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By Richard Falk
10 October, 2013
@ Richard Falk Blog
Background
If the politics of deflection exhibit the outward reach of Israel’s grand strategy of territorial expansionism and regional hegemony, the politics of fragmentation serves Israel’s inward moves designed to weaken Palestinian resistance, induce despair, and de facto surrender. In fundamental respects deflection is an unwitting enabler of fragmentation, but it is also its twin or complement.
The British were particularly adept in facilitating their colonial project all over the world by a variety of divide and rule tactics, which almost everywhere haunted anti-colonial movements, frequently producing lethal forms of post-colonial partition as in India, Cyprus, Ireland, Malaya, and of course, Palestine, and deadly ethnic strife elsewhere as in Nigeria, Kenya, Myanmar, Rwanda. Each of these national partitions and post-colonial traumas has produced severe tension and long lasting hostility and struggle, although each takes a distinctive form due to variations from country to country of power, vision, geography, resources, history, geopolitics, leadership.
An additional British colonial practice and legacy was embodied in a series of vicious settler colonial movements that succeeded in effectively eliminating or marginalizing resistance by indigenous populations as in Australia, Canada, the United States, and somewhat less so in New Zealand, and eventually failing politically in South Africa and Namibia, but only after decades of barbarous racism.
In Palestine the key move was the Balfour Declaration, which was a colonialist gesture of formal approval given to the Zionist Project in 1917 tendered at the end of Ottoman rule over Palestine. This was surely gross interference with the dynamics of Palestinian self-determination (at the time the estimated Arab population of Palestine was 747,685, 92.1% of the total, while the Jewish population was an estimate 58,728, which amounted to 7.9%) and a decisive stimulus for the Zionist undertaking to achieve supremacy over the land embraced by the British mandate to administer Palestine in accordance with a framework agreement with the League of Nation. The agreement repeated the language of the Balfour Declaration in its preamble: “Whereas recognition has thereby been given to the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country.”(emphasis added) To describe this encouragement of Zionism as merely ‘interference’ is a terribly misleading understatement of the British role in creating a situation of enduring tension in Palestine, which was supposedly being administered on the basis of the wellbeing of the existing indigenous population, what was called “a sacred trust of civilization” in Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations, established for the “well-being and development” of peoples “not yet able to stand by themselves under the strenuous conditions of the modern world.” The relevance of the politics of fragmentation refers to a bundle of practices and overall approach that assumed the form of inter-ethnic and inter-religious strife during the almost three decades that the mandate arrangements were in effect.*
At the same time, the British was not the whole story by any means: the fanatical and effective exploitation of the opportunity to establish a Jewish homeland of unspecified dimensions manifested the dedication, skill, and great ambition of the Zionist movement; the lack of comparable sustained and competent resistance by the indigenous population abetted the transformation of historic Palestine; and then these developments were strongly reinforced by the horrors of the Holocaust and the early complicity of the liberal democracies with Naziism that led the West to lend its support to the settler colonial reality that Zionism had become well before the 1948 War. The result was the tragic combination of statehood and UN membership for Israel and the nakba involving massive dispossession creating forced refugee and exile for most Palestinians, and leading after 1967 to occupation, discrimination, and oppression of those Palestinians who remained either in Israel or in the 22% of original Palestine.
It should be recalled that the UN solution of 1947, embodied in GA Resolution 181, after the British gave up their mandatory role was no more in keeping with the ethos of self-determination than the Balfour Declaration, decreeing partition and allocating 55% of Palestine to the Jewish population, 45% to the Palestinians without the slightest effort to assess the wishes of the population resident in Palestine at the time or to allocate the land in proportion to the demographic realities at the time. The UN solution was a new rendition of Western paternalism, opposed at the time by the Islamic and Middle Eastern members of the UN. Such a solution was not as overbearing as the mandates system that was devised to vest quasi-colonial rule in the victorious European powers after World War I, yet it was still an Orientalist initiative aimed at the control and exploitation of the destiny of an ethnic, political, and economic entity long governed by the Ottoman Empire.
The Palestinians (and their Arab neighbors) are often told in patronizing tones by latter day Zionists and their apologists that the Palestinians had their chance to become a state, squandered their opportunity, thereby forfeiting their rights to a state of their own by rejecting the UN partition plan. In effect, the Israeli contention is that Palestinians effectively relinquished their statehood claims by this refusal to accept what the UN had decreed, while Israel by nominally accepting the UN proposals validated their sovereign status, which was further confirmed by its early admission to full membership in the UN. Ever since, Israel has taken advantage of the fluidity of the legal situation by at once pretending to accept the UN approach of seeking a compromise by way of mutual agreement with the Palestinians while doing everything in its power to prevent such an outcome by projecting its force throughout the entirety of Palestine, by establishing and expanding settlements, the ethnic cleansing of Jerusalem, and by advancing an array of maximalist security claims that have diminished Palestinian prospects. That is, Israel has publicly endorsed conflict-resolving diplomacy but operationally has been constantly moving the goal posts by unlawfully creating facts on the ground, and then successfully insisting on their acceptance as valid points of departure. In effect, and with American help, Israel has seemingly given the Palestinians a hard choice, which is tacitly endorsed by the United States and Europe: accept the Bantustan destiny we offer or remain forever refugees and victims of annexation, exile, discrimination, statelessness.
Israel has used its media leverage and geopolitical clout to create an asymmetric understanding of identity politics as between Jews and Palestinians. Jews being defined as a people without borders who can gain Israeli nationality no matter where they live on the planet, while Palestinians are excluded from Israeli nationality regardless of how deep their indigenous roots in Palestine itself. This distinction between the two peoples exhibits the tangible significance of Israel as a ‘Jewish State,’ and why such a designation is morally and legally unacceptable in the 21st century even as it so zealously claimed by recent Israeli leaders, none more than Benyamin Netanyahu.
Modalities of Fragmentation
The logic of fragmentation is to weaken, if not destroy, a political opposition configuration by destroying its unity of purpose and strategy, and fomenting to the extent possible conflicts between different tendencies within the adversary movement. It is an evolving strategy that is interactive, and by its nature becomes an important theme of conflict. The Palestinians in public constantly stress the essential role of unity, along with reconciliation to moderate the relevance of internal differences. In contrast, the Israelis fan the flames of disunity, stigmatizing elements of the Palestinian reality that are relevantly submissive, and accept the agenda and frameworks that are devised by Tel Aviv refusing priorities set by Palestinian leaders. Over the course of the conflict from 1948 to the present, there have been ebbs and flows in the course of Palestinian unity, with maximum unity achieved during the time when Yasir Arafat was the resistance leader and maximum fragmentation evident since Hamas was successful in the 2006 Gaza elections, and managed to seize governmental control from Fatah in Gaza a year later. Another way that Israel has promoted Palestinian disunity is to favor the so-called moderates operating under the governance of the Palestinian Authority while imposing inflicting various punishments on Palestinians adhering to Hamas.
–Zionism, the Jewish State, and the Palestinian Minority. Perhaps, the most fundamental form of fragmentation is between Jews and Palestinians living within the state of Israel. This type of fragmentation has two principal dimensions: pervasive discrimination against the 20% Palestinian minority (about 1.5 million) affecting legal, social, political, cultural, and economic rights, and creating a Palestinian subjectivity of marginality, subordination, vulnerability. Although Palestinians in Israel are citizens they are excluded from many benefits and opportunities because they do not possess Jewish nationality. Israel may be the only state in the world that privileges nationality over citizenship in a series of contexts, including family reunification and access to residence. It is also worth observing that if demographic projections prove to be reliable Palestinians could be a majority in Israel as early as 2035, and would almost certainly outnumber Jews in the country by 2048. Not only does this pose the familiar choice for Israel between remaining an electoral democracy and retaining its self-proclaimed Jewish character, but it also shows how hegemonic it is to insist that the Palestinians and the international community accept Israel as a Jewish state.
This Palestinian entitlement, validated by the international law relating to fundamental human rights prohibiting all forms of discrimination, and especially structural forms embedded in law that discriminate on the basis of race and religion. The government of Israel, reinforced by its Supreme Court, endorses the view that only Jews can possess Israeli nationality that is the basis of a range of crucial rights under Israeli law. What is more Jews have Israeli nationality even if lacking any link to Israel and wherever they are located, while Palestinians (and other religious and ethnic minorities) are denied Israeli nationality (although given Israeli citizenship) even if indigenous to historic Palestine and to the territory under the sovereign control of the state of Israel.
A secondary form of fragmentation is between this minority in Israel and the rest of the Palestinian corpus. The dominant international subjectivity relating to the conflict has so far erased this minority from its imaginary of peace for the two peoples, or from any sense that Palestinian human rights in Israel should be internationally implemented in whatever arrangements are eventually negotiated or emerges via struggle. As matters now stand, the Palestinian minority in Israel is unrepresented at the diplomatic level and lacks any vehicle for the expression of its grievances.
–Occupied Palestine and the Palestinian Diaspora (refugees and enforced exile). Among the most debilitating forms of fragmentation is the effort by Israel and its supporters to deny Palestinian refugees and Palestinians living in the diaspora) their right of return as confirmed by GA Resolution 184? There are between 4.5 million and 5.5 million Palestinians who are either refugees or living in the diaspora, as well as about 1.4 million resident in the West Bank and 1.6 million in Gaza.
The diplomatic discourse has been long shaped by reference to the two state mantra. This includes the reductive belief that the essence of a peaceful future for the two peoples depends on working out the intricacies of ‘land for peace.’ In other words, the dispute is false categorized as almost exclusively about territory and borders (along with the future of Jerusalem), and not about people. There is a tacit understanding that seems to include the officials of the Palestinian Authority to the effect that Palestinians refugee rights will be ‘handled’ via compensation and the right of return, not to the place of original dispossession, but to territory eventually placed under Palestinian sovereignty.
Again the same disparity as between the two sides is encoded in the diplomacy of ‘the peace process,’ ever more so during the twenty years shaped by the Oslo framework. The Israel propaganda campaign was designed to make it appear to be a deal breaker for the Palestinian to insist on full rights of repatriation as it would allegedly entail the end of the promise of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. Yet such a posture toward refugees and the Palestinian diaspora cruelly consigns several million Palestinians to a permanent limbo, in effect repudiating the idea that the Palestinians are a genuine ‘people’ while absolutizing the Jews as a people of global scope. Such a dismissal of the claims of Palestinian refugees also flies in the face of the right of return specifically affirmed in relation to Palestine by the UN General Assembly in Resolution 194, and more generally supported by Article 13 of Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
The Two Warring Realms of the Occupation of Palestine: the Palestine Authority versus Hamas. Again Israel and its supporters have been able to drive an ideological wedge between the Palestinians enduring occupation since 1967. With an initial effort to discredit the Palestine Liberation Organzation that had achieved control over a unified and robust Palestine national movement, Israel actually encouraged the initial emergence of Hamas as a radical and fragmenting alternative to the PLO when it was founded in the course of the First Intifada. Israel of course later strongly repudiated Hamas when it began to carry armed struggle to pre-1967 Israel, most notoriously engaging in suicide bombings in Israel that involved indiscriminate attacks on civilians, a tactic repudiated in recent years.
Despite Hamas entering into the political life of occupied Palestine with American, and winning an internationally supervised election in 2006, and taking control of Gaza in 2007, it has continued to be categorized as ‘a terrorist organization’ that is given no international status. This terrorist designation is also relied upon to impose a blockade on Gaza that is a flagrant form of collective punishment in direct violation of Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. The Palestine Authority centered in Ramallah has also, despite occasional rhetoric to the contrary, refused to treat Hamas as a legitimate governing authority or to allow Hamas to operate as a legitimate political presence in the West Bank and Jerusalem or to insist on the inclusion of Hamas in international negotiations addressing the future of the Palestinian people. This refusal has persisted despite the more conciliatory tone of Hamas since 2009 when its leader, Khaled Meshaal, announced a shift in the organization’s goals: an acceptance of Israel as a state beside Palestine as a state provided a full withdrawal to 1967 borders and implementation of the right of return for refugees, and a discontinuation by Hamas of a movement based on armed struggle. Mashel also gave further reassurances of moderation by an indication that earlier goals of liberating the whole of historic Palestine, as proclaimed in its Charter, were a matter of history that was no longer descriptive of its political program.
In effect, the territorial fragmentation of occupied Palestine is reinforced by ideological fragmentation, seeking to somewhat authenticate and privilege the secular and accommodating leadership provided by the PA while repudiating the Islamic orientation of Hamas. In this regard, the polarization in such countries as Turkey and Egypt is cynically reproduced in Palestine as part of Israel’s overall occupation strategy. This includes a concerted effort by Israel to make it appear that material living conditions for Palestinians are much better if the Palestinian leadership cooperates with the Israeli occupiers than if it continues to rely on a national movement of liberation and refuses to play the Oslo game.
The Israeli propaganda position on Hamas has emphasized the rocket attacks on Israel launched from within Gaza. There is much ambiguity and manipulation of the timeline relating to the rockets in interaction with various forms of Israeli violent intrusion. We do know that the casualties during the period of Hamas control of Gaza have been exceedingly one-sided, with Israel doing most of the killing, and Palestinians almost all of the dying. We also know that when ceasefires have been established between Israel and Gaza, there was a good record of compliance on the Hamas side, and that it was Israel that provocatively broke the truce, and then launched major military operations in 2008-09 and 2012 on a defenseless and completely vulnerable population.
Cantonization and the Separation Wall: Fragmenting the West Bank. A further Israeli tactic of fragmentation is to make it difficult for Palestinians to sustain a normal and coherent life. The several hundred check points throughout the West Bank serious disrupt mobility for the Palestinians, and make it far easier for Palestinians to avoid delay and humiliation. It is better for them to remain contained within their villages, a restrictive life reinforced by periodic closures and curfews that are extremely disruptive. Vulnerability is accentuated by nighttime arrests, especially of young male Palestinians, 60% of whom have been detained in prisons before they reach the age of 25, and the sense that Israeli violence, whether issuing from the IDF or the settlers enjoys impunity, and often is jointly carried out.
The Oslo framework not only delegated to the PA the role of maintaining ‘security’ in Palestinian towns and cities, but bisected the West Bank into Areas A, B, and C, with Israeli retaining a residual security right throughout occupied Palestine. Area C, where most of the settlements are located, is over 60% of the West Bank, and is under exclusive control of Israel.
This fragmentation at the core of the Oslo framework has been a key element in perpetuating Palestinian misery.
The fragmentation in administration is rigid and discriminatory, allowing Israeli settlers the benefits of Israel’s rule of law, while subjecting Palestinians to military administration with extremely limited rights, and even the denial of a right to enjoy the benefit of rights. Israel also insists that since it views the West Bank as disputed territory rather than ‘occupied’ it is not legally obliged to respect international humanitarian law, including the Geneva Conventions. This fragmentation between Israeli settlers and Palestinian residents is so severe that it has been increasingly understood in international circles as a form of apartheid, which the Rome Statute governing the International Criminal Court denominates as one type of ‘crime against humanity.’
The Separation Wall is an obvious means of separating Palestinians from each other and from their land. It was declared in 2004 to be a violation of international law by a super majority of 14-1 in the International Court of Justice, but to no avail, as Israel has defied this near unanimous reading of international law by the highest judicial body in the UN, and yet suffered no adverse consequences. In some West Bank communities Palestinians are surrounded by the wall and in others Palestinian farmers can only gain access to and from their land at appointed times when wall gates are opened.
Fragmentation and Self-Determination
The pervasiveness of fragmentation is one reason why there is so little belief that the recently revived peace process is anything more than one more turn of the wheel, allowing Israel to proceed with its policies designed to take as much of what remains of Palestine as it wants so as to realize its own conception of Jewish self-determination. Just as Israel refuses to restrict the Jewish right of return, so it also refuses to delimit its boundaries. When it negotiates internationally it insists on even more prerogatives under the banner of security and anti-terrorism. Israel approach such negotiations as a zero-sum dynamic of gain for itself, loss for Palestine, a process hidden from view by the politics of deflection and undermining the Palestinian capacity for coherent resistance by the politics of fragmentation.
* There are two issues posed, beyond the scope of this post, that bear on Palestinian self-determination emanating from the Balfour Declaration and the ensuing British mandatory role in Palestine: (1) to what extent does “a national home for the Jewish people” imply a valid right of self-determination, as implemented by the establishment of the state of Israel? Does the idea of ‘a national home’ encompass statehood? (2) to what extent does the colonialist nature of the Balfour Declaration and the League mandate system invalidate any actions taken?
Richard Falk is an international law and international relations scholar who taught at Princeton University for forty years. Since 2002 he has lived in Santa Barbara, California, and taught at the local campus of the University of California in Global and International Studies and since 2005 chaired the Board of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. He is currently serving as a United Nations Special Rapporteur on Palestinian human rights. http://richardfalk.wordpress.com

