David headley and his mother. Ex-Khyber Barkeep Charged in Mumbai Attacks

"He was over six feet tall and looked liked a typical American college student he was enrolled at Princeton, but rarely went to classes ...

"Daood was a babe-magnet at Khyber Pass.

"He had a very young and pretty girlfriend, and also had a stunning 40-year-old mistress who sat alone in a booth waiting for him to get off work and cried bitter tears because of the sweet young thing." A description of David Headley -Ratbang Diary: Well, I Am SHOCKED!

According to family friends, David Headley's mother, Serrill Headley, was involved in heavy drinking and multiple sexual relationships, and David Headley engaged in the same behavior. DOG EAT DOG - IN INDIA

David Headley's father worked for Voice of America, which is used by the CIA. Pak PM's PRO admits he is Headley's half-brother.

David Headley enrolled in the Valley Forge Military Academy. Terror suspect was drug dealer, then informant Philadelphia ...

Was he recruited by the CIA?

Is David Headley Jewish?

David Headley's mother, allegedly, was an American Jewish lady. according to a comment here:Cached

David Headley visited various Jewish sites in India.

He claimed to be Jewish when he reportedly stayed at the Chabad centre in Mumbai in July 2008.

The American FBI found a book in his bag in Chicago entitled 'To Pray as a Jew'. Cached

According to Israeli and Indian officials, between 40,000 and 60,000 young Israelis have either permanently moved or established long-term residence in India. Karma Kosher Conscripts in New-Age Diaspora Seek Refuge in Goa.

In 2008 and in 2009, Israel issued temporary travel warnings for its citizens thinking of visiting Goa, in India. Anti-Terror Bureau warns Israelis not to travel to Goa - Haaretz ...

Goa

Mumbai bombing suspect David Headley reportedly has a link to Goa and an American in Goa. David Headley's Goa link traced with US terror suspect 12Kerala.com

The Indian officials investigating the 26/11/08 Mumbai attacks claim to have traced David Headley's Goa connection.

The officials claim that Headley was in constant touch with an American who has been living in Goa for the past nine years.

Reportedly the American in Goa has been running several business including bear bars and massage parlours in Goa.

Anjuna beach in Goa has a Chabad House, a Jewish prayer home, which is frequented by Israelis during the tourist season.

Israeli tourists, who form a sizeable portion of the foreign tourists in Goa, visit Goa in the months of October to February. No central input on Headley's stay in Goa: police

Mumbai

Mumbai’s Chabad House is suspected of having been used as a base for the Mumbai attacks of 2008.

Starting in March 2009, David Headley is reported to have visited a Chabad House in Delhi, a hotel in Pushkar near a Jewish centre, a guest house in Goa, and an office of El Al. The Hindu : News / National : Headley planned synchronised attacks ...

The Eliyahoo Synagogue, the most important synagogue for Mumbai Jews, located near the Apollo port and the Hotel Taj Mahal, was untouched in the 2008 Mumbai attacks. It was built by the Sassoons. The Riddle of Mumbai

One theory is that Chabad is being used by Mossad for terror attacks in India.

David Sassoon, whose grandson Edward Albert Sassoon, married Aline Caroline de Rothschild, the grand-daughter of Jacob James Mayer Rothschild. www.iamthewitness.com/.../1878-1919.htm

India has many connections to top Jews.

Lieutenant General JFR Jacob Jacob-Farj-Rafael Jacob is a former governor of the Indian state of Goa.

His family were Baghdadi Jews originally from Iraq who settled in Kolkata in the middle of the 18th century. 6

David Sassoon 1792 - 1864 was the treasurer of Baghdad between 1817 and 1829 and the leader of the Jewish community in Bombay now Mumbai .

The British government gave Sassoon "monopoly rights" to the manufacture of Opium.

Sassoon expanded his opium trade into China and Japan. Hong Kong, the Land Built on Opium
~

aangirfan: HEADLEY, THE CIA, NARIMAN HOUSE, FALSE FLAG OPS
aangirfan: HEADLEY INTERROGATED MORE THAN ONE MUMBAI SUSPECT - REPORTS
aangirfan: HEADLEY, LIKE DAWOOD IBRAHIM, LINKED TO 1993 BOMBINGS ...
aangirfan: DAVID HEADLEY, MUMBAI SUSPECT, WORKED FOR THE DRUG ...
aangirfan: MUMBAI SUSPECT DAVID HEADLEY INTRODUCED HIMSELF AS A CIA AGENT...
aangirfan: "KASAB WAS INTERROGATED BY HEADLEY"
aangirfan: DID US SPECIAL FORCES CARRY OUT THE MUMBAI ATTACKS?
aangirfan: Mossad increases its control of Indiaaangirfan: BRUCE REIDEL, DAWOOD IBRAHIM and the BOMBAY ATTACKS

Pulse

A Closer Look at Israel's Role in Terrorism
Informationclearinghouse.info

January 18, 2010 -- Response of former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when asked on September 11, 2001 what the attacks meant for U.S.-Israeli relations

Game theory war-planners rely on mathematical models to anticipate and shape outcomes with staged provocations. For the agent provocateur, the reactions to a provocation—as well as the reactions to those reactions—thereby become predictable within an acceptable range of probabilities.

With ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan poised to expand to Iran and Pakistan, it is time to take a closer look at how conflicts are catalyzed—by way of deception.

Continued below

Part 2

Part 3

When Israeli game theorist Robert J. Aumann received the 2005 Nobel Prize in economic science, he conceded from Jerusalem, “the entire school of thought that we have developed here in Israel” has turned “Israel into the leading authority in this field.” A professor at the Center for the Study of Rationality at Hebrew University, Aumann’s Nobel lecture, titled “War and Peace,” expounded on the rationality of war.

With a well-modeled provocation, a target’s anticipated reaction can even become a weapon in the aggressor’s arsenal. In response to the provocation of 9-11, how difficult was it to foresee that the U.S. would deploy its military to avenge that attack? With U.S. intelligence “fixed” by well-placed insiders around a predetermined goal, how difficult was it to anticipate that the reaction to 9-11 could be redirected to wage war in Iraq?

The emotional component of a provocation plays a key role in game theory warfare. With the nationally televised mass murder of 3,000 people, a state of shock, grief and outrage made it easier for Americans to believe that a known Evil Doer in Iraq was responsible—regardless of the facts.

For false beliefs to displace real facts requires mental preconditioning so that a targeted population can be persuaded to put their faith in fictions. That conditioning enhances the probability of a successful deception. Those who deceived the U.S. to invade Iraq in March 2003 began a decade beforehand to lay the “mental threads” and make the requisite mental associations to advance that agenda.

Notable among those threads was the 1993 publication in Foreign Affairs of a theme-setting article by Harvard University professor Samuel Huntington. By the time his analysis appeared in book-length form in 1996 as The Clash of Civilizations, more than 100 think tanks were prepared to promote it. The result created a widely touted narrative—a thematic storyline—supporting a “clash consensus” five years before 9-11 provided a plausible rationale for war.

Also published in 1996 under the guidance of Richard Perle was A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm i.e., Israel . A member since 1987 of the U.S. Defense Policy Board, this self-professed Zionist became its chairman in 2001.

As an adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Perle’s Pentagon advisory post provided a powerful insider position to shape the national security mindset around the removal of Saddam Hussein, a key theme of A Clean Break—released five years before 9-11. That same year Netanyahu addressed a joint session of Congress at the invitation of Newt Gingrich, the Christian Zionist Speaker of the House.

Murders, books, articles, think tanks and well-placed insiders are common components in a “probabilistic” model deployed by war-planning game theorists. Lawmakers are also a customary ingredient. They provide credibility and a facade of legitimacy—a critical element when inducing a nation to war with phony intelligence fixed around a preset agenda.

That role was eagerly filled by Senators John McCain, Joe Lieberman, a Jewish Zionist from Connecticut, and Jon Kyl, a Christian Zionist from Arizona, when they co-sponsored the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998. By promoting Israel’s 1996 agenda for Securing the Realm, their legislation laid yet another mental thread in the public mindset by calling for the ouster of Saddam Hussein—three years before 9-11.

The legislation also appropriated $97 million to promote their agenda. Distracted by mid-term Congressional elections and impeachment proceedings catalyzed by a well-timed presidential affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky, Bill Clinton signed that Zionist agenda into law in October 1998—4-1/2 years before a U.S.-led invasion removed the Iraqi leader.

After 9-11, McCain and Lieberman became inseparable travel companions and irrepressible advocates for the invasion of Iraq. Striking a presidential pose aboard the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt in January 2002, McCain—a son and grandson of admirals—laid another mental thread when he waved an admiral’s cap and proclaimed, alongside Lieberman, “On to Baghdad.”

By Way of Deception

The confidence with which this game theory strategy progressed in plain sight could be seen in the behavior of Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, another Zionist insider. Four days after 9-11 while in a principals’ meeting at Camp David, he proposed that the U.S. invade Iraq. At that time, the intelligence did not point to Iraqi involvement and Osama bin Laden was thought to be hiding in a remote region of Afghanistan.

