In response to the article appearing on TUT entitled ‘US, Israel root of intl. society problems’, published Jun 30 2011, ‘anon’ writes as follows–

‘I will start off by saying I am an American Jew. So this is referring to the American and Israeli governments being corrupt and causing many of the problems in the World–I agree with this, those that do not agree have been brainwashed by media and their corrupt leaders. They are very experienced in deceit and this is why they have so many other countries and people under their thumb. It’s a terrible truth but  a truth nonetheless. It may seem strange that I agree with this but the majority of Jews I know are sadly self-absorbed, selfish, greedy and willing to do harm to anyone and anything to get what they want.’

 To which we respond–Welcome aboard ‘anon’ and congrats for having the guts to recognize and speak the ugly truth.

Haaretz

The UN Security Council on Friday was discussing an Arab League-backed plan to respond to the crisis in Syria, diplomats said as they headed into the closed-door consultations.

French Ambassador Gerard Araud said council members expected a presentation by the Moroccan ambassador, whose country joined the council this month.

Araud said a new Arab-European draft resolution reflecting the Arab League’s demands on Syria would be introduced, and he hoped that it would be voted on next week. “We have waited too long,” he said.

The UN says at least 5,400 have been killed in a months-long Syrian government crackdown on civilian protests.

European diplomats have been meeting this week with diplomats from Arab countries, including Morocco and Qatar, on a resolution that would strongly back an Arab League bid to end the crisis.

“There is now a chance that the Security Council will finally take a clear stand on Syria. That is long overdue,” German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said Friday at the General Affairs Council in Brussels. The comments were provided by the German mission to journalists at the UN.

On Tuesday, the Arab League secretary-general and Qatar’s prime minister will brief the Security Council on the situation in Syria.

“We hope now that council members will seize this new window of opportunity and find common ground,” German Ambassador Peter Wittig said.

But approval was far from guaranteed.

Permanent council members Russia and China used their veto powers last fall to block an earlier European resolution on Syria. On Friday, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov was quoted by the ITAR-Tass news agency as saying Moscow will oppose a new draft UN resolution on Syria because it fails to take Kremlin’s concerns into account.

South African Ambassador Baso Sangqu said it was important that supporters of the resolution assure other countries, including his, that the draft was not a plan for regime change.

Russia and some other countries believe NATO misused last year’s Security Council’s resolutions on Libya as a pretext for regime change in that nation.

Russia has been a strong ally of Syria since Soviet times, when the country was led by the president’s father Hafez Assad, and has long supplied Syria with aircraft, missiles, tanks and other modern weapons.

The new Arab-European draft resolution on Syria, obtained by The Associated Press, expresses support of the Arab League’s Jan. 22 decision “to facilitate a political transition leading to a democratic, plural political system.”

The draft does not mention sanctions, but calls for the adoption of unspecified “further measures, in consultation with the League of Arab States,” if Syria does not comply within 15 days.

The draft also condemns the “continued widespread and gross violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms by the Syrian authorities” and demands that the Syrian government immediately stop all human rights violations.

Russia’s UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said a European-Arab draft resolution on Syria circulated to the U.N. Security Council on Friday was unacceptable in parts, but Russia was ready to “engage” on it.

The Arab League earlier this month sent observers to Syria, but the mission was widely criticized for failing to stop the violence. Gulf states led by Saudi Arabia pulled out of the mission Tuesday, asking the Security Council to intervene because the Syrian government has not halted its crackdown.

The head of Arab League observers in Syria said in a statement that violence in the country has spiked over the past few days. Sudanese Gen. Mohammed Ahmed Dabi said the cities of Homs, Hama and Idlib have all witnessed a “very high escalation” in violence since Tuesday.

The United Nations says more than 5,000 people have been killed in a 10-month crackdown on anti-government protesters.

Israelis of Ethiopian origin have been protesting racism in Israeli society for three weeks; but they are not the only ones fighting for a cause these days.

Haaretz

Three weeks into the Ethiopian-Israeli protest campaign against racism, its leaders are frustrated by the apathy of the Israeli public and government and are planning to sound their grievances abroad, to the Diaspora and even the United Nations. Meanwhile, they have to contend with a competing social protest.

Last night the campaign held its first protest in Tel Aviv, and that wasn’t the only “first.” Unlike the previous protests in Kiryat Malachi and Jerusalem, this was the first time in which Ethiopian-Israelis were not the overwhelming majority of protestors – about half were Israelis from other groups. This time, they also turned matters up a notch, when they left Meir Park and began blocking main intersections.

The campaign has no formal leadership or spokespeople. The Ethiopian-Israeli community, which numbers some 125,000, is far from being monolithic, and none of the dozens of tiny grassroots organizations can be said to speak for the majority of them. In the absence of a hierarchy, a diverse group of educated professionals in their twenties and thirties have become the movement’s unofficial leaders, using social networks to organize the protests. The frustration, though, at their inability to mobilize wider circles of the Israeli public is beginning to become evident.

