrative black hole is the result with policies governing non-Jews stiffened.

Since 2003, the Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law (Temporary Order) denies legal status to Palestinian spouses of Israeli citizens. Israeli Arabs suffer the most as they maintain marriage and family ties with their relatives in the Territories. In May 2006, the High Court rejected petitions opposing the law and determined that it serves an essential security purpose. As a result, although the law is temporary, it's been extended several times, most recently through July 2008.

In addition, the law's scope has been expanded and now prevents family member spouses from Iran, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and other government-designated "enemy states" from getting status. Tougher immigration rules for non-Jews were also in a government-proposed draft bill stipulating that illegal Israeli residents must leave for a multi-year "cooling off" period before being eligible to return. The law is far-reaching on issues of family life; equality for spouses of Israeli citizens and residents; parents of Israeli minors; elderly parents; minor children of Israeli citizens and residents; indigenous Negev Bedouins with no formalized status; asylum-seekers; women victimized by trafficking; and many others.

According to the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), the number of asylum-seekers in Israel rose sharply over the past year. Most arrive through Egypt under trying conditions, bear scars of physical and mental abuse, are impoverished and desperate, have no relatives or friends in the country, and are totally dependent on aid from their host.

For its part, Israel lacks clear policy directives for dealing with the situation. Mechanisms in place are based on Ministry of Interior unpublished procedures, and inter-ministerial committee asylum determinations are made on a case-by-case basis with all deliberations kept secret. The result is the lowest percent of requests granted in the West, just 1% in 2005. It was even lower in 2006 at under 0.5%. In 2007, 350 refugees got temporary protection, 805 others were denied, and 863 are under review.

Even persons recognized as refugees aren't granted permanent Israeli status. At best, they get temporary permits for limited stays. Provisions allow bi-annual renewals if hardship conditions remain in countries of origin, but at times refugees are summarily turned away and others (including women and children) imprisoned for extended periods under very difficult conditions and without having committed an offense.

Israel is morally and legally bound to assist asylum-seekers. And it has every right to establish laws and procedures for their admittance. Yet its record is shameless as the West's least hospitable country to individuals in greatest need.

Human Rights Violations in Occupied Palestine

June 2007 was a milestone for Palestinians. It marked 40 years under Israeli occupation, during which time their democratic rights have been denied and they've endured appalling human rights abuses - to life, liberty, security, privacy and personal safety, in or outside their homes. In addition, they have no property rights or freedom of movement, employment, or for health care and education. They're collectively punished and economically strangled. Their borders are blocked and routinely violated as are their waters and air space. They're also constricted by oppressive curfews, roadblocks, checkpoints, electric fences and separation walls, and their homes are being bulldozed and land taken for illegal settlement expansions. It gets worse.

Israeli security forces brutally harass, arrest, imprison, torture and extra-judicially assassinate anyone with impunity. Palestinians are helpless, redress is denied them, and when they resist, they're called terrorists. The toll has been horrific, it's too detailed to recount, so ACRI focused on three prominent issues: movement restrictions, conditions in Hebron that symbolize the overall situation, and life in occupied Gaza that's more repressive than ever. It then addressed conditions in Arab East Jerusalem.

Free movement is a basic human right that affects other rights: to employment, to live in dignity, to education, health, and the right to family life. Since the second Intifada began in September 2000, these freedoms have been constricted, and it's made life in the Territories impossible. They mainly affect the West Bank that's restricted by hundreds of checkpoints, roadblocks, barriers and the Separation Wall that's taken 10% of Palestinian territory through a shameless land grab on the pretext of security.

Movement restrictions have split the West Bank into six geographic units - North, Center, South, the Jordan Valley, the northern Dead Sea, and East Jerusalem. Movement is severely restricted within and between them, it's had a grave impact on normal economic life, and Palestinians are effectively prisoners in their own land.

Consider the checkpoints. They restrict movement and subject Palestinians to inordinate delays and abusive searches. They're supplemented by countless obstacles further impinging movement: concrete blocks, earth mounds, and trenches that deny direct vehicular or pedestrian passage and allow Israelis exclusive access to 311 kilometers of main West Bank roads connecting all of Israel and the Territories. Those most harmed are the elderly, sick, pregnant women and small children. So are selected population groups according to gender, age or place of residence. Males aged 16 to 30 or 35 are targeted as well as populations in cities under assault.

Then there's the "black lists" called "Police Refused" or "GSS Refused." Tens of thousands of Palestinians are on them for groundless and arbitrary reasons with no right of appeal. Their lives are disrupted, freedom denied and movements restricted inside the Territory or when attempting to leave. The Separation Wall makes things worse. It's 80% on Palestinian land, has nothing to do with security, separates Palestinians from each other, and violates their fundamental human rights:

-- it separates Palestinian cities, villages, communities and families from each other;

-- cuts off Palestinian farmers from their lands;

-- impedes access to health facilities, educational institutions and other essential services; and it

-- obstructs access to clean water sources and effectively steals them.

The planned route when completed will be immense - 780 kilometers. By October last year, 409 kilometers were completed and another 72 km were being built. As of last May, there are 65 gates but Palestinians can only pass through 38 of them and only for selected hours of the day and not at all on some days. Around Jerusalem, the planned route is 171 km; half was completed by last June and another 32 km were under construction. The Wall cuts off Palestinians in East Jerusalem neighborhoods from the remaining West Bank as well as villages around Jerusalem and some Palestinian East Jerusalemites from the center of their lives and livelihoods in the city.

When completed, the Wall will create two types of Palestinian enclaves:

-- villages and agricultural land on the Israeli side in what's called the "seam zone;" and

-- villages and land on the Palestinian side that are blocked on three or more sides by twists in the route or the intersection of the Wall with physical roadblocks or roads forbidden to Palestinians.

The UN Committee on the Elimination of all forms of Racial Discrimination published recommendations concerning Israel in March 2007. It expressed concern that Occupied Territory movement restrictions have been "highly detrimental" and have impacted essential elements of Palestinians' lives that "gravely infringe (their) human rights...." They have no justification for security or "military exigencies." Yet they're maintained, and who'll challenge Israel to change things.

The same situation exists in Hebron, ACRI and B'Tselem jointly documented it, and last year prepared a report called: "Ghost Town." It's a disturbing story of separation, forced displacement and terror. Israel is the oppressor, Palestinians the victims, and no one seems to care. The human toll is horrific - "protracted and severe harm to Palestinians (from) some of the gravest human rights violations" against them that go unaddressed, continue unabated, and worsen.

Hebron's City Center was once a thriving commercial and residential area. Today it's a "Ghost Town" because Israel destroyed its fabric of life through a state-imposed policy of land seizures, extended curfews, harsh free movement restrictions and unaddressed violence. Combined, they terrorize Palestinians and prohibit them from driving or even walking on the area's main streets. That, in turn, makes life impossible. The consequences have been devastating with peoples' lives uprooted.

Since Gaza and the West Bank were occupied in 1967, Israel expelled tens of thousands of Palestinians overall. In Hebron alone, thousands of residents and merchants were removed or had no option but to leave the City Center because of Israel's "principle of separation" policy.

Hebron is important as the West Bank's second largest city, the largest in the territory's south, and the only Palestinian city with an Israeli settlement in its center. It's concentrated in and around the Old City that once was the entire southern West Bank's commercial center. No longer.

For many years, Israel severely oppressed Palestinians in Hebron's center. It partitioned the city into northern and southern parts and created a long strip of land for Jewish vehicles only. In addition, in areas open to Palestinians, they're subjected to "repeated detention and humiliating inspections" any time, for any reason, and it worsened after the 1994 Baruch Goldstein massacre of Muslim worshipers in the Tomb of the Patriarchs. Israel's military commander ordered many Palestinian-owned shops closed that were the livelihoods for thousands of people. In addition, he condoned frequent settler violence as a way to remove Palestinians from their own land. It worked.

A combination of restrictions, prohibitions and deliberate harassment devastated Hebron's residents. They lost their homes, land, businesses and freedom. ACRI and B'Tselem documented it in the Old City and Casbah areas where most Israeli settlements are located and Palestinians face the harshest conditions and restrictions on their movements. As a result, they were removed or had to leave, and what was once "the vibrant heart of Hebron (is now) a ghost town."

A senior Israeli defense official explained the scheme that's pretty common knowledge today. He called it "a permanent process of dispossessing Arabs to increase Jewish territory." Distinguished Israeli historian, Ilan Pappe, calls it state-sponsored ethnic cleansing that's been ongoing since Israel became a state in 1948. B'Tselem-ACRI document the practice in Hebron's once viable City Center.

At least 1014 Palestinian housing units (41.9% of the total in the area) were vacated by their occupants. Another 659 apartments (65% of the total) were as well during the second Intifada. In addition, 1829 Palestinian businesses (76.6% of them all) were lost. Of the total, 1141 (62.4% of the total) closed after the year 2000, 440 or more by military order. ACRI and B'Tselem believe Palestinian apartment abandonments were even higher than reported because neighborhoods near settlements collapsed and housing and living costs declined dramatically there. Poor families took advantage. Unable to afford more costly housing, they left distant parts of Hebron for Old City neighborhoods where they occupied vacated houses.

Overall, the affects were devastating - job loss, poor nutrition, rising poverty, growing family tensions from prolonged confinement, severe harm to education, welfare and health systems, and a mass exodus away from areas near settlements resulting in lost homes and businesses. To this day, nothing has changed, there's no sign it will any time soon, and things, in fact, got worse.

Israeli security forces protect settlers who freely attack Palestinians with impunity. Offenses include physical assaults and beatings (at times with clubs), stone throwing, and hurling refuse, sand, water, chlorine, and empty bottles. Settlers freely loot Palestinian shops and commit acts of vandalism against them and other owner property. Killings also occur as well as attempts to run over people with vehicles, chop down fruit trees, poison water wells, break into homes, and pour hot liquids on Palestinian faces. IDF forces are positioned everywhere in the area. They witness everything and ignore it.

Soldiers also commit violence and use excessive force as do police. In addition, they engage in arbitrary house searches at all hours of the day and night, seize houses, harass, detain randomly and conduct humiliating searches and harsh treatment overall. These actions violate international and Israeli administrative and constitutional law. They persist nonetheless.

In Gaza it's even worse. Life there was never easy under occupation, but conditions worsened markedly after Hamas' surprise January 2006 electoral victory. Israel refused to recognize it. So did the US and the West. All outside aid was cut off, an economic embargo and sanctions were imposed, and the legitimate government was isolated. Stepped up repression followed along with repeated IDF incursions, attacks and arrests. Gazans have been imprisoned in their own land and traumatized for months. No one outside Palestine cares or offers much aid, and things continue to deteriorate.

Hamas is isolated, assaulted and called a "hostile entity." Then on September 19, 2007 sanctions were tightened, electricity and fuel was reduced and so were supplies of food, medicines and other essential items. Tighter border crossing restrictions were also imposed on an area already devastated by years of repression.

Its industrial production is down 90%, and its agricultural output is half its pre-2007 level. In addition, nearly all construction stopped, and unemployment and poverty exceed 80%. Shops then ran out of everything because Israel allows in only nine basic materials, their availability is spotty, and some essentials are banned, like certain medicines, and others restricted like fruit, milk and other dairy products. Before June 2007, 9000 commodities could be imported. Today, it's only 20, people don't get enough food, and the situation is desperate.

Then there's the matter of power without which Gaza shuts down. The Strip needs 230 - 250 daily megawatts of electricity. Its only power plant supplies around 30% of it, but people in central Gaza and Gaza city are totally dependent on what can't be supplied if industrial diesel fuel the plant depends on is cut off. The result is critically ill people are endangered, hospitals can't function, bread and other baked goods can't be produced without electricity to power ovens, food is already in short supply, so is fresh water, and sanitation conditions are disastrous.

The situation may now worsen following Israel's High Court January 30, 2008 decision in which it upheld government sanctions on Gaza and its right to restrict fuel and electricity. Here's what's planned on top of already imposed cuts. Starting February 7, further reductions will be made incrementally according to a plan submitted to the Court - 5% on three of ten lines supplying electricity to Gaza for a total of 1.5 megawatts through around February 21. An additional 25 megawatts have already been cut because of diesel fuel reductions to Gaza's sole power plant. The result is rolling blackouts, hospitals in crisis, and sewage treatment plants, water pumps and other vital services can't operate. Transportation is also disrupted. The situation is critical, Israel won't address it, these punitive measures violate international law, and the world community is dismissive.

Egypt, however, may provide belated relief. On March 21, the pro-government Al-Ahram newspaper reported that Cairo is expected to build a power line to supply about 150 megawatts of electricity to the Strip and become its main supplier. A senior Egyptian electricity ministry official apparently confirmed it by indicating the Islamic Development Bank agreed to finance the project that will link El-Arish in Sinai with Gaza.

In addition, an Egyptian oil minister issued "urgent" directives for his country to provide natural gas to the Territory and help develop offshore Palestinian gas fields that British Gas Group (BG) estimates hold 1.3 trillion cubic meters in proved reserves worth nearly $4 billion. For its part, Israel wants to cut all ties with Gaza and apparently finds the new arrangement acceptable or at least won't prevent it. However, it remains for it to be implemented, Gaza remains under siege, and conditions on the ground are at crisis levels.

East Jerusalem is also victimized by neglect and discrimination even though Israel granted its Palestinian population "permanent resident" status after its 1967 occupation. International law is clear, and Israeli law as well obligates the government to treat the population equitably and afford them all services and rights Israelis get, aside from the right to vote in national elections.

Israel refuses and for the past four decades has systematically neglected Palestinian Arabs as part of a discriminatory policy to drive them from the city and secure a Jewish majority in it. As a result, East Jerusalem residents suffer severe distress, conditions continue worsening, and life for them is an unending cycle of poverty, neglect, shortages and repression. In 2003, Central Bureau of Statistics data showed 64% of Palestinians in the city lived in poverty compared to 24% of Jewish families. It was even worse for children - 76% of Palestinians compared to 38% of Jews.

Other examples of abuse and neglect are also common:

-- Palestinians aren't allowed building permits for new construction; in rare instances when they're allowed, permit fees are too high to be affordable for nearly everyone;

-- their lands continue to be expropriated for new Jewish neighborhoods and settlements;

-- in contrast, Jewish areas get generous construction and infrastructure investment;

-- desperate Palestinians resort to their own devices, erect homes on their own land, yet live in fear of frequent demolitions that are patently illegal;

-- East Jerusalem sanitation facilities are sorely lacking; sewage and drainage infrastructure is grossly inadequate, antiquated and poorly maintained; the result is frequent sewer flooding and harmful sanitary conditions that are exacerbated during bad weather; in addition, trash goes uncollected and piles up in streets;

-- infrastructure is in disrepair, public parks and recreational facilities don't exist, the postal service barely functions, and most Arab neighborhoods get no fresh water;

-- educational facilities are lacking; a severe classroom shortage exists, and only half of the city's children are enrolled in municipal schools that are overcrowded, poorly equipped and unsafe;

-- the toll on Palestinians is horrific in many ways: family relationships are damaged; violence in them is common; school dropouts are high; jobs are scarce; crime and drug use rises; and health and nutritional problems are severe; in spite of overwhelming needs, welfare services are inadequate, near collapse and one consequence is thousands of children and youths are in acute distress and at high risk;

-- police and security force brutality exacerbates the hardships; harassment is common and so is unrestrained violence; Palestinians are terrorized, harmed, frequently killed, and no one outside the Territories seems to notice or care.

The Right to Privacy

Israel has no formal constitution. It relies instead on 11 Basic Laws. Section 7 (D) states that "there shall be no violation of the confidentiality of conversation." Authorities ignore it, and data show police wiretapping abuses are common, thus violating the right to privacy.

By law, police must formally request a court order to wiretap. Rarely are they refused, and in 2007 a Knesset committee investigated the issue. In November 2007, a new bill was drafted concerning the transfer of data from communications companies to the police for use in criminal investigations. It provides wide latitude, and ACRI calls the potential for privacy violations enormous and possibly unprecedented. Protests were lodged against the original bill, and they led to important changes toning down the initial language.

Privacy issues also affect job applicants and employees, can be abusive, and individuals get no choice - accept them, or else. They:

-- demand job applicants sign a complete waiver of medical confidentiality;

-- allow employer surveillance of telephone conversations and e-mail correspondence;

-- mandate compulsory polygraphs for applicants and employees; and

-- use video cameras for workplace monitoring.

Criminal Justice

The right to counsel is essential for anyone charged with a crime. Israel's Public Defender's Law (1995) stipulates that detainees and defendants unable to afford help are entitled to state-funded representation, but only for crimes with prison terms of five or more years. This was amended in December 2006 to prohibit prison sentences for unrepresented defendants.

Israel's legal system also establishes the right to a fair trial and other safeguards. Yet, erosion began in 2007 under a temporary Knesset January 2007 law infringing on detainees rights: they can be denied face-to-face contact with an attorney; prevented from meeting with family members; denied the right to be present at hearings on their charges; interrogated without counsel; and unreasonably cut off from the outside world that creates a feeling of isolation.

In June 2007, the Office of the Public Defender published a report on detention and incarceration conditions in Israeli police internment facilities. As in previous years, it was alarming and indicated basic human rights violations, some extreme. An Israeli Bar Association March 2007 report reached the same conclusions:

-- severe overcrowding and highly restrictive living space in two-thirds of detention facilities examined; some cells were only two square meters or less;

-- larger cells held up to 10 prisoners;

-- sanitary and hygiene conditions were poor as well as ventilation; some cells lacked windows;

-- wall peeling and crumbling from dampness and mold were common;

-- prisons had filthy and foul-smelling toilets and showers as well as infestations of cockroaches, rats and other vermin;

-- lighting was poor and prisoners often sat in dark, suffocating, fetid cells; the wings of one prison were described as unsuitable for human habitation; and

-- complaints were common about violence at the hands of guards and wardens; collective punishment was also inflicted and overall treatment was degrading, humiliating and invasive.

Police brutality is a major issue, just as it is in the US. The authorities have great power and too often abuse it with impunity. Complaints often are unaddressed. The problem is systemic, it's within the Police Service, and specifically in the Police Investigations Department of the Ministry of Justice (PID).

PID was established in 1992 and mandated to investigate complaints against police in cases of excessive force. However, investigations are rare, and seldom ever are there prosecutions, regardless of the complaint's severity and almost never against senior officers with authority. The lack of effort assures continued brutality because officers know they can get away with it.

The Destabilization of Democracy

The Israeli Democracy Institute (IDI) surveyed Israeli citizens, published its "Democracy Index" in June 2007, and included some disturbing findings in it. Its survey showed:

-- less than half of respondents believe public speakers have the right to criticize the government;

-- only 54% favor freedom of religion and a bare 50% feel Arabs and Jews should have equal rights;

-- 87% rate Jewish-Arab relations poor or very poor;

-- 78% oppose having Arab parties or ministers join Israel's government;

-- 43% believe Arabs aren't intelligent;

-- 55% feel the government should encourage Arab emigration; and

-- 75% think Arabs favor violence.

Overall, the results showed democratic values eroding since the IDI 2003 survey. It doesn't happen in a vacuum. It's part of the cultural environment: from the home, within families, at school, through the media and other social contexts from which attitudes develop. It's also gotten from the law, the way Israeli courts interpret it, particularly the High Court of Justice, and subsequent legislative efforts to bypass Court rulings and trample on human rights. The problem is pervasive and worsening as Israel becomes a very hostile place, much like America. And it doesn't just affect Israeli Arabs who get no justice.

ACRI cites the role of Daniel Friedman since he became Israel's Justice Minister in February 2007. He's since proposed a number of initiatives and "reforms" that threaten to undermine the legal system and High Court in particular. One proposal was to change how justices are chosen in a way that would curtail their independence and politicize the entire process. In August, he then prepared a draft bill to limit public petitioner rights to the High Court, especially for human rights organizations.

ACRI ends its lengthy and disturbing report as follows: History shows that "parliaments tend to violate human rights in times of crisis. It is precisely at these moments, however, that (it's vital) to preserve the judiciary's role in the system of checks and balances." Israel claims to be a democracy. It has an odd way of showing it, and when it comes to its Arab citizens, it's nowhere in sight.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to The Global Research News Hour on RepublicBroadcasting.org Mondays from 11AM to 1PM US Central time for cutting-edge discussions on world and national topics with distinguished guests.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8477

Jonathan Cook's "Blood and Religion"

Jonathan Cook's "Blood and Religion" - by Stephen Lendman

Jonathan Cook is a British-born independent journalist based (since September 2001) in the predominantly Arab city of Nazareth, Israel and is the "first foreign correspondent (living) in the Israeli Arab city...." He's a former reporter and editor of regional newspapers, a freelance sub-editor with national newspapers, and a staff journalist for the London-based Guardian and Observer newspapers. He's also written for The Times, Le Monde diplomatique, the International Herald Tribune, Al-Ahram Weekly and Aljazeera.net. In February 2004, he founded the Nazareth Press Agency.

Cook states why he's in Nazareth as follows: to give himself "greater freedom to reflect on the true nature of the (Israeli-Palestinian) conflict and (gain) fresh insight into its root causes." He "choose(s) the issues (he) wish(es) to cover (and so is) not constrained by the 'treadmill' of the mainstream media....which gives disproportionate coverage to the concerns of the powerful (so it) makes much of their Israel/Palestine reporting implausible."

Living among Arabs, "things look very different" to Cook. "There are striking, and disturbing, similarities between" the Palestinian experience inside Israel and within the Occupied Territories. "All have faced Zionism's appetite for territory and domination, as well as repeated (and unabated) attempts at ethnic cleaning."

Cook authored two important books and contributed to others. His newest one, just published was reviewed by this writer. It's called "Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East." Advance praise accompanied it, and noted author John Pilger calls it "One of the most cogent understandings of the modern Middle East I have read. It is superb, because the author himself is a unique witness" to events and powerfully documents them.

