FREE SPEECH – Use It or Lose It

It looks like Iran’s holocaust conference worked like a charm!

People all over the world are gathering to discuss the controversy.

But, once again, those who ‘hate our freedoms’ make themselves known.

Held on April 17-19 at the University of Teramo in central Italy, the event gathered historians, journalists, lawyers and writers to analyze Holocaust denial.A UCEI press release slammed the conference, entitled “The gag history” and part of a master’s degree on Middle East issues, expressing their “bitterness and concern for how the media ignored the event.”

Lecturers included renowned historians and representatives of the extreme right wing organisations, along with fiercely anti-Zonisti personalities from the far left.

Professor Claudio Moffa, a speaker at the seminar, responded by condemning the “media’s slander, the economical damage, the judicial persecution and the professional ostracism imposed on those historians who are considered to be negationist”.

Entry Denied

Speakers included Robert Faurisson, a leading personality among those who deny the Holocaust, who gave his contributions to the seminar via a video conference as he has been denied entry in Italy because of his negationist views.

Notice that according to the Union of Italian Jewish Communities (UCEI), Italians are not “anti-democratic” for denying one human being the right to assemble with other human beings, but are “anti-democratic” for allowing Italians to do it!

On his personal blog website Faurisson published a series of documents on the “Jewish exploitation of the Holocaust” alongside some solidarity email messages he received which slam UCEI’s communiqué as “a sign of the strong Jewish lobby in Italy”.According to UCEI’s president, Renzo Gattegna, “what has really surprised us is the fact that accredited historians who may have historical views and analyses we do not share, but whom we know have nothing to do with negationist lies decided to take part in this initiative, thus legitimating racist political and anti-democratic positions.”

I can see how these people might erroneously label misgivings about the official Holocaust narrative as being “racist” given that it involves a particular group of people (i.e., Jews) – even though we all know Zionists are NOT Jews.

BUT, how in the hell can peaceful assembly to “analyze” the controversy be characterized as “anti-democratic???”

Let’s face it, these people aren’t upset that it’s “racist” or “anti-democratic” to “analyze” the holocaust.

THEY ARE UPSET THAT PEOPLE ARE AWAKENING to discover what FREE SPEECH is all about.

USE IT or LOSE IT

THAT is what it’s about.

Now, go out there and USE IT before it’s too late!

Source: WakeUpFromYourSlumber.

The Israel Prize scandal

The Israel Prize this year was a scandal. Had I been sitting in the hall at the Jerusalem Theater and not watching the award ceremony on television (Channel 1, Tuesday, 19:25), I am not certain that I wouldn’t have stood up and shouted at the panel of dignitaries, never mind how common it might have sounded: “Where are the Mizrahi ethnic groups” (referring to Jews with origins in the Muslim countries), or: “Where are the Sephardim?”This isn’t a demand for reverse discrimination, but rather for fairness and reasonableness, because how can it be possible that in the 15 prize categories not a single place was found for a worthy candidate who is not Ashkenazi? And if so, what does this say about us – a country that has pretenses to equality – if among the more than half of the population that comes from the countries of Asia and Africa (as the statistical bulletins put it), there is not a single person who is worthy of receiving the Israel Prize, and there is no one whose life’s work is worthy of note and has contributed something to the state?

What should concern an individual who takes the messages of this important official prize seriously is not only that the cultural and academic elite in Israel, 59 years after its founding, is still purely Ashkenazi, but rather that the official institutions and personages responsible for and in charge of the prize did not find anything wrong in that it is given only to unsere – that is, to one of “us” Europeans or to people born in this country whose parents came from Europe.

I did not see, for example, that this bothered the socialist Education Minister Yuli Tamir, who sat at the end of the podium and looked to be thoroughly enjoying herself during the ceremony. Of all those who were sitting there, it seems to me that the prize and its significance should have been the most obvious to her from the ministerial perspective, but also from the personal perspective. And now, the message transmitted by the education minister on this Independence Day was that she has no problem with the fact that most of the country’s population would feel alienated by and unconnected to this ceremony. And the implication was that it will feel alienated and disassociated in the long term, as though it does not belong to this country at all.Section 2 of this scandal was the thank-you speech in the name of all the recipients of the prize, which was delivered by the former president of the Manufacturers Association, Dov Lautman. Lautman chose to say things about the importance of education in Israel, and about the need to invest in it for the sake of the future. All of this was said at the time of a prolonged strike by university students and at high schools, which is part of a struggle against astronomical tuition fees that is threatening to make mincemeat of the current academic year. Is this what Lautman was referring to in his speech? No, he was talking about the education of children. The people who are able to solve the crisis with the students sat behind the table on stage and applauded him, perhaps out of gratitude that he didn’t mention this distressing issue.