By Kourosh Ziabari
11 October, 2013
@ Countercurrents.org
Syria has become a battlefield for the face-off between the forces of government, Al-Qaeda terrorists and foreign-backed mercenaries that are hell-bent on removing President Bashar al-Assad from power. So far, more than 100,000 Syrians have been killed in the civil war which has extricated the Arab country. Thousands of terrorists from different Arab countries and even European nations have been deployed in Syria to fight the government of President Assad.
The U.S. hypocrisy in supporting the Al-Qaeda combatants is the most agonizing reality taking place in Syria. The White House launched a War on Terror following the painful events of September 11, 2001 and killed hundreds of civilians across the world under the guise of fighting terrorism, Al-Qaeda, Taliban and who they call Islamist Jihadists. However, it’s now overtly supporting, funding and arming the same terrorists in Syria just because it cannot reconcile its differences with the Syrian government.
After a chemical attack in the Ghouta district of Damascus killed around 1,400 people, as claimed by the United States, the White House announced that it intends to launch a “surgical”, “limited” military strike against Syria, and that the attack would certainly take place. It later postponed its plans after the Russian government presented a proposal that would demand Syria to destroy its arsenal of chemical weapons. Washington accepted to withdraw its war plans, and as some political analysts noted, suffered a great political setback.
To discuss the ongoing crisis in Syria, the reasons why the United States abandoned its plans for attacking Syria and the future of civil war in the embattled Arab country, Iran Review conducted an interview with prominent political scientist Prof. James Petras.
James Petras is a renowned progressive American philosopher and political scientist and a retired professor of sociology at Binghamton University in Binghamton, New York and adjunct professor at Saint Mary’s University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. He has published over 2,000 articles in such magazines and newspapers as the New York Times, The Guardian, The Nation, Christian Science Monitor, Foreign Policy and Le Monde Diplomatique. His latest book titled “The Arab Revolt and the Imperialist Counterattack” was published in 2011 by the Clarity Press.
What follows is the text of Iran Review’s exclusive interview with Prof. James Petras.
Q: U.S. President Barack Obama had categorically announced that his country will be launching surgical, limited attacks on certain sites in Syria. However, after the Russian proposal was set forth, he retreated from his position and postponed the strike. Don’t you consider this retreatment a diplomatic failure for the United States?