Cook's earlier book was published in 2006. It's titled "Blood and Religion: The Unmasking of the Jewish and Democratic State" and is the subject of this review. It's the rarely told story of the plight of Israel's 1.4 million Arab citizens, the discrimination against them, the reasons why, and the likely future consequences from it. Israel's "demographic problem" is the issue Cook addresses. It's the time when a faster-growing Palestinian population (excluding the diaspora) becomes a majority, and the very character of a "Jewish State" is threatened. Israel's response - state-sponsored repression and violent ethnic cleansing, in the Territories and inside Israel.

Arab-Israeli citizens are referred to as "Israeli Arabs." It's how many of them refer to themselves as do Israelis. They're the sole remnants of the Palestinian population Israel expelled in its 1948 War of Independence. Palestinians call it the Nakba that alnakba.org describes as follows: ...."the Nakba (cataclysm)....saw the mass deportation of a million Palestinians from their cities and villages, massacres of civilians, and the razing to the ground of hundreds of Palestinian villages." Noted Israeli historian, Ilan Pappe, believes 800,000 were affected. Cook uses 750,000. Whatever the true figure, it was huge and changed everything for Palestinians henceforth.

Authorities have worked ever since to hide the past and "de-Palestinize" those remaining inside Israel - to erase their "national and cultural memories and turn them into identity-starved 'Arabs.' " So far, it's failed. There's been a resurgence of "Palestinian-ness" for at least two reasons. Palestinians believe that Israel won't ever grant them a viable independent state and will always regard them as a "fifth column." They're also denied a national or civic identity. Nonetheless, they prefer Israeli citizenship to life in the Territories where people have no rights under occupation. They live with a hope Israelis are obsessed to deny them - that one day Israel will change from a Jewish State to a democratic one for all its people.

So far, it's nowhere in sight, Cook documents it in his book, and he states his premise upfront: "Israel is beginning a long, slow process of ethnic cleansing" Israeli Arabs from Israel as well as Palestinians from the parts of the Occupied Territories it wants for a Greater Israel.

Introduction - The Glass Wall

Israel has a penchant for walls, fences and barriers as exemplified by its best known one being erected in the West Bank. It's mammoth in size and when completed will encircle most of the Territory's inhabitants and measure nearly 700 km. It's ghettoizing Palestinian communities, cutting them off from each other, and isolating them all from the outside world. It devours the landscape, uproots ancient olive groves, destroys pastures and greenhouses, and expropriates around 10% of occupied Palestine by an inexorable land-grab masquerading as security.

In 1994, a similar barrier went up in Gaza - an electronic fence around the Territory, and again security was cited. Both walls reflect early Zionist thinking - that Palestinians won't ever be dispossessed so "unremitting force" has to subdue them. It affects Palestinians under occupation and "rarely mentioned" Israeli Arabs who comprise one-fifth of the population or a slightly greater percentage than when Cook wrote his book. At year-end 2007, Israeli society broke down as follows: 7.24 million total of which 75.6% (5.47 million) are Jews, 20% (1.45 million) Arabs and 4.4% (320,000) Christians and others.

Walls and fences keep those in the Territories constrained. An invisible "glass wall" inside Israel is just as "unyielding and solid as the walls around the West Bank and Gaza." Its aim is the same - to imprison the people, force them into submission, hide what's happening from view, and do it for a reason.

Israel's problem is demographic and its danger is twofold:

-- a far higher Palestinian birth rate threatens the Jewishness of the state; and

-- right of return UN Resolution 194 guarantees compound the problem.

Walls and fences are meant to solve it - physical and glass, and Cook suggests the latter is the greater obstacle to Middle East peace.

They exist for a purpose - to intimidate and silence captive people in different ways. In the Territories, brute force is used, but inside Israel efforts are more subtle to preserve an image of a democratic state. In other words, "the glass wall is essentially a deception." It creates the impression of normality that "bears no relation to reality" that, in fact, is harsh, unyielding and has been unrelenting for decades. In a nominal democratic state, Israeli Arab rights are denied, they're considered hostile non-citizens, and when they demand equal treatment to Jews, it causes "howls of outrage."

No matter what they do or how they try, they're Arabs first, and in Israel that's the "enemy." In a Jewish State, they'll "never be equal to a Jew." The state, in Jewish eyes, belongs to Jewish people, not its non-Jewish citizens, and Israeli courts affirm a Jewish State. Its a legal concept found nowhere else in the world, most countries could never get away with it, yet the world community ignores what Israel does.

Cook notes the racist implications. Nearly all Israeli land is in trust for Jewish people living anywhere. Arab Israelis have no right to it and legally can be excluded from parts of their own country. This notion was embodied in Israel's Law of Return. It was passed in 1950, and it's purpose is still relevant - to erase the demographic threat of a Palestinian homeland in a Jewish State. It grants every Jew in the world the right to automatic Israeli citizenship if they choose to live in Israel, and the reason is simple - to ensure a continued Jewish majority in perpetuity. So far it's worked, but it's threatened. More on than below.

Israel's Declaration of Independence enshrined a Jewish State identity. It only recognizes Jewish people, their history and culture as well as Zionist movements. They include the Jewish Agency and Jewish National Fund that legally may discriminate against non-Jews.

Israel is rare in another respect as well. Like the UK, it has no formal constitution although its Declaration of Independence pledged one would be produced in six months. It never was because embodying Jewish values can't avoid discriminatory language. So Israel instead has 11 Basic Laws, none of which guarantee free speech, religion or equality. Israel's 1992 Law on Human Dignity and Liberty is the closest it comes, but it, too, excludes equality as a guaranteed right.

Other anomalies also exist. For example, each religious community regulates issues relating to births, deaths and marriages. No civil institutions or courts have authority. As a result, the state has no power over marriages, divorces or to intervene in these matters. In addition, Judaism is privileged, only the Hebrew calendar and Jewish holidays are recognized, and conversions to Judaism are rare and allowed only after rigorous vetting.

On the other hand, suffrage is universal, but two factors dilute it. Arab parties are excluded from government coalitions and decision-making bodies so it makes voting for them largely symbolic. In addition, all political parties must pledge allegiance to Israel as a "Jewish and democratic" state. If Arab Israeli politicians demand a democratic one for everyone, they risk violating the law. Jews profoundly reject the notion of one state for all because it challenges rigid customs:

-- a "Jewish and democratic" state favoring Jews;

-- Zionism's founding presumption that Israel was exclusively for persecuted Jews; and most threatening

-- democratization in its truest sense could empower a "demographic monster that could devour the Jewish state almost overnight." An eventual Palestinian majority in Greater Israel would end the Jewish State.

The idea of true democratization emerged in the late 1990s, it became a frightening vision, and state authorities feared it could become a national insurrection once the second Intifada began. It was thus confronted with lethal force inside Israel and the Territories. Palestinians have been harassed ever since, most severely in Gaza, marginally less in the West Bank, but also inside Israel - unreported and out of sight.

Cook's book mostly addresses Israeli Arabs and contends the following - that their treatment is key to understanding why reaching a peaceful resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is so elusive. At its root is Israel's refusal to end discrimination because that would force it to do what it can't and won't - atone for its War of Independence crimes that have been carefully suppressed for 60 years. Further, Zionism conceptually sanctifies Israel as the "Promised Land" for Jews alone. That, in turn, legitimizes expropriating resources from non-Jews. It also condones violence and advocates ethnic cleansing to maintain a majority Jewish population as a natural right of the Jewish people.

That's been the strategy since the second Intifada's onset in September 2000, and Cook examines it through "two prisms" - security and demography. Israeli Arabs are considered "security threats" because of their perceived dual loyalties. In addition, the demographic problem of a higher Arab birth rate threatens a Jewish majority. These problems require drastic action from which a visible trend is emerging:

-- blurring the distinction between Palestinians in the Territories and inside Israel; and

-- a determined effort to separate Arabs from Jews.

Cook contends the following - Israel wants a "phantom state" in the Territories and intends to unilaterally transfer Israeli Arabs' citizenship rights to the new entity. It's a grave breach of international law and a risky strategy, so why do it. Most likely to create an illusion of a Palestinian state, remove Israel's glass wall and transfer it to the Territories. With no Palestinians inside Israel, Jewish democracy will be affirmed and the Jewish State preserved.

For their part, Palestinians will be marginalized, and enclosed behind walls and barricades in "little more than open-air prisons, guarded by the Israeli army." It's been the scheme since the early 1990s, and the idea is similar to South Africa's Bantustan solution under apartheid. Israel wants the same type homelands for Palestinians, and policy has been moving that way for years. Cook is dubious and states: "It is futile to believe such an arrangement - rigid ethnic separation on Israel's terms - will bring peace to the region." It's hard to disagree as Palestinians continue to resist.

Israel's Fifth Column

Israel used the second Intifada politically - presenting it as a well-planned assault on the Jewish State and blaming it on Arafat. He was unfairly scapegoated for rejecting Camp David in 2000 even though Israel designed talks to fail. Ehud Barak insisted Arafat sign a "final agreement," declare an "end of conflict," and give up any legal basis for additional land in the Territories. Nothing was in writing, and no documents or maps were presented. The deal was so duplicitous that had Arafat accepted it any hope for peace would have been dashed. He didn't, was unfairly blamed, and "government spin-doctors" went further.

They claimed Arafat wanted Camp David as a demographic weapon against Israel:

-- to demand the right of return for millions of Palestinian refugees; and

-- use his demographic advantage to destroy Israel's Jewishness and make the entire area "Greater Palestine."

Israeli officials jumped on him with wild accusations - that he unleashed the Intifada in retaliation. Initially the notion was accepted, but years later it was "finally and irreversibly discredited" as a politically-concocted lie. Israel's own intelligence exposed it when a senior army officer broke the silence. He revealed no evidence existed and available intelligence suggested that Arafat wanted compromise, not conflict, but not on one-way terms. Israel's duplicity spawned the Intifada, and it sprang from the grassroots. People felt betrayed and reacted after Ariel Sharon's provocative al-Aqsa Mosque visit in September 2000.

Thereafter, violence erupted and a police-led onslaught ensued. In the first week of October, 12 unarmed Palestinian civilians and a Gaza laborer were killed and hundreds more seriously injured. Arab Israelis began demonstrating and were also targeted. Their citizenship offered no protection.

Israeli police react like the army as both security forces are connected. How so? National military service is compulsory for non-Orthodox Jews. They're conscripted after leaving school at age 18 and required to serve for three years. Police have completed the requirement, are familiar with military weapons, and have absorbed the security-conscious culture, including a profound distrust of Arabs. The result - their mindset is hard line and racist, and it shows on Arab streets.

Months after demonstrations subsided, Arabs were still targeted, and hundreds continued to be arrested. Deaths occurred, cover-ups followed, and when Israeli unrest reacted to Arab protests, police responded much differently, avoided violence, no Jews were killed and few, if any, were injured.

Arabs, in contrast, were accused of orchestrating large-scale violence. Some called it a second front or a fifth column, Arafat was blamed, and it was claimed he schemed to overthrow Israel "through a mix of demographic war and armed Intifada." It was ludicrous, yet the idea took hold. It spread through the media and became permanently fixed in the public mind even after later evidence disproved it. It suggested no armed insurrection occurred, Arab protesters were unarmed, and no Jewish community was threatened or invaded. The very notion stretches credulity and proves the truth about Goebbels' maxim: "If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually....believe it." Or the Churchill one about "a lie get(ting) halfway around the world before the truth (gets) its pants on."

It makes Arabs easy targets when leaders are profoundly racist, and it shows in Ehud Barak's comments. In a summer 2002 interview, he called Palestinians "products of a culture in which to tell a lie....creates no dissonance. They don't suffer from the problem of telling lies that exists in Judeo-Christian culture. Truth (for them) is seen as an irrelevant category."

In the same interview, Barak repeated the second front accusation many other Jews believe - that Israeli Arabs want to transform Israel from a Jewish state to one for all its citizens. "This is their vision," and Barak and Sharon were convinced (or said they were) that Arafat was behind it since the early post-Oslo days. He was offered an illusion of a future Palestinian state but "wanted to keep a strategic foot in Israel," promote the right of return, and demographically destroy Israel. It led to Arafat's downfall. He was imprisoned in his Ramallah compound in 2001, became ill and died suspiciously in November 2004 in a Paris hospital. His personal physician claimed he was poisoned and evidence seemed to confirm it.

A False Reckoning

Defending accused Arabs in Israel and the Territories is risky, thankless, and not a way to win legal victories. Nonetheless, courageous lawyers try, and one Cook cites is Hassan Jabareen of the Adalah Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel. The name means "justice" in Arabic.

Since its founding in 1996, Adalah has been chipping at Israel's glass wall, advocating in the Territories, and its 1999 annual report showed what it's up against: racism, relentless discrimination, futile battles for justice without end, bucking stone walls in court, and violations against Arabs of everything imaginable - rights relating to language, religion, education, land, housing, women, prisoners, political and social issues, and economic and employment ones. In all these matters and more, Israel grossly discriminates against Arabs and gets away with it.

Still, Adalah persists, and Cook cites examples of its struggles for justice. Most often, they're hopeless, small victories are relished, but even then they turn out hollow after court rulings favor Arabs, state authorities ignore them, things get worse, and courts won't intervene.

On its web site, Adalah states its advocacy mission as follows: Its "legal actions include filing petitions to the Supreme Court of Israel; filing appeals and lawsuits to the District, Magistrate and Labor Courts; submitting pre-petitions to the Attorney General's Office; filing complaints with Mahash (the Ministry of Justice Police Investigation Unit) about police brutality; and sending letters to government ministries and agencies, detail legal claims, and demanding compliance with the law." Adalah is also involved in "providing legal commentary on proposed and pending Knesset bills to NGO advocacy coalitions and staff of Arab MKs." In addition, it "provides legal consultation to numerous Arab public institutions, NGOs, student committees and individuals."

Adalah and Jabareen drew public attention in February 2001. At the time, the Or Commission began investigating 13 unarmed Arab demonstrators Israeli security force killings at the start of the second Intifada. They were wanton acts demanding justice, but try getting it for Palestinians, and that was evident early on under Supreme Court Justice Orr.

He denied an Adalah lawyer official standing before the Commission so he could prepare a proper defense. As a result, he couldn't issue subpoenas, cross-examine witnesses, see most state evidence, or get advance word of issues to be raised. At the same time, the Israeli public got a steady commentary diet about Arafat-led fifth column Arabs.

Israeli police prepared in advance of the Intifada, and Adalah got details of their tactics. They included preparatory exercises as part of operation "Magic Tune" - a code name for a full-scale military operation involving special anti-riot training and more. It established protocols for snipers and excessive force to disperse protesters, even those doing it peacefully. It assumed trouble was coming, security forces would exacerbate it, harsh responses would follow, so civilians would be targeted with live ammunition to subdue it.

In September 2003, the Commission report was issued, and hopes for justice were dashed. It was a "sore disappointment to the families (of victims) and Adalah." In session for two and a half years, it called 350 witnesses, yet its conclusions were "tepid and lack(ed) teeth." The report criticized police for "substantial professional failures," several officers got minor punishment, other senior ones were reprimanded, but no prosecutions followed because no policemen responsible for the killings were identified. For petitioners, it was a crushing defeat.

In addition, the report said nothing about the Justice Ministry's failure to investigate killings, its conspiracy of silence about using live ammunition and snipers, and a final comment added insult to injury. The Commission unjustly described street protests as "unprecendented riots" and accused three leading Arab figures of incitement. In all, it was a painful conclusion to lengthy hearings and a lesson for Arab petitioners - expecting justice in Israel is futile because the state denies it to them no matter what the circumstances.

The Battle of Numbers

In 2003, the Knesset passed a temporary amendment to the landmark 1952 Nationality Law - the Nationality and Entry into Israel Law. It denies Israeli Arabs a residency permit for a Palestinian spouse living outside Israel or the right to bring that spouse into Israel.

International and human rights groups were outraged, and B'Tselem called the legislation a violation Israel's Basic Law on Human Rights and Liberty. Still, it's the law, it supercedes previous ones, and Shin Bet's (Israel's internal security service) Avi Dichter claimed it was "vital for Israel's security." Others were more forthright about its true purpose - to prevent Palestinian applications for citizenship through marriage from eroding the country's Jewish majority. That was Ariel Sharon's view in these public comments: "The Jews have one small country, Israel, and must do everything so that this state remains a Jewish state in the future...."

Haaretz later reported that there was "broad agreement in the government and academia (for a strict policy to) make it hard for non-Jews to obtain citizenship in Israel" or even residency. Moreover, children of an Israeli and a non-Jew would henceforth be ineligible for citizenship rights.

These measures reflect Israel's growing concern about its demographic problem, and it led to Sharon's "sudden conversion to the cause of 'unilateral separation.' " It became his "Gaza Disengagement Plan," first announced in February 2004, then implemented in August and September 2005. It was a small price to pay for a big benefit. It let Israel dispose of an unwanted population, now around 1.5 million, and tried to defuse world opinion (if unconvincingly) that Israel governed like apartheid South Africa. It also squarely aimed at the threat of two populations approaching parity with Israeli Jews about to be overtaken by a higher Palestinian birth rate.

Removing Gaza bought time for a more permanent solution to the core issue - Israel's growing Arab minority that's more pressing than Palestinians in the Territories. The small 150,000 Israeli Arab population in 1948 now numbers 1.5 million, and historian Benny Morris calls it a "time bomb" needing decisive action to defuse. His solution is mass expulsion. Israelis call it "transfer." World ethicists call it "ethnic cleansing." International law experts call it illegal.

Israel's founders foresaw the problem and planned accordingly. When Israel became a state in May 1948, the leadership attacked demography three ways:

-- mass expulsion under cover of war;

-- encouraged massive Jewish immigration and blocked right of return; key was passage of the 1950 Law of Return that gives anyone of Jewish ancestry the right to Israeli citizenship; three million Jews took advantage, including one million after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1990;

-- incentivizing Jewish birth rates by financial and other means while denying similar benefits to Israeli Arabs.

At the time, Gen-Gurion set an upper Arab population limit of 15%. Despite a birth rate twice that of Israel, the level wasn't exceeded thereafter and is barely above it now. It was 13.6% in 1949, 12.5% in 1970, about 16% today, and a key topic at the first Institute of Policy and Strategy at the Interdisciplinary Centre conference in Herzliya in 2000. It shaped Sharon's thinking, helped him formulate disengagement ideas, and spotlighted Israel's "demographic threat."

The conference report stated: "The increase in the demographic share of the Arab minority in Israel tests directly Israel's future as a Jewish-Zionist-democratic state." A range of solutions were proposed to maintain a Jewish majority, including:

-- policies to encourage a higher Jewish birth rate;

-- "encourag(ing) Israeli Arabs to transfer their citizenship to a Palestinian state;" and

-- moving the densely populated "Little Triangle" Arab heartland to Palestinian Authority (PA) control as part of a land swap deal; the idea was to transfer small West Bank settlements to Israel in return and have a similar arrangement for Arab East Jerusalem.

Post-2000, "transfer" caught on as a euphemism for ethnic cleansing and was popularized in the mainstream, the media, academia, and in the Israeli Knesset. It was no longer taboo in public to express former Military Intelligence chief Shlomo Gaziti's view that "Democracy has to be subordinated to demography."

More extreme notions were also heard from extremists like former general, Sharon Tourism Minister, and outspoken racist, Rehava'am Ze'evi. He advocated "transfer(ing)" Palestinians to other Arab states and remove them by state-imposed policies of economic hardship, unemployment and restrictions of land, water and other essential services. Two other times he was more extreme. In a 2001 radio interview, he referred to Palestinians as a "cancer (and) We should get rid of the ones who are not Israeli citizens the same way you get rid of lice, but he topped that one in 1990 after Saddam invaded Kuwait. Then he advocated expulsion to Jordan where they could be human shields if Iraq attacked Israel.

He wasn't alone in his views, and earlier, closely related ones were around and a policy called "Judaisation." Under it, state-sponsored Jewish settlements populated Arab heartlands in the Galilee and Negev, expropriated Palestinian land, and displaced its inhabitants incrementally. Polls during the second Intifada showed most Israelis approve, and that helped legitimize the development of "uncompromising policies to tackle the 'demographic threat.' "

An early scheme was to discriminate in child allowances by cutting them 20% for parents who hadn't served in the army. It targeted Arab families because few among them perform military service. Other benefits were also cut: tax credits, employment opportunities, mortgage relief, housing grants and more with a simple idea in mind - economic warfare to reduce the Arab birth rate. At the same time, the defunct Demography Council was reestablished to devise ways to raise it for Jews and discourage abortions.

More went on as well. In May 2002, the Interior Ministry imposed an administrative freeze to effectively ban newly married mixed-couples from living together inside Israel. In July 2003, the Knesset made this part of the Nationality Law. It placed established couples in legal limbo and prevented Palestinian spouses from upgrading their temporary residency status. It got worse in mid-2005 when the Knesset prohibited Israeli citizens from bringing Palestinian spouses into Israel, except under rarely granted circumstances.

The move had a clear purpose - to harden "ethnic consolidation" and treat Arabs the way the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) described it: an intolerantly "endemic, systematic and pervasive bias against non-Jews....trampling on their legal rights."

Israel's Polulation Registry of the Interior Ministry was empowered to do it through the Nationality Law to "put a legal gloss on existing racist practices" against Arabs. In addition, a definitive immigration policy was devised to impose strict conditions on naturalizing non-Jews to ensure a "solid Jewish majority...."

Amnon Rubinstein got the task as a well-credentialed law professor, Israel's foremost constitutional expert, and a cheerleader for the hawkish right. He publicly supported the amended Nationality Law and believed in the guiding principle that "the key for entering the Israeli home (should be) held by the Jews."

Israeli professor Yoav Peled called the new law a watershed, viewed it with alarm, and believed it's "a very dangerous turning point" in the country. Previously, Israeli laws disguised discrimination. No longer. Henceforth, according to Peled: "Palestinian citizens who are (moved) will not be transfered to another state - a Palestinian state where they can realise their rights - because there will be no other state. Their citizenship will not be transferred; it will be revoked."

