Solsticewitch13's BOS

http://www.stonegateinstitute.org/2930/israel-apartheid-big-lie

Be the first of your friends to like this.

"We gave the Palestinians money to help the poor, but they spend it on hate education." — Andrew Percy, M.P.

It does not often happen that a cabinet minister loses his temper and starts scolding a parliamentarian of his own party. Last week, however, William Hague, the normally even-tempered British Foreign Secretary and one of the most influential politicians of the governing Conservative Party, lost his cool in a heated discussion with thirty MPs belonging to the Conservative Friends of Israel (CFI). The MPs accused Haig of being part of a "bigoted" Foreign Office plot against Israel.

"The Foreign Office is not pro-Palestinian. I've never heard such claptrap," an angry Haig snapped at Douglas Carswell MP when the latter told Haig that he is "under the thumb" of "pro-Arabist" diplomats in the Foreign Office. "The Foreign Office displays a kind of bigotry towards Israel," Carswell said. "The whole idea of self-determination in the Middle East is anathema to some Foreign Office people. It is anti-Israel just as it is pro-EU."

Haig reacted by calling Carswell a "fantasist" who is "talking total nonsense." Carswell, however, was not alone in his criticism. James Arbuthnot MP, a respected senior Tory, called on Haig to be "more constructive" and not "alienate" Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whom Haig had recently called "belligerent." Robert Halfon MP told Hague: "The Foreign Office has not done enough to stop the delegitimization of Israel. We must speak up for its right to exist."

Others were equally critical. Nick Boles MP claimed that Britain had not done enough to condemn the Palestinian National Authority for glorifying suicide bombers. Hindu MP Priti Patel, one of the young upcoming women in the Conservative Party, said: "We must be more critical of the Palestinians for not giving up violence." Andrew Percy MP added: "We give the Palestinians money to help the poor, but they spend it on hate education."

When Carswell insisted and told Haig, "Ministers are supposed to direct officials, not the other way round. You are being one-sided and saying completely unacceptable things about a fellow democratic country," Haig replied: "It is completely untrue to suggest I have been taken captive by the Foreign Office. I overrule their advice all the time." With this remark, Haig implicitly acknowledged that the Foreign Office is, indeed, biased against Israel.

The Palestinian Authority gets £86 million ($135 million) of British aid a year. Last year, it was revealed that the PA had given £5 million in compensation to the families of terrorists who had died while perpetrating their terrorist activities and another £3 million to 5,500 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails. The payments, using taxpayers' cash donated from Britain and the European Union, were described by Conservative MP Philip Davies as "ludicrous" and "utterly inexcusable." However, Britain has not cut back its aid to the PA.

The diplomats of the British Foreign Office share most of the opinions of their colleagues in the other member states of the European Union (EU). They belong to the cosmopolitan elite which favors the transfer of national sovereignty to the EU institutions in Brussels and the latter's political goal of transforming Europe into a genuine federal state. It is highly paradoxical, but the foreign departments of the various European states, which were once established with the explicit goal of furthering their nation's national interests and defending its sovereignty, have today come to loathe that very task.

They are as pro-EU as they are anti-Israel, says Carswell. It is as if they despise Israel because it is one of the last Western nations which unashamedly defends its national interests in a way which European nations no longer dare or want to do. Hence, the reproach to Netanyahu that he is "belligerent."

Apart from bilateral aid to the Palestinians, Britain also gives large amounts to the PA through the European Union. The EU started funding the Palestinians in 1971. These funds dramatically increased after the signing of the Oslo Agreements in 1994. Since the start of the Second Intifada in 2000, the EU aid, which was initially given in the form of development assistance, has focused on direct support to the Palestinian Authority and the development of the PA's institutions.

The EU does not seem tot mind that the PA is rife with corruption. In 2005, the EU anti-fraud office OLAF investigated allegations of abuse of funding by the PA to support terrorist activities. OLAF found "no conclusive evidence" of abuse, although it admitted that "the possibility of misuse of the Palestinian Authority's budget and other resources cannot be excluded, due to the fact that the internal and external audit capacity in the Palestinian Authority is still underdeveloped."

Rather than suspending its financial support, the EU increased it. While the European governments are imposing austerity measures on their own taxpayers, these taxpayers are being asked to give ever more money to the Palestinians. Last year, the European Parliament decided to raise Europe's aid to the Palestinians by €100 million ($130 million).