Altogether, I have grave doubts as to whether it is at all educational to choose men of finance for the Israel Prize. The prize, after all, is awarded to honor exceptional knowledge and research, for devoting one’s life to a scientific, artistic or national goal, without thought of material profit. And business people are rewarded in any case by the sale of their products. Moreover, if my memory is not playing tricks on me, at Lautman’s Delta factories the greater part of the production is not done on Israeli soil.

But in the atmosphere of the pursuit of lucre, which is represented by the prime minister himself, who sat at the center of the table, it is easy to understand how rich people, however veteran and involved they may be, rise to the level of national heroes and win the right to sit in the same place as author S.Y. Agnon, for example, who was one of the first winners of the prize (and even won it twice).

Section 3 of the Israel Prize scandal is the puzzle of why they decided to award two prizes for architecture and another prize for design in a single year, which means three prizes in almost identical fields. Did Israeli architecture (or design) have special achievements this year that justify this unexpected homage to the profession? No, because Israel is one of the ugliest countries in the world when it comes to both public and private construction, with respect to the lack of harmony between the building and the environment, with respect to the nouveau-riche taste and with respect to the rapid degeneration of structures because of the use of cheap building materials. As for design, there is no discipline that equals it in the acute expression of the spirit of the times, a spirit of dealing with images, with packaging and with the presentation of things at the expense of the substance and the truth – and also often at the expense of art.

Last on the list of elements that made the evening a scandal is the need, which has become automatic, for every respectable ceremony in our country to be accompanied by Hebrew song, a performance by a group of instrumentalists and “the dance.” The source of this, no doubt, is what used to be called, at public cultural evenings, an “artistic program.” But what connection is there between the laureates of the prize – some of whom wore skullkaps, and many of whom were close to 80 – and the performance by Alon Oleartchick, for example, with a glittering and wailing maiden, who bared her legs? Or the ballet troupe that suddenly burst forth from somewhere and capered before everyone in scanty lace underpants? Or the Hakol Over Habibi group? What would have been wrong, during this serious event, with a chamber trio or quartet playing a piece by Schubert, say? Alas, it is not certain that the state will be ready for a daring program like that – even in its 100th year.

Source: Haaretz.com.

Racism Against Hispanics Among U.S. Army Lines

The commander of New Mexico’s National Guard is demanding an apology from the Army brass after dozens of his soldiers in a mostly Hispanic unit were ordered to strip to their gym shorts and searched for gang tattoos while on duty in Kuwait.

Army officials said the searches last May of 58 New Mexico National Guardsmen in a unit called Task Force Cobra were proper and legal.

But Brig. Gen. Kenny Montoya, head of the state National Guard, said he believes ethnicity played a role in the episode — the unit is 55 percent Hispanic.

“I said something wrong was done there, and it was because of race, and I want to make sure it will not happen again,” Montoya said.

The search, in which the soldiers were ordered to take off their shirts, shoes and socks and then were looked over for tattoos, was prompted by an unsubstantiated allegation from a soldier in another unit who complained about gang activity among soldiers in Kuwait.

At the time, several members of Task Force Cobra objected that the searches were racially motivated, and within days, Montoya asked his Army bosses to apologize. When that didn’t happen, Montoya wrote an apology and had that read and posted at their barracks.

Montoya, in a June 1 letter to Gen. Peter Schoomaker in the office of the Army chief of staff, said the unit “was racially targeted and illegally searched for body tattoos just because the unit consists of a large number of Hispanic-surnamed soldiers. An Army CID agent without any credible evidence, and armed only with information about an individual soldier from a different base and in a different unit, made a decision to target my unit.”