Citizens would, by law, become non-citizens. They'd be moved against their will to a "pseudo-state" under Israeli rule and striped of their voice entirely. "Palestinian citizens will move from being Israelis with rights to residents of the occupied territories - and residents of the occupied territories have no rights at all."

Redrawing the Green Line

Professor Arnon Sofer heads up geopolitics at Haifa University. He also counts Jews and Arabs and expresses concern for what he finds. In his opinion, "in the next 15 years either we will see Israel surviving or we will see the end of the Zionist dream....We are counting down to the end of Israel." Only one viable option remains - partitioning the land. "We can no longer think about Greater Israel; we have to think about divisions." Why? Because Palestinians, especially in Gaza, reproduce faster than Jews.

For Sofer, the same problem exists inside Israel, and swift action, in his judgment, is needed to address it. "We have the Israeli Arabs in the Triangle and the Galillee. What to do about them?" Referring to the Triangle and its quarter million Palestinians, he's "ready to get rid of Wadi Ara and Taibe - no problem. We can change our borders and lose the Triangle but we cannot give up the Galilee....Muslims must be isolated....we must use a carrot and stick. There is no right or left at the moment. It's Jews versus Arabs," and that includes Israeli Arab citizens.

Since the 1967 war, Israel forestalled territorial division, built Israeli settlements in the Territories, and continue expanding them in the West Bank after the Gaza disengagement. Today, Palestinians and Jews are so intwined in neighboring communities that separating them can only happen in one of three ways:

-- evacuating settlers that's politically impossible (except for isolated settlements);

-- expelling the Palestinians that's highly probable; or

-- dramatically redrawing the Green Line as another likely choice.

More than ever today, Israel covets occupied Palestine's choicest parts, including East Jerusalem, and it's no secret why - to complete its dream of "Eretz Israel," and since the 1967 war, to use settlers as pawns to expropriate Palestinian land for a Greater Israel. The process has gone on ever since but was stepped up post-Oslo.

The historic agreement ostensibly was for peace in the spirit of compromise. In fact, it was a Trojan horse. It established a vaguely-defined negotiating process, specified no outcome, and left major unresolved issues for indefinite later final status talks. It granted Palestinians nothing in return for renouncing armed struggle, recognizing Israel's right to exist and being its enforcer. In contrast, Israel got what it wanted - the right to continue land seizures, colonize the Territories and move inexorably toward territorial separation of an enlarged Israeli state from a smaller adjacent Palestinian one in name only.

Post-1993, settlements grew dramatically and now exceed 200. According to various sources like B'Tselem, the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and others, their population tops 400,000. UN Special Rapporteur on Palestine John Dugard estimates 460,000, and included is over 220,000 in occupied East Jerusalem (Dugard's figure is 253,000) where Palestinians are being squeezed out entirely.

Disengagement, separation barriers, and a fragmented Palestinian state are parts of the scheme - in three disconnected cantons: around Nablus and Jenin in the north, Salfit and Ramallah in the center, and Bethlehem and Hebron in the south. Wedged between them are Israeli settlements around Ariel in the north and the Ma'ale Adumim "envelope" to the East of Jerusalem. On the West Bank's east side, Israel would control the Jordan Valley. East Jerusalem would then be severed from the rest of the West Bank. In the end, Palestinians would have an illusory state under Israeli control that few analysts believe can be "viable."

Israel is shaping it, the West Bank's choicest parts are being taken, ethnic cleansing continues, borders are being redrawn, the Green Line is a fiction, Palestinians are impotent, and Washington is on board. Where will it lead? Three possible outcomes are suggested:

-- Palestinians will be confined to urban ghettos; they'll grow poorer and more desperate; lacking a future, middle-class and ambitious ones will emigrate to neighboring Arab states;

-- Palestinians will settle for a cantonized "prison state," according to Jeff Halper, director of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions; Israel will relax its military harshness and replace it with colonial exploitation masquerading as economic development; the process is well-advanced, Palestinian cities are ghettos, agricultural land is disappearing, Israel plunders the land, intends to exploit an expendable cheap labor pool, and the Territories are being "asphyxiated;" and/or

-- Israel will create two unconnected Palestinian mini-states: an "Eastern Palestine" in the West Bank identified with Jordan and a "Western Palestine" tied to Egypt.

The scenarios aren't mutually exclusive. They also ignore what senior political and military officials may have in mind - a far more radical reshaping of the region to Israel's advantage. At its core is ethnic separation and transfering Arab Israelis to a future Palestinian state. They're concentrated in the "Little Triangle" along the Green Line, the Galilee in the north, and Negev in the south.

For decades in the Galilee and Negev, Israel pursued "fierce state-sponsored programmes of 'Judaisation,' " much like settlement expansions in the Territories. It tipped the population to Israel's favor in the Negev by a three to one margin. So far in the Galilee, it 50 - 50, but the long-term trend in both regions disadvantages Israel. A higher Palestinian birth rate is the threat, but efforts are being made to counter it.

In 2003, settling Jews in the two regions became a priority, establishing new towns were ordered, and International Zionist organizations were recruited to help populate them. In addition in late 2002, the Jewish Agency announced a planned 350,000 Galilee and Negev expansion by 2010 to ensure a "Zionist majority" in both areas.

At the same time, the government confronted its greatest Judaisation threat - small "unrecognized" Bedouin Negev farming communities. Their population numbers around 70,000, as many or more live in the Galilee, and Israel so far failed to cluster them in "planned township" reservations.

Today, no new communities are allowed, and existing ones are denied essential municipal services like clean water, electricity, roads, transport, sanitation, education, healthcare, postal and telephone service, refuse removal and more because under the Planning and Construction Law they're illegal.

In 2003, the Sharon government took further measures:

-- it allocated millions of dollars over five years for forceable relocation;

-- reclassified Bedouins as "trespassers" on state land;

-- encouraged settlers (through extra compensation) to colonize the Galilee and Negev;

-- after 2002, the Interior Ministry destroyed village crops by herbicide spraying until courts halted the practice in mid-2004; and

-- after the 2005 Gaza disengagement, announced "Negev 2015" - to clear the area of "scattered" Bedouin communities by house demolitions and replace them with new Jewish settlements.

Cook believes these policies suggest a dramatic shift in Israeli priorities - concentrating on "Judaisation inside Israel over settlements in those parts of the occupied territories that will one day have to be abandoned (for) a new 'Palestinian state.' It reflects a decisive scaling back of Israel's territorial ambitions." Israel instead is focusing on protecting the Jewish state from a growing Arab population, yet it can't put off the inevitable - confronting its demographic problem by "separat(ing) absolutely from its Palestinian citizens."

How at this time isn't known but under consideration is redrawing the Green Line to exclude dense Arab areas like the "Little Triangle." Remaining Israeli Arabs will then be pressured to "identify with the new Palestinian state," carrot and stick approaches will be used, and the latter kind will include denying non-Jews essential benefits to encourage them to leave.

Holdouts will be forced to sign loyalty oaths pledging allegiance to Israel as a "Jewish and democratic state." Added pressure will be made to get them to:

-- transfer their citizenship to the Palestinian state;

-- downgrade them to permanent residents or guest workers;

-- deny them their former rights (meager as they were); and

-- henceforth subject them to the whims of Israeli authority that may in the end expel them.

The process is underway, legislation to complete it exists, and all that remains is a "pretext" to enforce it "ruthlessly." What better one than the illusion of a "Palestinian state" next door. It's being constructed inside enclosed West Bank walls that include fences and barriers to incarcerate a quarter million Palestinians in walled-off ghettos on the "Israeli side." The argument then goes: if Jews can be uprooted from Gaza and isolated West Bank homes, why not Israeli Arabs as well.

Zionism and the Glass Wall

In 1937, David Ben-Gurion was blunt about his vision: "A partial Jewish State is not the end, but only the beginning." Today it means "an Arab Israeli is not a real Israeli" because they're as much part of the regional conflict as Palestinians in the Territories. An influential minority of hardcore Zionists believe Israel is the Promised Land, Jews are God's Chosen People, and they have a "divine obligation to settle the whole of Greater Israel." According to them, Jews have as much right to Gaza, Hebron and East Jerusalem as they do to Tel Aviv and Haifa.

Until the second Intifada's outbreak, Israel's main fault line was political. Labor wanted a maximum of land with a minimum of Arabs. "Likud (in contrast) wanted a maximum of land, period," and it allied them naturally with religious Zionists. The tie was threatened, however, when Sharon opted for territorial separation, abandoned Likud's traditional position, and adopted Labor's vision.

As political fault lines closed, a secular and religious one widened. It threatens severe West Bank clashes if Israel plans significant settler withdrawals to solve its demographic problem. Cook believes settlers, in the end, will seek compromise, not a showdown, but whatever happens, disengagement will be traumatic enough to "have profound effects on the future of religious Zionism." Analysts speculate what's next, and Hebrew University professor Moshe Halbertal suggests a possibility - that religious Zionists won't "break the(ir) bond with mainstream Israel." A critical mass of them will place Jewish unity above other considerations.

It's another matter, however, when it comes to Jewish versus democratic. When Jews are united, Arabs lose. The challenge for future leaders is how to forge an ethnic consensus, ideologically consolidate a Jewish state, and do it successfully by addressing issues important to secular and religious Jews alike. Ensuring a "family-type feeling" may be the way "to carry out the required surgery of partitioning the country without civil war," according to Hebrew University Professor Alexander Jacobson.

Arabs are the "Other," and if secular and religious Jews unite, they become "the enemy." They're "unwelcome, intruder(s), saboteur(s) (and) terrorist(s)." Solution - leave or be forced out. Religious symbolism becomes crucial, and nowhere more than on most sacred land for Arabs and Jews - the Noble Sanctuary or Temple Mount in Jerusalem's Old City. Fundamentalist Jews covet it with clear aims in mind - to destroy its mosques, erect a Third Temple, and await the Messiah's arrival. Palestinians resist and demand Jerusalem's Old City for their capital.

Battle lines are drawn; Palestinians are weak, divided, unaided and without allies; and who dares predict what's next in their struggle for justice long denied. At its epicenter is Islam's third most sacred site, the holiest one for Jews, and what Ehud Barak calls "the Holy of Holies." It's fundamentally symbolic for both sides, each is united and firm, and here's where things stand. Israelis claim sovereignty over what all Islam won't relinquish.

Try imagining what's ahead. Opinions differ but one thing is sure - more turmoil, oppression, killings and unimaginable human suffering with Palestinians, by far, paying the greatest price for what they hope in the end will be worth it.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to The Global Research News Hour on RepublicBroadcasting.org Mondays from 11AM to 1PM US Central time for cutting-edge discussions on world and national topics with distinguished guests.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8407

Sami Al-Arian's Long Ordeal

Sami Al-Arian's Long Ordeal - by Stephen Lendman

Sami Al-Arian is a political prisoner in Police State America. This article reviews his case briefly and updates it to the present.

Because of his faith, ethnicity and political activism, the Bush administration targeted Al-Arian for supporting "terrorism." In fact, he's a Palestinian refugee, distinguished professor and scholar, community leader and civil activist.

Nonetheless, the FBI harassed him for 11 years, arrested him on February 20, 2003, and falsely accused him of backing organizations fronting for Palestinian Islamic Jihad - a 1997 State Department-designated "Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO)."

A week later, in spite of his many awards, impeccable credentials and tenured status, University of South Florida president Judy Genshaft fired him under right wing pressure.

Since February 20, 2003, Al-Arian has been imprisoned - first at Tampa, Florida's Orient Road jail, then on to more than a dozen different maximum and other federal prison facilities. He's currently on hunger strike at Warsaw, Virginia's Northern Neck Regional jail after being transferred back March 18 from Butner, North Carolina's medical prison.

Al-Arian's trial began in June 2005 and was a travesty. It lasted six months, cost an estimated $50 million, and the prosecution called 80 witnesses, including Israeli intelligence agents and victims of suicide bombings to prejudice the jury. It introduced portions of hundreds of wiretapped phone calls from over a half million recorded; "evidence" from faxes, emails and what was seized from his home; quotes from his speeches and lectures; conferences, events and rallies he attended; articles he wrote; books he owned; magazines he edited; and various publications he read - all legal and in no way incriminating unless falsely twisted to appear that way.

After years of effort and millions spent, Al-Arian was exonerated. On December 6, 2005 after 13 days of deliberation, the jury acquitted him of all (eight) "terrorism" charges. They were deadlocked 10 - 2 for acquittal on nine others. All of them were false and unjust.

Nonetheless, within days, the Justice Department said it would re-try him on the lesser charges. His lawyers called it legal but a highly unusual move. At the same time and in secret, a plea bargain deal was struck. It stipulated:

-- Al-Arian neither engaged in or had any knowledge of violent acts;

-- that he would not be required to cooperate further with prosecutors; and

-- that he would be released on time served and deported voluntarily to his country of choice.

In the meantime, Al-Arian remained in custody pending sentencing and deportation on May 1, 2006. He expected to be free and his ordeal ended. Instead, the presiding judge changed the deal. He sentenced Al-Arian to the maximum 57 months, gave him credit for time served, and ordered him held for the remaining 11 months, after which an April 2007 deportation would follow. Now it's extended as explained below.

In October 2006, assistant prosecutor Gordon Kromberg violated plea bargain terms by subpoenaing Al-Arian before a grand jury. His defense attorneys tried to block it by citing his "no-grand jury cooperation" provision to prevent DOJ from springing a perjury-obstruction trap. Defense's motion was denied, and on November 16 Al-Arian refused to testify and was held in contempt.

A month later, the grand jury expired, a new one was convened, and Al-Arian was again subpoenaed to testify. He continued to refuse, was held in contempt, and had his sentence increased without mitigation to April 7, 2008.

On March 3, 2008 Kromberg ordered Al-Arian before still another March 19 grand jury, three weeks before his scheduled release and deportation. On the same day, Al-Arian began a hunger strike against the government's continued harassment. It's his third one but is life-threatening for a man in his condition. He's diabetic and needs regular sustenance to avoid serious health problems. His January through March, 2007 strike depleted one-fourth of his body weight, gravely harmed him, and ended only at the urging of his family.

He's now 20 days into his latest fast, lost 30 pounds, is weakening, and his life is endangered. On March 12, Al-Arian was transferred to the Butner, North Carolina medical facility where treatment is poor, the staff indifferent, and in Al-Arian's case hostile to a designated enemy of the state. On March 18, he was returned to Warsaw, Virginia's Northern Neck Regional jail ahead of his third grand jury appearance. Again, he refused to testify, so he'll likely face new contempt charges and continued confinement.

George Washington University Law School Professor Jonathan Turley heads up Al-Arian's legal team. On March 3, he released the following statement:

"On behalf of Mr. Olson and Mr. Meitl and the entire legal team, (we are greatly disappointed by) the Justice Department('s) continu(ing)....effort to mete out punishment that it could not secure from a jury. Having lost (its) case (it's) openly sought to extend (Al-Arian's) confinement by daisy-chaining grand juries. As in other cases, the government has given Dr. Al-Arian the choice of an obvious perjury trap or a contempt sanction. (Either way assures his imprisonment. This) choice....is obnoxious to our legal system and contrary to any standard of decency. The mistreatment of Dr. Al-Arian remains an international symbol of how the Bush Administration has discarded fundamental principles of fairness in a blind pursuit of retribution against this political activist. We stand committed to fighting this great injustice and hopefully reuniting Dr. Al-Arian with his family and friends."

In the meantime, his long ordeal continues at a time lawlessness prevails over justice, and we're all Sami-Al-Arians in America's "war on terrorism."

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

Also visit his web site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to The Global Research News Hour on RepublicBroadcasting.org Mondays from 11AM to 1PM US Central time for cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8407

UN's Assessment of Human Rights Violations in Occupied Palestine

UN's Assessment of Human Rights Violations in Occupied Palestine - by Stephen Lendman

John Dugard is The UN Human Rights Council's Special Rapporteur on Palestine and a rare public official. In January 2008, he assessed the situation in Occupied Palestine (OPT). It was detailed, inclusive and honest. This article discusses his findings in-depth. Most of them have been widely reported, but they bear repeating nonetheless. It's because, in this instance, they're from an agency of the 192 member states world body. It's hoped that source highlights their importance and adds to their credibility.

From September 25 to October 1, 2007, Dugard visited Gaza, Jerusalem, Ramallah, Bethlehem, Jericho, Nablus, Qalqiliya and the Jordan valley and held extensive meetings with: Palestinian and Israeli NGOs, UN agencies, Palestinian and Jordanian officials, academics, businessmen, and independent interlocutors. He also went to Gazan factories and West Bank checkpoints and settlements and saw firsthand the situation on the ground.

For his efforts, Dugard is both praised and criticized. Extremists even condemn him. It's the price he and others pay for assessing conditions honestly. He addressed his critics and what they cite:

-- that his reports are repetitious; he agrees because Israel repeats the same human rights and humanitarian law violations and has done it for over 40 years of occupation. They feature: "(Illegal) settlements, checkpoints, demolition of houses, torture, closure of crossings and military incursions...." More recently, add the separation wall (since 2003), "sonic booms, (stepped up) targeted killings, (using) Palestinians as human shields, and the humanitarian crisis" in Gaza since Hamas was democratically elected in January 2006.

-- that he fails to address "terrorism;" he calls it a "scourge" with violations by both sides but with a huge disproportionate difference; for their part, Palestinians are conducting a national liberation struggle "against colonialism, apartheid (and) military occupation." He doesn't condone rocket attacks or suicide bombings but compares them historically to earlier "acts of terror" under military occupation - against the Nazis, South Africa in Namibia and in pre-1948 Mandate Palestine by Jewish terrorist groups in which two future Israeli prime ministers were leaders. Violence will continue as long as the Territories are occupied and Israel treats the population repressively; Israel understands this, yet continues its harshness, and does so for strategic reasons.

-- that he fails to address Palestinian human rights violations; he cites the occupation that causes them on both sides and stopping them requires it "be brought to a speedy end;" further, his Special Rapporteur mandate is to report on the occupier's violations, not the people occupied, and he's doing his job.

Forty Years of Occupation

For Palestinians, occupation is their core issue and the reason violence continues. In its 2004 Advisory Opinion on the Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, the International Court of Justice (ICJ or World Court) held the following: that Palestine (including East Jerusalem) "remain occupied territories and Israel has continued to have the status of occupying Power." This requires its government to adhere to the Fourth Geneva Convention protection of civilians in time of war, and to the International Covenants on Civil and Political Rights and on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. It's further argued that 40 years in charge increased Israel's obligations. Its occupation now is more unlawful because it's continued to violate international laws all this time.

The Occupation of Gaza

Dugard assessed conditions in Gaza in its earliest days under siege, excluding the intensified harshness in recent months.

He discounted the notion that Ariel Sharon's 2005 "evacuation" changed anything. On September 19, 2007, however, it changed plenty when Israel declared Gaza a "hostile territory," Secretary of State Rice concurred, and fuel, electricity and other essential supplies and services were severely cut.

Under international law, Dugard asserts that "effective control" determines whether a territory is occupied, not a physical presence on the ground. International law also requires an occupier to guarantee the civilian population's welfare. By this standard, Israel violates its obligation, Gaza's occupation never ended, and pretending otherwise is a charade. The following factors reflect conditions on the ground:

-- Israel maintains control of Gaza's six land crossings - Erez into Israel; Rafah into Egypt in violation of the November 2005 negotiated Agreement on Movement and Access between the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Israel - brokered by the US, EU and the international community's envoy for Gaza's disengagement; Karmi that's the main access for goods into the Territory; Karem Shalom and Sufa for goods as well and one other; the effects on Gazans have been "disastrous;"

-- Israeli control through military incursions, "rocket attacks and sonic booms," and declaring sections of Gaza "no-go" zones where residents entering will be shot;

-- control of Gaza's airspace and territorial waters; and

-- control of the Palestinian Population Registry; it allows Israel to decide through a system of identity cards - who's a Palestinian, who resides in Gaza and the West Bank, and who may or may not enter or leave either Territory.

Israeli Actions Against Gaza and Their Consequences

Since dismantling Gaza's settlements in 2005, Israel undertook a number of actions that are repressive and violate international law:

A. Military action

-- even before the latest invasion and mass-killings, Dugard reported through late last year - 290 Gaza killings of which at least one-third were civilians; on September 26 when he was in Gaza, IDF missiles killed 12 Palestinians; after the November 27 Annapolis meeting, over 70 Palestinians were killed (up to an unmentioned date), including eight in a "major military operation in southern Gaza" the day before the Annapolis session began.

-- Dugard noted the frequency of targeted killings and other IDF international law violations; he further stated that Israeli security forces killed 668 Palestinians in Gaza in the "past two years (2006 and 2007)" and over half of them (359) were uninvolved in hostilities; 126 were minors; 361 were by missile attacks; and 29 were targeted killings; during the same period, Palestinian rockets killed four Israeli civilians and injured "hundreds;" four Israeli security forces were also killed.

B. Closure of crossings

An additional effect was to strand 6000 Palestinians on the Egyptian side with inadequate accommodations and facilities; they were denied their right to return home, and, as a result, 30 people died from neglect or inability to treat illness.

C. Reducing fuel and electricity

This action followed the September 19 declaration of Gaza as a "hostile territory;" ten Israeli and Palestinian NGOs petitioned Israel's High Court to halt the action on humanitarian grounds and because it constitutes collective punishment against innocent civilians; nonetheless, the Israeli Supreme Court upheld the action, and by last October, supplies were cut by more than half; since then, they continue being drastically reduced.

D. Terminating banking facilities

After September 19, the two Israeli commercial banks in Gaza (Bank Hapoalim and Discount Bank) suspended operations in the Territory; henceforth, they refused to clear checks, handle cash transfers or supply Israeli shekels that's the official Occupied Territory (OPT) currency; it effectively halted Gaza's monetary system.