A: I think it was more a political debacle. Let’s put the decision of Obama in context. First, all the opinion polls in the United States indicated that the public, around 65% of the U.S. citizens, opposed a new war involving the United States and only 20% to 25% were in favor and the rest were, at the time, undecided. That’s one big fact. Secondly, the number of Congressmen opposing the war ran close to 9 to 1. So the Congress people themselves in a strong majority were going to vote against Obama’s authorization to engage in a war. For Obama to proceed to bomb Syria in that context, it was a dire consequence impending, I think it would have been a tremendous political defeat and it would have discredited his government at a time when the U.S. government faces a fiscal crisis as it faces the possibility that the debt limit would not be raised which would send turmoil in the financial market. Now, Obama was in an extremely weak domestic position which no president in the recent history has faced.

In that context, he also faced the defeat in the British Parliament and the strong opposition by the European public opinion which was running about 3 to 1. Public opinion in Turkey also strongly opposed. The only ally that Obama really had internationally was Saudi Arabia which is an autocratic dictatorship, Israel which is a racist, anti-Muslim state, and of course the decrepit socialist Hollande in France who has the lowest popularity among the presidents of the recent history. So internationally Obama was also in an extremely difficult situation and actually we look at it from that perspective. The Putin initiative which Obama quickly agreed to, was a life-saver because it allowed Obama a formula for saving face at least in that particular conjunction. But I do want to raise this question; the recent diplomatic moves by the Secretary of State Kerry indicates that the military, aerial attack is still on the agenda as Kerry tries to push through a clause on the agreement which would allow the U.S. to determine circumstances under which it could launch an air attack. So it may be the case that Obama agreed to this diplomatic initiative of Putin in order to neutralize international and domestic opposition and once the opposition subsided, he may take advantage of that to launch an aerial attack using as pretext that Syria is not destroying the chemical weapons fast enough or that the inventory is incomplete, etc. We cannot discount that because the U.S. has signed a previous international agreement, in the recent case with Russia, and in the UN Security Council, on overflight to Libya which turned into full-scale aerial assaults which destroyed President Qaddafi’s army. And the second case is the agreement between Clinton and Mihailovic which was followed by U.S. bomb attacks for several weeks.

So, the United States has a history of making agreements and then violating them. We have to keep that historical precedence in mind.

Q: How could the United States justify a possible military strike against Syria, while Syria had never threatened the U.S. national interests or security? The only pretext they could resort to was that the Syrian government has used chemical weapons against the rebels, but they couldn’t substantiate this claim. What’s your take on that?

A: The international law, as far as the United States is concerned, doesn’t exist. It invaded Afghanistan with no logical, factual basis, accusing them of sheltering Al-Qaeda. The U.S. violated international law by invading Iraq despite the fact that it used fabricated evidence of Weapons of Mass Destruction. The U.S. supported Israel’s invasion and bombing of Lebanon and Gaza despite the fact that it was a clear violation of international law and the Geneva Conventions. So, the imperial countries have a history, and especially the United States, a recent history of not abiding by the international law. They have refused to accept Iran’s enrichment of uranium despite the fact that dozens of countries enrich uranium and it has based its attacks on the possibility that Iran could develop a capacity to convert enriched uranium into a weapon, based solely on the Israeli fabricated intelligence. The U.S. intelligence agencies have several times issued reports indicating that there’s no positive evidence involving Iran in the conversion of enriched uranium into a single nuclear weapon. So, I think that to be surprised that the United States is violating international law is equivalent to being very naïve.

Q: The United States is continuing to support the rebels, Al-Qaeda terrorists and other foreign-backed mercenaries in Syria. It’s seems hypocritical that the U.S. is supporting terrorists while it has launched a global War on Terror since the 9/11 attacks. How do you explain this dual-track policy of supporting terrorists who are carrying out operations in their favor while fighting other terrorists elsewhere?

A: I think you can’t use abstract criteria here. Washington has an imperial perspective on this. They use strictly imperial-based criteria. In the case of Libya, the U.S.-backed terrorists fought against the nationalist regime of Gaddafi. That has backfired, of course, because many of the Libyan terrorists are now engaged in subversive activities toward the region including the Sub-Sahara Africa. The U.S. supported Sunni terrorists in Iraq for a substantial period of time after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein and the rise of the Shiite government in Baghdad. So we have look back at the Afghan war. The U.S. provided over $5 million arms and logistical support to the Islamic extremists in overthrowing a secular government in Afghanistan. So the question is, what side are the terrorists on? If they’re fighting against the U.S. adversaries, then Washington supports them. If they fight against a U.S. puppet regime, they’re opposed to it. So, you have to separate here any notion of anti-terrorism as a principle. It is terrorism when a country opposes the United States and it is anti-terrorism when the same forces oppose a U.S. adversary. These terms become meaningless in terms of a cognitive meaning.

Q: It’s a logical demand to call on Syria to declare its chemical weapons and bring them under the UN safeguards. However, we also know that Israel possesses not only chemical weapons, but a large arsenal of nuclear weapons, and is the sole possessor of WMDs in the Middle East. Why doesn’t the United States ask Israel to join the international conventions for the prohibition of Weapons of Mass Destruction?