“Israeli society is still tired out from the social protests of last summer,” says an Ethiopian-Israeli journalist who has been helping to organize the protests and asked not to be named. “To be honest though, they don’t really care.”

Many of the protestors are serving IDF soldiers and officers who arrived without their uniforms and can only speak under conditions of anonymity. “I love my country and am proud to serve,” says one officer, “but the truth is that only really violent demonstrations will make Israelis sit up and take notice.”

Last summer’s social protests were the exception to the norm. Generally, the Israeli public and media have little patience with campaigns that are not connected to politics and security.

In addition to the failure of Ethiopian-Israelis to rally anywhere near the number of protesters who thronged Rothschild Boulevard in the summer, now the movement must compete for attention with another campaign which kicked off this week: the campaign against the extension of the Tal Law, which exempts Haredi yeshiva students from military service. The demonstrations and petitions being held by reservist soldiers and high school seniors with the backing of a friendly media has already been sufficient to pressure Prime Minister Netanyahu into postponing the cabinet vote on the law that was meant to take place on Sunday. The Ethiopian-Israelis have yet to see any real movement from the government.

“We spoke to some of the leaders of the summer’s protests,” says Elias Inbram, a lawyer and former diplomat who is one of the prominent Ethiopian-Israeli activists “but they don’t seem very interested in joining us. The protests were very middle class and they don’t want to reach deep down into the lowest layers of society, where the Ethiopians are.”   While his colleagues are talking about more violent demonstrations, Inbram wants to change the target audience. “There are other levers of influence besides demonstrations” he says. “We are planning to take our demands for more serious anti-racism laws to the UN and other international forums. We will also be turning to the Jewish Diaspora and asking them to reconsider their funding policy, since in thirty years, Israel has not even begun to break down its narrow-minded social barriers.”

Time Magazine quotes Israeli defense official as saying that Israel can only delay Tehran’s nuclear program by several months, at most a year.

Haaretz

A senior Israel Defense Forces commander has said that Israel is unable to attack Iran’s nuclear program in a meaningful way, Time Magazine reported on Thursday.

According to the report, which is quoting an Israeli defense official, a senior IDF commander presented the cabinet of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with a gloomy assessment last fall.

“I informed the cabinet we have no ability to hit the Iranian nuclear program in a meaningful way,” the official quoted the senior commander as saying. “If I get the order I will do it, but we don’t have the ability to hit in a meaningful way.”

The defense official told Time, that according to an estimate by the Atomic Energy Commission, Israel will only be able to push back Iran’s nuclear program by several months to a year, after taking into account the wide geographic dispersion of Tehran’s nuclear facilities and the the limits of Israel’s air force.

Earlier Thursday, former IDF chief Gabi Ashkenazi said that Israel must do all it can to operate under the radar against Iran, but should simultaneously prepare for a possible strike against Tehran’s nuclear facilities.

“Israel must do all it can under the radar and combine that with paralyzing sanctions, but at the same time keep a reliable military option on the table with the willingness to use it if necessary,” Ashkenazi said.

“When the moment comes I don’t know if we won’t be alone, and for this reason Israel must also rely on itself,” he said.

jta.org 

Leaders of the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations met  with convicted Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard.

The Tuesday meeting was held at the Butner Federal Correctional Complex in  North Carolina, where Pollard has served 27 years of a life sentence for  espionage.

“We returned with a renewed commitment to work for Mr. Pollard’s release from  incarceration in accordance with longstanding Conference policy,” said Chairman  Richard Stone and Executive Vice Chairman Malcolm Hoenlein in a statement  Friday. “We see this as a serious humanitarian issue as well as a legal  matter.”

Pollard’s release has long been sought by American Jewish groups who argue  that he has recieved a sentence far harsher than others convicted of similar  espionage crimes. Pollard has also expressed remorse and is said to be suffering  from multiple medical ailments.

In recent years, a renewed push on his behalf has gained support from a  number of members of Congress as well as former U.S. government officials.

The Conference of Presidents, the main Jewish umbrella group on matters of  foreign policy, called on its member organizations to work for Pollard’s  release.

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Syrian media showcase images of weapons allegedly produced by Jewish State

ynet

Syrian media outlets reported Friday that President Bashar Assad’s security forces seized huge quantities of weapons used by rebels across the country, including Israeli-made arms.

According to the unconfirmed reports, Assad’s troops seized a machinegun, Israeli-made bombs, automatic rifles, various explosive devices, protective vests, night-vision equipment and military uniforms, among other things.

Syrian television showcased the weapons Friday evening and claimed that some of the arms originated in Israel. Some of the weapons featured Hebrew inscriptions, yet it was unclear who was holding the arms and where the images were photographed.