On that same day, San Diego FBI Special Agent Stephen Butler interrogated Iraqi Munther Ghazal at his home near San Diego to determine if he was funding Mel Rockefeller, an American with whom Ghazal traveled to Baghdad in early 1997. After meeting for several days with a top nuclear physicist with oversight of Iraq’s mothballed nuclear weapons program, Rockefeller returned to the U.S. with a practical proposal for removing Saddam Hussein without this war and without triggering an insurgency.

When regional specialists at the U.S. Department of State would not meet with him, he traveled to Ottawa in April 1997 where he met with Middle East specialists in the Canadian government to ensure a written record was made to confirm there was an alternative to war in Iraq—six years before the invasion. Instead of debriefing him, FBI agents sought to discredit him. Though FBI agents interviewed Ghazal many times, they have yet to meet with Mel Rockefeller.

Agent Butler cashed checks and paid rent for the two San Diego-based hijackers who piloted planes into the World Trade Center towers. The same Iman counseling Major Nidal Hasan with FBI knowledge before he was transferred to Fort Hood also counseled the San Diego-based hijackers—with FBI knowledge. As of December 1, 2009, no one from the FBI or national security had debriefed Mel Rockefeller—eight years after 9-11.

See: Ft. Hood: “Death By Political Correctness”?

and Ft. Hood Tragedy: The Real Story of the Terrorist “Mad Doctor Hasan”

When President George H.W. Bush declined to invade Baghdad and remove Saddam Hussein during the 1991 Gulf War, Pentagon Under Secretary for Policy Paul Wolfowitz imposed a No-Fly Zone in northern Iraq. By the invasion of March 2003, the Israeli Mossad had agents deployed for a decade in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul.

Intelligence reports of Iraqi ties to Al Qaeda were also traced to Mosul—reports that proved false. Mosul again emerged in November 2004 as a center of the insurgency that destabilized Iraq. That reaction precluded the speedy exit of coalition forces promised in Congressional testimony by senior war-planner Wolfowitz in the lead-up to the invasion.

An Inside Job?

The common pro-Israeli source of the phony intelligence that induced war in Iraq has yet to be acknowledged even though intelligence experts agree that deception on such a scale required a decade to plan, staff, pre-stage, orchestrate and—until now—cover up. The leaders of the 9-11 Commission conceded they were thwarted by Commission members adamantly opposed to hearing testimony on the hijackers’ motivation for 9-11: the U.S.-Israeli relationship.

The fictions reported as facts by mainstream media included Iraqi WMD, Iraqi ties to Al Qaeda, Iraqi meetings with Al Qaeda in Prague, Iraqi mobile biological weapons laboratories and Iraqi purchases of “yellowcake” uranium from Niger. Only the last claim was conceded as bogus prior to the invasion.

Only after the war began were the balance of the claims disclosed as false, flawed or outright fabricated. An attempt to punish former U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Joe Wilson for his exposure of the phony yellowcake account led to a federal conviction of vice-presidential chief of staff Lewis Libby, another well-placed Zionist insider.

The multi-decade consistency of agent-provocateur fact patterns suggests that this game theory-modeled warfare includes the Israeli provocation that catalyzed the Second Intifada. An intifada is an uprising or, literally, a “shaking off” of an oppressor. The Second Intifada dates from September 2000 when Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon led an armed march to Jerusalem’s Temple Mount—one year before 9-11.

After a year of calm during which Palestinians believed that Israel was sincere about peace, suicide bombings recommenced. As Sharon conceded, his march was meant to demonstrate Israeli control over a site considered holy by Muslims worldwide. In response to this second failed attempt at “shaking off” Israeli domination, Sharon and Netanyahu observed that only when Americans “feel our pain” would they understand the plight of the victimized Israelis.

These Likud Party leaders commented that the requisite empathy “feel our pain” would require a weighted body count of 4,500 to 5,000 Americans lost to terrorism—the initial estimate of those who died in the twin towers of the World Trade Center—one year later.

In other words, only with pain could we identify with the Israelis. Does that mean that only with a mass murder could we be induced to respond with our military to advance their agenda? Was the U.S. response mathematically modeled at the Center for the Study of Rationality? Seven months after 9-11, Benjamin Netanyahu gave a speech in a U.S. Senate office building where he was introduced by Senators Jon Kyl and Joe Liebermn

American Valkyrie?

When successful, game theory warfare strengthens the agent provocateur while leaving the target discredited and depleted by the anticipated reaction. By game theory standards, 9-11 was a strategic success because the U.S.—by its response—was widely criticized for waging war on false pretenses. Only in hindsight did a deceived public realize that Iraq had nothing to do with that mass murder. However, that invasion had everything to do with “securing the realm.”

Our response predictably triggered a deadly insurgency with devastating consequences for Iraqis, the U.S. and a “coalition of the willing” led to war by a successfully duped U.S. From a game theory perspective, that insurgency was a predictable reaction in a nation populated by three long-feuding sects: Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds. A violent invasion led by a nation closely allied with Jewish nationalists only further fueled the flames of violence and extremism—another foreseeable outcome.

Until the U.S.-led invasion, peace was maintained by an unsavory dictator and former U.S. ally who was rebranded an Evil Doer in the lead-up to war. As the cost in blood and treasure from our “liberation” of Iraq expanded, the U.S. became overextended militarily, financially and diplomatically.

The sectarian violence unleashed in Iraq is precisely what Messrs. Rockefeller and Ghazal were cautioned against in early 1997 should Saddam Hussein be removed suddenly and violently. The 1.3 million Iraqi deaths from war-related causes exceeds the worst of Saddam Hussein’s atrocities. As any competent game theory war-planner knew, the strategic winner in this war was certain to be Iran as the U.S. neutralized its key foe—and is now urged by Israel to wage war on Iran.

As the U.S.—the primary target of this deception—emerged in the foreground, the agent provocateur faded into the background. But only after catalyzing dynamics that steadily drained the U.S. of credibility, resources and resolve. This “probabilistic” Israeli victory also ensured widespread cynicism, insecurity, distrust and disillusionment along with a steadily declining capacity to defend our real interests.

Meanwhile the American public came under a system of oversight and surveillance packaged and sold as “homeland security.” This ominously titled operation includes rhetorical echoes of a WWII-era “fatherland” featuring a domestic security force completely alien to U.S. traditions. It is not yet clear whether this new agency was established to protect Americans. Or whether it is meant to shield from Americans those responsible for deceiving us to wage their wars.

In January 2003, Secret Service Agent Richard Sierze interrogated Mel Rockefeller at his home in Fresno, California after he sent an email to Florida Governor Jeb Bush. The email said, in effect, that if the governor’s brother President George Bush did not interview him on a public record prior to invading Iraq, he would do his best to ensure that lawful means were deployed to see the president executed for treason by a firing squad.

When questioned by Sierze, Rockefeller offered to have the agent speak with Dr. Glenn Olds, an adviser to four presidents, his senior adviser since 1994 and a former U.N. Ambassador who assisted him in entering Iraq through Jordon at a time when Americans were prohibited from traveling there. Sierze declined.

He also repeated his intent to see the president executed for treason and insisted that he be charged and taken before a federal magistrate to present evidence that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction and that an alternative to war had been available since early 1997. Agent Sierze declined his demand to be arraigned in a U.S. Federal District Court—seven weeks before the invasion.

Agent Sierze should be interviewed to see if, in retrospect, he agrees that—had this advice been followed—the war in Iraq may well have been prevented. To date, no one with line responsibility has interviewed Mel Rockefeller on a public record. Why? The answer to that question would reveal those responsible for this ongoing deception.

The victims of these serial deceptions, including the families of those murdered in November at Fort Hood, may have a wrongful death cause of action against those with line responsibility who aided these operations by failing to engage the Rockefeller record in a timely fashion.

Foreseeable Futures

By manipulating the shared mindset, skilled game theory war-planners can wage wars on multiple fronts with minimal resources. One proven strategy: Pose as an ally of a well-armed nation predisposed to deploy its military in response to a mass murder.

In this case, the result destabilized Iraq while creating predictable crises that could be exploited to greater strategic advantage by expanding the conflict to Iran, another Israeli goal announced in A Clean Break—seven years before the invasion of Iraq.

Today’s mathematically model-able outcomes undermined U.S. national security by discrediting our leadership, degrading our financial condition and disabling our political will. In game theory terms, this devastation was perfectly predictable—within an acceptable range of probabilities.

Pakistan is primed to emerge as the next battleground for game theory war-planners. When India, an ally of Israel, became the nation honored by the Obama administration’s first state dinner, that occasion gave reason for concern due to the dynamics already at work in the background.

See “What Is Israel’s Role in the Destabilization of Pakistan?”

In the asymmetry that typifies modern warfare, those who are few in number have no alternative when pursuing an expansionist agenda but to wage their wars by way of deception. To maintain its perceived status as a perennial victim, Israeli aggression must proceed non-transparently. Its only option is to operate with duplicitous means, including leveraging the power of its insider influence to advance an agenda from the shadows.