A: Israel is an ally of the United States. Zionists have enormous influence within the administration of Obama. We have Dennis Ross is a notorious advocate of Israel who was appointed by Obama to be the U.S. representative in the Israel-Palestine talks. Dennis Ross is known in Washington to be the attorney for Israel. His partisanship is so blatant. You have some of the leading advisors allied with Israel. The head of the Treasury Department who is organizing sanctions against Iran is David Cohen and his predecessor was Stewart Levy, life-time Zionists who are in most delicate positions in pressuring countries to uphold sanctions against Iran. One could go down the list and identify the power of Zionism in the United States. I wrote a book about the power of Israel in the United States which has been translated in Farsi. But in any case, I think that the criteria that Washington uses in deciding when the nuclear weapons and chemical weapons are good and bad is based on that country’s relationship. Israel and the U.S. worked close together and Iran is a critic of the U.S. imperialism and Zionism and therefore any effort to create nuclear power becomes a pretext to weaken Iran and strengthen Israeli military superiority in the Middle East.

Q: And the final question. We know that the United States has abandoned its plans for attacking Syria, or at least has postponed such an attack. What do you think is the best and most viable solution for ending the crisis and civil war in Syria? What role can the international community play in bringing to an end this violence and bloodshed?

A: Well, I think the Syrian government has taken some very positive steps. First of all, it called for elections in which the domestic, internal opposition, and not the armed opposition, participated and made a substantial impact in the electoral process. Secondly, Syria has agreed to negotiate with the non-terrorist opposition. Thirdly, the terrorists are assassinating the pro-Western opposition and recently in a village on the Turkish border, we saw cases of assassinations and seizure of power by the Islamists. So I think one has to see that any reasonable settlement would follow the lines of negotiations between Syria and the opposition without prior conditions. You cannot exclude Bashar al-Assad from the procedure. I think out of these negotiations, a free election could be called. Once a ceasefire is in place, I think an election in which the terrorists are excluded would probably have to be enforced by the Syrian army and those groups who are calling for a peaceful settlement. Washington cannot play a bubble role here, talk about peace and ship arms to the terrorists and the opposition. Either there has to be a ceasefire, or there has to be a stopping of arms transfers; there has to be a meeting in which the U.S.-backed opposition sits down and negotiates. There has to be a ceasefire and a subsequent election and probably a power-sharing agreement in which the supporters of Bashar al-Assad are going to have an important role. The U.S. strategy is to isolate Iran, encircle Iran and dictate Iran to surrender its nuclear program. It wants to have a platform for aerial assaults in collaboration with Israel. Syria’s independence is vital to the security of Iran, not only its government, but its people and civilization. And I think that’s one of the big reasons why many of us oppose the U.S. war on Syria, because Syria could serve as a trampoline to eliminate any possible allies of Iran in the Middle East.

Kourosh Ziabari
Journalist, writer and media correspondent
www.KouroshZiabari.com

By Keith Jones
11 October, 2012
@ WSWS.org
Iran has rejected Washington’s preconditions for its participation in international deliberations on a “political solution” to the war in Syria—the so-called Geneva Two conference.
The Obama administration, which excluded Iran from the first Geneva conference on Syria, has demanded that Iran sign on to its efforts to coerce the Syrian government of Bashir al-Assad into a “power-sharing” agreement with the Islamist-dominated, US-sponsored and -armed “rebels” as the price for admission to Geneva Two.
Iran, Syria’s closest regional ally, has repeatedly signaled its readiness to work with other Middle Eastern states and the great powers to end the conflict in Syria. In advocating for such a role, Tehran has cited its participation in the December 2001 Bonn conference on Afghanistan, which ratified a US-organized government headed by Hamid Karzai to replace the toppled Taliban regime with which Iran had almost gone to war in 1998.
Furthermore, as part of its recent attempt to affect a rapprochement with the US, Tehran has signaled that, in exchange for the lifting of the punishing economic sanctions the US and its European allies have imposed on Iran, it would be ready to help Washington stabilize states and governments across the region, including in Afghanistan and Iraq.
But for Tehran to accept Washington’s demand that it endorse the communiqué issued by the June 2012 Geneva conference—a communiqué the US has spun as meaning that Assad must relinquish power to a “transitional government” “acceptable” to its rebel proxies—would mean throwing their Syrian allies to their wolves.
Speaking Monday, US State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said, “If—and this is an if —Iran were to endorse and embrace the Geneva Communiqué publicly, we would view the possibility of their participation (in Geneva Two) more openly.”
Iran was quick to respond. Iran’s Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Marzieh Afkham said Tehran would not agree to any preconditions to its attendance at the Geneva conference.
“If our participation is in the interests of achieving a solution,” declared Afkhram, “then it is not acceptable to impose conditions to inviting the Islamic Republic. We will not accept such conditions.”
Russia, another close ally of the Assad regime, has repeatedly voiced support for Iran’s participation in Geneva Two. And, in a shift, the UN-Arab League Special Envoy to Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, recently spoke in favor of an invitation being extended to Tehran.
On Monday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that Moscow and Washington had agreed that the Geneva Two conference should be held in mid-November. He made the statement after meeting with US Secretary of State John Kerry on the sidelines of the Asia Pacific Economic Forum meeting in Bali, Indonesia.
It is far from certain however that the conference will be held in November or, for that matter ever. Earlier this week, the United Nations envoy to Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, conceded the mid-November date was in jeopardy.
A senior leader of the US-sponsored Syrian National Council (SNC), Kamal Al-Labawani, told the London-based daily Asharq Al-Awsat earlier this month that while the SNC had previously said it would participate, it is now “of the view that it is not possible for the Geneva Two conference to be held.”
The evident reason for this shift is the dramatic reversals the “rebels” have suffered in recent months and this despite logistical support from the CIA and arms and money from Washington’s regional allies, including Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar.
Syrian government forces have been bolstered by volunteers from Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, as well as fighters from the Iranian-supported Lebanese Shiite militia Hezbollah.
But the principal reason for the reversals suffered by the US-sponsored rebels is their narrow base of support. The vast majority of Syrians are hostile to their ultra-reactionary Islamist program and this opposition has increased in response to the sectarian atrocities they have committed in areas under their control.
Whatever the ultimate fate of the Geneva Two conference, the US’s attitude toward Tehran’s participation is significant. It underscores the duplicitous and ravenous character of the Obama administration’s reputed “diplomatic opening” to Tehran.
For three decades the US has waged an unrelenting campaign of bullying and threats against Iran’s bourgeois nationalist regime, with the aim of ultimately re-imposing on the Iranian people the type of neo-colonial subjugation that existed under the bloody dictatorship of the Shah.
Under the Obama administration this campaign has reached unprecedented intensity, with the US using fraudulent and unproven claims concerning Iran’s nuclear energy program to justify mounting economic war on Tehran and preparations for military action. Washington has imposed sanctions aimed at throttling Iran’s economy by stopping it export trade, including the oil exports that are the main source of foreign exchange and government revenues, and by denying it access to the world financial system. And it has repeatedly threatened Iran with war, including making public that the Pentagon has made elaborate plans for a “shock and awe” air and naval war on Iran.
The war in Syria—which the US came to the brink of intervening directly in only a month ago—has moreover been largely directed against Iran. “Regime change” in Damascus would deprive Iran of its closest regional ally and of ready means of resupplying its Hezbollah allies.
The US’s basic objectives remain the same—to assert unbridled dominance over the world’s most important oil-exporting region. But facing massive domestic and international opposition to its plans to attack Syria and responding to overtures from Iran’s bourgeois regime, which fears Iran’s economic crisis will lead to working-class unrest, it decided to change tactics.
In pursuing negotiations with Tehran—negotiations that Obama with his “no options are off the able mantra” has emphasized are backed by the threat of war—Washington aims to pressure Tehran to make massive concessions, probe and leverage the cleavages within Iran’s ruling elite, and manipulate domestic US opinion with a view to legitimizing possible future military action.

On the 30^th June 2012 Mohamed Morsi was democratically elected as president of Egypt. However, his presidency ended after one year.General Fatah Al-Sisi, head of the Egyptian Army, brought the new Egyptian government down. Was it a coup or a revolution? Was this a democratically legitimized operation? Is there a future for Egypt? These topics were discussed on the 22^nd of August 2013 at the International Forum called “The Downfall of Morsi and the Future of Egypt” in the International Institute of Advanced Islamic Studies.  The speakers Dr.Chandra Muzaffar, Tan Sri Ahmad AlFarra, Professor Dato’ Mohamad Abu Bakar and Professor Daoud Batchelor mainly share the same views on the current issue.  Without any doubt the removal of President Morsi was not by any means a democratic act and led once again to the rise of the military regime.