The pro-Palestinian bias of the British and European foreign policy establishment makes little sense unless one sees it in the broader picture of the EU's attempts to forge an alliance with the Islamic world.

In her book Eurabia, historian Bat Ye'or argues that the EU authorities are creating a European-Arab axis. In fact, the idea of a Euro-Islamic Alliance is much older than the EU, which was established in 1957. It was already present during a meeting of the British Cabinet's Palestine Committee on April 20, 1939, in which Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain told his Cabinet that it was of "immense importance" from the point of view of strategy, "to have the Moslem world with us;" he added: "If we must offend one side, let us offend the Jews rather than the Arabs."

The plan to sacrifice the Jews to an Arab appeasement policy resurfaced after the 1973 oil crisis, when the Arab countries used oil as a weapon against countries which had allied themselves with Israel in the Arab-Israeli Yom Kippur War of that same year. In exchange for a guaranteed steady supply of oil, the EU promised to give the Arab countries technological and economic assistance, to take in large numbers of Arab immigrants, who would be allowed to preserve their own culture, and to forge a joint EU-Arab foreign policy.

Bat Ye'or cites official documents, agreements and "directives" (pieces of EU legislation) to prove her thesis. "Eurabia," she says, "represents a geo-political reality envisaged in 1973 through a system of informal alliances between, on the one hand … the European Union (EU) … and on the other hand, the Mediterranean Arab countries. … This system was synchronised under the roof of an association called the Euro-Arab Dialogue (EAD) created in July 1974 in Paris. A working body composed of committees and always presided jointly by a European and an Arab delegate planned the agendas, and organized and monitored the application of the decisions."

Bat Ye'or argues that the fear of losing Arab oil even led the European establishment to accept an "oil for immigrants" policy. She fears that Europeans will never be able to liberate themselves from Eurabia. "It is a project that was conceived, planned and pursued consistently through immigration policy, propaganda, church support, economic associations and aid, cultural, media and academic collaboration. Generations grew up within this political framework; they were educated and conditioned to support it and go along with it."

Perhaps, however, Bat Ye'or is too pessimistic. The establishment of groups such as Conservative Friends of Israel shows that Europe still has perceptive and courageous politicians who speak out in defense of Israel. It is no coincidence that the same people stand for their own national interests and sovereignty. Europe's freedom and independence is best served by standing side by side with Israel.

Related Topics: Peter Martino

The Big Lie: "Israel Apartheid"

by Christine Williams
March 12, 2012 at 4:45 am

http://www.stonegateinstitute.org/2934/infiltrating-pakistan-isi

Be the first of your friends to like this.

Apartheid in Israel does not exist, however gender apartheid, apartheid against gays, as well as slavery and racism against blacks, Palestinians and non-Muslims are all commonplace in the Muslim world.

Campuses across Canada engaged in Israel Apartheid Week (IAW) events last week amid justified rebukes by the federal government. Immigration Minister Jason Kenney linked IAW to anti-Semitism and accused organizers of using "the cover of academic freedom to demonize and delegitimize the state of Israel" and paint it as racist. In pointing to Israel being the only liberal democracy in the Middle East and singled out for condemnation, Kenney also stated that organizers of IAW ignore the brutal slaughter of the Al-Assa d regime of its own people and the suppression of basic human rights throughout many countries in the Middle East.

Israel Apartheid week began in Toronto in 2005 after Palestinian organizations called for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against the state of Israel. The groups erroneously compared Israel 's treatment of the Palestinians to the treatment of South African blacks, when powerful campus movements had lobbied for divestments and boycotts against South Africa for black liberation. In 1983, the UN levied its condemnation of the practice of apartheid at the World Conference against Racism, where over two dozen countries took part in trade sanctions against South Africa . At the 2001 Durban I Anti-Racism Conference, the agenda was hijacked by Israeli antagonists, led by Iran and then Palestinian Chairman Yasser Arafat. Israel was singled out as a racist regime and a similar course followed as in the South African anti-apartheid movements, only it was a demonization of Israel that was unjustified. Adding fuel was that South African Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu spuriously compared the conditions of which the Palestinians live to those of South Africa under apartheid.

