Avigdor Lieberman Fails to Understand Importance of Borders

BBSNews 2009-06-19 -- By Michael Hess. It's official, Israel has claimed that illegal "settlements" are not an obstacle to a fair and just peace for Palestinians and Israelis.

"It's very clear that ... the settlements ... (are) an excuse for those that tried to avoid any peace talks," he said.

Israel's Foreign Minister has now declared in public what people who are called "activists" or "internationals" have been trying to explain to the world for many years.

The State of Israel fully expects to be allowed to expand beyond its borders and take land and resources that are not theirs.

Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed the FM's stance in his "historic" answer to US President Barack Hussein Obama when he said:

"[W]e have no intention of building new settlements or of expropriating additional land for existing settlements."

Note the "expropriating." This is an admission. Note the "additional." This is also another admission.

What it reveals is that Israel is no different than the people it is "fighting." Israel wants all the land and resources, but just not the people.

The Palestinians.

They were there too back in the day. They have their legitimate and international protected rights that the State of Israel has signed onto.

Nakba denial is no less heinous than Holocaust denial.

When the mass of Americans who are in the dark about all this learn the truth there is certain to be a radical realignment.

The question is, when Al Jazeera English is finally beamed into American cable, and the truth becomes known, how will it manifest itself?

If Israel thought America could stomach an attack on Iran before the Iranian elections what are the chances now that they will countenance an attack when there is evidence of a very vibrant and agitated populace of Iran who wants change?

US: Transfer of Uighurs to Bermuda a Positive Step Toward Closing Guantanamo

BBSNews 2009-06-14 -- Washington, DC (HRW) – The transfer of four Uighur detainees from Guantanamo Bay to Bermuda is a positive step toward closing the prison, but does not eliminate the need for the United States to resettle some detainees on its soil, Human Rights Watch said today. The vote by the US Congress today to block funding for the resettlement of detainees in the United States undermines those efforts, Human Rights Watch said.

"The prospects for these men would be better near other Uighurs in the US or Europe," said Stacy Sullivan, counterterrorism adviser at Human Rights Watch. "But getting them out of prison and offering them a chance for a normal life are the first priority and the right thing to do."

Human Rights Watch called on the United States to work with Bermuda to ensure that the men's families are allowed to join them, and that they are provided with reintegration assistance, including housing, job training, and medical care, if needed. It also urged Washington to leave open the possibility that the men could be resettled in the United States in the future and called on European nations to make good on promises to help resettle additional Guantanamo detainees who cannot be sent to their home countries.

The four Uighurs, members of an oppressed Turkic minority from western China, were flown from Guantanamo Bay to Bermuda on June 11, 2009. They are among nearly 50 Guantanamo detainees, including 13 other Uighurs, that have been cleared for release or transfer but cannot return to their home countries due to credible fears of persecution or ill-treatment. Human Rights Watch urged the United States to transfer the remaining Uighurs for resettlement on US soil.

According to several media reports, the United Kingdom criticized Bermuda, a self-governing British overseas territory, for not consulting with London before agreeing to accept the Uighur detainees, claiming that their resettlement raised security concerns.

Human Rights Watch urged the British government not to interfere with the Uighur resettlement in Bermuda.

"The Uighurs have endured political oppression in China and seven years of imprisonment at Guantanamo," Sullivan said. "If the United Kingdom is serious about helping the United States close Guantanamo, it should applaud this step, not hinder it."

European states have said that they were willing to help US President Barack Obama in his efforts to close the Guantanamo prison by agreeing to accept some of the detainees and, earlier this month, the European Union adopted an information-sharing agreement to facilitate the resettlement process. However, they have been reluctant to take in detainees until the United States agrees to resettle some of the men itself.

It was widely reported earlier this year that the United States planned to resettle several of the Uighur detainees in the United States. Those efforts were shelved, however, in light of Congress's efforts to pass legislation blocking Guantanamo detainees from being transferred to the United States on grounds that they presented a terrorist threat.

"Congress's exaggerated claims of a threat posed by bringing a few wrongfully imprisoned Guantanamo detainees to the US are blatant fear-mongering," Sullivan said. "These men don't pose a threat to national security – but keeping Guantanamo open does."

More of Human Rights Watch's work on Guantanamo detainees is available online.

Changes "natural growth" to the kinder and gentler, "normal life"

BBSNews 2009-05-28 -- By Michael Hess. In response to the latest strongly worded demand by the Obama administration through US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that all "settlements must stop", Israel issued a one-finger response and a phrase change.

The term formerly most used to describe existing illegal Israeli "settlements" and their expansion was "natural growth". But in light of the very strong directive from the US to Israel, the Israeli spokesperson Mark Regev has shifted the term to "normal life" - presumably to foster sympathy for the "plight" of those Israeli families who want to have their adult children live in the "settlements" with them. Regev said in answer to the toughest US policy statement since Bush senior, "As to existing settlements, their fate will be determined in final status negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. In the interim period, normal life must be allowed to continue in these communities."

In most other countries in the world, when an illegal squatter takes residence in or on another persons property or land, they usually face the full force of the law; at the very least they will be forced to vacate.

In Israel, the squatter is called a "settler". They live on land stolen from the indigenous Palestinians in 1967. There have been repeated UN resolutions regarding this matter, from the very birth of Israel in 1948, starting with UNGA resolution 194.

In Israel normal laws do not apply. "Settlers" are a protected class of land and resource thieves. The "settler" enterprise is draining Israel of any humanity and reducing the state to a racist and self-isolated entity intent on racial purity.

During the press gaggle after the first meeting, US President Barack Hussein Obama made it quite clear, "... I shared with the prime minister the fact that under the road map, under Annapolis, there is a clear understanding that we have to make progress on settlements; that settlements have to be stopped..."

On Wednesday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said, "...Not some settlements, not outposts, not natural growth exceptions. We think it is in the best interest of the effort that we are engaged in that settlement expansion cease..."

On Thursday, President Obama made it clear once again during his meeting with Mahmoud Abbas, "In my conversations with Prime Minister Netanyahu, I was very clear about the need to stop settlements, to make sure that we are stopping the building of outposts..."

But the Racism Keeps Coming: Nakba to become a crime?

Israel is moving ahead with plans for a new law that will make acknowledging The Nakba a crime punishable with up to three years in jail. This makes a mockery of laws in various locations around the world where Holocaust denial is a crime. Israel, as in so many other ways, moves the other direction; they are going to label the acknowledging of the historical event The Nakba as a punishable offense, even as many countries have laws that punish the denial of the Holocaust.

It would be far more productive if Israel would mount an educational effort to teach its people that the creation of Israel in 1948 was unfortunately for hundreds of thousands of the current inhabitants who faced ethnic cleansing and the destruction of more than 450 villages, a catastrophe. It's just an historical fact that cannot be denied or explained away. Making a law against acknowledging a traumatic historical event, The Nakba, is a tragic reflection on how Israel views itself.