Dr.Chandra Muzaffar (President, International Movement For A Just World (JUST)

1. Morsi’s downfall was neither legally nor ethically justifiable. He was legally elected and his election was even legitimized by a referendum.
2. Muslim Brotherhood focused on the wrong aspects of Egyptian society.
3. Opponents agenda

Military: scared of losing their long-term power in Egypt.

Israel: publicly declared their enmity towards the Muslim Brotherhood; deep relations with the Egyptian military.

Saudi Arabia: Backing Salafis and the military; Qatar supports the Muslim Brotherhood – since Saudi Arabia is trying to curb Qatari politics and power -Saudi Arabia takes the Egyptian military’s side.

1. The Muslim Brotherhood will not be able to regain power in the near future.
2. The stabilization of Egypt’s economy is important for its survival.

Tan Sri Ahmad AlFarra (Former Ambassador of Palestine to Malaysia/ Visiting Fellow, ISIS)

The destruction of Egypt has been one of Israel’s main goals, using the well-known, undercover divide-and-conquer strategy to achieve it.  The events in Egypt, were neither a coup nor a revolution, rather it has resulted in a “state of confusion”, partly because of Israeli manipulation.  To overcome this State, democracy has to be given another chance, which means that all the detainees including Morsi have to be freed and the results of a new election have to be respected. Furthermore, Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi has to resign.

Professor Dato’ Mohamad Abu Bakar (Department of International and Strategic Studies Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences )

The Arab nations have always been attacked by the Western world, which tried to implement western and modern values in Arab countries. This was facilitated for the West through the military regime in Egypt. The rise of the Muslim Brotherhood has been a barrier for this previous relationship between the West and Egypt, due to the different political agenda of the Muslim Brotherhood, which has reached out to Turkey, Iran and the Hamas. The Muslim Brotherhood should be given some time to prosper. It would be a miracle that after years of dictatorship a perfect democracy would arise immediately.

Professor Daud Batchelor (Environmentalist and Economic Geologist)

According to Islamic teachings Morsi is the legitimate president, since he was elected by the majority of the population. It is a Muslim’s obligation to obey him until he acts in a non-Islamic way, he becomes a tyrant or he is physically not able to fulfill his duties in a proper way. Any opposition to Morsi can be seen as kufr (denying the truth).

Report prepared by Nahid Ghulami and Yasmin Sarwar (They are the interns of JUST from August to September 2013)

By Marinella Corriegga, Vanessa Beeley, Feroze Mithiborwala & Roohulla Rezvi

10 September, 2013

@ Countercurrents.org

Say No to US War on Syria!!

“Syria you are not alone, we shall not let you down”

The world yet again waits with bated breath, as the clouds of war threaten to drown the voices of peace. The US is once again threatening a sovereign country, under a false pretext & fabricated lies. After Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya where millions of innocent civilians died, now it is the turn of Syria.

Once again US is going to use its lethal weapons and ‘save’ the people, by bombing them under the dubious pretext of ‘humanitarian intervention’. The American unilateralism poses a threat & a challenge to the overwhelming majority of nations that oppose the war. Yet again the US is complicit in destroying & undermining the international political structures & legal framework, even as it tries to speak in the name of the international community. But even though the US stands in splendid isolation, but yet persists with the war.

Thus once again innocent children & entire populations are going to be subjected to the role of helpless guinea pigs, whilst the latest weaponry is yet again tested. Once again residential areas, hospitals, schools, bridges, water supply systems, electric plants, will be targeted by the Cruise missiles, even as the entire civilian & social infrastructure of an entire nation is degraded & destroyed. Once again apache helicopters are going to display their accuracy on civilians, their graves to be marked as collateral damage.

The impending Imperialist-Zionist war on Syria is a threat to the entire region & will soon envelop the entire world into a fratricidal world war, where hundreds of millions of innocents will lose their lives. The very survival of humanity is at stake & thus this is a clarion call for peace.

Enough is enough!!

The overwhelming majority of the people are opposed to the war & are protesting across every nation across the world. The true international community, the comity of nations has spoken out against the attack, but the US imperialist pays no heed due to sheer arrogance & the brute force that it commands.

But this time we are not going to demonstrate & protest in our cities only. We are not going to follow the news of destruction, death & war through the satellite channels any more. We are not ready to sit by & watch a new Iraq and Afghanistan, even as the occupation & destruction of Palestine carries on.

This time, we are going to be there with the people of Syria. This time, for the sake of global peace and justice, we are going to March to Damascus from across the nations of the world, to bring the message of peace & stand in solidarity with the Syrian nation, which is one of the most ancient human civilizations.

Our objective is to resist, to defy & stop the US led war on Syria.

Our objective is to stand witness to the destruction that will be wrecked on this nation & let the world know about the true reality of the genocidal war.

Our objective is to act as a deterrent & protect the civilian & social infrastructure.

Our objective is to stand in solidarity with the Syrian people.

The very fate of humanity is at stake, where the choice is between peace & a global war, a war which will spell certain doom for all of humanity.

Join us from across the world in our collective endeavor for peace!

Join us in the “Global Peace March to Damascus”!

In solidarity

Marinella Corriegga, Vanessa Beeley, Feroze Mithiborwala & Roohulla Rezvi

(For the International Coordination Committee – GPMD)

Contact us on Facebook:

Contact us via message to this page if you wish to take part and we can help you to organise your participation.

Contact us via https://www.facebook.com/pages/Global-Peace-March-to-Damascus/597025893693258?fref=ts if you wish to participate.

Thank you

By Paul Craig Roberts

@ Information Clearing House

September 06, 2013 “Information Clearing House – Does the American public have the strength of character to face the fact that the US government stands before the entire world revealed as a collection of war criminals who lie every time that they open their mouth? Will Congress and the American public buy the White House lie that they must support war criminals and liars or “America will lose face”?

The obama regime’s lies are so transparent and blatant that the cautious, diplomatic President Putin of Russia lost his patience and stated the fact that we all already know: John Kerry is a liar. Putin said: “This was very unpleasant and surprising for me. We talk to them [the Americans], and we assume they are decent people, but he [Kerry] is lying and he knows that he is lying. This is sad.”

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article36117.htm

When Secretary of State Colin Powell was sent by the criminal bush regime to lie to the UN, Powell and his chief of staff claim that Powell did not know he was lying. It did not occur to the Secretary of State that the White House would send him to the UN to start a war that killed, maimed, and dispossessed millions of Iraqis on the basis of total lies.

The despicable John Kerry knows that he is lying. Here is the American Secretary of State, and obama, the puppet president, knowingly lying to the world. There is not a shred of integrity in the US government. No respect for truth, justice, morality or human life. Here are two people so evil that they want to repeat in Syria what the bush war criminals did in Iraq.

How can the American people and their representatives in Congress tolerate these extraordinary criminals? Why are not obama and John Kerry impeached? The obama regime has every quality of Nazi Germany and Stasi Communist Germany, only that the obama regime is worse. The obama regime spies on the entire world and lies about it. The obama regime is fully engaged in killing people in seven countries, a murderous rampage that not even Hitler attempted.

Whether the criminal obama regime can purchase the collaboration of Congress and the European puppet states in a transparent war crime will soon be decided. The decision will determine the fate of the world.

As for facts, the report released to the UN by the Russian government concludes that the weapons used in chemical attacks in Syria are similar to the weapons in the hands of al-Nusra and are different from the weapons known to be possessed by Syria.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article36116.htm

The obama regime has released no evidence to the UN. This is because the criminal regime has no evidence, only made up fairy tales.

If the obama regime had any evidence, the evidence would have been released to British Prime Minister david cameron to enable him to carry the vote of Parliament. In the absence of evidence, cameron had to admit to Parliament that he had no evidence, only a belief that the Syrian government had used chemical weapons. Parliament told Washington’s puppet that the British people were not going to war on the basis of the Prime Minister’s unsubstantiated belief.

Are the American people and the rest of the world just going to stand there, sucking their thumbs, while a new Nazi State rises in Washington?

Congress must vote down the war and make it clear to obama that if he defies

the constitutional power of Congress he will be impeached.

If the US Congress is too corrupt or incompetent to do its duty, the rest of the world must join the UN General Secretary and the President of Russia and declare that unilateral military aggression by the US government is a war crime, and that the war criminal US government will be isolated in the international community. Any of its members caught traveling abroad will be arrested and turned over to the Hague for trial.