E. Gaza's humanitarian crisis

All the above actions produced a devastating humanitarian crisis, Dugard covered it through late last year, and conditions continue deteriorating:

1. Food

As of last year, over 80% of Gazans needed food aid - from the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) and the World Food Program (WFP); what's available is very basic and excludes fruits, vegetables, meat and fish; the aid is vital but extremely inadequate.

2. Unemployment and poverty

Border closures prevent exports and imports; the result is Gazan factories closed, construction halted and farm output was also affected; farmers have no income, 65,000 factory jobs were lost as well as 121,000 in construction-related projects; the Palestinian Federation of Industries reported 95% of Gaza's industry was shuttered; Israel also banned coastal fishing throwing Palestinian fishermen out of work and cutting off a vital food source; in addition, without resources, Gaza City's municipal employees haven't been paid since March 2007; over 80% of Gazans live below the official poverty line, and conditions are dire and worsening.

3. Health care

Here, too, the situation is dire; everything is in short supply or unavailable, including 91 "key" drugs; seriously ill patients are prohibited from leaving the Territory (with few exceptions) for care unavailable inside; the World Health Organization said that restrictions caused an increasing number of patients to die; the Israeli NGO, Physicians for Human Rights, reported 44 deaths since June 2007, and in November alone, 13 Palestinians died; also in November, Gazan hospitals couldn't perform surgery because Israel prevented the importation of anesthetics.

4. Education

Gazan children in UNRWA schools "lag behind refugee children elsewhere;" in addition, students are prevented from studying abroad, and in November 670 of them were denied permission for foreign study, including six Fulbright scholars.

5. Fuel, energy and water

Gaza depends largely on Israel for supply; with restrictions, power outages are frequent, and basic facilities like hospitals are severely hampered; insufficient power for pumping also affects the water supply; as a result, 210,000 people only have access to it one or two hours a day; sewage is also a major problem; facilities are in disrepair and overflows are frequent and cause severe potential health problems; Dugard called the situation "catastrophic" under Israel-imposed restrictions.

F. Legal consequences of Israel's actions

Israel calls its attacks defensive, but it's not how Dugard sees them; he questions their proportionality, the IDF's failure to distinguish between military and civilian targets, and their directly attacking civilians to inflict collective punishment; he further states: "It is highly arguable that Israel has violated the most fundamental rules of international humanitarian law, which constitutes war crimes in terms of Article 147 of the Fourth Geneva Convention and Article 85 of the Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949....relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts."

Further, the siege "violates a whole range of obligations under both human rights and humanitarian law," including the right of everyone to "an adequate standard of living for himself and his family (that includes) adequate food, clothing and housing;" above all, "Israel has violated the prohibition on collective punishment of an occupied people" as covered in Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention; its government is guilty of using "indiscriminate and excessive....force against civilians and civilian objects" as well as denying all sorts of freedoms and essential needs.

Gaza is "no ordinary state;" It's "occupied territory in whose well-being all States have an interest....are required to promote (and are obliged) to ensure compliance by Israel (in accordance with) international humanitarian law....;" failure to do so makes other states complicit in the siege; they and Israel also violate international law.

Human Rights in the West Bank and Jerusalem

In the Fatah-controlled West Bank, Israel made "some (modest) gestures of rapprochement," but did nothing to dismantle the occupation's infrastructure. On the contrary, it continues to expand "the instruments that most seriously violate human rights - military incursions, settlements, the separation wall, (free movement) restrictions, the Judaization of Jerusalem, and the demolition of houses."

A. Military incursions

Since June 2007, they've intensified in the West Bank; in November alone, the IDF conducted 786 raids, killed one person (plus at least two others he didn't report), injured 67 others and made 398 arrests; in addition, public and private properties were damaged; curfews were imposed, and "countless innocent civilians" were terrorized by security forces and dogs; in all cases, these actions violate international laws that prohibit them.

B. Settlements and settlers

By Dugard's count, there are 149 settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and despite promises to freeze their growth, the settler population increased by 63% since 1993 to its present (year end) size of 460,000. In addition, by late last year, new construction was under way in 88 settlements, and their average growth is 4.5% compared to 1.5% inside Israel. An additional 105 "outposts" are also in place - informal structures that precede new settlement activity that are unauthorized but still funded by government ministries. In the so-called "road map," Israel indicated it would dismantle all outposts but never did, and at year end more than 38% of the West Bank consisted of settlements, outposts, military areas, nature reserves off limits to Palestinians, and connecting roads for Jews only.

In addition, under Article 49, paragraph 6 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, settlements are illegal. The International Court of Justice's (ICJ) Advisory Opinion on the construction of the separation wall affirmed it. Dugard refers to "Israel's contempt for international law," and its actions confirm it. In December, shortly after the Annapolis meeting, Tel Aviv announced plans for 307 new apartments in the Har Homa settlement, but there's more as well - an extensive new "E1" project with 3500 apartments, 10 hotels and an industrial park for 14,500 settlers near Maale Adumin. To complete it, Israel expropriated Palestinian land in Abu Dis, Sawareh, Nabi Moussa and al-Khan al-Ahmar for an alternate Palestinian road to Jericho that frees the area for "E1."

The road is devious. It's part of a larger scheme to replace territorial contiguity with "transportational contiguity" that will work like this - two alternate road and tunnel networks will be constructed, one connecting Palestinian cantons, the other for Jews only, and expropriated Palestinian land will be used for the project.

C. Checkpoints, roadblocks and permits that obstruct free movement

Dugard calls their existence "disastrous....for both personal life and the (Palestinian) economy." In the West Bank, he cites 561 "obstacles to (free) movement." They comprise over 80 manned checkpoints and much more:

-- 476 unmanned locked gates;

-- earth mounds;

-- concrete blocks;

-- ditches; and

-- thousands of temporary checkpoints, called flying checkpoints, for limited periods that are sometimes only hours. In November 2007, there were 429 of them in the West Bank.

Palestinian travel is also restricted or prohibited with permits (like South Africa's "pass laws") required for transit between the West Bank and East Jerusalem. These restrictions violate Article 12 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the ICJ held that Israel is bound by this law in the OPT. Israel, however, cites "security" for having them, but Dugard states this "is difficult to accept." A more likely reason is they "serve the convenience of settlers, to facilitate (their) travel and to impress upon the Palestinian people the power and presence of the occupier."

Checkpoints humiliate Palestinians on their own land. They deepen hostility, and "do more to create insecurity than to achieve security." Further, Yedioth Ahronoth (Israel's largest circulation newspaper) reports that one-fourth or more of all IDF soldiers say they witnessed abuse against Palestinian civilians at checkpoints.

D. The wall

Dugard bluntly states that: "The wall that Israel is....building....is clearly illegal." The ICJ affirmed it and ruled that Israel is obligated to discontinue construction and dismantle sections already built. Israel ignores the ruling but "abandoned its claim that the wall is (for) security." It now concedes that one of its main purposes is to "include settlements within Israel."

Its planned length is 721 kilometers. Ten percent or more of it is on confiscated Palestinian land. Through late last year, 59% was completed, 200 kilometers were built after the ICJ ruling, and when construction is finished around "60,000 West Bank Palestinians (in) 42 villages and towns will reside in the closed zone between the wall and the Green Line" separating Israel from Palestine. Moreover, its route may be altered to include up to 13% of Palestinian land, including "many of the West Bank's valuable water resources and its richest agricultural lands."

The consequences for Palestinians are devastating. They're cut off from work, schools, universities, medical facilities, and their overall "community life is seriously fragmented." Most often, farmers on the wrong side of the wall can't get permits to reach their land, harvest their crops or graze their animals.

In addition, the opening and closing of gates (in the wall) is "highly restrictive." The UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) surveyed 67 communities near its location. It showed only 19 gates were open to Palestinians for daily or year round use, but it's worse than that. Thousands of Palestinians have been displaced, and the IDF abuses and humiliates Palestinians able to enter or leave the closed zone.

Dugard cites the village of Jayyus. He was there on September 30 and saw what their people endure:

-- the wall separates its 3200 residents from their farmland;

-- 68% of the village's agricultural land and its six wells are in the closed zone between the wall and the Green Line and are off limits without a visitor's permit;

-- scores of greenhouses are in the closed zone; they produce tomatoes, cucumbers and sweet peppers that need daily irrigation; and

-- only 40% of Jayyus' residents have permits to access their farms, and gate opening times are limited and arbitrary; as a result, by August 2004 (one year after the wall's construction) local fruit and vegetable production fell from seven to four million kilograms. Since then, things have deteriorated further.

Within the Jerusalem Governorate (one of 16 Palestinian Governorates in the West Bank), the wall covers 168 kilometers. In the Jerusalem municipality, many Palestinian villages are outside the wall and separated from the city. In places like Abu Dis and elsewhere, the wall runs through Palestinian communities, separating neighbors and families. Overall, it cuts off about 25% of the 253,000 East Jerusalem Palestinians. They can only enter the city through checkpoints and are thus impeded from accessing hospitals, schools, universities, work and holy sites, including the Al Aqsa Mosque.

E. House demolitions

Home demolitions are a "regular feature" of Israel's occupation for the following claimed reasons - military necessity, punishment, and failure to obtain a building permit. Dugard condemns them as "discriminatory" actions "to demonstrate the power of the occupier over the occupied," and here's what Palestinians are up against.

In East Jerusalem and Area C of the West Bank (comprising 60% of the Territory), permits must be obtained for construction. But they're hard to get, bureaucratic procedures for them are cumbersome, and in practice few are granted. Palestinians need homes, so they build them anyway, and it gets them in trouble. Throughout the Territory, Arab structures are demolished but not Jewish ones, and what's affected are homes, schools, clinics and mosques on the grounds that permits weren't obtained.

The numbers are revealing. For the two year period up to May 2007, 354 Palestinian structures were destroyed as well as those of Bedouin communities. One was the Jordan Valley Al Hadidiya village that's regularly targeted for removal with a committed aim - to cleanse the area for expanded Roi, Bega'ot and Hamda Jewish settlements at the expense of its Arab residents. In September 2007, the IDF hit it hard. It destroyed the structures of about 200 families in violation of Article 53 of the Fourth Geneva Convention that prohibits the destruction of personal property "except where such destruction is rendered absolutely necessary by military operations." That wasn't the case in this instance. Nor was it when homes were destroyed in the Qalqiliya Naqar neighborhood the previous month, or in nearly every other case of indiscriminate demolition.

F. Humanitarian situation

Dugard cites the dire effects on "the economy, health, education, family life and (overall) standard of living (from) the wall (construction), expansion of settlements, restrictions on (free) movement, house demolitions and (repeated) military incursions." And since Hamas' 2006 election, the situation seriously deteriorated. Through year end 2007, West Bank humanitarian conditions showed no material improvement even under Fatah control. Palestinian resources are inadequate; the occupation continues; human rights violations are commonplace; poverty and unemployment "are at their highest levels ever;" military incursions undermine health, education and general welfare; the wall and checkpoints are repressive; and the overall "social fabric of society is threatened."

G. Conclusion

The situation in the West Bank isn't as dire as in Gaza, but it's just "a matter of degree" under conditions of collective punishment. Throughout the OPT, Israel violates international law, and it must be held accountable for its actions.

Israel's Treatment of Arrested Persons and Convicted Prisoners

Dugard estimates since 1967 over 700,000 Palestinians have been imprisoned. Through year end 2007, Israelis held 11,000 or more prisoners, including "376 children, 118 women, (and) 44 Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) members." In addition, there are "some 800 (or more) 'administrative detainees' " (other estimates place the figure much higher) against whom no charges were made and who are held for renewable six month periods. Israel calls them "terrorists." Palestinians say they're "political prisoners who have committed crimes against" an illegal occupation.

A. Arrested and detained persons

Prisoners are subjected to "humiliating and degrading treatment." They're stripped, interrogated, beaten, tortured and deprived of their basic needs. The treatment of children is equally disturbing, according to the Palestine Section of Defence for Children International. It states that children are detained for between eight to 21 days before being brought to court. They're denied the presence of a parent or lawyer during interrogation, cursed, threatened, beaten and kept in solitary confinement throughout their ordeal. This type treatment terrifies adults. Imagine what it does to young children.

B. Convicted prisoners and administrative detainees

Prison conditions are harsh. Many prisoners are housed in tents that are extremely hot in summer and cold in winter. Overcrowding is serious, food is poor and anaemia among prisoners is common. This violates the letter and spirit of various Fourth Geneva Convention provisions that govern how an Occupying Power must treat prisoners.

The role of prison medical doctors must also be questioned. They witness inhumane treatment - wounds, swollen limbs, signs of violence - but remain silent and ignore the torture taking place. This raises serious ethical questions about their behavior.

Self-Determination

This is a legal and humanitarian right that's recognized by the Security Council, General Assembly, ICJ and even Israel. It applies to everyone, but for nearly 60 years, it's been denied in Occupied Palestine. It's even worse since the West Bank and Gaza were separated and are under different authorities.

Dugard stated that it's "a matter of deep concern (to him that he sees) no immediate prospect of reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah." He said it should also concern the Quartet (the US, Russia, EU and UN) and other international institutions, but what matters most is how they show support. It should not be for one faction over another. It should reconcile differences between both sides and unite them for self-determination within the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem. So far, however, no efforts are being made, and divisive policies are being pursued that support one side while isolating the other.

International Law, the International Court of Justice, the Quartet and the UN

On December 8, 2003, the General Assembly asked the ICJ for an advisory opinion on Israel's separation wall. The Court's ruling "answered many legal questions that have been raised over the past 40 years." Principally, they were as follows:

-- Palestinians are entitled to self-determination; the wall's construction violates it;

-- Israel is legally required to comply with Fourth Geneva Convention provisions;

-- under Geneva's Article 49 (6), settlements are illegal;

-- Israel is required to abide by international human rights law in the OPT;

-- Israel's closed zone (between the wall and Green Line) violates Palestinians' free movement rights and their right to work, health, education and an adequate standard of living;

-- destroying property for the wall's construction (including in and around East Jerusalem) violates international law; Israel must halt construction, dismantle portions built and make reparations for the damage done;

-- all UN member states are legally obliged to recognize Israel's non-compliance with Fourth Geneva Convention provisions;

-- the UN (especially General Assembly and Security Council) should address actions required to end the illegal situation resulting from the wall's construction;

-- on July 20, 2004, the General Assembly overwhelmingly adopted Resolution ES-10/15; it called for Israel to comply with the ICJ's Advisory Opinion;

-- since 2004, the Security Council ignored the Advisory Opinion while the General Assembly and Human Rights Council affirmed it; inaction by the Security Council is because the US continues to block it in support of Israel and also prevents the Quartet from implementing the Opinion; as a result, the Quartet never acknowledged it ;

-- the ICJ's Advisory Opinion is "an authoritative statement of the applicable law," but it's not legally binding on States; however, the ICJ is the UN's judicial organ, and the General Assembly overwhelmingly approved the Opinion; it's thus now UN law and the Secretary-General or his representative is obliged to enforce it - to ensure that member States are in compliance; and

-- for over 40 years, UN member States, its political organs and individuals have accused Israel of "consistent, systematic and gross violations of human rights and humanitarian law in the OPT;" in 2004, the ICJ agreed; it stated these violations can't be justified on grounds of self-defense or necessity; the UN is obligated to act; failure to do so "brings the very commitment of the United Nations to human rights into question."

Peace Talks

Dugard noted that it's not within his mandate to address what's "essentially a political process," except as it relates to human rights. On that basis, he stated that Oslo failed the Palestinian people by paying inadequate attention to international law and human rights issues. He hoped the Annapolis process would correct this, but early indications suggest otherwise.

A joint November 27 statement highlighted the problem. It said participants would negotiate on the 2003 "road map," not on the ICJ's Advisory Opinion that detailed Israel's human rights violations. Any hope for peace, however, requires they be addressed and resolved, but so far they're being ignored.

Dugard calls the "road map" inappropriate and unhelpful for the following reasons:

-- it's outdated: it ignores ICJ's Advisory Opinion; doesn't recognize Hamas' democratic election; doesn't address Israel's Gaza withdrawal; or the June 2007 Gaza and West Bank separation;

-- Israel attached 14 reservations to the "road map" that call into question its commitment; and

-- Israel's language shows a further lack of commitment by stating the initiative is "a performance-based and goal driven roadmap."

International law under Article 47 of the Fourth Geneva Convention is one of many serious matters at issue. It affirms that persons under occupation retain their legal rights under any agreement "between the authorities of the occupied territories and the Occupying Power (and) any annexation by the latter of the whole or part of the occupied territory." This means that any recognition of Israeli settlements in Occupied Palestine is illegal under international law. It also highlights the dangers of negotiations between unequals with Israelis controlling everything and Palestinians at their mercy.

An equitable agreement is impossible under these conditions, and Dugard states the only way negotiations should proceed. They must take place "within a normative framework, with the guiding norms to be found in international law, particularly international humanitarian and human rights law, the (ICJ) Advisory Opinion, and Security Council resolutions." The effort cannot proceed as an exercise in "political horse-trading." Doing so guarantees failure, but more is at stake as well.

Creating a Palestinian state won't heal 60 years of conflict that's gone all Israel's way and inflicted great harm and suffering on the Palestinian people. At some point, real peace is only possible if a supreme effort is made toward true reconciliation between the two sides. That entails addressing events, actions and past sufferings fully and honestly. Dugard suggests a South African-style Truth and Reconciliation Commission for an open airing by both sides. Unless it happens in good faith, tensions will remain and peace won't be possible. Up to now, it appears Israel wants it that way.

A Final Comment

Ahead of Israel's 60th anniversary and worldwide commemoration events, the Canada - Palestine Support Network (CanPalNet) will run one or more full-page ads in protest. It's headlined: "We Cannot Celebrate," and below is the text.

"Around the world, plans are being made to mount major celebrations of the 60th anniversary of the founding of the state of Israel. But this year also marks 60 years since 750,000 Palestinians were brutally expelled from their homeland in what they refer to as the Nakba or "catastrophe." Given this history, and the deepening conflict in the region today, we believe there are no grounds for celebration.

We cannot celebrate
while Israel starves and bombs the people of Gaza.

We cannot celebrate
while Israel extends its apartheid wall.

We cannot celebrate
while Israel builds Jewish only settlements on roads on stolen Palestinian lands.

We cannot celebrate
while Israel continues to violate United Nations Resolution 194, refusing to let Palestinians return to their homes.

We cannot celebrate
while Israel continues to promote wars and expand its nuclear arsenal.

We cannot celebrate
as long as the policies of Israel's leaders fuel a conflict in which innocent lives on both sides are lost.

We can and will continue our efforts to end these injustices, upholding international law, human rights and United Nations resolutions. This is the only road map to peace."

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to The Global Research News Hour on RepublicBroadcasting.org Mondays from 11AM to 1PM US Central time for cutting-edge discussions of world and national topics with distinguished guests.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8355

Bush v. Chavez - An Update

Bush v. Chavez - An Update - by Stephen Lendman

Imagine the following - the nation Martin Luther King called "The Greatest Purveyor of Violence in the World Today" may brand democratic Venezuela a state sponsor of terrorism if extremist lawmakers on the Hill get their way.

On March 12, George Bush accused Hugo Chavez of backing Colombian-based "terrorists" and using Venezuela's oil wealth for an anti-American campaign. He further claimed Chavez has a "thirst for power....of squander(ing his country's) oil wealth....of prais(ing a) terrorist leader as a good revolutionary and order(ing) his troops to the Colombian border. This is the latest step in a disturbing pattern of provocative behavior by the regime in Caracas. He has also called for FARC terrorists to be recognized as a legitimate army (and his) senior regime officials have met with FARC leaders in Venezuela."

At the same time, 21 extremist lawmakers want Venezuela named a state sponsor of terrorism and added to the State Department's list of five others for "repeatedly provid(ing) support for acts of international terrorism" under three US laws:

-- the Export Administration Act, section 6 (j);

-- the Arms Export Control Act, section 40; and

-- the Foreign Assistance Act, section 620A.

Countries now listed include - Syria (1979), Cuba (1982), Iran (1984), North Korea (1988), and Sudan (1993). Designation triggers sanctions that "penalize persons and countries engaging in certain trade with state sponsors."

The US Code Definition of Terrorism

The US Code defines "international terrorism" as follows:

(A) "violent acts or acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State, or that would be a criminal violation if committed within the jurisdiction of the United States or of any State;

(B) appear to be intended -

(i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population;

(ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or

(iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and

(C) occur primarily outside the territorial jurisdiction of the United States...."

The US Army Operational Concept for Terrorism (TRADOC Pamphlet No. 525-37, 1984) shortens the definition to be "the calculated use of violence or threat of violence to attain goals that are political, religious, or ideological in nature....through intimidation, coercion, or instilling fear."

The US Definition of War Crimes - Part I, Chapter 118, Number 2441 of the US Code

(a) "Offense. - Whoever, whether inside or outside the United States, commits a war crime, in any of the circumstances described in subsection (b), shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for life or any term of years, or both, and if death results to the victim, shall also be subject to the penalty of death.

(b) Circumstances. - The circumstances referred to in subsection (a) are that the person committing such war crime or the victim of such war crime is a member of the Armed Forces or a national of the United States (as defined in section 101 of the Immigration and Nationality Act).

(c) Definition. - As used in this section the term "war crime" means any conduct -

(1) defined as a grave breach in any of the international conventions signed at Geneva 12 August 1949, or any protocol to such convention to which the United States is a party;

(2) prohibited by Article 23, 25, 27, or 28 of the Annex to the Hague Convention IV, Respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land, signed 18 October 1907;

(3) which constitutes a violation of common Article 3 of the international conventions signed at Geneva, 12 August 1949, or any Protocol to such convention to which the United States is a party and which deals with non-international armed conflict; or

(4) of a person who, in relation to an armed conflict and contrary to the provisions of the Protocol on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Mines, Booby-Traps and Other Devices as amended at Geneva on 3 May 1996 (Protocol II as amended on 3 May 1996), when the United States is a party to such Protocol, willfully kills or causes serious injury to civilians."