Thus the strategic necessity that this extremist enclave befriend the U.S.—with the intent to betray that friendship to advance its geopolitical goals. Thus the strategic need to create a relationship of trust with a post-WWII super power—in order to defraud us. How else could Colonial Zionists wage their wars except with our military? How else could Jewish nationalists induce our aggression absent the widely shared belief that Israel is not an aggressor but a victim?

Winning Wars from the Inside Out

Game theory war-planners manipulate the shared mental environment by shaping the perceptions and impressions that become consensus opinions. With a combination of well-timed crises, fixed intelligence and a complicit media, policy-makers can be induced to support a predetermined agenda—not because lawmakers are Evil Doers but because the public mindset has been pre-conditioned to respond to manipulated thoughts, emotions and beliefs.

Without the mass murder of 9-11, would America’s credibility be in tatters and its creditworthiness in jeopardy? By steadily displacing facts with false beliefs, those duplicitous few-within-the-few amplify the impact of their deceit. By their steady focus on the mental environment, game theory war-planners can defeat an opponent with vastly superior resources.

Today’s intelligence wars are waged in plain sight and under the cover of shared beliefs. By manipulating consensus opinion, psy-ops wars can be won from the inside out by inducing a targeted populace to freely choose the very forces that imperil their freedom.

Thus in the Information Age the disproportionate power wielded by those with outsized influence in media, popular culture, think tanks, academia and politics—domains where Zionist influence is pervasive not only in the U.S. but also in other nations induced to war on false pretenses.

Germany offers a case study in manipulation of the public mindset in plain sight and under the banner of a free press. In 2003, Zionist media mogul Haim Saban acquired the second largest media conglomerate in Germany. Why? As Saban investment banker Steve Rattner explained his client’s motivation: “Because Germany is important to Israel.” Or, as Saban concedes: “I have only one issue and that issue is Israel.”

By 2005, Saban had succeeded in electing Angela Merkel as German Chancellor. She quickly became the European Union’s most reliable and forceful advocate for Israel. By November 2009, she was prepared to sponsor in Berlin an unprecedented joint session of the German and Israeli governments. Following his political success in Germany, Saban acquired in 2007 a controlling interest in Univision, a Latino-focused network serving the fastest-growing voting bloc in the U.S.

Media manipulation serves as an essential force-multiplier to wage intelligence wars from the periphery or, as with Haim Saban, in plain sight. At the operational core of such psy-ops are game theory war-planners skilled at personality profiling and masterful at anticipating responses to staged provocations and then incorporating those responses into their arsenal.

In the case of Iraq, our mathematically foreseeable response to 9-11 led, in practical effect, to Israel’s deployment of our military to invade Iraq. For aggressors adept at psy-ops warfare, facts are only an inconvenience to be overcome when waging war by way of deception. Thus the key role played by consensus-shapers featured in mainstream media outlets who focus not on informing the public but on mental conditioning.

For targeted populations dependent on facts and informed consent to protect their freedom and preserve the rule of law, such treachery poses the greatest possible threat. Yet even now many Americans believe that Israel is not an aggressor but a victim and even an ally despite facts confirming a multi-decade pattern of expansionist nationalism and geopolitical deception.

Adhering to an Enemy

The U.S. is far less secure than before 9-11. Tel Aviv clearly intends to continue its serial provocations as evidenced by its ongoing expansion of settlements and its continuing blockade of Gaza. Israel has shown no willingness to negotiate in good faith. With few exceptions, Barack Obama has named as senior advisers either Zionists are those known to be strongly pro-Israeli.

The greatest threat to world peace is not Islam. The most fundamental threat that underlies all others is our “special relationship” with a skilled agent provocateur. Without U.S. support for an enclave of nuclear-armed religious extremists, the common source of this threat could long ago have been identified and steps taken to ensure its containment.

In the same way that lengthy pre-staging was required to induce the U.S. to invade Iraq, a similar strategy is now underway to persuade the U.S. to invade Iran or support an attack by Israel. Pakistan is also now on the agenda of those marketing The Clash narrative with its vision of a perpetual war against “militant Islam.” Similar mental conditioning is again at work, including the high profile branding of the requisite Evil Doer: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinajad.

From its outset, the Zionist enterprise sought supremacy in the Middle East. To date, its alliance with the U.S. has enabled the deployment of American military might in pursuit of goals set by Jewish nationalists more than a half-century before a Christian Zionist U.S. president was induced to extend nation-state recognition. Harry Truman made that fateful decision despite his fears that Israel would become what Zionist lobbyists assured him it would not become—and what it immediately became: a racist and theocratic state.

Only one nation had the means, motive, opportunity and stable nation state intelligence required to take the U.S. to war in the Middle East while making it appear that Islam—not Israel—is the problem. When a long-deceived American public—especially the U.S. military—grasps the common source of this devastating duplicity, the response will shift the geopolitical landscape. The facts suggest that “sympathy for Israel” is not among the probable reactions.

If Barack Obama continues to cater to these extremists, this Nobel peace laureate can rightly be blamed when the next attack features the usual orgy of evidence pointing to a pre-staged Evil Doer. Should another mass murder occur, that incident may well be traceable to the U.S.-Israeli relationship and to the failure of our policy-makers to protect America—and world peace—from this enemy within.

See also:

• How Israel Took Control of U.S. Foreign Policy
• How Israel Wages War in Plain Sight
• Appeasing Israel—At What Cost?
• American Intifada—Shaking Off Six Decades of Deceit

Two Israeli soldiers involved in the Gaza Strip offensive a year ago used a 9-year-old Palestinian boy as a human shield to open packages they believed were booby-trapped with explosives, the Israeli army charged Thursday. The soldiers, whose names were not released, have been indicted in military court for “unauthorized conduct” and “exceeding their authority in a manner that endangered life or health,” the army said. The boy, whose case was forwarded to the IDF by the UN, was unharmed. The soldiers could face a maximum sentence of three years if convicted, an army spokesman said. The criminal charges are believed to be the first related to combat brought against Israeli soldiers for their actions during the 22-day Gaza assault. A previous criminal case was brought against soldiers accused of looting a credit card. Military officials said they are reviewing about 30 criminal cases. Last month, the army said it had disciplined two top commanders for permitting shelling near a UN compound where civilians had taken refuge. Michael Sfard, an Israeli attorney who represents soldiers who went public with complaints about the military’s conduct in Gaza, called the army’s indictment “very little and very late.” He noted that his group, Breaking the Silence, tried to bring attention to the use of human shields in Gaza a year ago, but was subjected to blistering attacks from the government. Sfard said:

They dismissed everything out of hand. Now a year later they’ve found that one of the practices took place. If the state of Israel had conceded to calls for an investigation, I’m sure they would have found by now other practices to be true too.

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Gates clarifies US Iran policy in Riyadh after Biden fails in Israel
DEBKAfile, Mar 10, 2010

US Def Sec Gates arrived in Riyadh on Mar 10, flying in unexpectedly from Kabul in Afghanistan, after the Saudis demanded urgent clarifications of the Obama administration’s Iran policy. DEBKAfile’s military sources report that the demand followed the failure of US Vice-Pres Biden’s talks with Israeli leaders to resolve their differences on Iran. As a result, two senior US officials are visiting to Middle East capitals at the same to under pressure to deal with the Iranian nuclear question. Gates was closeted with Saudi rulers, although as recently as Feb 15, Sec State Clinton visited Riyadh and explained Washington’s strategy on Iran to King Abdullah and several senior Saudi princes. But she failed to allay her hosts’ intense concerns that the US was doing enough to abort Iran’s nuclear weapons program.. Then on Mar 7, CENTCOM Commander Gen. Petraeus, asked by a CNN interviewer, whether countries in the Persian Gulf wish to see a US military attack on Iran, said:

There are countries that would like to see a strike, us or perhaps Israel, even.

In Israel, where the media are obsessed with the slightest Arab or Palestinian utterance, none cited the US general’s comments. DEBKAfile’s military sources report that Petraeus’ comments referred mainly to the two main Persian Gulf states, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. In fact, the UAE foreign minister, referring to the assassination of Hamas member al-Mabhouh, noted this week that his country and Israel see eye to eye on the Iranian issue. Reports of the Biden conversations in Jerusalem Tuesday have reached Riyadh. They reveal that not only is the Obama administration leaning hard on Israel to abstain from attacking Iran, but is even retreating from harsh sanctions. Such penalties have no been put on hold for five months. The Saudis are as deeply alarmed by the latest US stance on Iran as the Israelis. US sources reported that no sooner did the US Def Sec land in Riyadh from Kabul when he was summoned to dinner with King Abdullah and the Saudi defense minister, Crown Prince Sultan. They admitted that he would be required “to present an update to Saudi officials who are intensely concerned about Iran’s nuclear program and the fate of the US-led effort to impose new sanctions on Tehran.”