How to Stop Obama’s Military Aggression Against Syria

By Paul Craig Roberts

September 06, 2013 “Information Clearing House – Many are asking what can be done to stop the pending US attack on Syria.

Two things can be done.

One is for the US Congress to realize that it does not save America’s face for Congress

to endorse a policy that has been rejected by the rest of the world, including Washington’s closest ally, Great Britain. For Congress to endorse what the UN Secretary General and the President of Russia have made unequivocally clear would be a war crime under international law harms, not rescues, America’s reputation. Doing the wrong thing to save face does not succeed.

In the event that Congress fails to understand the real stakes and votes to support a criminal action, the second thing that can be done to stop the attack is for most other countries in the world–China, India, Japan, Brazil, Australia, Canada, Iran, South Africa, the European and South American countries–to add their clear unequivocal statements to those of the UN General Secretary and President Putin that an American attack on Syria that is not authorized by the UN Security Council is a war crime. Expression by the governments of the world of this truthful statement would make it clear to Washington that it is isolated from the world community. For Obama to proceed in an act of aggression in the face of united opposition would destroy all influence of the US government and make it impossible for any officials of the Obama regime to travel abroad or to conduct business with other governments. What government would conduct business with a war criminal government? It is up to the governments of the world to make it clear to Washington that the US government is not above the law and will be held accountable.

Note the reports from congressional offices of the total lack of any support for Obama’s attack on Syria. The entire world is now watching the obama regime demonstrate its total disregard for the will of the people. The obama regime is showing that American democracy is a hoax. http://www.wnd.com/2013/09/calls-to-congress-244-to-1-against-syria-war/

Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have attracted a worldwide following. His latest book, The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West is now available.

By Nikhil Shah

06 September, 2013

@ Countercurrents.org

There has been a lot of discussion recently about the U.S. intervention in Syria being justified as a humanitarian intervention with the Kosovo war as a precedent.  Many international commentators in the U.S. have stated that as the U.S. is unable to get Security Council authorization for a strike against Syria, international law must ‘evolve’ to allow for a humanitarian intervention to avoid prohibited chemical weapons from being used or from further atrocities from being committed by the Asad regime.  All these discussions about humanitarian interventions have conveniently avoided a discussion of whether they have been accepted as part of customary international law.  The International Court of Justice Statute defines customary international law in Article 38(1)(b) as “evidence of a general practice accepted as law.”  This is generally determined through two factors: the general practice of states and what states have accepted as law.  Widespread objections by states to a practice cannot constitute customary international law.

In the case of humanitarian interventions, most nation states have widely rejected humanitarian interventions by other states even where the death toll was higher than the Syrian conflict.  Michael Byer, an international legal scholar, in his book War Law: Understanding International Law and Armed Conflict has pointed out that in the aftermath of India’s intervention in the civil war between West and East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), the international community failed to endorse India’s intervention even though it put an end to the horrific atrocities committed by Pakistan.  In his book, Byer states that in the aftermath of India’s intervention, “A Security Council resolution calling for a ceasefire and immediate withdrawal of Indian troops from the country was vetoed by the Soviet Union, which at the time was a close ally of India.   The UN General Assembly adopted essentially the same resolution in a 104-11 vote with ten abstentions.  Most importantly not one country endorsed India’s humanitarian intervention claim, so no opinion juris was expressed in its favor.” [1]   Similar, distinguished international law scholar, Luis Henkin, in the book Right v. Might pointed out that military intervention by Vietnam into Cambodia which ended Pol Pot’s atrocities was similarly rejected by the UN General Assembly by a majority vote. [2]   Many nation states were very vocal in their objections to both these military interventions carried out on humanitarian grounds.  Byer pointed out that during the conflict with Vietnam and Cambodia even Bangladesh, which had benefitted from Indian intervention failed to endorse the Vietnamese intervention. [3] The International Court of Justice in the case, Military and Paramilitary Activities in and Against Nicaragua (Nicaragua v. U.S.), 1986 I.C.J. 14 (June 27), concluded that binding customary law prohibits coercive military intervention in the internal affairs of another state.

During the Kosovo war, two Security Council members, Russia and China publically condemned NATO’s intervention.  In addition, Foreign Ministers of 132 countries passed a Declaration within the Group 77 in which they “rejected the so-called right of humanitarian intervention, which has no basis in the UN Charter or in international law.” [4]  From these objections it is apparent that these types of humanitarian interventions cannot be considered legal under customary international law.

There are several legal alternatives to circumvent the U.N. charter to stop certain atrocities.  The U.N. Charter does not prevent the Security Council from intervening in matters within the domestic jurisdiction of a state when applying enforcement measures under Chapter VII. Of course, any such response would be subject to the veto or failure to obtain majority support in the Council. However, in the event of Security Council veto, authorization for at least voluntary collective action could be sought from the General Assembly under the Uniting for Peace resolution if the crisis is grave enough. [5]   Additionally, the UN can create a special international court such as was the case in Yugoslavia, Rwanda and Sierra Leone to prosecute any crimes committed.  If a member of the Security Council vetoes the resolution creating the court, then the International Criminal Court (ICC) may also get involved.  The ICC statue allows the court to get involved in situations where it determines that the fair and genuine prosecution of war crimes has not taken place at a national level by a country.  All of these legal alternatives would be far preferable to the alternatives suggested by the U.S. which find no justifications in international law.

Nikhil Shah is an attorney in Los Angeles, CA

[1] Michael Byers, War Law: Understanding International Law and Armed Conflict , (Grove Press, 2007) pg. 94.

[2] Louis Henkin, Stanley Hoffmann and Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, Right v. Might: International Law and the Use of Force , (Council on Foreign Relations, 1991),  page 42.

[3] Supra note 1 at page 95. [

4] O. Corten, ‘Un Renouveau du ‘Droit d’Inter vention humanitaire’ ? Vrais Problèmes, Fausses Solutions’, 41 Rev. trim. dr. h. 2000, p. 698.

[5] G.A. Res. 377(V)A, U.N. GAOR, 5th Sess., Supp. No. 20, at 10, U.N. Doc. A/1775 (1950).

By Dr. Elias Akleh

05 September, 2013

@Countercurrents.org

The realities of the American humanitarian hypocrisy, political terrorism and warmongering have been clearly demonstrated in Obama’s August 31 st speech about his decision to punish the Syrian government for its alleged and unsubstantiated use of chemical weapons calling it the worst chemical weapons attack of the 21 st century. Obama is ignoring the fact that the US has the worst documented record of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons attacks throughout the whole human history.

The pro-Zionist US officials, the likes of Jewish Vice President Joe Biden, Senator John McCain, Senator Lindsey Graham, and Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, have been launching for some time a political terror campaign threatening to hit Syria, a UN country member, in violation of the international law, accusing it of slaughtering its own citizens and using chemical weapons without any definite evidence. This is an international crime since their threats are disrupting world peace and world economy.

Obama’s claim that “the US presented a powerful case that the Syrian government was responsible for this attack (chemical weapons attack of August 21 st ) on its own people” does not stand any ground since it lacks any credible evidence. Speaking to PBS NewsHour Wednesday night (8/28) Obama stressed that the US has definitively “concluded” the Assad regime used chemical weapons. Yet he did not present any evidence to substantiate this conclusion. The trove of evidence, including blood, tissue, and soil samples, the US, Britain and France had supplied to the UN as a prove that the Syrian troops used nerve agent sarin, was unverifiable and criticized by independent European experts, who questioned the nature of the physical evidence due to the secrecy of how it was collected and analyzed ( Washington Post )

It was revealed by the Guardian that “the bulk of evidence proving the Assad regime’s deployment of chemical weapons … has been provided by Israeli military intelligence…” According to the Guardian “Senior Israeli security officials arrived in Washington on Monday (8/26) to share the latest results of intelligence-gathering, and to review the Syrian crisis with national security adviser Susan Rice.”

In its August 27 th edition the Jewish-owned The Times of Israel has confirmed that Israeli intelligence has been behind the reports of Syria’s alleged chemical attack. It also revealed that “Israeli intelligence seen as central to US case against Syria” , and confirmed the Guardian’s report that “a large delegation of senior Israeli security officials is currently in Washington holding talks with top administration officials led by US National Security Adviser Susan Rice.” This senior Israeli military team is reported to consist of Israeli national security adviser Yaakov Amidror, senior Israeli defense minister Major General Amos Gilad, the head of military planning directorate Nimrod Sheffer, and the head of Israeli military intelligence research branch General Itai Brun.