Two Hemispheric Neighbors Worlds Apart

Under US terrorism and war crimes statutes as well as by any international standard, the US is a flagrant and serial abuser. The record is hardly disputable in spite of efforts made to sanitize it.

In contrast, Hugo Chavez seeks unity; wants stability; embraces his neighbors; and promotes global solidarity, equality and political, economic and social justice quite mirror opposite to Washington's conquest and imperial agenda. Unlike America, Venezuela doesn't attack or threaten other nations. It offers no-strings aid (including low-priced oil to US cities) and mutually beneficial trade and other alliances.

Chavez champions human rights, has no secret prisons, doesn't practice torture or state-sponsored killings, respects the law and everyone's rights under it. He's a true social democrat in a participatory democracy, and has been elected and reelected overwhelmingly under procedures independently judged open, free and fair. That's what Bolivarianism is about, but try hearing that from Washington or the dominant media using any pretext to vilify it and the man who leads it.

Chavez is a hero in the region and around the world, and that makes him Washington's target. Imagine the Bush administration matching his December 31 gesture or the media reporting it fairly. He granted amnesty to imprisoned 2002 coup plotters, except for those who fled the country. The decree pardoned figures accused in the scheme, who took over state television at the time, who tried to murder him in recent years, and who later sabotaged state oil company PDVSA during the 2002 - 2003 management lockout. He also pardoned 36 other prisoners in a conciliatory measure to turn "the page (and direct the) country....toward peace."

In a post-9/11 environment, here's how Washington rewards him:

-- he's relentlessly targeted by measures that so far stop short of disrupting business;

-- on December 11, three Venezuelans and one Uruguayan were arrested and charged in US federal court with acting and conspiring as agents of the Venezuelan government without having notified the US Attorney General; they were accused of conspiring to conceal the source, destination and role of the Venezuelan government to deliver $800,000 to Argentina with a US businessman as conduit;

-- on November, 2007, by conspiring with Colombia to halt mediation efforts with the FARC-EP for the release of 45 hostages at the time, including three US contractors;

-- for repeatedly denying Venezuela's extradition request for Luis Posada Carriles who's wanted for outstanding crimes and in spite of a legally-binding extradition treaty between the countries dating since 1923;

-- on November 5, for approving H. Res. 435 EH (by voice vote) condemning Iran as the "most active state sponsor of terrorism;" it also targeted Venezuela with examples of relations between the two countries that are hostile to Washington;

-- on September 14, 2007, citing Venezuela for the third consecutive year for failing to observe international counternarcotics agreements;

-- on June 21, for approving representative Connie Mack's H. Amdt. to H.R. 2764 to direct $10 million for propaganda broadcasting into Venezuela;

-- on June 12, the State Department targeted Venezuela in its annual Trafficking in Persons Report that placed the country in Tier 3 status for not making adequate efforts to combat trafficking in persons;

-- on May 24, for unanimously approving S. Res. 211 condemning Venezuela's disregard for free expression for not renewing (one of) RCTV's operating licenses;

-- on May 14, for the second consecutive year, condemning Venezuela for not fully cooperating in antiterrorism efforts; other nations listed were Cuba, Iran, North Korea and Syria;

-- on April 30, the State Department condemned Venezuela for being unwilling to prevent the country's territory from being used as a safe haven by Colombian "terrorist groups;"

-- on March 6, the State Department cited Venezuela's human rights situation showed "politicization of the judiciary, harassment of the media, and harassment of the political opposition;"

-- on March 1, the State Department condemned Venezuela for being one of the principal hemispheric drug transit countries because of its location, rampant high-level corruption, weak judicial system, and lack of international counternarcotics cooperation;

-- on February 7, Secretary Rice accused Chavez of "assault(ing) democracy in Venezuela (and) destroying his own country economically (and) politically;" and

-- on January 11, National Intelligence Director (and serial killer) John Negroponte accused Chavez of being "among the most stridently anti-American leaders anywhere in the world (whose) try(ing) to undercut US influence in Venezuela, in the rest of Latin America, and elsewhere internationally;" he also said his military purchases were threatening his neighbors and could fuel a regional arms race.

The above examples only covered 2007 with many comparable and more extreme ones in earlier years. Excluded as well are continuing covert actions with open-checkbook funding to destabilize and topple the Chavez government. One of them is what Latin American expert James Petras mentions in his March 12 article on the FARC-EP and "The Cost of Unilateral Humanitarian Initiatives." He explains that Chavez's diplomatic rapprochement with Uribe won't halt "large-scale (Columbian) paramilitary (infiltration into) Venezuela (that) destabiliz(e) the country" because Washington wants it continued.

So far, actions have stopped short of disrupting business, but anything is possible before January 2009 or thereafter. Washington fears Chavismo's good example. It's strengthening, spreading and creating angst in American hard right circles and for Democrats as well.

Charges and Countercharges

The March 13 Wall Street Journal reported that US intelligence officials have been examining "computer files (claimed to have been) seized from (FARC-EP) guerrillas earlier this month by Colombian commandos." The Uribe government (with no supportive evidence) says they show Chavez "was in contact with the rebels and plann(ed) to give them $300 million. If true, that could open Venezuela to US sanctions," but Washington will likely use lesser measures instead.

White House National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe gave no indication either way in stating: "Our intelligence agencies are looking at the material acquired....and we will see where that lands." Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Thomas Shannon said: "Declaring somebody a state sponsor of terrorism is a big step, a serious step. It's one that we will only take after very careful consideration of all the evidence." For her part, Secretary Rice was true to form adding: "it is an obligation of every member of the United Nations...not to support terrorists."

There was more as well from an unidentified senior US official who said government lawyers were asked to clarify "what goes into effect in terms of prohibitions or prohibited activities" when a "state sponsor" designation is made. He added that if Washington accepts the computer documents as valid, then "I think it will beg the question of whether or not Venezuela, given Chavez's interactions with the FARC, has....crossed the threshold of state sponsor of terror."

Former State Department arms trafficking expert, James Lewis, explained further. He said "state sponsor" (designation) immediately imposes (restrictions) on the abilities of US companies to work in" the country. They'll be "forbidden from operating there, forbidden from receiving any money from Venezuela. It would make it very hard for Venezuela to sell oil to the US. All the arrangements we have now where Venezuelan oil is routinely sent to the United States would have to stop." Lewis stopped short of speculating this will happen, but his tone suggests it's unlikely. Corporate interests would also balk because business in Venezuela is booming, so are profits, and at a time companies are struggling for every source they can get.

That wasn't on Mary Anastasia O'Grady's mind in her March 10 Wall Street Journal column. She was all venom and agitprop in her commentary on "The FARC Files - Four presidents (Chavez, Correa, Morales and Ortega), four best friends of terrorists." She claimed laptop documents "show that Mr. Chavez and (FARC-EP leader) Reyes were not only ideological comrades, but also business partners and political allies in the effort to wrest power from Mr. Uribe." She also attacked the FARC-EP with a menu of charges, including efforts to buy 50 kilos of uranium for a possible dirty bomb and a (mysterious) letter explaining "terrorist efforts to acquire missiles from Lebanon." And she jumped on four regional leaders for "support(ing) FARC violence and treachery against Mr. Uribe."

On the same page, a Journal editorial referred to the "Venezuelan strongman" and "Chavez Democrats" who help "our enemy by spurning our best Latin ally," and it "isn't the first time Democrats have (done it), but it would be the most destructive." The reference is to the Colombia (US) Free Trade Agreement. It's stalled in Congress and likely dead this session with Democrats not wanting to touch it in an election year - unless they can cut a deal with the administration for something they want.

The Journal blasts them and Jimmy Carter, too, for blessing Chavez's 2004 electoral victory. It then claimed Democrats "oppose the deal on grounds that Mr. Uribe has not done more to protect 'trade unionists.' In fact, Mr. Uribe has done more to reduce violence in Colombia than any modern leader in Bogota. The real question for Democrats is whether they're going to choose Colombia - or Hugo Chavez." And the beat goes on with 10 more months under George Bush for it to boil over and plenty of media support heating things up.

In the face of criticism, Caracas wasn't quiet. Reaction was swift with Venezuela's OAS representative, Jorge Valero, calling the administration "the terrorist government par excellence....an aberration, an absolutely stupid thing to say (by a government in Washington) that practices state terrorism, that has invaded Iraq and Afghanistan without respect for international law, that commits genocidal practices (around) the world, that has invaded Latin American and Caribbean countries, that aims to present itself as the moral conscience of the world."

Venezuela's Information Minister, Andres Izarra, added that US officials are considering measures against Venezuela because "they are searching for new ways to attack....and move forward with their plan to finish with the Bolivarian Revolution."

In a March 14 televised speech, Hugo Chavez dared the Bush administration to designate Venezuela a state sponsor of terrorism. He said doing it is Washington's response to the country's success and added: "We shouldn't forget for an instant that we're in a battle against North American imperialism and that they have classified us as enemies - at least in this continent they have us as enemy No. 1." Their "imperial plan is to overthrow this government and knock down the Bolivarian Revolution. They're afraid of (its impact in) Latin America" (and, indeed, he's right).

As for allegedly paying $300 million to the FARC-EP, the Venezuelan government denounced the claim as an "exercise in falsification (and added) that the only foreign government that finances the conflict in Colombia is the United States." Caracas also affirms that its only guerrilla contacts were for hostage releases with key peace interlocutor Reyes now dead because of Colombia's (made in USA) incursion.

Other countries have also negotiated, including France, Ecuador and the US as recently declassified documents show. In 1998, Philip Chicola, State Department Office of Andean Affairs director, met secretly in Costa Rica with FARC-EP leaders Reyes and Olga Marin after Secretary of State Albright designated the group a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) in 1997.

In the end, where will this lead with views on that score mixed. Venezuela is America's third or fourth largest oil supplier, the price of crude now tops $100 a barrel, and the Wall Street Journal suggests measures far short of cutting off a vital supply source are likely. Other analysts agree because ending trade would harm both countries at a time world markets are roiled and the US economy is shaky.

Nonetheless, Republican congressman Connie Mack says Chavez "is using his vast oil wealth to fund terrorism in his own backyard (and it's) critical that the administration now act swiftly and decisively" against him. On March 13, he and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen introduced H. Res.10-49 (with eight co-sponsors) "calling for the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela to be designated a state sponsor of terrorism" and "condemn(ing) the Venezuelan government for its support of terrorist organizations" with direct reference to the FARC-EP.

Even with support in Congress, this effort won't likely get far according to Venezuelan expert Dan Hellinger. He notes how anti-Chavez forces are capitalizing on events but says "the odds are against them precisely because I think there's probably not much interest in the Congress (overall) in terms of making things worse with Venezuela at the moment." Key State Department diplomats aren't "likely....to want to pour gasoline on the fire" or take any action that may harm the economy in an election year and on an issue that's mainly an administration one - and a lame duck one on the way out.

Michael Shifter of the Inter-American Dialogue went further in suggesting Latin American leaders won't tolerate designating Venezuela a state sponsor of terrorism and "would react very strongly, because of all the political, security, and economic implications."

It remains to be seen what's next, but Chavez knows what he's up against from a rogue administration in Washington with lots of time left to destroy Bolivarianism, oust its main proponent, vaporize Venezuela, and end the republic if that's what it has in mind. Stay tuned for further updates on Bush v. Chavez.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to The Global Research New Hour on RepublicBroadcasting.org Mondays from 11AM - 1PM US Central time for cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8355

Yassin Aref's Struggle for Justice in Police State America

Yassin Aref's Struggle for Justice in Police State America - by Stephen Lendman

Yassin Aref is a 37 year old Albany, New York resident and one of many Muslim victims of police state justice in post-9/11 America. They've been hunted down, rounded up, held in detention, kept in isolation, denied bail, restricted in their right to counsel, tried on secret evidence and trumped-up charges, then incarcerated as political prisoners or deported to where they face possible arrest and torture.

Because of his faith and ethnicity, Aref was victimized by US "justice" in a post-9/11 climate of fear. He's an Iraqi Kurd who emigrated to the US as a UN refugee in 1999 with his wife and three young children. He's now in federal prison but committed no crime. He's also the author of a poignant memoir/autobiography titled "Son of Mountains: My Life as a Kurd and a Terror Suspect." He wrote it in custody at Troy, New York's Rensselaer County Jail after his wrongful conviction in October 2006.

It's his story in prose and poetry covering much more than his arrest, conviction and imprisonment. It's an account of an early life in poverty, his struggle to survive, his time in exile, of a two-time immigrant, and a UN refugee who sought peace and freedom in America but instead was persecuted. It's his story of wrongful conviction, of grave injustice, of a militarized state, of his constitutional rights denied, of despotism run amuck, of a nation where no one is safe, where many hundreds like him are imprisoned, and where we're all Yassins in police state America.

The story concludes with a powerful essay by pro bono lawyer, Stephen Downs, that details how Yassin was framed and wrongfully convicted. It explains how he "never before in (his) professional life (of over 35 years) encountered a deliberate frame-up. (He) was familiar with prosecutorial abuses" wrongful convictions, "sloppy police work, concealment of errors, hubris and arrogance, but what happened to Yassin was (much) different."

The government deliberately fabricated bogus charges and plotted to convict a man they knew was innocent. It was a "cold, calculating plan carried out over a long period of time, costing millions of dollars and involving dozens of agents, prosecutors, and the acquiescence of high-level officials, to convict two men of terrorism who had no involvement or interest in (it)....I could not adapt....to this new reality. For me, Yassin's case (won't end) until (his) injustice (is) corrected. Besides, (he's) now my brother." Today, we're all Yassin's brothers and sisters and must stand with him for justice.

The FBI Plot

In August 2004, FBI agents arrested Aref and Mohammed Hossain as part of a counterterrorism sting operation based on an unsubstantiated claim: that his name, address and phone number were in a notebook in a "bombed out Iraqi encampment." The information was classified and unavailable to his defense counsel even though he's cleared for security. The government first claimed Aref was called "commander." It then admitted there was a "mistranslation" and the Kurdish word "kak" means brother and is a common term of respect.

Aref originates from Iraqi Kurdistan where his grandfather was a famous imam, and Aref was known and respected in the area. No information is available on the target was bombed, whether a notebook really exists, or what's in it if it does. Its "contents" are classified and kept under wraps, so that automatically raises suspicions about their authenticity or existence.

Nonetheless, the FBI claims Aref was tied to Mullar Krekar, Ansar al-Islam's founder. It's a Kurdish Sunni group that supposedly promotes radical Islamic and Jihad views. Since 1991, Krekar lived in Norway as a political refugee. While there, police investigated him for seven months, found incriminating evidence, and in April 2003 the country's Supreme Court acquitted him of terrorism charges. In spite of it, US authorities recharged him with consorting with Ansar to carry out 2003 suicide bombings in northern Iraq.

Norwegian police then reopened their investigation, went to Iraq, and what they learned was disquieting. The key witness (Didar Khalan) was in Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) custody, and his statement was obtained through torture. He subsequently retracted it, said he never met Krekar, and Norwegian authorities dropped all charges they believed had no basis in fact.

The real issue is this. In mid-2002, US officials sought Ansar's support for its planned Iraq invasion. When Krekar refused, Washington targeted him and his group. It got Jordan to demand his extradition on drugs-smuggling charges with no substantiating evidence. It also called Ansar the "missing link" between Saddam and Al Qaeda, and the New York Times mysteriously uncovered evidence of the group's tie to bin Laden. The PUK was the rest of the "link" on a trumped up Ansar- Baathist connection. It was all untrue, but in February 2003, the State Department designated Ansar a "foreign terrorist organization (FTO)," claimed it was "one of the leading groups (against) Coalition (forces) in Iraq," and accused Krekar as the group's founder.

It also got Aref in trouble with trumped-up charges of his ties to Krekar and secret "evidence" supposedly proving it. After marrying, Aref left Iraq in 1994 and lived for five years in Syria. While there, the UN approved his refugee status and right to emigrate that allowed him to come to America. While still in Syria, he worked as a gardener, lost his job in 1998, and was hired by the Damascus office of an Islamic Kurdish US ally opposed to Saddam Hussein - the Islamic Movement of Kurdistan (IMK). Krekar was an IMK official. In 2001, two years after Aref left Syria, he formed Ansar al-Islam. Aref briefly met him in Damascus but neither knew him or espoused his views.

In 1999, Aref and his family came to America and worked as a hospital janitor and ambulance driver. A year later he became the Masjid As Salam Mosque's imam. Aref's troubles began when FBI agents targeted him in a 2003 sting operation that his lawyers call a frame-up. They convinced a Pakistani informant (facing a long prison sentence and deportation on fraud charges) to approach Aref's friend, Mohammed Mosharref Hossain (a Bangladesh immigrant and US citizen), as a way to target him.

Shahed Hussein was the informant, he was known as Malik, and here's the essence of the scheme:

-- Malik was wired to secretly record all conversations with his targets;

-- he offered Hossain a $50,000 loan, pretending an interest in his pizza shop; as a show of good faith, he asked for $45,000 in checks so Hossain could keep the rest;

-- Hossain was told the money came from a surface-to-air (SAM) Chinese missile purchase that was intended for a group called JEM (Jaish-e-Mohammed - a Pakistani-based Islamic group that's also a designated FTO); and

-- the missile supposedly would be used against the Pakistani ambassador in New York.

It was all untrue, Malik was a willing FBI accomplice, Hossain thought JEM was a musical group, and he knew nothing about terrorism. He went along with the arrangement, and according to Muslim custom, brought in Aref to witness it. Later, the government arrested both men and claimed Aref was part of a money laundering and terrorist scheme. Aref's defense argued that he spoke poor English at the time, believed the loan was legitimate, was unaware of any laws broken, and the affair was a plot to entrap him.

Moreover, in January 2006, the defense learned that "evidence" was illegally obtained through NSA warrantless wiretapping and filed a motion to suppress it. It was denied. The defense appealed and was joined by the New York ACLU. Their appeal was denied on procedural grounds that no action could be taken while the case was still pending. It was unclear how this and other classified evidence (99% withheld from the defense) affected the trial. However, the Court instructed the jury that "the FBI had good and valid suspicions for investigating Yassin Aref."

He and Hossain were arrested in August 2004 and convicted in October 2006 - Hossain on 27 counts and Aref on 10 of 30 charges of money laundering, conspiracy to provide material support for a terrorist plot, terrorism, and making false statements in February 2002 and August 2004.

In March 2007, both men were sentenced to 15 years in prison and have filed appeals. In addition, Aref's counsel filed a lengthy sentencing memorandum to the US District Court for the Northern District of New York. It detailed his client's history and character and concluded as follows:

...."this case....raises a lot of troubling issues (including) the nature of the sting operation, targeting two individuals who had never been in any trouble before, and who clearly were not involved in any illegal activity at the time the informant entered their lives.... Moreover, the case occurred in a post-9/11 climate of great fear when ordinary Americans had become suspicious of Muslims.....history will recognize that this case never should have happened, and that the two defendants were the victims of an unfortunate over-reaction....Yassin Aref asks that the Court seriously consider his entire history and character (and) all (his) letters (of support,) the troubling nature of the case, and impose a truly just sentence."

Before sentencing, Aref professed his innocence and addressed the Court in imperfect English: ...."I know you, (your) Honor, and every single person and everybody, FBI, they check all my record, all my life, they interview thousands of the people....they knew never I did any violence, never I participate in any fighting, never I support any terrorist group....everybody knew I did nothing to be one day in the jail for. And I did not come to this country to be in the jail. I came to be free. I did not come to this country to destroy (it). I came to be my life. I (didn't) threaten any human being....I came for my children to be safe from terrorist....I believe what's done for me it is unfair and I believe, (your) Honor, it is your duty to make sure that justice has been served."

The prosecution asked for 30 years. The Court imposed 15. After the convictions, the Muslim Solidarity Committee (MSC) was formed to support Aref, Hossain and their families. It collected letters and around 1000 petition signatures asking the Court for leniency. It also held vigils twice weekly between conviction and sentencing and raised funds to support the two families. IMC members were traumatized by the verdict and knew it could happen to them. Others in the community were also outraged because Aref was innocent and was targeted for political reasons. They united with a committed goal - to exonerate Aref and Hossain, get all charges against them dropped, and protect their families from further harm.

For now, however, Aref remains a victim of US justice. After sentencing, he endured a punishing 43 day odyssey that took him to Terre Haute, Indiana federal prison. But first he was sent to federal facilities in Massachusetts, Brooklyn, Oklahoma City and the Ray Brook, New York Correctional Institution about which he recounted his first days:

They "placed (him) in the special housing unit (SHU) or, as they call it, the Hole. Even in that unit they placed (him) in a special cell. (He) was alone by (himself), the rest of the prisoners were in double cells. (His) cell was so small and had a concrete bed in the middle of it where there was no room to talk and a small window with frosted glass, one could not see outside. The unit was like a basement and it was a nasty and filthy place. (He) was shocked to see that!....(He) did not know why (he was there). (He) was thinking how the place was (and) asking (himself) - how can such a place exist in the United States?

....It was like a bad dream....(He) had no mail....no books to read....no commissary....no cellmate....not even a call to (his) attorney!!....(He believed) the reason (he was convicted was) that (he) is a Muslim (with) a beard, not because (he) did something wrong....(and because he doesn't) know English well....am from the Middle East and speak Arabic (and) am not a citizen. (He kept) thinking about the kind of victory (the government) achieved (that) separate(d) (him) from (his) four very young children....They knew in their hearts what they did to (him) was unfair, unjust. (How can what they did to him be) a victory in the justice system of this country."