Jerusalem expansion spurred by Biden’s
clampdown on Israeli action on Iran
DEBKAfile, Mar 10 2010

On Mar 9, Netanyahu told visiting US Vice-Pres Biden that the Interior Ministry district building commission’s announcement clearing the addition of 1,600 homes to the existing East Jerusalem neighborhood of Ramat Shlomo had been made without his knowledge. It would take another two years of paperwork for building to begin. The announcement drew sharp condemnation from the White House in Washington and from Biden, who arrived late for dinner with the prime minister, after condemning the “substance and timing” of the announcement with the launching of proximity talks. This, he said “undermined the trust we need right now and runs counter to the constructive discussions I’ve had here in Israel.” The announcement was roundly condemned by the UN Secretary, Egypt and Jordan, as well as Israeli opposition leaders. Israeli officials later assured Washington there had been no intention to undermine the Biden visit, but Netanyahu took no steps to reverse the decision made by interior minister Eli Yishai. According to DEBKAfile’s sources, the sweetness and light conveyed by public statements was hardly present in the US vice-president’s private talks with Israeli leaders. Netanyahu may well have approved the Jerusalem announcement as an indirect comeback for the way the US visitor laid down the law on a number of issues of Israeli concern, chiefly the matter of Iran’s rapid progress toward a nuclear weapon. The peremptory note was first noted when Biden called on Pres Peres, his first meeting with an Israel leader. He then explicitly warned Israel against venturing to attack Iran without prior US permission. Even the oft-repeated US commitment to Israel’s security was delivered with a notable reservation: I can promise the people of Israel that we will confront every security challenge that we will face, said Biden. This statement ruled out unilateral Israel operations in its defense. Forget unilateral, he was saying: From now “we” make the decisions about the levels of “security challenge” facing Israel and how to “confront it.” And there was no false modestly about who the senior decision-maker was to be in this “alliance.”

Jerusalem was also taken aback by the US vice president’s assertion that Iran was isolated as never before. A distorting prism appeared to be held up by the Obama administration to justify its backtracking on painful sanctions for Iran. These sanctions were explicitly promised by the White House to Netanyahu and Barak in return for Israel’s consent to hold back from striking Iran’s nuclear facilities. The Biden visit to Israel, therefore, far from meeting its avowed goal of smoothing over the differences between the Obama administration and Israel, has left Jerusalem more distrustful than ever. The climate was not improved on Mar 8 by IAEA director Amano announcing that the IAEA board would get back to discussing Iran’s nuclear program and making decisions only in five months’ time. In other words, the UN Security Council would not have the nuclear watchdog’s recommendations for supporting a sanctions resolution before July. Israel attributed this delay to Washington’s intervention as another gambit for shunting Israel and its demands for harsh sanctions aside, while also holding its hand against exercising any military options. Approval for the expansion of Ramat Shlomo came on the heels of a tough new statement by Barak on Tuesday. In a talk to students, he warned that when it came to Iran, Israel must keep its finger on the trigger at all times. And upon arrival in the US this week, chief of staff Lt-Gen Ashkenazi was instructed from Jerusalem to talk tough on the Iranian question when he meets Pentagon officials in the coming days.

Jerusalem Police on Thursday agreed to let dozens of far-rightists march through an Arab village in East Jerusalem. The activists, led by Baruch Marzel and Itamar Ben-Gvir, had requested to demonstrate in Silwan to protest illegal Palestinian construction in the area. Police have given permission to 70 activists to take part in the march, which is set to take place in 10 days. Police have allotted the length of a kilometer along which the demonstrators can walk, beginning from the Old City of Jerusalem into the center of Silwan. Ben-Gvir said:

They cannot lecture us about construction in Judea and Samaria when in this village there are dozens of illegal houses. The law regarding illegal houses in this village is exactly the same law that applies to the houses being destroyed in our outposts.

Jerusalem Police have warned the activists not to hold inflammatory banners or make discriminatory comments during the march. Police are also concerned that Muslim protesters will turn to violence in their demonstrations against Israel’s decision to approve the construction of 1,600 new houses in East Jerusalem. As a result, police are limiting entry to the Temple Mount for Friday prayers and will deploy large forces across the Old City.

Police set for riots in east Jerusalem due to
approval of housing units, march led by extremists
Shmulik Grossman, Ynet, Mar 11 2010

Jerusalem Police and the Border Guard deployed backup forces in the eastern side of the capital Thursday, including the Old City and the Palestinian villages, due to intelligence saying teens are planning to riot there Friday. Last Friday’s riots were instigated by a government decision to include east Jerusalem holy sites in its new heritage plan. This week police fear Israel’s announcement of the approval of 1,600 new housing units in the eastern city will spark a similar response. As usual in times of tension, police will limit Friday prayer on Temple Mount. Muslim men over 50 carrying an Israeli ID and women of any age will be allowed into the area. Also fanning the flames is a police decision to permit right-wing activists Itamar Ben-Gvir and Baruch Marzel to hold a march in the village of Silwan in east Jerusalem. The two say they will tour the village on Mar 21 along with 70 others to observe illegal construction there. Ben-Gvir said:

Illegal Palestinian structures should share the fate of the structures being destroyed in our outposts.

Residents of the neighborhood responded with anger. Fakhri Abu-Dihab, who resides in the village, told Ynet:

The police are insane. The situation is already tense because of the homes that are going to be razed. It is well-known who Baruch Marzel is and what he represents, and if the police give permission to such an extremist, who wants us transferred, they will bear full responsibility for what happens. I am afraid, because everything here is so sensitive now, this will not be easily accepted by people here.

Another resident of the village added that police would not be able to control the 50,000 residents of the village. He commented:

At a time like this we need to help people get closer, not set fires. I don’t want blood shed on either side.

read more

Via Friday-Lunch-Club

Uprooted Palestinian

Sec State Clinton will be the keynote speaker at the annual AIPAC policy conference. Clinton will speak on the second day of the conference, which is set for Mar 21-23 in Washington. The announcement this week of her address at the conference comes as the Obama administration is stepping up efforts to show US-Israel closeness. Vice-Pres Biden visited Israel this week and said there was “no space” between the two countries when it comes to Israel’s security, although he decried Israel’s announcement that it was building 1,600 new housing units in eastern Jerusalem. Also addressing the parlay are Netanyahu and Livni. A focus of the conference will be on efforts to further isolate Iran to pressure it toward nuclear transparency.

A year ago, Obama boldly, unequivocally demanded that Israel stop building settlements on the West Bank and east Jerusalem. Today he’s left with little choice but to swallow a stinging and very public rebuke from the USA’s closest Mideast ally. Why? Too much is at stake. The administration has invested too much time, credibility and political capital to throw up its hands and walk away from its hard-fought efforts to get Israel and the Palestinians back to peace talks. An open fight with Israel is the last thing Obama needs in the midst of domestic political turmoil that has snarled signature efforts like health care reform. But the White House has signaled deep anger and probably won’t forgive or forget Israel’s boorish behavior. Vice Pres Biden had gone to Israel and the Palestinian territories to reassure the Jewish state of unstinting US support and to praise Palestinian Pres Abbas for agreeing to resume peace talks. Biden’s was the highest-level visit to Israel since Obama took office, a fence-mending journey after a very difficult year in US-Israeli relations. The vice president was virtually in mid-blandishment when the Netanyahu government pulled the rug from beneath him. It announced plans to build 1,600 new homes in an east Jerusalem neighborhood. After then showing up very late for dinner with Netanyahu, Biden issued a statement condemning the new Israeli move and declaring that it undermined trust just as US-brokered talks were about to resume after a 14-month hiatus. The Obama administration decided to use the word condemn, the strongest kind of diplomatic language, after a 90-minute debate among the Biden party in Israel, the National Security Council and the State Dept. A day later, State Dept spokesman PJ Crowley expressed bafflement at the Israeli action, saying:

It would be unusual for an Israeli government to take this kind of action while the vice president is standing next to the prime minister. We are talking to the government and trying to understand what happened and why.

Given Israel’s powerful rebuke during a visit by the vice president, the question arises: Why did Obama choose the policy he did from the outset of his term in office? Through a year of ragged relations, the Obama administration had moved from stark demands that Israeli end all settlement building in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, to praise for the Netanyahu government for agreeing to a temporary suspension of settlement activity except in east Jerusalem. In moving from one point to the next, Obama became just the latest US president to crash against the impenetrable stone walls, the unbending positions that have time and again blocked Mideast peacemaking. The goal Obama set out to reach was not only a formal, lasting peace after decades of war and antagonism, but the creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank. To get there, Israel and the Palestinians had to overcome deep disputes over who controlled what territory, understandable in a tiny piece of real estate where nearly every turn in a road marks a place sacred to Jews, Muslims and Christians. But the knottiest problem remains Jerusalem. The Palestinians demand that the West Bank along with Gaza constitute their state, with east Jerusalem as capital. The Israelis have shown no flexibility on Jerusalem and have not since they annexed the eastern part of the holy city at the end of the 1967 war. By initially demanding Israel change tactics on settlements, there was the assumption that Obama had also told Netanyahu that there was an “or else.” That “or else,” some form of withholding aid or arms or just a diplomatic cold shoulder, would, however, have ensured a political explosion among Israel’s supporters in the US, particularly among the powerful Jewish lobby. Perhaps Obama, in taking his tough initial tack, had not foreseen the deep political divisions he would face a little more than a year into his presidency. Aaron David Miller of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, who served for two decades as a State Dept senior Mideast policy adviser, said:

He can’t win on Jerusalem right now. No matter how humiliating, he has to swallow it. Working with Israel is like dancing with a bear. Once you start, you can’t let go.