The goal of Israel Apartheid Week is to erode Zionism and delegitimize the state of Israel. The strategy is a protraction of the Arab nationalist movement and that of Palestinian Radicalism which strives to work against Israel and the Jewish people, evidenced in the collaboration between Adolph Hitler, Adolph Eichmann and the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem during World War II. In an open letter, Palestinian students urge fellow students worldwide to unite for Israel Apartheid Week in widespread harassment, bullying and intimidation of Jewish students. Organizers also call for BDS. Nowhere is the mention of the Palestinian call for Israel's destruction as outlined in both the PA and Hamas Charters.

Even before the State of Israel was established, Israel was sensitive to human rights, and Jewish leaders sought to avoid any situation similar to South Africa, as David Ben-Gurion expressed to Palestinian nationalist Musa Alami in 1934. Today, this commitment can be clearly seen in the State of Israel where Arabs are full citizens with the right to vote, the right to have their own political parties, the right to hold top positions, as they do in Israel's supreme court, its diplomatic corps, all of Israel's hospitals and universities, and even as members of Israel's parliament, the Knesset. Under apartheid, black South Africans were not even allowed to hold citizenship or vote in the very country in which they held the demographic majority. The Palestinian experience in the territories along the separation fence and in the so-called "occupied territories" was put there because of the determination of Palestinians, both in the PLO and Hamas to destroy Israel, as could be seen before the fence was built by the bombings of hotels, discotheques, cafes, and buses. Those territories under dispute were taken by Israel in wars in i947 and 1967, in which Israel, the size of Vancouver Island, was forced to defend itself: both times, five neighboring countries invaded Israel in efforts to destroy it. Israel still needs to defend itself not only from rocket-fire and other attacks, but most recently from continued threats of genocide by Iran, especially should it acquire nuclear capability.

Even after the South African Judge, Richard Goldstone, later retracted his own, UN-sponsored Goldstone report, Deputy Foreign Minister Daniel Ayalon said that, like any country, Israel would defend its citizens against Gaza attacks. This is a very different situation than under South African apartheid. Egypt too erected a wall of separation from the Gaza Strip; the barrier was dubbed the Wall of Shame by Arab writers and leaders for isolating 1.5 million Palestinians, yet Egypt has not been branded "apartheid" by their Muslim "brothers."

While the propaganda of Israel Apartheid Week spreads, the economic growth in the West Bank is 4%, compared to 3% in the U.S., and an astronomical 28% in Gaza. The IDF's Coordinator of Government Activities in Judea and Samaria, Major General Eitan Dangot noted that every day, Israel transfers luxuries into Gaza, including LCD screens, Mercedes and Hyundai jeeps, modern refrigerators, and whirlpool bathtubs. He added that Israel has invested over 50 million shekels, or over USD $10 million, in renovating and expanding the Kerem Shalom crossing through which most of the goods enter Gaza. Any segregation of the Palestinians is based entirely on Israeli security needs, not on racism.

Supporters of Israel Apartheid drives should instead take aim at Hamas, along with other terrorist regimes seeking to destroy the Jewish state and slander its citizens, and who also subject their own citizens to human rights violations. A gay man from the West bank, now living in Tel Aviv for 12 years, and featured in Haaretz, for example, arrived in Israel at age 14 because, he says: "If I returned to Nablus, it would be like throwing paper into a fire." He rarely goes back to visit his family for fear of attack and torture by Palestinian police. As even interim Canadian Liberal Leader Bob Rae noted in a release this past week: "Israeli Apartheid Week continues to defy logic and the cause of social justice." He went on to state that organizers of IAW choose to ignore the appalling massacres and human rights violations currently going on in Syria and Iran.

Apartheid in Israel does not exist; however, gender apartheid , in which women are treated as things, but things that carry your honor; and apartheid against gays -- as well as racism and slavery against blacks, Palestinians and non-Muslims -- are all commonplace in the Muslim world. In Saudi Arabia, some roads are marked for Muslims and others for non-Muslims; Bibles are not even allowed into the country. In Lebanon, Palestinians are unable to become citizens or work a number of jobs , and are kept in overcrowded and wretched ghettos called "refugee camps." As Canada's Immigration Minister Jason Kenney noted about Israel Apartheid Week: "There is a point at which well-intentioned debate is overrun by hatred and intolerance; creating a toxic environment that prevents meaningful dialogue on important issues from taking place." This intimidation and toxicity has no place on the campuses of our Western societies.

Related Topics: Christine Williams

Infiltrating Pakistan's ISI

by N. M. Guariglia
March 12, 2012 at 3:30 am

http://www.stonegateinstitute.org/2933/murder-in-bangladesh

Be the first of your friends to like this.

