PALESTINE: Arabs Damaging The Palestinian Cause

PALESTINE: Arabs Damaging The Palestinian Cause

Posted on 01. Aug, 2010 by Raja Mujtaba in Palestine

Saudi regime is the most reactionary and the most backward regime in the whole region. They’re closer to the Taliban than to anything else in terms of regime and society. Saudi rulers are better advised to change their own regime rather than trying to change the regimes in other countries.

Prof Gilbert Achcar

Arabs’ ties with Israel damages the Palestinian cause: Prof Gilbert Achcar

By Kourosh Ziabari

Prof Gilbert Achcar

Prof. Gilbert Achcar is a renowned Lebanese academician, writer, socialist and anti-war activist. He left Lebanon in 1983 and taught international relations and politics at the University of Paris VII for several years. Since 2007, Achcar has been Professor of Development Studies and International Relations at the School of Oriental and African Studies of the University of London. He is a frequent contributor to Le Monde Diplomatique and ZNet.
Prof. Achcar joined me in an interview to discuss the latest developments related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Israel’s attack on the Freedom Flotilla and the prospect of Israel’s occupation of West Bank and Gaza.
Kourosh Ziabari: Dear Prof. Achcar, what’s your estimation of the prospect of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?

Gilbert Achcar: This is extremely difficult to answer because the situation of the Middle East is changing so quickly and frequently that any kind of prediction about the future is always very risky, so what I can say in reply to your question is that in the foreseeable future, there can’t be any serious and acceptable compromise leading to a peaceful coexistence between Israel and the Palestinians. The reason is that the Israeli society has been continuously shifting to the right so that more and more extreme branches of Zionism are governing Israel, and therefore it’s extremely difficult to imagine that governments like the present government of Israel would make all of the concessions that are required for a true peace with the Palestinians. There can’t be any beginning of peace actually without an end to the occupation of the territories that were occupied since 1967, the dismantlement of the separation wall which Israel has been building and the dismantlement of the settlements. These are basic conditions to which of course one should add the immediate lifting of the blockade of Gaza. So, there’s absolutely no indication at present that the Israeli government as it is, has any inclination to go in that direction.
KZ: Both of the Palestinians and the Israelis, from a religious viewpoint, claim that the land of Israel belongs to them. Both of them cite the historical evidences and religious implications in this regard. What’s your idea about that? How should this interminable conflict come to an end?
GA: This should be hardly debatable among serious people because it’s absolutely clear that when the United Nations voted on the partition of Palestine and voted on creating a Jewish state on Palestine which was the goal of the Zionists, it gave 56 percent of the land of Palestine to the Jewish population which constituted only one third of the whole population. Moreover, the majority of this one third were immigrants, the overwhelming majority of whom had been in Palestine less than 15 years, so there is no fair standard on earth by which this kind of resolution could be considered as legitimate and just; it was completely unjust and completely unfair. No people on earth would admit that recently arrived immigrants have a right to establish their own state in their country. However, I believe that a just solution to the problem is one that would not involve any new expulsion of population; it should be a solution based on democratic principles and peaceful coexistence of Muslims, Christians and Jews, Arabs and Israelis in the region. But, for this to happen, the very nature of Israel’s relationship with its environment should change whereas what we’re seeing now is more and more violence, barbarity and cruelty on the part of Israel.
KZ: Israelis believe and claim that they should have a state with its borders spanned from Nile to Euphrates. This is the “Promised Land” which they recurrently refer to. What do you think about that? Is it a reasonable and justifiable claim?
GA: Even in Israel, very few people subscribe to this view. Only some extremist branches of Zionism believe in this idea. It sounds so absurd that only crazy people can uphold such perspectives. Now, if we had to redraw the map of the world to go back to how the world was 2,000 years ago, we can imagine what a terrible mess would happen in the whole world. Besides, there’s much debate even on the fact that the European Jews who came to Palestine in the 20^th century are descendants of the Jews who were in Palestine 2,000 years ago. But even if that were the case, and again, if we had to redraw the map of the world as it was 2,000 years ago, why not 3,000 years ago or 1,000 years ago? So the only legitimate claim to a land is that of the people who were living on it in recent centuries. But no Palestinian group among the main Palestinian forces is calling for the expulsion of Jews and Israelis from the Middle East. All of them call for coexistence, but coexistence based on democratic principles and on equal footing, not the present situation of very harsh oppression of the Palestinians and the Lebanese by Israel.