The Obama Administration was supposed to be flying high this week on news that the Israel-Palestinian peace process had finally been restarted in the form of indirect talks brokered by the US. Even the Arab League was on board. It didn’t work out that way. Instead, Vice-Pres Biden wraps up his visit to Israel with a deep sense of personal humiliation and indications that the ties between the Obama Administration and the Israeli government are worsening, after Interior Minister Eli Yishai, a long-time critic of the peace process, single-handedly scuppered the peace talks with an announcement of another settlement expansion. Biden has been predictably critical of the move, and Obama has issued an “unequivocal” condemnation of the move. It cast a pall over Biden’s visit with Palestinian Pres Abbas, and refocused his visit from one kick-starting the peace talks to one scrambling to try to rescue them. The damage to the peace talks appears to be irreparable, however, and Israeli officials are unrepentant. Netanyahu would say only that the announcement was “ill-timed,” while other officials insisted that the settlements would move forward as planned and that Israel would never make another conciliatory move toward the Palestinians.

Confusion: US Thinks Israel Peace Talks Still Going On
Jason Ditz, AntiWar.com, Mar 11 2010

There appears to be no small level of confusion among US officials over whether or not the indirect talks between the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority are actually going to go through as planned. State Dept spokesman PJ Crowley insisted today that “I don’t think that report that’s been circulating for the last 24 hours is accurate,” adding “as far as I know, we are still moving forward.” But Palestinian Authority chief negotiator Saed Erekat was very direct in confirming the reports, saying that the PA has no intention of resuming peace talks unless Israel halts its East Jerusalem settlement expansion. Israel has already ruled this out, effectively making the talks dead on arrival. Exactly why the State Dept, which is expected to broker the talks, was not told of the PA’s position is not clear, but with direct quotes from Erekat and the Arab League’s Secretary General, it does not appear that this is simply inaccurate reporting, and the peace talks appear to be, at best, on life support.

Israel Rules Out Concessions for Peace Talks
Jason Ditz, AntiWar.com, Mar 11 2010

Palestinian Authority chief negotiator Saeb Erekat confirmed reports today that Pres Abbas had decided to halt peace talks with Israel unless the Israeli government abandons construction in East Jerusalem settlements. This effectively means the end to the peace process, before it has even begun, as Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister Ayalon later declared that not only will Israel not abandon the plan, they will never again offer any concession for peace. The concessions so far, to the extent that any have been made, amounted to an announced, albeit extremely limited, settlement freeze in the West Bank not including occupied East Jerusalem . Even this freeze has largely been ignored by the government, which has approved a myriad of settlement construction since the announcement, culminating with this week, when the announcement of pending indirect peace talks was met with several announcements of new settlements. The US criticized the settlement announcements, but Minister Ayalon insists that the only real objection was that it coincided with Vice Pres Biden’s Israel visit, causing no end of embarrassment.

Don't believe Benjamin Netanyahu for one moment when he says he "never knew." The Jerusalem planning committee is only too aware of what the bosses want, and the government has decided to step up construction in greater Jerusalem. Dispossession and taking possession, kicking out and moving in - that's what it's all about.

Over the years, a streamlined and generously lubricated machine has evolved, one that makes it possible to take solace in the building of Jerusalem in the phrase used to console mourners and to take pride - but also to take cover - behind a facade of disingenuousness and disowning. Yesterday, it was convenient to disown.

No pretext is more dismal than "bad timing." Ehud Barak immediately put out a press release about the "harmful timing of the publication." As if there were a proper time for provocations. If the announcement of the 1,600 planned housing units had come before Joe Biden's trip, they would have said it was aimed at sabotaging the visit, and if it happened after he left, they would have said Biden himself was in on the secret.

But with Barak, that willing slave-minister of Netanyahu's, everything's cool, but if only they had kept that call for bids confidential, if only they built apartments in some dark secluded hideaway, like the Western Wall tunnel.

Don't believe for a moment that they never knew: The chaos works like clockwork. The detonation mechanism is activated remotely and a safety range is carefully observed. It will always be possible to make procedural claims - "it's a technical matter" or "the political echelon wasn't involved" or "the timing was purely coincidental" or "three years of deliberations happened to end now." What judge hearing a case would accept "I didn't know" as a mitigating circumstance?

This is one visit Joe Biden will not quickly forget. First he was compelled to sit through 25 minutes of an annoying speech in his honor by our president. Shimon Peres really believes that he is the destination for pilgrims from all over the world who drink in his musings and are intoxicated by his vision.

Later, Biden was given a certificate memorializing his mother, but the glass broke. Once again, Bibi didn't pay attention, leaned on it and shattered it. No fear, his speeches have always diverted attention from such mishaps. And finally, to add a finishing touch of infuriating disgrace, the Haredi neighborhood Ramat Shlomo was dumped on the vice-presidential head.

Truth be told, the Obama administration just about asked for this slap. In Jerusalem, the lesson has been learned that the White House doesn't fulfill its obligations - it just goes through the motions by issuing insincere rebukes. And now, they'll begin the "proximity talks" - Orwellian for distance, which is greater than it's been in 20 years.

If I were Rahm Emanuel, I wouldn't advise Barack Obama to follow in his Veep's footsteps and visit Israel soon. It's safe to predict that on the day he's addressing the Knesset, they'll tell him work has begun on the Temple Mount.

The first Temple was that of Solomon the Wise, the Second was that of Ezra the Scribe, and the Third of Netanyahu and Eli Yishai. Let the Temple be built, and the home of the nation will be laid waste.

Yossi Sarid writes for Ha'aretz, where this column originally appeared.

Nationalism in most countries and cultures can have both positive and negative aspects, unifying a people and sometimes leading them against their neighbors. Extremism can emerge, and often has, at least in part in almost every nationalist/independence movement I can recall e.g., the French nationalist movement had The Terror, Kenya's had the Mau Mau, etc. .

But whereas extremism in other nationalist movements is an aberration, extremism in Jewish nationalism is the norm, pitting Zionist Jews secular or observant against the goyim everyone else , who are either possible predator or certain prey, if not both sequentially. This does not mean that all Jews or all Israelis feel and act this way, by any means. But it does mean that Israel today is what it cannot avoid being, and what it would be under any electable government a point I'll develop in another article .

The differences between Jewish nationalism Zionism and that of other countries and cultures here I think are fourfold:

1. Zionism is a real witches' brew of xenophobia, racism, ultra-nationalism, and militarism that places it way outside of a "mere" nationalist context — for example, when I was in Ireland both parts I saw no indication whatsoever that the PIRAs or anyone else pressing for a united Ireland had a shred of design on shoving Protestants into camps or out of the country, although there may well have been a handful who thought that way — and goes far beyond the misery for others professed by the Nazis;

2. Zionism undermines civic loyalty among its adherents in other countries in a way that other nationalist movements and even ultra-nationalist movements like Nazism did not — e.g., a large majority of American Jews, including those who are not openly dual citizens, espouse a form of political bigamy called "dual loyalty" to Israel & the US that is every bit as dishonest as marital bigamy, attempts to finesse the precedence they give to Israel over the US lots of Rahm Emanuels out there who served in the IDF but NOT in the US armed forces , and has absolutely no parallel in the sense of national or cultural identity espoused by any other definable ethnic or racial group in America — even the Nazi Bund in the US disappeared once Germany and the US went to war, with almost all of its members volunteering for the US armed forces;

3. The "enemy" of normal nationalist movements is the occupying power and perhaps its allies, and once independence is achieved, normal relations with the occupying power are truly the norm, but for Zionism almost everyone out there is an actual or potential enemy, differing only in proximity and placement on its very long list of enemies which is now America's target list ; and

4. Almost all nationalist movements including the irredentist and secessionist variants intend to create an independent state from a population in place or to reunite a separated people like the Sudeten Germans in the 1930s — it is very rare for it to include the wholesale displacement of another indigenous population, which is far more common of successful colonialist movements as in the US — and perhaps a reason why most Americans wouldn't care too much about what the Israelis are doing to the Palestinians even if they DID know about it, is because that is no different than what Europeans in North America did to the Indians/Native Americans here in a longer & more low-tech fashion.

The implications of this for Middle East peace prospects, and for other countries in thrall to their domestic Jewish lobbies or not, are chilling. The Book of Deuteronomy come to life in a state with a nuclear arsenal would be enough to give pause to anyone not bought or bribed into submission — which these days encompasses the US Government, given Israel's affinity for throwing crap into the face of the Obama administration and Obama's visible affinity for accepting it with a smile, Bibi Netanyahu's own "Uncle Tom" come to Washington.

The late General Moshe Dayan, who — Zionist or not — remains an honored part of my own Pantheon of military heroes, allegedly observed that Israel's security depended on its being viewed by others as a mad dog. He may have been correct. But he neglected to note that the preferred response of everyone else is to kill that mad dog before it can decide to go berserk and bite. It is an option worth considering.