Counterintelligence could be the means with which the United States might undermine Pakistan's covert state sponsorship of terrorism. For a change, let the Pakistanis worry about who is who.

Although the United States faces a serious espionage threat from the Russian FSB agency and the Chinese spies of the MSS, Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) has proven itself to be the most challenging intelligence opponent since the end of the Cold War.

Ever since the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, relations between Washington and Islamabad have been at an impasse. Some months ago, retired Admiral Michael Mullen—former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff—accused Pakistan's ISI of supporting anti-American terrorism. It has long been known within intelligence circles that Pakistan plays both sides of the fence — overtly "allied" with the U.S. while covertly allied with al-Qaeda. But Admiral Mullen's public testimony to Congress brought the issue out in the open in a way that ought to have influenced U.S. policy. Thus far, it has not.

Consider the recent past. Pakistan's ISI was likely behind the horrific Mumbai attacks of 2008, the apparent protection of Osama bin Laden, the arrest of CIA agent Raymond Davis, and the Haqqani network's attack on the U.S. embassy in Kabul. The cell phones of the Haqqani insurgents were linked to the ISI. (It should be noted that an attack on an American embassy is officially an attack on sovereign American soil.)

Pakistan, of course, is an Islamic nuclear power—"too nuclear to fail," as Rep. Bachmann once phrased it. If the West pushes Islamabad too hard, the argument goes, tits government could implode and be replaced by an even more radical, hostile regime. And yet the ISI's support for jihadist terrorism presents an untenable situation in South Asia.

The solution for South Asia might be the lost art of strategic counterintelligence. Intelligence services such as the CIA serve four basic functions: The first is the collection of intelligence. The second is analysis, or interpreting what has been collected. The third is covert action, or paramilitary operations. The fourth, which has been an overlooked tool in the national security repertoire for some time, is counterintelligence. While tactical counterintelligence can be defined as the use of defensive measures, such as protecting one's own secrets from foreign intelligence agencies, strategic counterintelligence is offensive in nature, requiring the infiltration—perhaps, on occasion, even the destruction—of foreign intelligence services. The United States has not employed such a strategy since the Soviet Union and the KGB. It might, however, be advisable to consider it again, this time for Pakistan's ISI.

The reason for such a strategy is that the jihadist threat will likely shift further east over time. Should the Iranian-Syrian axis fall, the global jihadist network will be left looking for state sponsors. The center of gravity in U.S. counterterrorism operations will then have to move from the Middle East to South Asia. But as the U.S. cannot sustain Osama bin Laden-style raids on a weekly basis, there is no operational way to undermine the terrorist groups of South Asia. The U.S. seems unable to reach the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) group, al-Qaeda, the Taliban, the Haqqani network, and other terrorist organizations located inside Pakistan.

The U.S. has, then, one remaining option: to view counterterrorism as a subset of counterintelligence. Whereas counterterrorism focuses on terrorist groups, counterintelligence focuses on the link between a particular state's intelligence service and terrorist groups. The means with which the U.S. could most efficiently undermine Pakistan's covert state sponsorship of terrorism would be counterintelligence.

At the center of the problem is Pakistan's ISI, which is made up of four "wings": The A Wing which directs analysis and is the "bureaucratic" department. The T Wing is the technical wing and provides assistance to the other wings. The C Wing is the counterintelligence wing. After 9/11, the CIA helped fund a sub-department within the C Wing specifically designed to go after al-Qaeda, and which is the only wing that interacts with the CIA. Then there is the S Wing which oversees external security and is responsible for state sponsorship of al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and other jihadist groups.

It is the S Wing that the United States should infiltrate with human agents.

This might seem like an implausible task given the numerous intelligence failures of the past few years. But those were mostly failures of collection and analysis. Further, Pakistan is not an overt enemy: Pakistan "triangulates": The U.S. and al-Qaeda can each claim that Pakistan is both a friend and a foe. While this presents a problem, it also means that the U.S. has some friends inside Pakistan. There might be one or two potential recruits, possibly even more, in any or all ISI departments. A sole spy could inflict incalculable damage on an intelligence agency, just as Robert Hanssen, the American who spied for Russia, did to the FBI.

It is not far-fetched to conclude that perhaps one-fifth of the ISI could be bought off. Imagine if 20% of the KGB could have been ""flipped," persuaded to change allegiance, by the CIA during the Cold War. Dulles and McCone would have given anything for such an opportunity.