KZ: Some Arab nations are progressively taking steps to normalize their ties with Israel. We can name the United Arab Emirates which invited the Israel’s transport and infrastructure minister to an international summit held in Abu Dhabi. Other Arab states, in turn, are making efforts to establish new relations with Israel. Isn’t it going to be harmful and destructive for the cause of Palestinian people?
GA: Four countries have established relations with Israel among the Arab states and they are Egypt, Jordan, Qatar and Oman. This is damaging for the cause of the Palestinians, especially when the country betraying them is Egypt which is the largest Arab country. This is a result of the increasing hegemony of the United States over the Middle East, which pushes the Arab governments to establish relations with the state of Israel against the will of their own people. If you look at Jordan and Egypt, you’ll see that the overwhelming majority of their population is opposed to Israel and its policies, and this creates a wide gap between governmental policies and what the population wants.
KZ: What’s your view regarding the recent Israeli assault on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla? What would happen if another country rather than Israel, say Iran, had attacked the flotilla of 600 international peace activists? Would the international community’s response have been the same?
GA: You should ask me what would happen if the United States had attacked the flotilla, because they do such things quite often. But, you’re right in saying that Israel gets the least protest in comparison with other countries when it comes to the violation of international law and perpetration of war crimes and crimes against humanity. This judgment is in line with the reports of Judge Richard Goldstone who is a devout Jew and even a devout Zionist, but honest enough for acknowledging the fact that Israel committed war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza. So of course Israel gets much less condemnation than any countries that are opposed to the United States and to Western hegemony. One should say, however, that Israel started to lose even the support of Western public opinion recently, especially since the Gaza war of 2008-2009 which was a brutal and cruel attack on defenseless civilians and was criticized even by traditional friends of Israel. After the attack on Freedom Flotilla, the international condemnation of Israel reached an unprecedented level. A few countries cut their diplomatic relations with Israel in Latin America like Venezuela and Bolivia in the last year and Nicaragua in the current year. A number of countries recalled their ambassadors: we have seen a shift in the stance of public opinion and even a wave of protests has taken shape in the United States. So there’s been a real impact and this shows that the Israeli state by its cruelty and brutality is losing more and more ground in the global public opinion.
KZ: The Saudi King has recently made remarks in which he likened Iran’s government to the state of Israel and said that these two countries don’t deserve to exist. Is this a fair and rational statement? Doesn’t it damage the Islamic solidarity and integrity?
GA: First of all, this statement, if true, is a really infamous statement. Putting Iran and Israel on the same level is totally absurd. Israel is a state that has been created through a colonial process and is violently oppressing the original population of the land it seized. Iran is a country which has been there for a long period of history and there was no involvement of colonial powers in its creation. Its government is certainly more legitimate than that of the Saudi kingdom, which was established by armed conquest less than one century ago, and never elected since then. However, the Saudi King meant probably that both the Israeli government and the Iranian government are extremist to his taste. The truth is that the Saudi regime is the most reactionary and the most backward regime in the whole region. They’re closer to the Taliban than to anything else in terms of regime and society. Saudi rulers are better advised to change their own regime rather than trying to change the regimes in other countries.
Kourosh Ziabari is Iranian media correspondent, freelance journalist and the author of Book 7+1. He is acontributing writer for websites and magazines in the Netherlands, Canada, Italy, Hong Kong, Bulgaria, South Korea, Belgium, Germany, the U.K. and the U.S. . Currently, he works for the Foreign Policy Journal as a media correspondent. He is a member of Tlaxcala Translators Network for Linguistic Diversity and World Student Community for Sustainable Development. Kourosh Ziabari is an Iranian freelance journalist and media correspondent. He has interviewed political commentator and linguist Noam Chomsky, member of New Zealand parliament Keith Locke, Australian politician Ian Cohen, member of German Parliament Ruprecht Polenz, former Mexican President Vicente Fox, former U.S. National Security Council advisor Peter D. Feaver, Nobel Prize laureate in Physics Wolfgang Ketterle, Nobel Prize laureate in Chemistry Kurt Wüthrich, Nobel Prize laureate in biology Robin Warren, famous German political prisoner Ernst Zündel, Brazilian cartoonist Carlos Latuff, American author Stephen Kinzer, syndicated journalist Eric Margolis, former assistant of the U.S. Department of the Treasury Paul Craig Roberts, American-Palestinian journalist Ramzy Baroud and the former President of the American Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Sid Ganis.
K Ziabari contribute regularly to Opinion Maker