This so-called evidence incriminating Syrian government has been supplied by proven Israeli liars, who had submitted in the past the fabricated evidence of Niger uranium for Iraq’s nuclear weapons and of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction that led to Iraq’s invasion and devastation.

There are many evidences and proofs that the American/Israeli/British/French/Turkish/Qatari/Saudi financed, trained and armed anti-Syrian terrorists have used chemical weapons against Syrian troops as well as against civilians in an attempt to frame the Syrian government and to give the UNSC justification to authorize attacks on Syria.

It was reported by the Lebanese al-Akhbar newspaper that the chemical materials used by anti-Syrian terrorist in Khan al-Assal area in Aleppo last march was transferred by two Qatari officers; Major Fahd Saeed al-Hajiri and Captain Faleh Bin Khalid al-Tamimi, across Turkey with the knowledge of Ankara. The two Qatari officials were reported killed by a suicide bombing in Mogadishu, Somalia, while recruiting terrorist fighters to send to Syria.

The BBC World News had reported that “Just like Iraq: US arms butchers who use chemical weapons on civilians, and then tries to frame someone else” . In its video report the UN human rights investigator Carla del Ponte confirmed that Syrian militants had used the deadly nerve agent sarin. In another interview with Swiss radio del Ponte reiterated that “According to the testimonies we have gathered, the rebels have used chemical weapons, making use of sarin gas” Sarin is a powerful neurotoxin developed by Nazi scientists in the 1930s. It was sold to Iraq’s Saddam Hussein by Donald Rumsfeld to be used against Iranian troops and Kurdish residents of the village of Halabja in 1988.

Even Israeli newspapers, such as Haaretz, had reported that “Jihadists, not Assad, apparently behind reported chemical attack in Syria” according to intelligence reports. The analysis states that “The rebels in Syria that the US has been arming and otherwise supporting are Al-Qaeda and Muslim Brotherhood. Unfortunately, history is repeating. Specifically, the American government gave chemical weapons to Saddam Hussein … which he then used on Iran and on his own Kurdish population. The American government attempted to blame Iran for the chemical weapons attack on Iraq’s Kurds … just as the US is trying to blame the Syrian government for the attacks in Syrian.”

When the Turkish-based anti-Syrian terrorists suffered a lot of casualties last May and were not satisfied with the level of support they were receiving from Turkey and from Western countries, they resorted to false flag terrorist bombing against Turkish citizens like the twin car bombing in Reyhanli and the sarin chemical gas attack on Adana attempting to incite more anti-Syrian sentiment and to provide justification for the US/NATO military intervention against Syria. While investigating the two bombings Turkish security forces found a 2kg cylinder with sarin gas in the homes of suspected anti-Syrian terrorists from the Al-Qaeda linked Al-Nusra Front, ready to be deployed to Syria.

The US accused Syrian regime of using chemical weapons against Ghouta area, a suburb in Damascus, in August 21 st . Veteranstoday reported that Syrian rebels as well as residents of the area, who were interviewed by the humanitarian agency Doctors Without Borders, indicated that Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan had provided Chemical weapons to an al-Qaeda-linked armed group, who were responsible for carrying out the chemical attack.

The Syrian government had many times exposed the fact, with evidence, that the anti-Syrian terrorists had used chemical weapons several times against Syrian troops as well as against civilians. Last July the Syrian Ambassador to the UN, Bashar Ja’afari, had reported to the UN and to reporters that a cache of 280 containers filled with toxic chemicals such as ethylene glycol, ethanolaminem diethanolamine and triethanolamine, “enough to destroy a city” was discovered in northwestern Syrian left by the terrorists in their tunnels. Syrian officials had accused the terrorists of using these chemicals against Syrian troops in Khan el- Assal in a March attack outside of the northern city of Aleppo causing the death of 25 and injuring 86 victims.

In August, Syrian state TV broadcast footage of soldiers finding chemical agents in rebel tunnels in the Damascus suburb of Jobar. Containers of these chemical weapons were stamped with “Made in Saudi Arabia” and others were manufactured by German company for Qatar. The Syrian state TV had reported that the troops had also discovered similar chemical lab in the city of Banyas in July 7 th .

The Syrian government was the first to call on the UN to investigate the use of chemical weapons. It requested to include Russian inspectors within the team for fear of western bias similar to what had happened in Iraq. But the US had sabotaged this effort and kept postponing it until chemical evidence is lost. The US and its allies were afraid of the revelation that they are supporting and arming terrorist groups who used chemical weapons. After five months of the attack and on the insistence of the Syrian government the inspectors were sent to investigate.

On the second day of the arrival of the inspecting team the terrorists used chemical weapons again trying to frame it on the Syrian government. The western countries hastened to accuse the Syrian government without waiting for the analysis reports of the investigation team. The Syrian regime is not that stupid to commit such a suicide by using chemical weapons on the next day of the inspectors’ arrival, knowing very well that the anti-Syrian western/Gulf states alliance is waiting for such an excuse to attack Syria. Besides Syrian troops were gaining ground on the terrorist and therefore had no reason to use chemical weapons.

In his testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations committee on Tuesday (9/3) the Zionist Jewish American Secretary of State John Kerry ( original family name is Kohn ) demanded the US to strike Syria and not to be “spectators of the slaughter” taking place on the ground. His assertions that the US has definite evidence that Syria had used chemical weapons against its people remind me of Colin Powell’s assertions in the UN of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. The slaughter he is talking about is not perpetrated by the Syrian regime, which is fighting terrorism in its own country, rather slaughter is perpetrated by the al-Qaeda linked terrorist groups armed and financed by the American administration itself. The massacres and war crimes of these terrorists had been very well documented by many organizations and third parties. They include mass execution of helpless citizens and captured soldiers , the rape of women and young boys and girls, the destruction of mosques and churches , the ethnic cleansing of sectarian groups , the burning alive of prisoners , the flesh-eating of corpses, the enlisting of children as soldiers, and many other war crimes, the latest, this Monday September 2 nd , was the mass beheading of 24 Kurdish bus passengers in Ras al-Ain including an infant before setting the bus on fire. These massacres were taking place during the last two years. Why didn’t Kerry (Kohn) remember them then? Why Now? What had suddenly awakened his sleeping conscious?

The use of chemical weapons is a heinous crime that deserves punishment as Zionist Vise President Biden has stated. The US has the worst documented record of using chemical and nuclear weapons that are considered the ugliest war crimes against humans and against mother earth. White phosphorous, another chemical weapon, and depleted uranium are more devastating weapons than sarin gas. Sarin gas kills individuals within few minutes or hours, while white phosphorous burns people through the flesh to the bare bones inflicting severe pain, and the DU deforms whole generations of people who would suffer for the rest of their lives.

Since the beginning of WWI the US has used the Puerto Rican island Vieques as a testing field for biological, chemical and nuclear weapons causing devastation to the inhabitants and to the environment. It was also reported that American troops were used as test subjects similar to what happened in nuclear testing in New Mexico in 1945.

The US had extensively used the chemical weapon of Agent Orange in its war in Vietnam devastating people as well as the environment. Generations of Vietnamese are still suffering from the effects of this weapon.

The US is the only country who used nuclear weapons causing a holocaust in Japan, whose ill effects are still suffered by Japanese new generations. Nuclear weapons in the form of depleted uranium were also extensively used in Iraq causing severe deformation and suffering to generations to come. The US had also used chemical weapons against civilians in Iraq in 2004 as can be evidenced   here ,  here ,  here ,  here , here , and   here . The documentary “ Fallujah: the hidden massacre” specifically examines the American use of white phosphorous chemical weapon against civilian residents of Fallujah in November 2004.

The US has financed trained and armed anti-Syrian terrorists and eventually backed a plan to launch chemical weapons attacks on Syrian civilians in order to frame Syrian in chemical weapons attack to spur international military action against the country. A leaked email exchange between two senior officials at the British-based military contractor Britam Defense; Britam’s Business Development Director David Goulding and company founder Philip Doughty, exposes a Qatari proposed deal, “approved by Washington” , for the company to deliver chemical weapons to anti-Syrian terrorist.