*Alan Sabrosky Ph.D, University of Michigan is a ten-year US Marine Corps veteran and a graduate of the US Army War College. He can be contacted at docbrosk@comcast.net

The editors of David Ben Gurion’s diaries expressed their bewilderment at his lack of interest in the military campaigns in April 1948. Israel’s first prime minister 1 was preoccupied with internal political matters, such as the new state’s relationship with Zionist bodies abroad, as if the fate of the state depended on them. His diaries do not even hint at an "imminent catastrophe" and certainly do not convey the impression that Israel faced a "second holocaust", terms he used frequently in his public speeches and addresses 2 .

In inner circles Ben Gurion spoke very differently. At the beginning of the month, at a special meeting of the secretariat of MAPAI the leading party , he listed proudly the names of the Palestinian villages already occupied by the Hagana and the other Jewish paramilitary groups. In a long speech, he explained that the next objectives of the military effort would be Haifa and Jaffa. In his words, these principal urban centres were "islands" in the midst of a Jewish sea. They were not islands, and calling them that diminished their spatial span; they encompassed more than 100,000 people, and many thousands more lived in their hinterlands. The process I call "urbicide" destruction of urban space and expulsion of its residents , happened that April and ended with the forced departure of more than 200,000 Palestinians from their homes up and down the land. Another 70,000 urban Palestinians were expelled from Ramallah and Lydda in July 1948.

There are still Palestinians living in Haifa so, in that sense, the urbicide failed. However, they live in perceived islands within the city, surrounded by a Jewish sea threatening to engulf them. The ideology remains intact, partly because Israel’s Jewish majority is in denial about what happened in April 1948, refusing to acknowledge its cruelty, inhumanity and suffering.

The fate of Haifa was sealed on 10 March 1948 when a small group of Zionist leaders and generals decided on ethnic cleansing for those parts of Palestine they deemed to be part of the future Jewish state. After a very long period of deliberation, they finalised their master plan: Plan Dalet, or Plan D. The group that prepared the plan was well-known in the Israeli pantheon: David Ben Gurion, Israel Galili, Yigal Yadin, Yigal Allon and Ben Gurion’s experts on Arab affairs, such as Ezra Danin and Gad Machnes. The cleansing began in February 1948 before the final articulation of the plan. The initial villages targeted included Qaisriya and al-Burj, 35km south of Haifa. Their inhabitants were easily driven out, and this relative ease encouraged Ben Gurion to extend the cleansing to the urban space of Palestine as a whole.

Kill every Arab

The decision of the Arab governments not to risk a direct clash with the British Mandate authority, and their hope that a military operation would be averted by a new UN initiative, sealed the fate of Haifa and the other towns. When they did finally enter Palestine, unprepared militarily and in disarray due to fundamental strategic differences between the various armies, they could do nothing about the towns already destroyed. When they were defeated after a few months of fighting, the rest of what became the Jewish state was ethnically cleansed by the Israeli army.

Haifa’s Jewish mayor, Shabtai Levi, tried to convince Palestinians to stay, even promising them they would be safe. This is not as bizarre as it may sound. Not everyone at the national level, let alone at the municipal level, knew about the Dalet plan. Levi possessed no authority over the army or Ben Gurion’s men. Many Jews in the community as a whole did not know the reality or the plans.

However, the officer in charge of the Carmeli brigade, Mordechai Maklef, was more important at that moment than Levi. Maklef, who would become the third Israeli chief of staff, orchestrated the operation and gave orders to his troops in the Palestinian neighbourhoods which, according to official Israeli records, were already empty of the Palestinians who had "left voluntarily" . The Hagana Archives recorded: "When the bombardment of the neighbourhoods is concluded, troops will attack fiercely and aggressively and kill every Arab they meet. I am sending you flammable devices as well. You should burn every flammable object. I am sending you sappers with kits for breaking into houses" 3 .

Adherence to these orders within the small area in which thousands of Palestinians lived produced panic. Without leadership, without any proper defence or any agency responsible for law and order the British army’s responsibility , the people began a massive exodus; an instinctive, hasty departure, leaving personal and household possessions behind. The masses surged towards the port, hoping to find a ship that would take them away from the city. The moment they left, their houses were pillaged.

By 22 April the streets near the port were jammed with desperate people looking for refuge and safety. Local leadership, trying to organise the refugees, steered them towards the marketplace where, it was hoped, they could wait until an orderly transfer to the port was arranged. The official Brigade book of the Carmeli, published years later, did not try to conceal what had happened then: "In the early hours of the morning Maxi Cohen commander of a battalion informed the Brigade’s HQ that the Arabs were using a loudspeaker and calling upon everyone to concentrate in the market place 'because the Jews have occupied Stanton Street and continue to descend towards downtown’. When this information reached the commander of the artillery unit, Ehud Alma was ordered to operate the three-inch mortars stationed near the Rothschild Hospital, and bombard the marketplace. And indeed masses of people congregated. When the bombardment commenced, and shells fell into the market, panic struck everyone. The masses broke into the harbour, pushing away the policemen who guarded the gate, stormed the boats and began escaping from the city."

Preempt the return

Eviction was immediately followed by architectural destruction, another important aspect of urbicide. Destruction was meant to reinforce the "Jewish character" of the city and pre-empt the return of those expelled. That is why Haifa’s eastern market was demolished. The market was the temporary shelter for the masses and a convenient target for the Carmeli’s artillery. It was an Ottoman architectural gem of white dressed stone. All that has remained is a small corner, named the Turkish Market by the new city administration.

The market was only a few hundred metres from the main port gate, the Palmer Gate. When the bombardment started, the panic-stricken mob broke through the gate into the harbour. People stormed the boats. An eyewitness report describes the events: "Men stepped on their friends and women on their own children. The boats in the port soon filled with living cargo. The overcrowding in them was horrible. Many turned over and sank with all their passengers."

By May 1948 officials of the Jewish Agency wrote to Ben Gurion that a golden opportunity had emerged to transform the Arab character of the city. All that was needed was for the new state to "demolish 227 houses" 4 . The prime minister postponed a final decision until his visit to Haifa, after which he added only one condition: demolish houses, but leave mosques intact.

Only some 2,000 of 75,000 Palestinians were left in Haifa. Their representatives were summoned on the evening of 1 July 1948 to the offices of the city’s military governor, Rehavam Zvalodovski later Rehavam Amir ; he ordered them to leave outlying areas by 5 July and move into the small, overcrowded and impoverished neighbourhood of Wadi Nisnas.

Leaders attending the meeting were shocked. Many belonged to the Communist Party, which supported partition and hoped that now that the fighting was over, they could begin normal life again. "I do not understand: is this a military command? Let us look at the condition of these people. I cannot see any reason, even a military one, that justifies such a move," protested Tawfiq Tubi, later a Communist MK member of Knesset . He ended: "We demand that the people will stay in their homes." Another participant, Bulus Farah, cried: "This is racism", and said the move was "ghettoising" the Palestinians of Haifa.

The frosty reaction of the Israeli military commander was clear. "I can see that you are sitting here and advising me, while you have been invited to listen to the orders of the High Command and to assist it. I am not involved in politics and do not deal in them. I am simply obeying orders: I am just carrying out orders, and I have to make sure this order is executed by July 5. If this is not done, I will do it myself. I am a soldier."

That was not the end of the trials and tribulations of those left behind. After moving to Wadi Nisnas the survivors became refugees in their own city, witnessed daily pillages of their properties and submitted to frequent abuse by the Jewish soldiers. The abusers belonged mainly to the Irgun and the Stern Gang, but there were also Hagana members among them. Ben Gurion criticised this kind of behaviour but did very little to stop it.

Collectively forgotten

What has remained from this in the Israeli-Jewish collective memory? Nothing. Perhaps one day a different history of this cynicism will be written, and will include other descriptions, such as the one from Ben Gurion’s diary, written after visiting the deserted and empty city of Haifa: "A dying city, a city of corpses. Warehouses, shops, small and big houses, old and new, without a living person in them apart from stray cats: how did tens of thousands leave in such a panic their city, homes and fortunes? What made them flee? Was it only an order from above? It is impossible to think that such rich people, and there were very rich people here, the richest in the country so they say, left all their capital just because they were ordered to by someone. Was it indeed only fear?" 5 .

The cynicism did not end there. On 14 May 1948 Ben Gurion pronounced Israel’s Declaration of Independence: "We call upon the sons of the Arab People, the inhabitants of the state of Israel, to keep the peace and take part in the building of the state on the basis of full and equal citizenship." By that time the urbicide of Palestine, and that of Haifa, was already a fait accompli.

In 2009 in Haifa, that urbicide is still denied and repressed. But its ghosts return to haunt the present-day City of Co-existence where a Feast of all Feasts is celebrated every year as if the pre-1948 harmony had never been interrupted by the horrific events of 1948.

This hypocrisy should be challenged daily. Not just to set straight the historical record, but so that a basis for a genuine reconciliation in the present can be built. This involves constant engagement with the urbicide, without repressing or ignoring its most disturbing chapters. It is important to remember the facts, to record the details – out of sight of the majority of Israeli Jews. I was born in 1954 in Haifa, and all my adult scholarly life, I have been attempting, without much success, this kind of engagement.