After Ray Brook, Aref was sent to the secret Terre Haute, Indiana federal penitentiary Communications Management Unit (CMU) that opened in December 2006. It's for "high-security risk" Muslim and Middle Eastern prisoners to limit or cut them off entirely from outside contact. Doing so, however, violates the May 3, 2004 US Supreme Court decision in Johnson v. California which held that segregating prisoners by race, ethnicity or language is illegal. In addition, Prison Bureau regulations stipulate that "staff shall not discriminate against inmates on the basis of race, religion, national origin, sex, disability, or political belief (including) administrative decisions (involving) access to work, housing and programs." Further, the Federal Administrative Procedures Act explicitly requires all prison regulations comply with this law.

At great personal risk, Aref described his CMU life in an October 2007 article titled "Dead Life - Inside out and upside down: Life at the 'Communication Management Unit' of Terre Haute Federal Prison." When he wrote it, his English had improved, and it was painful to read. He said Terre Haute is geared toward revenge, to hurt for the sake of hurting. There's no pretense of rehabilitation, no thought of protecting society from harm. The place is a playground for thugs who like to make people suffer. CMU inmates are "lock(ed) down in this old leaky building and prohibit(ed) from hugging our children and calling them often....(This) will never bring peace to this country, and will never make this nation safer. But it is really putting the justice system in this country on trial."

"Is it true that all humans are equal?

Is it true that everyone is free to choose his faith?

Are human rights really protected by law?

We hear this but we would like to see it!!"

Aref and Hossain's appeal is before the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York. Oral arguments are scheduled for late March with a decision likely months in the future, so their status remains on hold. Their case may challenge NSA's warrantless wiretapping as it's the only time evidence from it has been used so far against a defendant. The motion before the Court states: "The government engaged in illegal electronic surveillance of thousands of US persons, including Yassin Aref, then instigated a sting operation to attempt to entrap (him) into supporting a non-existent terrorist plot, then dared to claim that the illegal NSA operation was justified because it was the only way to catch (him)!"

Winning won't be easy, however, in a post-9/11 climate and after the Protect America Act of 2007 became law last August. It allows near-unrestricted warrantless spying of anyone considered a national security risk. It further ends Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches and seizures and Fifth Amendment ones against self-incrimination. It effectively annuls the letter and spirit of the law and henceforth denies everyone its protection.

International law and human rights expert, Francis Boyle, explains what defense attorneys are now up against in federal court. In his new book, "Protesting Power - War, Resistance and Law," he explains that federal judges abdicated their authority, defer instead to presidential lawlessness, and over two-thirds of them are from the extremist Federalist Society. It means winning in this environment is tenuous at best, but Aref's lawyers are determined to press on.

Defense counsel Stephen Downs recounted the case in a Washington Report on Middle East Affairs (September-October 2007) article called "From Sting to Frame-Up: The Case of Yassin Aref."

He described how, for three years, the government tried to destroy his life through bogus terrorist charges from a sting operation frame-up with "evidence" from it classified, inconclusive, and unavailable to the defense. So it hired a convicted felon (Malik) to entrap him through a "fictitious plot," and for his cooperation would "make all of his legal troubles go away (and cancel his scheduled deportation)...." On October 27, 2006, a federal judge sentenced Malik to time served, and he's now a free man.

Aref's conviction highlights how America treats Muslims post-9/11 and in a climate where no one is safe. Targets are innocent victims of rogue state justice that "send(s) a politically reassuring message to the country that the government is hard at work catching terrorists - even if (those targeted) are not real terrorists at all, but simply people the government can frame." It makes no one safer - "indeed it makes us less safe by undermining the rule of law."

Aref is well-known in Albany and his family recognized and respected. It's reassuring that "Yassin's case will not be forgotten. His family (bears) silent witness to the government's reign of terror against people who have no involvement or interest in terrorism. Injustice, no matter how we try to rationalize it as part of a 'war on terror,' is still injustice, and it will not be forgotten." Neither will Aref and Hossain until they're exonerated and free in the land that should afford everyone that right but denies to Muslims and others police state America targets.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to The Global Research News Hour on RepublicBroadcasting.org Mondays from 11AM - 1PM US Central time for cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests.

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8264

Bush and Uribe v. Chavez and Correa

Bush and Uribe v. Chavez and Correa - by Stephen Lendman

Call it another salvo in Bush v. Chavez with Ecuador's Raphael Correa as a secondary target and Colombia's Alvaro Uribe as a proxy aggressor. The Ecuadorean incursion was no ordinary cross-border raid. It was a made in Washington affair that escalates a nine year attempt to remove the Venezuelan leader and return oligarchs in the country to power. It also threatens two regional leaders who know what they're up against in Uribe and Washington, "friendly" handshakes in the Dominican Republic notwithstanding. The situation is far from settled, and here's how events unfolded so far:

-- on March 1, the Colombian military illegally entered Ecuadorean air space and invaded on the ground; the target was a FARC-EP rebel camp; US intelligence was key by identifying the precise location to bomb through satellite telephone tracking; Colombian Radio Cadena Nacional (RCN) reported it heard a FARC-EP leader - Chavez conversation three days before the raid; Colombian Noticias Uno TV said "foreign spy planes" photographed FARC-EP's precise location for the country's military to use in the raid;

-- it's also known that US Special Forces train Colombian counterinsurgents, accompany them on missions, and likely participated (covertly) in the March 1 operation;

-- Colombian (and likely US) forces attacked and slaughtered over 20 people in total, including 16 Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FACR-EP) members while they slept;

-- among the dead was FARC-EP's second-in-command, Raul Reyes; he was FARC-EP's public voice, its key peace negotiator since the 1990s, and the lead figure in the Chavez-arranged hostage releases; that and his prominence made him a target so his death may disrupt the process and current efforts toward resolving a 40 year conflict equitably; Washington wants it halted, so does Uribe, and that's where things now stand;

-- Hugo Chavez and other Latin American leaders were united in condemning the hostile act; the 35-member Organization of American States, however, was tepid in its formal March 5 response; Correa called it welcome but inadequate and insists on a formal condemnation; Chavez was even more forceful saying: "We demand condemnation of the Colombian government for this aberrant act," he called it a "war crime (and blamed the crisis on the US) empire and its lackeys;"

-- ahead of the March 7 Dominican Republic XX Rio Group Summit of Latin American leaders, foreign ministers from Chile, Argentina, Mexico, Brazil and Peru issued a statement demanding respect for their national sovereignty; Chavez called the meeting "positive" and advocated "cooling tensions;" he supported Ecuador and said: "We don't want war;"

-- Chavez, Correa and Uribe exchanged cool handshakes and pro forma conciliatory statements at the Summit; for what it's worth, Uribe issued a "formal apology" to the Ecuadorean government and its people; call it disingenuous diplomacy; it settles nothing in spite of how the media played it or that Venezuela and Colombia restored diplomatic ties; for his part, Correa said it will be "difficult to recover trust" and reestablishing normal relations "will take a little time;"

-- one example of media coverage came from correspondent Simon Romero of The New York Times; he's always disingenuous and never neutral; he reported "handshakes and warm embraces....ended the dispute" as though nothing ever happened and it's again business as usual; in fact, nothing is settled; the incident still simmers, it's just a matter of time before the next one erupts, and Chavez, Correa and other regional leaders know it; so does Washington that plans them;

-- earlier, Chavez also called Colombia the "Israel of Latin America" saying both countries claimed "a supposed right to defense," to bomb and invade neighbors on orders from Washington;

-- Uribe confirmed it by saying he "refused to rule out future military incursions into Ecuador or Venezuela," so expect more provocations ahead with full Washington backing;

-- at the same time, huge crowds of Colombians at home and abroad marched for peace and against terrorist acts; they denounced violence on both sides and want it ended, but a new disturbing report came out:

-- the Colombia weekly Semana wrote that ex-Israeli military men are fighting guerrilla organizations (meaning the FARC-EP and ELN), and Defense Minister Juan Santos confirmed that "A group of former Israeli military officials (including three senior generals, a lower ranking officer and three translators) is counseling the military's top brass on intelligence issues;" in addition, FARC-EP claims that Israeli commandos were engaged against them along with US and British forces.

The hostile words followed with Ecuadorean officials citing irrefutable evidence that Uribe's attack was premeditated and his worst ever aggression against their country. Correa expressed "outrage" and sees no negotiated settlement because "there is nothing to negotiate." In Brazil for a meeting with Lula da Silva, he said Ecuador is prepared to go "up to the ultimate consequences (over this even though) nobody wants war. But we won't fool ourselves. The war was started by Colombia. We were bombed."

Correa and Chavez both deployed troops to their borders, and each country went further. Ecuador severed diplomatic ties with its neighbor, and Correa called Uribe Washington's "unconditional puppet" for his blatant act of aggression. Chavez also expelled Colombia's ambassador, and called the strike "a cowardly murder, all of it coldly calculated" and planned in Washington. He also warned Colombia against similar Venezuelan incursions that he would interpret as a "cause for war."

Uribe, in turn, defiantly shot back that Colombia will charge Chavez in the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague for materially aiding the FARC-EP by "sponsor(ing) and funding genocidal" groups. Colombia's Radio Caracol then reported Uribe intends to "revise" or "examine" his charges with no further details given. And on the same day Vice-President Francisco Santos Calderon provocatively indicated that relations with Correa "may be recovered," but it will be "very difficult" to reach a diplomatic solution with Chavez. He and Uribe have long been antagonists and have been at odds for months over Chavez's hostage mediating success that embarrassed the Colombian president and Washington in the process.

Colombian officials heightened tensions further through misstatements. First, they claimed bombings occurred on their own territory. Then they changed the story saying: "Colombia has not violated any sovereignty, (we) only acted in accordance with the principle of legitimate defense," and responded to fire from inside Ecuador.

Both statements were untrue and Chavez reacted. He accused Uribe of lying and called him a "criminal" saying: "Not only is he a liar, a mafia boss, a paramilitary who leads a narco-government (that's) a lackey of the United States (but he also) leads a band of criminals from his palace."

The war of words continues with Washington's OAS ambassador, Robert Manzanares, accusing FARC-EP of "undertak(ing) repeated incursions and infringements of national sovereignty (against Colombia's) neighbors." Defense Secretary Robert Gates "applauded" Uribe's action, and when asked if US intelligence supported it said: "Well, I would just say that we are very supportive."

George Bush joined in, and jumped to his ally's defense. Well he should as Washington provides Colombia with over $600 million a year and all for one purpose - to support repression and the interests of capital at the expense of beneficial social change. On March 4, Bush phoned Uribe with assurances "America fully supports Colombia's democracy (and) firmly opposes any acts of aggression that could destabilize the region." He also called sending Venezuelan troops to the border "provocative maneuvers."

In addition, he used the crisis to push Congress to approve a trade deal that's been stalled over issues of Uribe's paramilitary links and the country's human rights record. Bush did what he always does. He cited national security and said ratification is a way to counter leaders like Chavez who destabilize the region. "If we fail to approve this agreement, we will let down our close ally, we will damage our credibility (and) will embolden the demagogues in our hemisphere."

Consider comments as well from US presidential candidates. On March 3, Barack Obama said: "The Colombian people have suffered for more than four decades at the hands of a brutal terrorist insurgency, and the Colombian government has every right to defend itself against the...FARC."

Hillary Clinton was even more hostile stating: "Hugo Chavez's order yesterday to send ten battalions to the Colombian border is unwarranted and dangerous. (Colombia) has every right to defend itself against drug trafficking terrorist organizations that have kidnapped innocent civilians, including American citizens. By praising and supporting the (FARC-EP), Chavez is openly siding with terrorists that threaten Colombian democracy and the peace and security in the region. (Chavez) must call a halt to this provocative action. As president, I will....press Chavez to change course."

Then there's John McCain who even scares some in the Pentagon and is virulently hostile to Chavez. He calls him a "wacko" and "two-bit-dictator" and advocates his ouster "in the name of democracy and freedom throughout the hemisphere." As president, he'd be the most likely to provoke a confrontation because he's ideologically committed to militarism "to confront a range of security challenges....in a dangerous world."

One writer calls him an "authoritarian maverick" and a man to fear as president. Another describes his "McCainiac mentality," his notion of occupying Iraq for 100 years or as long as it takes, and his belief that militarism, nationalism and honor are their own rewards. Still another expects a McCain administration to confront Venezuela and Cuba by allying with regional rightest forces for regime change in both countries. Add Ecuador as well and a determination to declare "mission accomplished" before his tenure ends if he's elected.

Disturbing evidence of his belligerence is in his October 2001 commentary titled: "No Substitute for Victory - War is hell. Let's get on with it." In it, he calls war "miserable business (but let's) get on with the business of killing our enemies as quickly....and as ruthlessly as we must....(post-9/11) we have only one primary occupation, and that is to vanquish international terrorism. Not reduce it. Not change its operations. Not temporarily subdue it. But vanquish it....We did not cause this war (but) we must destroy the people who (did)." Is this a man to trust as president who considers anyone unresponsive to US interests a "terrorist" and state enemy to be destroyed?

Democrats are no better, so expect the worst under a new president next year. The "war on terror" will continue, and Uribe will get full funding and support for internal repression and Washington-ordered regional aggression.

By that standard, Hugo Chavez and Raul Castro have every right to invade Florida to capture two resident terrorists for bona fide crimes against their countries - Luis Posada Carriles and Orlando Bosch. Posada is a former CIA operative who terror-bombed and killed 73 people in 1976 on Cubana flight 455 that Bosch likely masterminded. Yet South Florida's Cuban-American community and the Bush administration protect them as an expression of their judicial double standard.

Heated Rhetoric and Provocative Charges

Further heightening tensions, Colombia's vice-president, Francisco Santos Calderon, made an outlandish claim. With no verifiable evidence, even some in the intelligence community are dubious - that invading forces found provocative material on three recovered laptops that supposedly show:

-- Venezuela provided $300 million in aid to the FARC-EP;

-- Chavez and Correa have links to the rebel group;

-- Chavez is trying to undermine, isolate and discredit Uribe and wants to cleanse FARC-EP of its (undeserved) pariah status; and most outrageous of all that

-- FARC-EP acquired 50 kilograms (110 pounds) of uranium for a radioactive dirty bomb it wishes to sell for profit.

Former State Department arms smuggling expert, James Lewis, discounts the story. He said: "In a lot of cases involving uranium deals, somebody's usually getting snookered (and the 50 kilos) quantity sounds really suspicious" because US intelligence would likely spot anyone securing an amount that large.

Chavez as well denounced the claim and called the documents lies and fabrications. He also closed Venezuela's 1300 mile long Colombian border, and at an extraordinary Organization of American States (OAS) session, his representative, Jorge Valero, said: "The Colombian government has lied blatantly. All (its) accusations....against Venezuela and Ecuador are false, totally false." Retired Venezuelan general, Alberto Muller Rojas, went further. He denounced Colombia's "evidence" as an "exercise in falsification (and stated that) the only foreign government that finances the conflict in Colombia is the United States," it's done it with billions for years, and in the same way it destabilizes regions throughout the world.

Corporate Media Responses

A March 5 Washington Post editorial supported Colombia's aggression, but that's typical for its one-sided type journalism. The commentary said: "Colombia's armed forces struck a bold blow against the....FARC, a group specializing in drug trafficking, abductions and massacres of civilians that (the US has) designated a terrorist organization....it showed how Colombia's democratic government may be finally gaining the upper hand over (these) murderous gangs.

Now (Hugo Chavez) has been revealed as an explicit supporter and possible financier of the FARC. (He) made a show of ordering Venezuelan troops to the border (and) goaded his client (Correa) into mimicking his reaction. (They) both may have something to hide (about) financial links with the terrorists (and) backing an armed (terrorist) movement against the democratically elected government of their neighbor. No wonder (Uribe acted); he knows (Chavez and Correa) provid(e) a haven for the terrorists."

The New York Times' Simon Romero's comments were more measured in an article titled: "Colombia is Flashpoint in Chavez Fued with US," but his message was much as it always is - one-sidedly supporting Washington and its allies and hostile to Hugo Chavez. In this instance, it's his ties to the FARC-EP and supplying it with millions of dollars in aid. In an editorial, The Times went further. It accused Chavez of "meddling and manipulation (and trying to) revive his own flagging political fortunes" by getting involved. It added "Mr. Chavez should just keep quiet. The more he meddles, the easier it is to believe that the charges against him are true."

Then there's the Wall Street Journal that's even further hard right since Rupert Murdoch bought it. It's March 4 editorial was titled "Chavez's War Drums" with a sub-headline stating "A laptop spills some of his secrets." The commentary noted "Colombia's....major antiterror victory" and "Chavez....threatening war....But the real news (was in) a laptop belonging to (Paul Reyes) that reveals some of Mr. Chavez's secrets."

Columbia's "military (entered Ecuador) for legitimate reasons of self-defense....the Venezuelan bully....ordered 10 battalions and tanks to the Colombian border, and warned of war if the Colombian army staged a similar raid inside Venezuela....The war bluster is phony because Mr. Chavez is already waging his own guerrilla campaign against Colombia (by) support(ing) the FARC." The recovered "computer contains evidence supporting the claim that the FARC is working with Mr. Chavez (and) showed that Venezuela may have paid $300 million (for the) FARC's recent release of six civilian hostages."

Documents also "show(ed) that the FARC was seeking to buy 50 kilos of uranium (and sold) 700 kilograms of cocaine valued at $1.5 million." The "military found a thank you note from Mr. Chavez to FARC for some $150,000 that the rebels had sent him when he was in prison for his attempted (1992) coup d'etat."

This type agitprop never lets up, so expect continued anti-Chavez rhetoric ahead as the dominant media plays up every chance they get to demonize him and support Bush's hostile regime change agenda.

Some Background on the Diplomatic Crisis

Venezuelan-American lawyer and activist Eva Golinger writes on how Washington relentlessly targets Chavez. In November 2006, she explained what's just as true today - that the Bush administration goes at him by "three different fronts of attack."

-- the financial front by funding opposition groups "to obtain control in all different parts of the country," including the electoral process;

-- the diplomatic front by accusing Chavez of destabilizing the region; also by "diplomatic terrorism," including sanctions "for made-up things" like non-existent drugs trafficking or not cooperating against it or the "war on terrorism;" and

-- the military front with a large US presence in the region, major support for Uribe, and "use of Colombian paramilitaries (and) intervention of US Special Forces; the paramilitaries are the 'actors'....they're....sent....to try to assassinate Chavez (but) command-and-control is directed and controlled by the US Special Forces;" the paramilitaries and Colombian army "do the dirty work" while the US is "building up a secret (military) base near" Venezuela's border; in addition, "there were attempts to push the FARC into Venezuela to provide an excuse for Colombian troops to enter the country (and) make (the) border a combat zone." At the time Golinger wrote, she said there were more than 3000 paramilitaries in the Caracas area alone. That number or more are still likely there and elsewhere in the country, and in Ecuador as well.

Colombian-Directed Hostility Toward Chavez

Since his 2002 election, Uribe has been hostile to Chavez, and Colombian paramilitaries continue committing border-area terrorist attacks and within Venezuela as well. Uribe is Washington's key Latin American ally, he's liberally funded for his role, and his background makes him ideal - his hard right ideology, a wealthy land-owning family background, and a tainted past history:

-- he's been linked to the country's paramilitary death squads and drug cartels;

-- for over 20 years in various government positions, he supported state terrorism, including kidnappings and assassinations - of trade unionists, opposition group peasants, social and human rights activists, journalists, and others on the left who oppose the country's corporatist interests; and

-- he frequently violates Venezuelan sovereignty with full backing and funding of the Bush administration calling the shots.

In his earlier writing, long-time Latin American expert, James Petras, referred to "the Uribe Doctrine (that) lays the basis for unilateral military intervention anywhere in the hemisphere (and echoes) Washington's global pronouncements." They remain unchanged and claim the right to:

-- "violate any country's sovereignty (through) force and violence;

-- recruit and subvert military and security officials to serve (Colombian and Washington's) interests;

-- allocate funds to bounty hunters or 'third parties' to engage in illegal violent acts within a targeted country;

-- (assert) the supremacy of Colombian laws, decrees and policies over and against the sovereign laws of the intervened countries;" and

-- target Venezuela and militarily act wherever else Washington directs it in the hemisphere.

Chavez correctly calls Colombia "Latin America's Israel." And Washington funds it well for that purpose and to aid the Bush administration's top regional priority - toppling Chavez with Uribe's incursion the latest episode that signals further escalation. Petras says Uribe acts openly, and he's supported "at the highest level of the US government." Bogota ambassador, William Brownfield, is also supportive. He formerly served in the same capacity in Caracas where he frequently clashed with Chavez while there.

Petras also explains what Uribe's doctrine is up to, and it's clear where it originates. First and foremost it's to support Bush administration regional policies, specifically target Chavez, and get billions in funding to do it. In addition, it's to:

-- "destroy Cuban-Venezuelan trade ties (to) undermine (Cuba's) government;" efforts to do it may now intensify against the new Raul Castro government;

-- assure Venezuela remains "an exclusive oil exporter to the US" and sabotage Chavez's efforts to lessen his reliance on America by serving new markets like China; and

-- prop up a key regional ally to assure rightist forces rule as a reliable Washington proxy and consider its record:

-- Colombia is an internally repressive narco-state;

-- it practices state terrorism;

-- its foreign minister, Maria Consuelo Araujo, resigned last year after her brother, a senator, was jailed for colluding with paramilitary death squads; Colombia's Supreme Court also urged federal prosecutors to investigate her father - a former governor, federal lawmaker and agriculture minister on kidnapping charges;

-- its democracy is a sham; in last year's regional elections, 30 mostly left of center candidates were murdered; news reporting is censored; journalists are arrested and killed; civil liberties are debased; and the rule of law is tenuous at best under a president who roguishly suspends it; he also packed the country's Supreme Court and bribed and bullied enough legislators to amend the constitution to allow him to run for a second term - the first time in over 50 years an incumbent president did it;

-- its government is riddled with scandal; over one-third of his party members are allied with paramilitary death squads; eight pro-Uribe congressmen were arrested last year for their paramilitary ties, and dozens of national and regional politicians are under investigation and fled the country; in addition, Colombia's attorney general arrested Uribe's campaign manager and secret police chief, Jorge Noguera, for having supplied paramilitaries with trade unionist names to murder; another former secret police official is serving an 18 year sentence for purging police records of paramilitaries and drugs traffickers;

-- around two-thirds of Colombians are impoverished;

-- many thousands of its people are restless and leaving;

-- many cross into Venezuela with several hundred thousand now there;

-- wealth concentration is extreme and worsening; and

-- in the wake of his blatant aggression, Council on Hemispheric Affairs' Director, Larry Birns, calls Uribe "Latin America's most disgraced president." He says he's "scorned throughout (the region) for being Bush's favored hemispheric figure (but his) legacy (of aggression) will be a heavy cross for (him) to bear." He calls his presidency "catastrophic," and his Ecuadorean incursion effectively dooms it and his influence "on the hemisphere....Metaphorically speaking, (Paul) Reyes....scalped Uribe and....hung (his) tattered presidential sash upon a pike and walked the macabre sight through (Latin American) streets." Uribe will pay an "excessively high" price for "gunning down Reyes."