Weapons showcased on Syrian TV   The latest Syrian reports are apparently meant to discourage anti-Assad rebels and present them as traitors who enlist the help of the “Zionist enemy” in their battle against President Assad.   Notably, this was not the first time that images of weapons allegedly produced by Israel emerged during the so-called “Arab Spring.” In previous cases, both government forces and rebels used such images to portray their foes as traitors.

Last year, shortly after the beginning of the Libyan uprising against Muammar Gaddafi’s rule, rebels presented weapons they claimed originated in Israel and were used by Gaddafi’s forces.

Ali Abunimah

Latma TV – a tax-exempt project of the US-based Center for Security Policy – has become notorious for its racist videos, including one which spread a libel that Muslim men were responsible for a “rape epidemic” in Norway.

The main character of the Latma TV cartoons is a baboon called “Professor Na’or Lobongelo” who is described as a “lecturer in political science at the University of Tel-Zanav, a small corner of light and intelligence in the jungle that surrounds us.”

He gives lectures to other dancing, screaming apes. In the episode above, he describes himself and his audience as “enlightened baboons” as he caricatures the position of Israeli liberals who oppose the deportation of non-Jewish children, born to migrants, many from Africa.

• “Na’or” means “enlightened” – the professor is a caricature of the “left-wing” intellectual despised by the Israeli far-right.
• “Tel-Zanav” – literally “Hill of Tails” is a play on Tel Aviv. It is a reference both to animals, and perhaps to being wagged.

An African character as an ape

While the “Lobongelo” character mocks Israeli leftists, he is also clearly an African as indicated by his name. This is a direct reference to a 1935 Hebrew-language children’s book by Nachum Gutman called “In the land of Lobongelo, King of the Zulus.”

Dena Shunra observes that, “The book is a colonial-style adventure which was hugely popular in Israel and was read by pretty much every child growing up in Israel from 1935 to at least the mid-seventies, as there were not very many children books available in Hebrew at the time. It’s a cultural trope that everyone who grew up Israeli will be familiar with.”

According to the Hebrew Wikipedia entry, Gutman, who was born in what is now Moldova and emigrated to Palestine as a child, traveled to South Africa in 1935 to draw the portrait of Prime Minister Jan Christiaan Smuts. Smuts, the racist colonialist ruler of South Africa was an ardent admirer of Zionism. After the 1994 fall of South Africa’s apartheid regime, Smuts’ name was removed from Johannesburg airport, which was renamed for anti-apartheid leader Oliver Tambo. Yet many places in Israel – streets, parks and a kibbutz – still bear names in honor of Smuts.

Children’s books that denigrate people of other cultures have by no means only been a feature of Israel or Hebrew literature, but in many countries such literature has been repudiated as outdated and offensive. Latma seems perfectly content to carry on the tradition adapting it to new racist needs.

“In the jungle”: Fuelling hatred against Africans

The use of an “African” character by Latma is no mere coincidence. Recall that the “Lobongelo” cartoon speaks about Tel Aviv (“Tel Zanav”) being “a corner of light and intelligence in the jungle that surrounds us.”

This is a reference to Ehud Barak’s description of Israel as “a villa in the jungle” – surrounded by hostile savages.

But by likening Africans to baboons, it also recalls the claims by some Israeli members of parliament that Tel Aviv is turning into “an African city” due to the influx of migrants and refugees from Africa.

The Lobongelo cartoons are particularly disturbing amid increasingly racist Israeli laws targeting Africans and shocking hate rallies such as one recently caught on video.

Latma in blackface

The racist “Lobongelo” cartoons are bad enough (in another episode he begins his lecture by saying “As I sat down for my morning bananas…”), Latma does not shy away from using actual blackface, as in this video where Shlomo Blass blacks up to depict an African sneaking across the border.

המסתנן העשרת אלפים

All these videos, including the cartoons, are made by an Israeli company – owned by Blass – called Rogatka, which also produces anti-Palestinian propaganda for settlers.

Blass, as Phan Nguyen has shown, also blacked-up in another video where he played a grotesque caricature of an African chief called “Kazabubu” claiming to be Jewish so he and his tribe could come to Israel.

Mocking and persecuting black people in Israel while using them in the US to promote Israel

What makes this raw racism all the more sickening is that it is flourishing in Israel as AIPAC, the Israeli lobby, is recruiting black students on US college campuses to front for Israeli apartheid.

With thanks to Dena Shunra for assistance with translation and contributing analysis.

The $10 million in pro-Newt money that transformed the GOP primary appears to be all about US policy toward Israel

Insitutionalized anti-Islamic hysteria by pro-Israel interests–We are joined by Muslim lawyer and Interim Executive Director of the Muslim Civil Liberties Union at http://muslimclu.org  Najmeh Vahid to discuss the legal pressures brought to bear against Muslims in America and what all REAL AMERICANS can do to counter this.

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