Descriptions like mine are immediately rebutted with a pre-constructed ethos of heroism in the face of Arab barbarism, charged with images of past and future holocausts and emboldened by mythologies such as those of David and Goliath. The collective memory in today’s Israel views the war as beginning on 15 May 1948. Everything that happened before is said to belong to the relatively uneventful Mandate period.

Haifa, like Jaffa, was home to the political, cultural and economic elite. Its institutions served the people as a political compass and locus of its social consciousness. When in the 19th century urban notables replaced rural chieftains as the aristocracy, it happened in Haifa and Jaffa. This is where a new cosmopolitan bourgeoisie emerged, holding the keys for a successful fusion of tradition and new ideas from the West. You could watch plays from the Arab world, listen to local and regional poetry, read Palestinian newspapers. People experienced the dramatic transformation of past into present, when in a very short period their large village of Haifa became a town, long before the rest of the countryside changed. This sense of being a gateway to new encounters, to dramatic changes, a hub of social, cultural and economic activity was squashed in April 1948. What was left in the collective Palestinian memory can be read in Ghassan Kanafani’s The Return to Haifa: a recognition of how deeply this cruelty was burnt into Palestinian consciousness.

The appearance of Zochrot, a Jewish NGO devoted to the importance of the nakba for Jewish society, promises that the effort of confronting the 1948 urbicide will continue. It will be difficult, mainly because the crime was perpetrated by mainstream Zionist leaders, representing pragmatism and moderation in the eyes of their own community and of the world. This Zionist pragmatism – politically found in the Labour Party for most of the state’s existence – was recently adopted by centrist parties like Kadima.

Their pragmatism is mainly territorial. There is, and was, a willingness to confine and limit the Jewish space inside Palestine, provided it not be endangered by any significant presence of Palestinians. This is seen as pragmatic since the rightwing parties demand the whole of mandatory Palestine, and some talk openly of expelling the Palestinians or getting rid of Palestinian areas. The protagonists of pragmatism follow the dictum coined by Shimon Peres, the current president of Israel: maximum space, minimum Arabs maximum shetah, minimum aravim .

The events of 1948 are a point on a continuum which began in 1882 and has lasted to this day: the translation of these pragmatic ideas into real policies has meant that the Palestinians of Haifa did not only experience the expulsion of 1948, but remain under threat of another ethnic cleansing should they be deemed to endanger the demographic majority of Jews in Israel, or should they over-identify with Palestinian nationalism that refuses to accept the Jewish state.

The past does not only send messages of doom and fear. The social texture of Haifa today is proof that the pragmatic polices did not work fully everywhere. Haifa maintains a Palestinian population and Arab features not because the Zionist movement did not wish to erase both the people and the nature of the city, but because of the resilience of those Palestinians who stayed on and those who joined them later from the Galilee. There is today a small community whose presence is growing. This is not the mixed town of Haifa at the time of the Mandate, but it is also not the purely Jewish city that Ben Gurion had desired.

By Donald Macintyre in Haifa

The final moments of Rachel Corrie, the American peace activist crushed to death beneath a pile of earth and rubble in the path of an advancing Israeli army bulldozer, were described to an Israeli court by an eyewitness yesterday.

The parents of the 23-year-old, who was killed by the bulldozer in March 2003, were present to hear the harrowing account on the first day of hearings in a civil lawsuit they have brought against the state of Israel. The country has never acknowledged culpability over Ms Corrie's death.

Richard Purssell, a British activist with the pro-Palestinian International Solidarity Movement ISM , said he watched in horror as Ms Corrie was dragged four metres by the bulldozer moving forward at a "fast walking pace".

He told how her fluorescent orange jacket became invisible beneath a pile of earth churned up by the blade of the 56-tonne D9 Caterpillar machine. Mr Purssell explained that he and two other ISM volunteers had been summoned from the Rafah neighbourhood of Tel Sultan earlier in the day to help five activists prevent bulldozers from carrying out what they feared would be the demolition of Palestinian homes. The five, including Ms Corrie, were in the suburb of Hai Salaam, close to the border with Egypt.

Mr Purssell said the incident took place about 20 metres from the house of Dr Samir Nasrallah, a pharmacist well known to ISM activists, who often place themselves between Israeli forces and Palestinians to try to stop the Israeli military from carrying out operations. Ms Corrie climbed on to the earth mound being created in front of the bulldozer, with her feet just below the top of the pile.

"She is looking into the cab of the bulldozer," Mr Purssell recounted. "The bulldozer continues to move forward. Rachel turns to begin coming back down the slope ... As she nears the bottom of the pile, something happened to cause her to fall forward. The bull- dozer continues to move forward and Rachel disappeared from view. The bulldozer moves forward approximately another four metres before it stops." Mr Purssell, who works as a landscape gardener in the UK, said that before the bulldozer came to a stop, other activists started running towards her – as he himself did a few seconds later.

"I heard a lot of people shouting and gesturing to the bulldozer to stop," he told the court, adding that the bulldozer then "reversed back in the tracks it had made, in a straight line; Rachel is lying on the earth".

He said three ISM activists – Alice Coy, Greg Shnabel and Will Hewitt – rushed to adminster first aid. "They began to support her neck," he added. "They were holding her. She was still breathing. I did not get involved because I am not first aid trained." He insisted "everything that could be done was done" by the volunteers. Ms Corrie died of her injuries soon afterwards.

Asked in cross-examination by the state's attorney why Ms Corrie acted as she did by standing in front of the bulldozer, Mr Purssell said he did not know but could only speculate that "she didn't want the bulldozer to go any nearer Dr Samir's home".

Ms Corrie's parents, Craig and Cindy, from Olympia in Washington state, have brought their civil action in part to challenge the military's account of their daughter's death. Israel claims its troops were not to blame and the bulldozer driver did not see her or run her over deliberately, even though witnesses insist she was clearly visible.

Within weeks of her death, the Israel Defence Forces accused Ms Corrie and the ISM of behaviour that was "illegal irresponsible and dangerous". In 2004, Lawrence Wilkerson, an aide to the then US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, wrote to the Corries saying Israel had failed to carry out the "thorough, credible, and transparent" investigation promised at the time by Israel's Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon.

The Corries' attorney, Hussein Abu Hussein, claimed before the hearing began that the troops "acted in violation of both Israeli and international law prohibiting the targeting of civilians, and the disproportionate use of force against non-violent protest with blatant disregard to human lives".

Mr Corrie said the family had been seeking justice for seven years. "I think when the truth comes out about Rachel, the truth will not wound Israel, the truth is the start of making us heal."

His wife said they were still waiting for an open investigation. "I just want to say to Rachel that our family is here today trying to just do right by her, and I hope she will be very proud of the effort we are making," she added.

In 2008 Netanyahu announced during his election campaign that he plans to 'weave an economic peace alongside the political process which will give a stake in peace for the moderate elements in the Palestinian society'. 1 Since its election, the Netanyahu government has made “economic peace” central to its policies in the West Bank. This is not a coincidence. At a time when Palestinian civil society and grass roots solidarity groups are calling for an economic war on Israel, the Apartheid State has waged economic peace in order to undermine its efforts by seeking normalization with Palestinian and Arab businesses as well as Palestinian and Arab leaders. In order to understand what Israel is offering and the kind of trapping that has been laid out for Arab and Palestinian investors, we must first take a look at Israel’s history of economic manipulation.

Contrary to all the hype that surrounds economic peace, it is important to acknowledge the fact that it represents more of the same old policies Israel has pursued in the Occupied Territories for decades. Since 1967, Israel has faced the same dilemma it does today; annex Gaza and the West Bank and form one geo-political and economic unit, one State and integrating the Palestinian population into Israeli society; or comply with international law and withdraw from the territories occupied and later have two political and economic units, two states, one Palestinian and one Israeli living side by side. Since 1967, Israeli politicians have chosen neither option. They wanted the land and the resources but not the people. So instead, they’ve opted for a course that falls somewhere in between. The Israeli government decided upon limited economic integration and practical elimination of the Green Line. [2 This was the beginning of Moshe Dayan’s Open Door Policy – an older version of what is today Netanyahu’s Economic Peace. Dayan’s policies were based on the assumption that close economic dependency would prevent Palestinians from contesting Israeli occupation by force. 3

To foster this economic dependency, Israel isolated the West Bank and Gaza strip from the rest of the world. Palestinians in the OT were only allowed to trade with Israel and in limited amount of agricultural goods with Jordan . 4 Israel monopolized the Palestinian captive consumer market flooding it with Israeli goods and products and at the same time through various tariffs and regulations, it restricted the entry of Palestinian products into Israel. Palestinian workers were allowed to work in Israel as cheap laborers but they were not afforded many of the worker’s rights afforded to Israeli workers doing the same job. Israel also strangled the Palestinian economy by placing restrictions on investment in agricultural and industrial productions. For Palestinians who wished to build a factory or import equipment a permit from the Israeli military governor was needed but was rarely attained. Israel’s policies yielded clear results; between 1970-1993, Israel accounted for 90% of the West Bank and Gaza Strip’s exports, and 70% of their imports and became the major source of employment for Palestinians. Desperate for work Palestinians were willing to work on Israeli settlements and Industrial Zones in poor conditions in low paying jobs most of them earned 30-50% less than Israelis working in the same occupation and sector.