Contrast that assessment to conditions in Venezuela under Chavez. They're mirror opposite so expect lots more trouble ahead. Tattered or not, Uribe remains a loyal Washington proxy and will continue in that role while in office. It's why Plan Colombia isn't about eradicating drugs. Its about weakening Chavez and toppling the FARC-EP and National Liberation Army (ELN) rebel groups that control sizable portions of the country. Washington calls them Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs), but many countries disagree. Hugo Chavez calls them a revolutionary army that shares Venezuela's vision for a Bolivarian Latin America. Workers' Party of Mexico deputy Ricardo Cantu Garza agrees. He says they're a legitimate belligerent force confronting a corrupt and unequal political system.

And here's how prominent US attorney, Paul Wolf, describes the FARC-EP: They're a "belligerent army of national liberation....they conduct their conduct of hostilities by organized troops kept under military discipline and complying (with) the laws and customs of war....international law (doesn't prohibit) revolution, and if (it) succeeds....international law (allows) the outcome, even though it was achieved by force."

Progressive scholars and human rights activists agree, which brings us to what still drives both sides of the struggle. Washington and Colombia won't give an inch, but rebels won't yield until they do. For his part, Chavez wants peace, but was grim in his outlook when an American journalist asked if a confrontation with the US is inevitable: it is, "because while we want freedom, they want to keep us in chains....We want a fatherland; they want a colony....we want peace," but Colombia and the US want war and perpetual conflict. "Venezuela will never again be a US colony," and he saluted Fidel Castro as he said it and called him a "great teacher."

Castro responded and called the Ecuador raid a "monstrous crime. Deadly bombs were dropped....They were Yankee bombs, guided by Yankee satellites. Absolutely no one has the right to kill in cold blood....Correa has in his hands the few survivors and the rest of the bodies." Colombian troops kept two prominent ones as trophies and to collect millions in Washington-offered bounty. Correa, for his part, "can (now) cry out like Emile Zola: J'accuse."

So can the FARC-EP. Petras calls them the "longest standing, largest peasant-based guerrilla movement in the world (that was) founded in 1964 by two dozen peasant activists (to defend) autonomous rural communities from" Colombian military and paramilitary violence. It's now a "highly organized 20,000 member guerrilla army with several hundred thousand local militia and supporters...."

Pre-9/11, most EU and Latin American countries recognized the organization "as a legitimate resistance movement," and for several years Colombia's Pastrana government negotiated peace with its leaders. Since 2000 under Clinton and continuing under Bush, however, conflict replaced compromise with a clear committed aim - support for narco-state terrorism to "destroy the guerrilla army and its suspected social base among peasants, urban trade unions and professionals (especially teachers, lawyers, human rights activists and intellectuals)."

Ever since, a bloody extermination campaign has been waged, and it spills into Venezuela to topple its government and return the country to friendly oligarch rule. The scheme involves pouring billions into Colombia on the pretext of eradicating drugs. In fact, it's to build Uribe's military and fund a "31,000 strong death squad (paramilitary) force" that ravages the country, kills thousands of peasants and people on the left, and engages in US-style abductions and torture. With American taxpayer dollars, their post-2000 record is appalling:

-- over 2.5 million peasants and urban slum dwellers displaced;

-- more than 5000 trade unionists murdered from 1986 to 2006, by far the most anywhere in the world;

-- "30,000 peasants, rural teachers, and peasant and indigenous leaders have been killed with impunity;" and

-- "land seizures by paramilitary leaders, cattle barons and military officers (that's) concentrating land ownership to an unprecedented level."

With this going on, the liberation struggle continues, and expect no amount of billions to crush it. Colombia's conflict is civil. It's not, as Washington calls it, a "war on terror," but it's clearly state-directed terror against the Colombian people that also targets Venezuela. It's the latest salvo in Bush v. Chavez that won't likely end when a new US president takes office. So the struggle for justice continues with no early end of it in sight and no chance whatever that those in it have any intention of quitting.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to The Global Research News Hour on RepublicBroadcasting.org Mondays from 11AM to 1PM US Central time for cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests.

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8264

Peak Oil - True or False

Peak Oil - True or False - by Stephen Lendman

The arguments are so one-sided, it's practically a given that "peak oil" is real and threatening. Or is it? This article examines both sides. It lets readers decide and deals only with supply issues, not crucial environmental ones and the need to develop alternative energy sources. First some background.

The name most associated with "peak oil" is M. King Hubbert. He became the world's best known geologist when he worked for Houston-based Shell Oil Company from 1943 to 1964. His theory goes something like this. Oil is a finite resource. Peak oil, or Hubbert's peak, is the point at which maximum world production is reached, after which its rate terminally declines.

Hubbert first presented his theory in a February 4, 1949 Science magazine article called "Energy from Fossil Fuels." He gained prominence, however, from his 1956 American Petroleum Institute presentation titled "Nuclear Energy and the Fossil Fuels." In it, he predicted that US production would peak between the mid-1960s and early 1970s, and he was largely right (for the wrong reasons at the time) about cheap or what's called light sweet oil.

Most analysts believe US output peaked in 1970 and has since declined. Others, like economist and author F. William Engdahl, disagree. He's been researching oil issues since the early 1970s and believes US output peaked at the time but not because of resource depletion. It's "because Shell, Mobil, Texaco and the other partners of Saudi Aramco were flooding the US market with dirt cheap Middle East imports, tariff free, (and) at prices so low (that) many Texas domestic producers could not compete and" had to shutter their operations.

But Hubbert went further as well. He predicted a worldwide peak in "about half a century" that would progress in bell-shaped curve fashion, now called "Hubbert's curve." Here's how it works for all fossil fuels. Hubbert theorized that after discovery, production increases exponentially, but at some point peak output is reached, after which an exponential decline ensues. Hubbert's curve is symmetrical, it peaks when half of all oil (or other fossil fuel) has been produced, and there's only a single peak after which output declines.

Hubbert's analysis was at a time oil nominally cost under $3 a barrel. Inflation-adjusted that's around $23 in 2008 dollars. Today it's around $100, and some analysts see it heading much higher as the supply of cheap oil declines in the face of growing demand. True or false will only be known in the fullness of time, but consider what Hubbert, in fact, said in his 1956 paper. He estimated:

-- a "total ultimate potential reserve of 150 billion barrels of crude oil for both land and offshore areas of the United States" and acknowledged he was "in substantial agreement with Pratt's figure of 170 billion barrels....;"and

-- a potential of 1.250 trillion "barrels (for) the whole world."

So far, Hubbert was referring to what's called "light sweet" or cheap oil. But he went further as well, yet his comments have been largely ignored. He mentioned other type oils and estimated:

-- "the oil obtainable from oil shales in the United States" is one trillion barrels based on current (1956) US Geological Survey figures; outside the US, he estimated oil shale potential in Brazil at between 300 to 500 billion barrels with "negligible" amounts present in other countries;

-- the Athabaska tar sands in northeastern Alberta, Canada are the "largest known deposit(s)....in the world;" its "extractable oil content....is still not accurately known, but current estimates range from about 300 to 500 billion barrels....;" and

-- "other large (nonconventional oil) deposits of uncertain magnitude exist in eastern Venezuela and in Mesopotamia (Iraq);" these and others like them in the world "might be as much as (another) 800 billion barrels."

Hubbert then stated: "....the culmination of world (oil) production (of the cheap variety)....should occur within about half a century (and within) the United States....within the next few decades." However: "This does not necessarily imply that the United States or other parts of the industrial world will soon become destitute of liquid (oil) and gaseous fuels, because these can be produced from other fossil fuels (including tar sands, heavy and extra-heavy oils and shale) which occur in much greater abundance." In 1956, his and other estimates of their amounts were far below today's figures. More on that below.

Current Opposing Views on Peak Oil

The German-based Energy Watch Group (EWG) believes peak oil is real. It's an "international network of scientists and parliamentarians" that published an October 2007 report with that view. It stated world oil production peaked in 2006, output is now declining by several percent a year, and by 2020 to 2030 global oil reserves will be substantially lower than today and a supply gap will exist.

Daniel Yergin's Cambridge Energy Research Associates (CERA) disagrees. Its analysis finds that "the remaining global oil resource base is actually 3.74 trillion barrels - three times as large as the (claimed) 1.2 trillion barrels by (peak oil) proponents." CERA argues further that peak oil reasoning is faulty and, "if accepted, (may) distort critical policy and investment decisions and cloud the debate over the energy future." It states as well that the "global resource base of conventional and unconventional oils....is 4.82 trillion barrels and likely to grow" and bases its analysis on fields now in production and those "yet-to-be produced or discovered."

Its chairman, Daniel Yergin, noted that: "This is the fifth time that the world is said to be running out of oil. Each time....technology and the opening of new frontier areas has banished the specter of decline. There's no reason to think that technology is finished this time."

The Paris-based International Energy Agency (AIE) agrees. It's an energy policy advisor to its 27 member countries that was founded by the OECD in 1974 in the wake of that period's oil crisis. It believes peak oil notions are extreme, says there's "no shortage of available oil and gas in the ground," but new technologies must be found to curb "the world's thirst for them (and to) tap reserves" to increase production. AIE believes as much as 10 trillion barrels of "oil equivalent" conventional oil and gas exist and at least as much non-conventional oil.

In a 2005 report it stated that: "The hydrocarbon resources in place around the world are sufficiently abundant to sustain likely growth in the global energy system for the foreseeable future. The doomsayers are again conveying grim messages through (the media). The AIE has long maintained that none of this is cause for concern."

AIE considers all type oils - the easy to find and produce "light sweet" kind that's likely running out plus potentially huge untapped deposits of heavier oils that will become more important when it does. With this in mind, the Middle East doesn't have two-thirds of world oil reserves as many analysts, the industry, and US Department of Energy claim. It has two-thirds of "proved" cheap oil reserves.

The US Geological Survey (USGS) collects data on all type oils and estimates their amounts. For the year 2000, the US Department of Energy (DOE) and oil industry estimated remaining "proved" light sweet reserves at slightly over one trillion barrels. USGS, however, placed "identified" reserves at 1.1 trillion barrels and "recoverable" reserves at nearly 2.3 trillion or more than double the industry and DOE amounts. In addition, USGS estimates combined non-conventional heavy and tar sands deposits at around 4.250 trillion barrels with about 3.6 trillion of them in the two countries with most of them - Canada and Venezuela.

Other "unconventional" oil estimates differ widely, so take your choice on who to believe. Dutch economists Peter Odell and Kenneth Rosing had an earlier view in their 1980 book "The Future of Oil." They noted predictions of total world reserves ranged from two to 11 trillion barrels and said three trillion was "the more realistic figure" for conventional oil plus another two trillion from unconventional heavy oil and tar sands.

Petroleum Economist magazine calls itself "the authority on energy." It says tar (or oil) sands reserves are huge, they occur in over 70 countries, and Canada has most of them (around 81%) in four regions: Athabasca, Wabasca, Cold lake and Peace River in areas covering around 77,000 km. It estimates technically recoverable reserves at between 280 - 300 billion barrels with total non-recoverable (based on current technology) amounts at between 1.7 - 2.5 trillion barrels. Other than shale, USGS categorizes oil as light, heavy, extra-heavy and natural bitumen or tar/oil sands.

Some analysts believe oil sands can replace conventional oil when its supply runs out while others disagree. One of them is Richard Heinberg, who's written extensively on ecological and peak oil issues. He says that although estimated oil sands reserves equal or exceed all conventional oil extracted to date, processing them reduces their potential for reasons geologist Walter Youngquist explains: because "it takes the equivalent of two out of each three barrels of oil recovered to pay for all the energy and other costs involved in getting oil from the oil sands."

Then, there's the environmental cost. It takes two tons of sand mined to yield one barrel of oil, and extracting it requires huge amounts of natural gas and water. In addition, each barrel recovered yields 2.5 barrels of oily waste that must be disposed of. It's done by pumping it into huge ponds, and Heinberg describes a Syncrude Canada Ltd. one that's 14 miles in circumference in which 20 feet of murky water floats on a 130-foot-thick slurry of sand, silt, clay and unrecovered oil.

It's nightmarish and so environmentally destructive that northern Alberta residents want all oil sands plants shuttered because they've displaced native people, destroyed boreal forests, caused livestock deaths and increased the level of miscarriages. Moreover, Heinberg believes it would take about 700 plants the size of a Syncrude Athabasca one to process enough tar sands to replace conventional oil, and their environmental damage would be unimaginable and too great a cost to bear.

Another resource assessment comes from Petroleum Equities. It's a management consulting firm specializing in oil and gas exploration and production. It estimates combined heavy oil and tar sands worldwide reserves at around 5.4 trillion barrels with 80% of them in the western hemisphere.

For extra-heavy oil alone, the US Department of Energy (on its web site) estimates Venezuela has 1.36 trillion barrels, or 90% of the world total. That's more than all "proved" world reserves combined and in addition to Venezuela's "proved" light sweet resources of around 80 billion barrels that alone ranks it seventh in the world behind the five largest Middle East producers and Canada.

Potential Arctic Oil Reserves

On its web site (arcticoag.com), the Arctic Oil and Gas Corporation states it's "an oil exploration venture company that has filed for the exclusive exploitation, development, marketing and extraction rights to the oil and gas resources of the seafloor and subsurface contained within the 'Arctic Claims.' " It calls the Arctic "the last giant oil frontier on Earth (with its) vast reserves of untapped oil and natural gas (that will) become accessible (when) new deep-sea drilling and hydrocarbons production technology (is) available."

In addition, it states that a preliminary USGS assessment "suggests the Arctic seabed may hold as much as 25 per cent of the world's undiscovered oil and natural gas reserves (or around 400 billion barrels of oil alone.)" It further says that Arctic oil source rocks may contain "untold billions of tons of organic sediments" and calls the 80 million acre Arctic Ocean Commons Prospect Claim "the world's largest (potential) material prize."

Here's what USGS, in fact, said in October 2007. It called the above claim "a reporter's mistake" but doesn't rule out that it's true. It explained that the 25% figure came from an assessment of seven oil and gas basins that weren't precisely in the Arctic. One of them in East Siberia lies entirely south of it. Exclude it and what's left is 14%. However, because a 2000 USGS assessment didn't include undiscovered resources from all north of the Arctic basins (numbering many more than seven), the area's potential is vast but undetermined.

USGS explained that it didn't fully assess the area in 2000 because it lacked enough data at the time. However, it's now investigating all Arctic regions, using available geologic information and "a methodology adapted to a general shortage of well and seismic data." USGS concludes that the region's potential is vast, it's largely unexplored, its resources are "poorly understood," and it can only produce a "broad view" of the region's potential "because the (area's) geologic uncertainties are very high and the technical uncertainties (of) oil and gas extraction (feasibility) even higher."

Two Notable Peak Oil Proponents

There's no shortage of peak oil proponents, many are prominent figures, two among them stand out, and one is a media regular on his views, right or wrong. He's Matthew Simmons, chairman and CEO of Simmons & Company, an industry-insider, close associate of Dick Cheney and advisor and possible secret member of Cheney's Energy Task Force representing Big Oil interests. He's also a major Republican donor and author of the 2005 book "Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy."

In it, Simmons is alarmist about the world's largest producing country, and he's widely heard and believed. Right or wrong, he states that Saudi oil fields are "at or very near (their) peak sustainable volume (and they'll) likely....go into decline in the very foreseeable future." In addition, there's little chance of discovering new fields to make up the difference. These views make headlines and move markets. So with oil prices around $100 a barrel and Simmons an industry insider and prominent doomsayer, consider the possibility there's something rotten in the oil patch allowing Big Oil to profit hugely.

Further confirmation comes from a February 28 Arabian Business article. In it, Simmons calls $100 oil "cheap" because "the supply is showing some very troubling signs that we might well have already peaked and started (to slow) down....Demand on the other hand shows absolutely no sign of slowing down," so oil prices could top $300 a barrel within five years." Simmons repeats this view on US television.

Geologist Colin Campbell is another peak oil proponent and author of many papers on the subject. He's just as bleak in his outlook and states it in "The Coming Oil Crisis and Oil Depletion - The Heart of the Matter," that he wrote for The Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas (ASPO). He's their founder, former president and currently their honorary chairman.

Campbell believes world output peaked, and in another of his papers, "Peak Oil: an Outlook on Crude Oil Depletion," stated: Peak Oil "is a turning point for Mankind, which will affect everyone....its discovery peaked in the 1960s....gas....will likely peak around 2020....non-conventional oil delays peak only a few years....we're not facing a re-run of the (1970s) Oil Shocks. They were like....tremors....we now face (an) earthquake....It is not a temporary interruption but the onset of a permanent new condition."

Campbell also wrote "Understanding Peak Oil" on APSO's web site in which he further says that debating the precise date of peak oil "misses the point." What really matters is "the long remorseless decline (that's) on the other side of it. The transition to decline threatens to be a time of great international tension. Petroleum Man will be virtually extinct this Century, and Homo sapiens faces a major challenge in adapting to his loss. Peak Oil is by all means an important subject." These type comments and more from Campbell's 2005 book "Oil Crisis" can scare anyone. They also explain today's geopolitics, the strategic importance of oil, the reason its price is so high, and why the US is waging global wars "that won't end in our lifetime."

A Peak Oil Contrarian

F. William Engdahl once accepted peak oil analysis, but no longer does. He explains why in his writing, and this section summarizes his reasoning. It's based on the Russian-Ukrainian theory that oil originated from deep carbon deposits dating as far back as the earth's formation. It's not a fossil fuel or of biological origin, and its potential may be far greater than current hydrocarbon estimates.

According to Engdahl and others sharing this view, peak oil adherents believe oil is a fossil fuel, its origin is biological, its supply finite, and it's only found in areas where it was "geologically trapped millions of years ago....in underground reservoirs (around) 4-6000 feet below the surface of the earth." At times, large amounts may also be in shallow water offshore rock formations in places like the Gulf of Mexico, North Sea or Gulf of Guinea. In any event, prevailing reasoning is that it's running out, and it's a just a matter of deciding how much is left and when it no longer will be available in amounts needed to sustain world economies. Peak oil proponents believe the time is fast approaching.

Petroleum science dates from the year 1757 when Russian scholar Mikhailo Lomonosov hypothesized that oil's origin might be biological. In the early 19th century, two scientists disagreed - German naturalist and geologist Alexander von Humboldt and French chemist and thermodynamicist Louis Joseph Gay-Lussac. Together they proposed that oil is primordial matter, it erupted from deep within the earth, and it has no connection to biological material nearer the surface. Later in the century, others held similar views - most notably the Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev (the father of the Periodic Table of chemical elements) and French chemist Marcellin Berthelot. Mendeleev, in particular, believed that "petroleum was born in the depths of the earth (called "deep faults"), and it is only there that we must seek its origin."

Modern petroleum science dates from the end of WW II when the Cold War began and the former Soviet Union faced isolation from the West. At the time, its scientists believed the country was in trouble. It had limited reserves and was shut out of many parts of the world for supply. It thus became imperative to find new deposits inside the country.

So its scientists at the Institute of the Physics of the Earth of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Geological Sciences of the Ukraine Academy of Sciences set out to do it. They studied oil's origin, how reserves are generated, and the most effective exploration methods to extract it.

In 1951, Nikolai Kudryavtsev proposed the first modern deep abiotic oil origins theory at the All-Union petroleum geology congress. He discounted claims about oil's biological origin and was joined by other Russian and Ukrainian geologists, including Vladimir Porfir'yev.

In 1956, Porfir'yev announced their conclusions that even now are largely unacknowledged in the West: that "Crude oil and natural petroleum have no intrinsic connection with biological matter originating near the surface of the earth." They're "primordial materials which have been erupted from great depths," and believing their supply is limited is a hoax to keep prices high at times like now.

The theory rests on the abiotic origin of oil. It's mirror opposite orthodox geology, and, if right, here's what it means - that available oil is only limited by deep earth organic hydrocarbon constituents at the time of the planet's formation, and technological advances will eventually tap them in ultra-deep reservoirs and from old fields believed to be barren.

The theory defies conventional science, but it's paying off. It let Soviet Russia develop huge oil and gas fields in regions previously thought unsuitable. In the 1990s, it was also successfully used in the Dnieper-Donets Basin between Russia and Ukraine in areas considered barren. Sixty-one wells were drilled of which 37 (60%) proved out. Engdahl compares this to US wildcat drilling that produces 90% dry holes.

Russia's success was largely unknown in the West until Pentagon strategists, just recently, considered a disturbing possibility - that the country's geophysicists might know "something of profound strategic importance." If Russian energy know-how exceeds the West, it holds "a strategic trump card of staggering geopolitical import." It also explains why Washington surrounds the country with military bases and targets it with anti-ballistic missiles and radar for offense, not defense. It's "to cut her pipeline and port links to western Europe, China and the rest of Eurasia" as part of a new millennium Great Game to control the world's resources.