The Last Hiccups Of The Falling Empire-Pakistan Warned; Noose Being Tightened

Posted on 28. Jul, 2010 by Raja Mujtaba in Pak-US Relations

Pakistan Warned; Noose Being Tightened

“There is no doubt in anyone’s mind that should an attack against the United States be traced to be Pakistani it would have a very devastating impact on our relationship” Hillary Clinton

By Raja G Mujtaba
Wiki leaks, Hillary threats, Mike Mullen’s parrot repeats, Holbrooke’s Viceroy authority all in one chorus sounds like a band show going on the in front of Metropolitan Museum of Art on Madison Avenue in full glare of the media spot lights, CNN, Fox News in the forefront.
Why this sudden change and surge of media statements, leaks, open threats in every conceivable way to threaten Pakistan as a reward for her all out support and participation in the so called ‘War on Terror.’ I knew it from day one, that American arrival in Afghanistan with complete involvement of NATO was basically a buildup against Pakistan. I had said it repeatedly in my articles and talks that I delivered at various forums. America wanted to be here to denuclearize, deislamise and delink Pakistan from China; a Zionist dream.
Hillary, am not surprised, behind the soft skin of your face I could always see a devil smiling. It had to, after all you have been awarded for your commitment to the Zionist cause. It’s well known that when you were contesting the senate election, Pakistani Americans had raised funds for you that you very conveniently returned after having been elected to the office saying that you would not be able to support the Muslim world against Israel. So you were committed, you lost the presidential race but the Zionists did not lose you; very promptly they brought you as Secretary of State so you could deliver.
Your last visit to Pakistan where you did some PR exercise, was a total farce, people were showering praises on you but I knew you were just charming them to betray them after they had reposed trust and faith in you. You could not have betrayed and hit back had they not fallen for your charms.
All the media slender that has unleashed after your opening salvo from the Pakistan soil is no less than a diplomatic terrorism; through your statements, you have tried to intimidate the people of Pakistan. You are proving a bigger terrorists, Osama is not even a shadow of yours if he was a terrorist. After your opening round the rest of the guns fired like at the Normandy landings, all well planned and rehearsed. There is no slip of even a coma or a full stop in their texts.
What is mind boggling that you as first lady of America could not spot Monica Lewinsky playing games with Bill Clinton right under your nose in the White House basement but you had a very sharp vision to locate Osama in the mountains of Pakistan where even mules can’t reach. Lady you must remember that it has been your state office and other agencies that have been releasing statements about Osama’s death. Now how all of a sudden you have brought to life the carcass that has been moth and worm eaten if any pieces were left after Daisy Cutters that must have blown him into dust or at best he could have been buried somewhere deep in the hills of Tora Bora. Bravo Lady Clinton bravo.
Before this final assault on Pakistan to cover your defeat in Afghanistan at the hands of ill equipped Taliban who have literally made you eat dust, you started a series of events to zero Pakistan with some profiling. Of such events, there is a long list that can be quoted but would just mention  a last few like Faisal Shahzad in Times Square, dispatching of five American youths to Sargodha in Pakistan where the biggest air base is located, raising a false flag in Chili where again a Pakistani was involved for his clothes smelled. The Chili police released him but the American fugitive got him arrested again thereafter never heard of him. What happened in London bombing, Spain were all links of the same chain.
A media campaign to profile Pakistan as the next evil doer has been going on since 9/11. At various intervals and various locations around the world, some false flag has been raised to profile Pakistan in some terror activity. Immediately after 9/11, two Pakistanis were arrested in Mexico on an assumed charge of some terror activity there. Jeff Gates, Gordon Duff and Wayne Madsen are but a few names who have written enough on the subject. Now that James Mel Rockefeller has also come out in the open, he has lot more to add and expose you false flag operations.
A few days back, Omar bin Laden, one of the sons of the alleged Al Qaeda mastermind Osama bin Laden has said that he believes his father is still alive, and that he still loves him in spite of his links to various terror-related tragedies around the world. This is a statement that has clear signature of have been prompted by putting words in his mouth. Hillary wanted to have a ground accuse Pakistan for harboring Osama Bin Laden so that grounds are prepared to attack. If this be true, then Hillary should be looking in the basement of White  House where Monica too found a safe heaven.