Israel, too, has a long record, since its inception, of using biological, chemical and nuclear weapons against Palestinians and against its Arab neighbors. According to the memoir of Moshe Dayan’s son, Assi, published in Yediot, Israel has ordered the use of chemical and biological weapons, namely typhus against Palestinians in 1948. In 1967 I, myself, witnessed the Israeli fighter planes dropping napalm bombs on Jordanian troops on the outskirt of Jerusalem a couple of miles away from my own home.

Israel used chemical and biological weapons against Palestinians most prominently in March 2001, October 2003, and June 2004 as investigated by these reports . Israel also used poison gas attacks against unarmed Palestinian civilians in Gaza in February 12, 2001. Israel had also used white phosphorous shells during Operation Cast Lead in 2008/2009 against densely populated areas in Gaza as reported by Human Rights Watch . Israel had also used DU in its attack against Lebanon in 2006, and in its latest raids against Syrian military installation last July.

Israel maintains one of the most advanced biological and chemical weapons facility in the world at Ness Ziona . In September 1997 Israeli Mossad agents attempted to assassinate Hamas leader Khaled Meshal by spraying chemical agents in his ears. In January 2011 Mossad agents, again, assassinated in Qatar the Palestinian activist Mahmoud al-Mabhouh by injecting him with chemical weapon before choking him. Israel is highly suspected of using nuclear poison in assassinating Yasser Arafat.

In March 2003 the BBC television presented the documentary “Israel’s Secret Weapon” investigating Israel’s development of biological, chemical and nuclear weapons.

We should also mention here that Turkey had also used chemical weapons against its Kurdish citizens. In 1999 when head of Turkish Armed Forces, Necdet Ozel, was still the General Commander of the Gendarmerie, he was not only responsible for the death, torture and violence in the Kurdish region of Turkey, but he also ordered the use of chemical weapons against Kurdish fighters near the Ballikaya Village in Silopi, according to Turkish Radical newspaper.

When Ozel was appointed the head of Turkish Armed Forces in 2011 five members of parliament from Germany’s Die Linke party held a press conference in August of same year to condemn his appointment. Yet two months after Ozel’s appointment, 37 Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) fighters were killed in Kazan Valley of the Hakkari province during an operation by the Turkish Armed Forces. Presstv reported that accusations of use of chemical weapons during the operation prompted a European delegation to visit the area to investigate.

The Zionist-occupied American administration did not demand to bomb Israel or Turkey (or any other country that we did not mention here) as punishment for their use of chemical weapons. The overall picture, that we have to keep in mind, is that the US main goal is to protect the Zionist project of Greater Israel in the Middle East to become the center of the new world order by destroying every Arab resistance to this project, even if this requires the destruction of every Middle Eastern country in the process.

This Zionized American administration, with its Peace Prize winner President; Barak Hussein Obama, does not have the morality neither the legality to bomb Syria.

Dr. Elias Akleh is an Arab writer from a Palestinian descent, born in the town of Beit-Jala. His family was first evicted from Haifa after the “Nakba” of 1948 war during the first Zionist occupation of part of Palestine, then from Beitj-Jala after the “Nakseh” of 1967 war when Zionist Israeli military expansion occupied the rest of all Palestine. He is living now in exile in the US and publish articles on the web.

Joseph Camilleri

Published: September 3, 2013 – 9:55AM

The case for intervention in Syria is strangely reminiscent of the Iraq War. The planned US strike looks as if it rests on the same dubious logic. It could well have the same tragic consequences.

The British government has discovered the hard way that many of its people understand the troubling parallel. Not surprisingly, last Thursday the House of Commons firmly resisted government attempts to railroad it into giving the green light for a military strike.

Uncannily, Prime Minister David Cameron was following in the footsteps of Tony Blair. Like Blair he pressed the Obama administration to delay a strike until United Nations inspectors completed their investigation and until an attempt was made to get the necessary support from the UN Security Council.

Cameron’s failure to persuade enough of his parliamentary colleagues of the wisdom of this approach has given the international community breathing space and the US time to think again.

In deciding what to do about Syria the White House and the US Congress would do well to recall the prelude to the US invasion of Iraq in March 2013. The issue then as now was weapons of mass destruction.

A UN inspection team, headed by Hans Blix, was in Iraq investigating the situation but had yet to complete its investigation.

Having sought but failed to get authorisation from the UN Security Council, the Bush administration decided there was no point waiting any longer. The time had come to strike.

To gain international support for its decision the US produced evidence suggesting Saddam Hussein’s regime was developing – and possibly intending to use – weapons of mass destruction. Most experts and governments – and world public opinion – remained unconvinced.

And so it was that the US set out on a military adventure, based at best on shaky legal grounds.

Getting rid of Saddam proved the easy part. No WMD were found. But what was meant to be a limited intervention turned out to be a protracted one that left the US demoralised and Iraq in ruins.

Prolonged sectarian violence, which continues to this day, has generated a destabilising dynamic that now engulfs much of the Middle East.

Ten years later the Obama administration, with the support of a few European governments, is on the verge of embarking on a similarly ill-conceived expedition.

Last time it was Britain that bolstered an otherwise feeble coalition. This time the hope is that France will come to the party. Several Arab countries, including Egypt and Jordan, have already indicated they oppose military intervention.

US Secretary of State John Kerry claims to have conclusive evidence that the Assad government has launched a chemical attack on its people, and argues that such actions must not go unpunished. Obama has spoken of a limited strike not aimed at regime change.

But what is the reality? The indications are that a chemical weapons attack did take place in the Damascus suburb of Ghouta. But we know little about the chemicals used – though sarin gas has been mentioned frequently – the means of delivery or their provenance.

The US intelligence report released on Friday speaks of more than 1400 casualties – but this and other details given are asserted rather than demonstrated.

As for the sources of the evidence we are simply referred to general categories, much of it available on the public record, and generally regarded as less than conclusive.

As for motive, US policymakers remain remarkably silent. Why should Assad decide to use chemical weapons at a time when his forces are making considerable gains against the rebels? And why should he do it at the moment that UN inspectors are inside the country and within 10 minutes’ reach of the site of destruction?

And the possibility of one or other of the rebel groups acquiring such weapons has been all too easily dismissed. It is only three months since Carla del Ponte, a member of the UN Independent Commission of Inquiry on Syria, announced she had “strong concrete suspicions” that rebels had used the nerve gas sarin.

The sarin attack on the Tokyo subway in 1995, which killed 13 people, severely injured 50 and caused temporary vision problems for nearly a thousand others, was the work of a small unaided cult group. One of the well organised and internationally supported rebel groups would, one assumes, be capable of inflicting much greater havoc.

With evidence that is still less than conclusive, Obama appears on the verge of repeating the mistakes of his predecessor – assuming he is able to persuade Congress to vote for the proposed strike.

If he does go ahead, he will, like Bush, be doing so on dubious legal grounds. Even if it is established that the Syrian army did carry out the chemical attack, the US is not under direct military threat – it is not therefore acting in self-defence. And, in the absence of UN Security Council authorisation, which will not be forthcoming, the “responsibility to protect” principle does not allow third parties to take matters into their own hands.

In any case, why not wait, at least for the UN inspection team to complete its report? Why discredit the credibility of its investigation before it has had a chance to submit its report.

The Syrian government claims it has given the UN inspectors clear evidence that it was not responsible for the attack. Why not wait to see what the inspectors make of such claims?

If it goes ahead, a US military strike on Syria will be the ninth Western military intervention in a Muslim country in 15 years. The gains thus far for peace and security have been negligible and the costs for the authors and victims of intervention nothing short of horrendous.

A US military foray into Syria will reopen Pandora’s box. What will the US do if, as seems likely, the planned “limited strike” fails to achieve its objective of intimidating Assad? In all probability, the US and its allies will be tempted to take additional military action, with incalculable consequences for Syria, and for regional and global security.

As UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Pope Francis have stated in clear language, only a politically negotiated solution offers any prospect of peace in Syria and the reconstruction of that war-torn country.

An Australian government wishing to exercise the limited leverage afforded by membership of the Security Council would do well to press for this option in the difficult days and weeks ahead

Joseph Camilleri is Emeritus Professor, La Trobe University and founding director of the Centre for Dialogue.

This story was found at: http://www.theage.com.au/comment/us-risks-making-syria-another-iraq-20130902-2t0ya.html