In the 1990s, Russia extended its technology to the West, but its offers were spurned and then withdrawn after the US attacked Iraq. Nonetheless, ExxonMobil nearly got a $25 billion stake in Yukos Oil that only unraveled after its chief executive Mikhail Khodorkovsky's arrest and conviction quashed the deal. Had it gone through, Exxon would have had access to the world's largest resource of abiotic-trained deep drilling experts, now unavailable to their scientists and the West.

It now comes down to this. Western technology is built around fossil fuel development. If the future is abiotic, as Engdahl and Russian scientists believe, "Moscow holds a massive energy trump card." It also faces a hostile US and possible new Cold War confrontation for its advantage and unwillingness to be accommodative the way Boris Yeltsin was in the 1990s.

If abiotic theory proves false or overrated, however, and orthodox geology is right, then controlling world oil reserves is even more important. It means peak oil is real, cheap oil is running out, heavier oils are more important, and cornering what's left will be Priority One for all major world powers.

There you have it - peak oil or vast untapped amounts of the abiotic kind awaiting new technology to access it. Readers can weigh the evidence, find more on their own, and decide what's true or false. In the fullness of time we'll know, but for now we must rely on our best judgment with plenty of ammunition on both sides of the argument to consider.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to The Global Research News Hour on RepublicBroadcasting.org Mondays from 11AM to 1PM US Central time for cutting-edge discussions of major world and national topics with distinguished guests.

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8220

Israeli Extra-Judicial Executions

Israeli Extra-Judicial Executions - by Stephen Lendman

At 8:50AM on February 27, an Israeli aircraft fired two missiles at a civilian microbus on the coastal road near Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip. Six members of the Izziddin al-Qassam Brigades were in it at the time. Five of them were killed. The sixth one was seriously injured.

Twenty minutes later, another aircraft attacked a vehicle in which other Izziddin al-Qassam Brigades members were traveling. They escaped harm by fleeing before missiles struck their car and destroyed it.

On March 1, Hamas reported that Israelis killed 91 Palestinians in February, 83 in Gaza and eight in West Bank, and the killing continues to escalate. The International Middle East Media Center (IMEMC) said eyewitnesses confirmed that IDF troops and tanks invaded Jabalyia (in Gaza) before dawn on Saturday. They targeted the refugee camp, struck at resident homes, attacked medical relief workers, fired missiles at cars and in residential areas, and killed at least 37 Palestinians (mostly civilians) and injured 120 others by midday. IMEMC later on Saturday raised the toll to 56 dead and updated it again Sunday AM to 98 as IDF forces continued rampaging without letup.

Haaretz first reported 34 deaths on Saturday, including five children and three women. Later in the day, it upped the total to 50, then 59 and by Sunday noon the total known killed was "more than 70." AP first indicated 33 deaths, then raised it to 45, then 50 late in the day and 66 by Sunday morning (plus about 200 wounded) and nearly 100 deaths since February 27.

The Palestinian Ma'an News Agency reported 84 deaths since Saturday, 98 in total since February 27 and over 200 wounded, many with mangled bodies and serious life-threatening injuries. Throughout the weekend, Israeli aircraft struck many targets, including Hamas' headquarters building (unoccupied at the time) that "completely collapsed" and injured five people, according to witnesses.

Reports continue being updated, and the latest 6PM Gaza time one from the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) indicates the following: 101 documented deaths since February 27, including 49 unarmed civilians. They include 25 children and five women. In addition, more than 250 people have been injured, mostly unarmed civilians, and many injuries are serious. Further, there's been widespread destruction of homes, other buildings and property throughout Gaza. As it usually does, the IDF employs "disproportionate and excessive lethal force in residential districts, with utter disregard for the lives of civilians."

Under international law, these are crimes of war and against humanity. On March 1, the Palestinian human rights organization, Al-Haq, issued a statement saying: "Many of the recent Israeli attacks constitute war crimes which may amount to grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions, for which (Israelis are) criminally responsible" and must face trial. Al-Haq called on the international community to act because "All states have criminal jurisdiction to try (the) accused....by virtue of the principle of universal jurisdiction....No excuse can therefore justify their inaction in view of the unlawful willful killing of (Palestinian) civilians in" occupied Palestine.

PCHR also reported that an Israeli aircraft bombed Abd El-Rahman Mohammad Ali Atallah's home in Gaza City on Saturday. It was completely destroyed and killed six members of his family, including three women. Six other family members were injured, four of whom were children and one was a "two-day old" infant. The situation is dire, hospitals can't cope, Israeli forces prevent ambulances from evacuating the injured, supplies of everything are short, morgues are overwhelmed, coffins aren't available to bury bodies, and overall conditions are impossible for Gazans to handle as they continued being attacked without mercy into the early hours of Monday.

It hardly matters that Israeli forces pulled out of Gaza early Monday with the final death toll still to be assessed. IDF incursions are common and frequent, and official government statements assured they'll continue. One spokesman said: "We will continue with our 'defensive' actions against those who fire lethal rockets at our civilians." Another said: "if they get (our) message, then we may get into a period of quiet. If (not), then there will be more operations like this one or worse."

Palestinians in the West Bank are also affected. On Sunday, Israeli forces assaulted protesters:

-- in Hebron with live rounds and tear gas, killing a 14 year old boy and injuring 45 others, including 24 children;

-- in Ramallah the same way injuring seven teenagers; and

-- in Bethlelem as well injuring two boys, one from bullet wounds to the leg and the other from tear gas inhalation. Other demonstrations took place in Jenin, Nablus and other West Bank and Gaza locations. Hundreds of Israeli Arabs also held one in Nazareth, Israel on Friday after the High Court denied a petition to overturn a police ban preventing Israeli Arabs from holding a memorial service for recently deceased George Habash, the founder of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and its Secretary-General until 2000. No violence was reported.

Meanwhile for Jews inside Israel, life proceeds normally as they conduct their daily affairs. So far, the toll on them and IDF forces is minimal:

-- a single civilian death,

-- two soldiers killed by early evening Saturday,

-- two others slightly wounded on Saturday and four others lightly on Sunday,

-- seven lightly injured Israeli civilians on Saturday from nearby rocket explosions, and

-- two others by shrapnel from an exploding Katyusha rocket on Sunday.

But it's just the beginning according to Defense Minister Ehud Barak. He said a large-scale invasion is imminent with IDF forces massed on the border, awaiting orders to invade and attack. It won't be the first time as assaults have gone on for decades. But they became especially frequent after the second Intifada began on September 29, 2000. From then through late January 2008, PCHR documented the extra-judicial killings alone:

-- 705 in total;

-- 478 of them targeted victims;

-- 227 of them innocent civilians; and

-- 68 of them (through June 2006) children.

Total Palestinian deaths and injuries from September 29, 2000 through late January 2008 are as follows, according to PCHR:

-- 4419 Palestinians killed, including 794 children, 152 women, 25 medical personnel and 10 journalists;

-- 11,700 Palestinians injured in Gaza; and

-- 13,550 Palestinians wounded in the West Bank;

Palestinians are attacked on any pretext, but February 28 wasn't typical. A day after a Qassam rocket killed an Israeli in Sderot, Israeli aircraft killed 18 Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. Five of them were children, and it was after 11 deaths the previous day, including three children. One victim was the son of senior Hamas lawmaker, Khalil al-Haya, a top figure in Gaza and himself a target of previous assassination attempts. Palestinians know what they face - continued attacks from the air or the ground. This is state terrorism, collective punishment, executions without trial, cold-blooded killings, a serious breach of international law and against the 1948 Convention on the Prevention of the Crime of Genocide. More on that below, but first some background.

In its June 4, 2001 issue, Israel's largest circulation (Hebrew) newspaper, Yedioth Ahronoth, published the following statement from an Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) spokesman: "We set up a list of Palestinian names of individuals whom the Israeli government has approved for physical elimination, among the names are included members of Hamas, Fatah, Popular Front and Islamic Jihad activists."

This is official state policy, and Israel's High Court affirmed it in December 2006. The Court ruled that IDF targeted killings don't categorically violate international law, and each one must be evaluated on its own merit. Specifically, the three justice panel unanimously stated:

"The State of Israel is fighting against severe terrorism, which plagues it from the 'area.' The means at Israel's disposal are limited. The State determined that preventative strikes upon 'terrorists' in the 'area' which cause their deaths are a necessary means from the military standpoint. These strikes at times cause harm and even death to innocent civilians....the State's struggle against terrorism is not conducted 'outside' of the law. It is conducted 'inside' the law....(We) cannot determine in advance that targeted killing is always illegal....that it is prohibited according to customary international law."

This and comparable High Court rulings have stunning implications. They affirm Israel's claim to be above the law with the right to conduct willful state-sponsored killings. The Court's justification was that the State is waging armed conflict against Palestinian "terrorists." Their members are civilians who aren't protected under international law. To be afforded such protection, "A civilian....must refrain from taking a direct part in the hostilities." Those who violate "this principle (are) subject to the risks of attack like those to which a combatant is subject, without enjoying the rights of a combatant."

Executive Director, Hannah Friedman, of The Public Committee Against Torture in Israel responded to the decision. She stated: "We are concerned that today's High Court of Justice ruling will worsen the current situation and create a dangerous path that will lead to an increase in the number of innocent civilians who are killed or injured." In the past 14 months, it's been horrendous as violence escalates, international law is ignored, and the world community is mute about mass-murder crimes, overwhelming human suffering, and can barely say more than both sides must end violence and resume peace negotiations.

Israeli Violations of the Fourth Geneva Convention

Israel is a serial international law abuser. Specifically, it commits grave violations of the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention that protects civilians in times of war and has done it for decades:

-- Article 2 states that "the present Convention shall apply to all cases of declared war or of any other armed conflict which may arise between two or more of the High Contracting Parties, even if the state of war is not recognized by one of them. The Convention shall also apply to all cases of partial or total occupation of the territory....even if the said occupation meets with no armed resistance;"

-- Article 3 prohibits all kinds of assaults on life or physical security;

-- Article 27 refers to "protected persons" and states "They shall at all times be humanely treated, and shall be protected especially against all acts of violence....,"

-- Article 32 prohibits murder, torture and corporal punishment, and

-- Article 33 prohibits collective punishment and "all measures of intimidation or....terrorism."

Geneva and other international human rights laws guarantee what Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states: that everyone "has the right to life, liberty and security of person." It also affirms Article 6 (1) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights of 1966 stating that every "human being has the inherent right to life." Violations of Geneva and other internationa laws are crimes of war and against humanity. Israel is a serial offender but has yet to be held to account.

The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights documented its extra-judicial executions from September 29, 2000 through December 2007 and updates it weekly on its web site - pchrgaza.org. Below are examples, but first some background.

Some Brief History of Israeli Targeted Killings

Without cause, these executions target specific individuals with explicit government approval, and Israelis have done it for decades. During the Mandatory Palestine period, Stern Gang (later renamed Lehi) and Irgun members were underground terrorists with very committed aims - to drive out the British (seen as occupiers), allow unrestricted Jewish immigration, remove indigenous Arabs, and establish the Jewish state of Israel. They carried out killings and bombings, some of which were notorious like Lehi's 1944 assassination of Britain's Lord Moyne, the military governor of Egypt. Another was Irgun's infamous 1946 King David Hotel bombing killing 91 Brits, Arabs and Jews and injuring many more.

Two of their leaders became future prime ministers - Lehi's Yitzhak Shamir (1983 - 84 and 1986 - 1992) and Irgun's Menachem Begin (1977 - 1983), but they were wanted men before 1948. The New York Times called Irgun a "terrorist organization," and the World Zionist Congress in 1946 strongly condemned "the shedding of innocent blood as a means of political warfare." It was just beginning.

In the 1950s, targeted killings were common and were used to halt fedayeen resistance attacks from Egypt. In 1967, after Gaza and the West Bank were occupied, Palestinians became the favorite target, inside and outside the Territories, and by various means:

-- car and mail bombs,

-- air attacks,

-- commando raids,

-- undercover operations,

-- poisoning,

-- snipers, and

-- various other methods, including proxy forces to do Israeli killing.

General Ariel Sharon commanded an "anti-terror" detachment in the early 1970s that targeted Palestinian resistance fighters in Gaza. Through undercover operations, the unit killed 104 Palestinians and arrested 742 others.

After Israeli athletes were killed at the 1972 Munich Olympics, Prime Minister Golda Meir and Defense Minister Moshe Dayan established "Committee X" that used Mossad operatives to find the kill the perpetrators. Thirteen deaths resulted, including a Moroccan busboy in Norway by mistake.

Throughout the 1970s, Palestinians in the Territories were targeted, especially its leaders, and in 1982 Israelis nearly killed Yasir Arafat with car bombs, air attacks and at least once when a sniper had him targeted but got no orders to shoot. His second in command, Abu Jihad (Khalil el-Wazir), was less fortunate. He was key to the first Intifada's success, an irreplaceable leader, and had to be eliminated. Ehud Barak reportedly got the assignment and headed a commando operation that killed him.

Executions continued in the 1990s, including three major ones with mixed success. One killed Islamic Jihad leader, Fathi Shikaki, in Malta in 1995. Another eliminated Yahya Ayyash, a Hamas Izzaddin al-Qassam Brigades member who was known as "the Engineer" for his bomb-making skills. One embarrassing attempt failed. It targeted Hamas' Amman, Jordan political bureau chief, Khaled Meshal. Two Mossad agents poisoned him but were captured by Jordanian authorities before they could flee. To secure their release, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed to provide the poison's antidote and release Hamas' founder, Sheik Ahmed Yassin, from an Israeli prison.

With the outbreak of the second Intifada, killings escalated markedly. Below are examples, including several high-ranking Palestinians:

-- Abu Ali Mustafa - head of the Palestinian Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP),

-- Mustafa Zibri - the PFLP's Secretary-General,

-- Raed al-Karmi - a Lebanese Tanzim movement leader, and

-- many mid-level resistance fighters from various Palestinian groups opposing the occupation.

Examples of Extra-Judicial Executions from September 29, 2000 Through December 2006

All three Israeli government branches support extra-judicial killings and require no evidence to justify them. Officials merely say those targeted are wanted, dangerous, and threaten State security. As a result, security forces kill with impunity and with no regard for the innocent, including women, children, the elderly or infirm.

Consider an egregious example. On July 12, 2006, IDF aircraft attacked the home of Dr. Nabeel Abu Silmiya in the Gaza City Sheikh Radwan neighborhood. The house was completely destroyed and Dr. Nabeel, his wife and seven children were killed - possibly in error, according to IDF. It claimed it targeted Izziddin al-Qassam Brigades leader, Mohammed al-Daif, and a number of his colleagues but struck the wrong house instead.

Multiple killings are common and are carried out against civilian homes, government buildings and structures, and by planting bombs in cars and targeted shootings on the ground. The death toll keeps rising, and PCHR documented specific examples below.

Examples of IDF Executions from January Through March 2007

Five targeted killings occurred in the period during which three others were injured.

On February 1, IDF soldiers killed Jaser Nader Ahmad Abut Zugheib in the Tulkarm refugee camp. In the same incursion, two Palestinians were wounded, one seriously with a bullet in the chest.

On February 21, an IDF undercover unit targeted the al-Bassatin area west of Jenin. It killed Mahmoud Ibrahim Qassem Obaid, an Islamic Jihad al-Quds Brigades leader, by shooting him in the head at close range.

On February 28, another IDF undercover unit executed three Islamic Jihad members as they tried to flee the Jenin refugee camp in a car.

In the examples above, arrests weren't attempted, and victims were either wounded or unarmed when IDF soldiers executed them Mafia-style by point-blank shootings. PCHR stresses that with no due process and the absence of evidence, there's no guarantee or even likelihood that targeted individuals committed crimes. They were simply Israeli vigilante justice victims targeting the innocent.

Selected IDF Executions from April Through June 2007

During the period, 25 killings occurred, but only 16 were actually targeted.

On April 21, an IDF undercover unit attacked a car in Jenin killing three Palestinians in it. Two were al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades members and the other belonged to the al-Quds Brigades. On the same day, an IDF aircraft-fired missile killed an innocent civilian in his vehicle who had no affiliation with Palestinian resistance groups.

On May 4, Seilat al-Harthiya village, west of Jenin was attacked. Two al-Quds Brigades members and a mentally disabled Palestinian civilian were executed.

On May 20, an IDF aircraft missile struck a Gaza City al-Shojaeya neighborhood meeting hall killing seven members of the al-Haya family and a Hamas activist as well as wounding three others.

On May 29, IDF undercover units killed two Palestinian activists in Ramallah and Jenin and wounded five others.

On June 1, the IDF assassinated an Islamic Jihad member in Khan Yunis.

On June 12, the IDF executed an al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades member in the north Tulkarm Saida village.

On June 24, the IDF killed three al-Quds Brigades members and wounded three civilians.

On June 30, IDF forces executed three al-Quds Brigades members in Khan Yunis.

Selected IDF Executions from July Through September 2007

On July 26, an IDF aircraft struck a vehicle south of Gaza City killing three activists in it.

On August 4, an aircraft-fired missile struck a civilian car near the Rafah International Crossing Point on the Egyptian border. Three al-Quds Brigades members in it were seriously wounded but managed to survive. Moments later, two other missiles hit another civilian car killing the driver and a civilian bystander and wounding 12 others.

On August 20, IDF forces executed four Izziddin al-Qassam Brigades members and two additional Palestinian Ministry of Interior Executive Force members in central Gaza's al-Boreij refugee camp.

On August 21, IDF air and ground forces killed three Palestinians in al-Qarara village, northeast of Khan Yunis.

On August 22, the IDF executed an Izziddin al-Qassam Brigades member and wounded another east of Gaza City.

During the last week of August, three children were extra-judicially killed in Beit Hanoun. There was no evidence they had any affiliation with a local resistance group.

On September 26, IDF forces executed five Army of Islam members in the al-Zaytoun neighborhood, east of Gaza City.

Examples of IDF Executions from September through December 2007

On October 11, an IDF undercover unit killed one and wounded another al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades member near al-Hamam Square in Jenin.

On November 25, IDF forces executed an al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades member in the Tulkarm refugee camp, east of the town. Witnesses said he raised his hands to surrender but was shot in the neck. Seriously injured, two IDF soldiers beat him violently and let him bleed to death in a coffee shop. A second man was also seriously injured in the attack.

On November 29, IDF aircraft attacked and killed two Izziddin al-Qassam Brigades members northeast of Khan Yunis.

Attacks continue unabated - by air strikes and on-the-ground Mafia-style executions in violation of sacred international law explained above. And a Haaretz February 29 article suggests they threaten to escalate.
It quoted Defense Minister Ehud Barak blaming Hamas for the increased violence and said it will "bear the cost of our response....(it's) necessary and will be carried out." On the same day, Knesset chairman of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, Tzachi Hanegbi, said IDF forces must "quickly....topple the Hamas terror regime and take over all the areas from which rockets are fired on Israel," and they should remain in those areas for years.

Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai went further and threatened a "shoah," which is the Hebrew word for holocaust. On Israeli radio he said: "the more Qassam (rocket) fire intensifies and the rockets reach a longer range, (the Palestinians) will bring upon themselves a bigger 'shoah' because we will use all our might to defend ourselves." The comment is outrageous, it incites genocide, and it's a punishable crime in violation of the 1948 Genocide Convention.

Gregory Stanton's Genocide Watch site has a mission: to "predict, prevent, stop, and punish genocide and other forms of mass murder (by) rais(ing awareness and influenc(ing) public policy concerning potential and actual genocide." Its aim "is to build an international movement to prevent and stop genocide," and it's badly needed in Occupied Palestine where Israel has conducted state-sponsored genocide for decades according to Israeli historian Ilan Pappe.

International law expert Francis Boyle agrees and proposed in a March 20, 1998 article that "the Provisional Government of (Palestine) and its President institute legal proceedings against Israel before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the Hague for violating the (Genocide Convention)." He categorically stated that "Israel has indeed perpetrated the international crime of genocide against the Palestinian people (and the) lawsuit would....demonstrate that undeniable fact to the entire world." Boyle would likely agree that the case today is even more compelling at a time Israeli forces are ravaging Gaza and assaulting West Bank communities as well.

Genocide is hideous in concept and execution, and Stanton explains how it progresses in eight defined stages:

1. Classification - Cultures or societies distinguish between "us and them" to categorize people by race, religion, nationality or other distinguishing characteristic;

2. Symbolization - Classifications are given names or other symbols, such as Jews, Latinos, blacks or Muslims.

3. Dehuminization - A dominant group denies another's humanity and equates its members with animals, vermin, insects, diseases or, in the case of Palestinian resistance fighters, gunmen or terrorists;

4. Organization - Genocide is always organized; most often it's by the state using militias, the military and/or other security forces to target victimized groups;

5. Polarization - Extremists incite hate through propaganda and other communication methods, and laws and other measures often target the victims;

6. Preparation - Victims are identified, separated out and targeted for elimination;

7. Extermination - Once it starts, it escalates to mass killing that's legally defined as "genocide;" and finally

8. Denial - The final stage assures continued genocide will follow with evidence of it suppressed or destroyed. Some genocidal regimes are brought to justice like the Nazis at Nuremberg. Others like Israeli governments since 1948 have gotten away with it for decades with no indication (so far) the Olmert or a future regime will be held to account.

Minister Vilnai affirms that killing may now escalate against a people who've been under a medieval siege for months. Talk of peace and ceasefire is hollow, Israel and Washington incite violence and want none of it, and IDF commanders are preparing a large-scale assault to target Hamas for removal. How much longer will this go on? When will the occupation end? How many more killings will be tolerated? When will world leaders take note? People who care want answers. It's about time they got them.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at sbcglobal.net.

Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to The Global Research News Hour on RepublicBroadcasting.org Mondays from 11AM to 1PM US Central time for cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests.

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