Hillary is not the first secretary of state to have terrorized Pakistan, the former iron lady Condoleezza Rice, commonly known in this part of the world as Queen Sheeba is on record to have given some very serious threats to terrorise Pakistan. Richard Armitage wanted to take us into stone age; these are just a few names.  I can go back to Henry Kissinger era too or that of Madeline Albright
It has been reliably learnt from high credibility sources in DC that now in the power corridors, whisper campaign is going on that balkanisation of Pakistan is fate accomplice. They see it as their necessity like Kissinger thought it necessary to disintegrate Pakistan in 1971. Pakistani public is well aware as to how and for what purpose the present set of government has been brought in. They have their compulsions, they have billions of plundered money stacked in your banks, thus you hold them by the tails. They have no option but to do what you wish them to else they lose all the money. The people know it well that be it PPP, PMLs, ANP, MQM and some other elements are on board to that affect.
It must be kept in mind, in case of any adventurism 180 million people would stand steadfast with complete disregard to what the installed puppets may think to protect and play your game. In that case they would risk their lives at the hands of the public lest they are pulled out by you.
It is evident that now the focus has been lifted off Iran, the spotlight is on Pakistan. This is also a talk in Washington DC that America cannot misadventure in Iran but she thinks that through her installed puppets in Islamabad she can take on Pakistan. Thus for this purpose, Blackwater and other such elements had been pushed in here.
It’s no secret that the key figures of BLA and some dissident tribes like the Bugtis and Marris are in their safety being looked after and fed to be launched as freedom fighters. Recently as reported in the press, one such political asylum has been granted to Dawood Suleman, the Khan of Kalat by the British Government at the behest of the US administration. This is how friends are rewarded by buying out a few traitors to be used as propaganda material against Pakistan.
America is sadly mistaken, Pakistan is not the few puppets installed by them, but 180 million who would shred to pieces any collaborators that dare to side the enemies of Pakistan. At this critical juncture, Pakistan has a very committed leadership of the Armed Forces that is very professional and loyal to the soil. The forces are very professional and well trained. They have given ample demonstration of their professional competence in clearing out the miscreants launched by America and her proxies Israel and India. Americans must know, Pakistan is not Iraq, it’s a country armed with all the technologies and mostly indigenous therefore in any given theatre America would get the run for its money.
There is no secret why America is behaving so desperate; the war has been lost, it was Bush’s war that Obama  has owned, the people back home are sick and tired of the lies emanating from White House, Capitol Hill etc. The body bags are on the rise but are kept hidden from the American public. Bodies are trickled back home in silence so that these don’t become a media stock. Americans want war trials of Bush, Dick Cheney, Rumsfeld etc. People of Pakistan would like to include Parvez Musharraf too in the list of war criminals, so do the British who want Bush’s poodle Tony Blair to be tried.
Talking to Karen Kwiatkowski, a retired Lieut Col of the US Air Force on the subject said, “I know that we have a history of turning against past friends and allies — but I don’t understand the point of any attack on Pakistan – even diplomatic attacks as Hillary has been doing — when our best chance of finding any remaining bad guys relating to 9/11 (if you believe the story that those bad guys did 9/11) would lie with Pakistan’s government/local leaders.
Unless we are looking for a backlash — and I heard that mentioned on antiwar.com radio this morning, it could be that in provocation the politicians and generals feel they can sustain their presence in Afghanistan.  Of course, it is an unpopular war here, but Americans don’t feel the war in a personal way.”
She further stated, “If so, this indicates an amazing amount of stupidity on the part of our generals and politicians, and also desperation.”
This is a high risk gamble that Obama is playing that only fools play to save his own and the necks of his predecessors. Stakes are very high, Obama would be a loser all the way down, this ambitious misadventure would burn America inside out. Her collapse like that of Soviet Union would become inevitable. It’s true that no power has lasted for ever and its equally true that all powers have vanished in pursuit of their mad dreams. Germany, Soviet Union, Great Britain are all examples from the recent history. Now it is a writing on the wall that America’s innings is over. America cannot avert her defeat by expanding the war, in fact it’s destruction under its own weight will be expedited.
Its about time that Nuremberg trials be reenacted and save the innocent people from the wrath of these war perpetuators both in the US and elsewhere.

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