The CIA could find a valuable source and "dangle" him or her: turn an agent into a double agent. This would further undermine the bad elements within the ISI. The Pakistanis would think an agent was working for them, when in reality this agent would be working for the CIA. If the CIA considered it too risky to train just a single high-value spy, then the U.S. could "throw out the shrimp net" and attempt to "flip" multiple Pakistani ISI officers—quantity over quality, or the "chaos" option. For a change, let the Pakistanis worry about who is who.

As the U.S. would begin to lessen its commitments in Afghanistan, it might help to bear in mind that the war in Afghanistan was always about -- Pakistan. The threats coming from South Asia—Pakistan's support for terrorism, Pakistan's nuclear weapons, nuclear proliferation from Pakistan, nuclear war between India and Pakistan—are among the most pressing in the world; and Pakistan's ISI is involved in all of them.

Related Topics: N. M. Guariglia

Murder in Bangladesh

by Mohshin Habib
March 12, 2012 at 3:15 am

http://www.stonegateinstitute.org/2931/explosives-discovered-pkk-nevruz

Be the first of your friends to like this.

Even though the murder was clearly not a conventional one, there is virtually no chance at all of investigators finding anything out about it.

A Saudi diplomat, Khalaf Bin Mohammed Salem Al-Ali, was killed at two a.m. on March 6. in the elegant section of Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh.

The 45-year-old Al-Ali received single shot in his chest at an intersection just two buildings away from his rented residence, where he had been living alone for two years. This was the first time in the history of Bangladesh that a diplomat had been assassinated.

Even before the post mortem, the Deputy Ambassador of Saudi Arabia told the press that the murder had been just an accident. He later changed his statement, saying it was an unfortunate incident, and that he hoped there would be some breakthrough in the search for the killers.

The Saudi Ambassador also maintained all the formalities; and the top-level leaders of both countries expressed their condolences as if the murder were just an accident.

The killing, however, some sources think, was nothing of the sort. According to Bangladeshi detectives, Al-Ali had been due to transfer to the Saudi Arabian embassy in Amman, Jordan, but seemed reluctant to leave Dhaka. He had been given to riding around Dhaka regularly on a yellow bicycle late at night -- unusual for an embassy official in Bangladesh. Even though the diplomatic zone is under constant police surveillance, the atmosphere in Bangladesh does not permit foreigners to roam around at odd hours. Hundreds of staffers from dozens of embassies in the area never so much as thought of going out alone in Dhaka after dark.

The night he was murdered, however, Al-Ali had not ridden his bicycle, and he had left his wallet and cell phone in his apartment.

Police found a solo witness who, at the time of the murder, had been at the nearby Consulate of Portugal. According to police, the witness, named Anwar, had seen the murder on the street: After the sound of a single shot, he said, he saw the diplomat pushed down from a white private car, which had then had sped hurriedly away.

The murder, then, could not have been a misdeed done by local hooligans; and some local sources are convinced that Al-Ali had been the victim of a secret service war.

Last year, apparently, Shiite terrorists killed a Saudi diplomat in Karachi, Pakistan; and the Pakistani secret service agency, the ISI, happens to have a stronghold in Bangladesh. Cabinet members of Bangladesh's government have spoken several times about it, and Indian leaders and officials including Foreign Minister S.M. Krisna and Home Minister P. Chidambaram have expressed deep concern about it.

Indian intelligence agencies, including RAW, it seems are also active in Bangladesh; the main opposition party in Bangladesh, the BNP, has even several times accused the ruling government of ignoring the infiltration of the Indian intelligent services.

There are also in Bangladesh strong, Iranian-run Islamic institutions with which increasing numbers of young people are affiliated. Hundreds of Al-Qaeda-LeT veterans are always present, often openly.

Saudi Arabia, too, is not beyond doubt, thanks to Al-Ali's possibly having engaged in double dealing.

Some people also have the idea, but without any basis for it, that Saudi Arabia, via the ISI, might have been trying to stop Al-Ali from passing secret information to other agencies; but even though his murder was clearly not a conventional one, there is virtually no chance at all of investigators finding anything out about it.

Related Topics: Mohshin Habib

Explosives Discovered in Cities Hint at PKK's Bloody Plans for Nevruz
And more from the Turkish Press

by AK Group
March 12, 2012 at 3:00 am