When the first intifada began, it should have served as a clear indication to Israel that economic dominance and control cannot dampen a people’s dreams of equality and nationhood. If anything, it was the poor conditions, the low pay, the lack of civil rights and the blatant double standards in dealing with the Palestinians that sparked the first intifada. And it was the first intifada that brought about what became known as the Oslo years. A new phase in Palestinian Israeli politics but not necessarily a better one.

Oslo was supposed to pave the way for reducing Palestinian economic dependency on Israel until the creation of a Palestinian state. The Palestinian National Authority was established and became responsible for the economic management of the OT starting in 1995. As part of its mandate, they were to create and implement policies related to industries, business, finance, employment and taxes amongst a long list of other things. But as time progressed, it became clear that economic management under the suffocating grip of occupation was not possible. The PA had no authority over the land they managed, its boarders, its air and its sea. With a few minor exceptions, all goods imported by the Palestinians were made to pass through Israeli controlled areas first and were subject to Israeli Custom Duties and Trade Policies. And as settlements grew at more than double their rate prior to Oslo, an Israeli policy of checkpoints, curfews and closures prevented Palestinian workers from accessing their jobs in Israel and from getting to and from their work places even within the territories. This lead to a decrease in Labor reliance on Israel but it meant an increase in Palestinian unemployment. Then came the apartheid wall separating farmers from their land, doctors from their clinics, teachers from their schools etc…While the Palestinian economy continued to disintegrate, territorial fragmentations worsened and unemployment and poverty increased.

Palestinians came face to face with Oslo’s failure. This was intensified during the second intifada, the destruction of Jenin, the confinement of Arafat the mayhem in Ramallah and the long list of corruption charges against the PA. It was against this backdrop that the Palestinians went to the polls in 2006 and voted Oslo out by voting Hamas in. The West and Israel boycotted the newly elected government but knew that they needed to reinvent their approach of pacifying the Palestinians through a system of economic dominance. It was then that Bush’s West Bank First Policy began. The underlying assumption of this policy is to reward so called “moderates” in the WB and engage them with promises of economic prosperity in hope that full stomachs will mean a tame population. This while punishing so called “extremists” in Gaza and crushing down resistance by means of economic boycott.

It was in this environment that Netanyahu’s idea of Economic Peace was born. His vision is based on the same assumption as Dayan’s open door policy of the late sixties, and Bush’s West Bank First policy a couple of years ago: Rewarding “moderates” who don’t protest the occupation while starving and making example of those who do. The most questionable aspect of Netanyahu’s plan is to develop "three or four" joint Israeli-Palestinian economic projects or as more commonly known industrial zones along the West Bank border area with the support of Egypt and Jordan.

There is nothing new about building Industrial Zones in the West Bank. In fact, there are already around 18 Israeli industrial zones in the OT and in most cases they are attached to Israeli colonies making them the economic engine of the settlement blocs. 5 It is important to recognize that Israeli Industrial Zones in OT are considered illegal under international law, but they are an attractive lure for Israeli businesses as they receive generous tax reductions from the government, and they deal with minimum environmental and labor regulations. This is one reason why they tend to house a large number of industries that deal with toxic materials and harmful waste. There are no proper checks to ensure Palestinian workers’ rights. So these industries exploit Palestinian workers who make less than one quarter that of what Israeli workers make. 6 Although Palestinian Workers are made to pay for membership in the Histadrut, they are not entitled to become members and are not represented in labor disputes.

Having established the reality of existing Industrial Zones let’s examine what we know about the new Industrial Zones that are coming into being under Netanyahu’s “economic peace” plan. Today, we are looking at the development of 3 or 4 new joint Palestinian Israeli industrial zones in the West Bank. The key words here are Joint Palestinian Israeli. This is significant to the BDS campaign because it introduces a new sinister twist to an already tragic tale. Products made in these Zones will have a “made in Palestine” stamp and therefore these zones will have an advantage that previous Israeli Industrial zones in the OT didn’t, they can now act as gateways to the Arab and World markets which have in the past rejected products made in the Israeli settlements.

The first and largest Joint Industrial Zone is being built near Jenin and it is predicted to be operational by 2011. According to a report by Shir Hever from Alternative Information Center in Jerusalem AIC 7 all of the new joint Industrial Zones will have a gate on the Palestinian side where Palestinian workers can come and go and another entrance on the Israeli side where the products go out into Israel for export or sales. Products from these zones can only be exported through Israeli companies. Hever reported that the zones are under strict security control and although they are built on Palestinian land, the security will not monitored by Palestinians but by private companies approved by Israel. Also, that all the Industrial Zones will be walled in by one side by the apartheid wall which is a violation of international law because according to a ruling at the International Court of Justice in the Hague using the wall for any purpose even if it were to help the Palestinians is considered collaboration in a war crime. What was most disturbing in Herver’s report was that the Palestinian worker’s salaries were already set at about 200 Euros/month and it had been decided already that Palestinian workers will not be allowed to join any labor unions. Finally, Herver reported that the companies which will operate in the Industrial Zones are not going to be Palestinian companies but are actually Israeli or international.

When Netanyahu first proposed “economic peace”, the PA was very critical. In March 2009 Saeb Erekat the chief Palestinian negotiator wrote in the Washington Post “Rather than ending the occupation, Netanyahu has proposed an "economic peace" that would seek to normalize and better manage it. Instead of a viable Palestinian state, his vision extends no further than a series of disconnected cantons with limited self-rule.” 8 Also, Salam Fayyad who is the Prime Minister of the PA and a former International Monetary Fund economist insisted that the conflict was a political one that required a political solution. His direct quote to Haaretz was "Even though I am an economist by profession and I appreciate the importance of the economy very much, the solution is not to be found in money or in industrial zones. I am interested not in redefining the occupation but in ending the occupation." 9

Yet the reality on the ground is telling us a different story. While the PA seemingly refuses to “talk” with the Israelis until they see a settlement freeze, we are seeing reports of monthly Joint Economic Committee meetings between Israeli Vice Prime Minister and Minister for Regional Development Silvan Shalom and the Palestinian Minister for National Economy Bassem Khoury. 10 We are also hearing from the Israelis success stories of Palestinian Israeli joint business ventures. This raises many questions in the minds of Palestinians and justice advocates everywhere. The Palestinian Authority needs to address these questions: Will these joint economic ventures help the Palestinians or will they “redefine the occupation” with a “made in Palestine label”? How much jurisdiction will the Palestinians have over the Industrial Zones? Will Palestinians have open-free access to import and export outlets airport, seaport, and land borders ? Do we risk legalizing the presence of Israeli industry on Palestinian occupied land? Do we risk sacrificing the rights and dignity of our working class by denying them worker’s rights and memberships in labor unions?

The Palestinian Authority needs to be accountable not only to its wealthy class of Palestinian investors and would-be profiteers, but to all Palestinians especially those who linger in the refugee camps, and who will be exploited as disposable cheap laborers. The need for economic viability and job creation in the West Bank, and the excitement of the private sector over the idea of building a strong Palestinian economy can be understood, but how much do Palestinians stand to lose when our policies are no better than those of our occupiers.

Palestinian Civil Society was clear in its calls for justice and equality through the implementation of a global Boycott Divestment and Sanctions campaign against Israel, a campaign that is gaining great momentum. Arab and Palestinian normalization of business relations with Israel and trading Palestinian legitimate rights for short-term economic gains that will only benefit a select class will no doubt undermine these efforts.

- Samah Sabawi is a writer playwright and poet. She was born in Gaza and is currently residing in Melbourne Australia. She contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com.

Notes:

[1] “Netanyahu: Economics, not politics, is the key to peace” Raphael Ahren. Haaaretz Nov 21, 2008.

[2] “Israeli Policy towards the Occupied Palestinian Territories: The Economic Dimension, 1967-2007.” Arie Arnon The Middle East Journal

[3] “A Palestinian View: repeating old mistakes” Ghassan Khatib. Bitterlemons.org Septmeber 3, 2007.

[4] “The Palestinian Economy and the Oslo “Peace Process" by Leila Farsakh Research fellow at the Trans-Arab Research Institute, Boston.

[5] Industrial Zones and Israel’s Colonial Strategy Fact Sheet Canadians for Peace and Justice in the Middle East.

[6] Although an Israeli Supreme Court recently ruled that Palestinian settlement workers are entitled to the Israeli minimum wage, the Israeli Ministry of Industry has claimed that this ruling does ‘not expand to the criminal enforcement of the state’.

[7] Shir Hever from Alternative Information Center in Jerusalem AIC .

[8] “Israel’s Step Back From Peace” The Washington Post March 2009.

[9] “Palestinian PM: Settlement building will destroy peace process” By Akiva Eldar, Haaretz Correspondent 18/11/2008.

[10] Permanent Mission of Israel to the United Nations Press Release Israel-Palestinian joint economic committee convenes.