“All I asked was that someone with equal rank to me would go over to these great Americans and apologize — this still has not been accomplished.”

After the Albuquerque Journal reported the incident this week, New Mexico’s congressional delegation demanded that acting Army Secretary Pete Geren order a full investigation. Gov. Bill Richardson, the nation’s only Hispanic governor and a Democratic presidential hopeful, said he supports an investigation into the “degrading searches.”

The New Mexico chapter of the League of United Latin American Citizens also expressed outrage.

“This is no way to treat our troops that are sacrificing their lives for the cost of our freedom. Racial profiling is reprehensible and should not be condoned,” said Paul A. Martinez, the group’s executive director.

The issue affected everyone in the unit, Hispanic or not, Montoya said. “They’re all brothers in arms. Most had come out of Iraq, where they were in immediate danger.”

The incident began after a Chicago Sun-Times article quoted Army Reserve Sgt. Jeffrey Stoleson of the 127th Infantry at Camp Navistar, Kuwait, about alleged gang activity among troops.

Stoleson, a corrections officer in civilian life, complained he was “tired of serving and putting his life on the line with gang bangers,” Montoya said. Later, the sergeant told Army Criminal Investigation Division agents that a soldier with a Hispanic surname, Morales, in the 127th Infantry and unnamed soldiers in the 111th Air Defense Artillery — to which the security force Cobra belongs — had gang tattoos.

On May 25, CID agent Paul McGuire ordered the Guard members at Ali Al Salem Air Base, Kuwait, to checked for tattoos. The inspections quickly came to the attention of Montoya back in New Mexico. He telephoned up the chain of command; another round of searches set for the next day was stopped. When Montoya asked, he was told no other units were searched.

“The only tie with Morales was my guys were the only unit with 50 percent Hispanics,” the general said.

McGuire found no gang tattoos. A later investigation said Morales denied being a member of a gang and even explained the meaning of his tattoos.

The Army forbids extremist, racist, sexist or vulgar tattoos. Army regulations don’t specifically forbid gang membership, but do prohibit membership in any extremist organization.

Several members of the targeted unit were current or former police officers who would have picked up on any signs of gang activity, said Maj. Kenneth Nava, a spokesman for the New Mexico Guard.

Maj. Anne Edgecomb in the Army’s public affairs department in the Pentagon said in an e-mail Wednesday to The Associated Press that the Army had just received the congressional delegation’s letter calling for a full investigation and that no response had yet been sent.

“The U.S. Army, one of the most ethnically diverse organizations in our nation, provides equal opportunity to all our soldiers regardless of race, ethnicity or gender,” she said.

The Army’s inquiry to date has found the CID and officers of the 111th “approved and coordinated the plan” for searches. An attorney with the military’s Judge Advocate General said having soldiers remove their shirts to verify gang tattoos was legal.

Nava said that plans as described and plans as executed are not always the same.

The inquiry recommended discipline against three New Mexico soldiers who objected to the searches. Nava said those three were counseled, but there was no long-term discipline that would hurt their careers.

Source: newmexican.com.

EU warns of worsening situation in Palestinian territories

The EU Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid warned on Thursday that conditions were worsening in the Palestinian territories, and asked Israel to ease restrictions on movement.

“The humanitarian situation in the Palestinian territories is deteriorating a lot,” Louis Michel told a news conference as he continued the first leg of a regional tour.

“I remember when I came one year ago in the region, it was already awful and difficult, but now I think it is deteriorating.”

He said restrictions on movement that Israel imposed in the territories, citing security, were partly to blame.

“I show a very high concern for the security of Israel,” Michel said. “I know it is not an easy life to be under the danger of terror attacks… but at the same time when I see walls, when I see the fences and when I see the barriers, of course I can easily imagine it has very bad consequences on the daily life of the people in the Palestinian territories.”

“So my first concern… is to see how we can improve the access and the movement of the people.”

The Palestinian territories have been reeling from the effects of a ban on direct aid to the government that the European Union and the United States imposed a year ago, when the Islamist Hamas movement formed a cabinet.

The European Union, the largest donor of aid to the Palestinians, has since funnelled aid money through a special mechanism that bypasses the government, meaning that tens of thousands of civil servants have gone without full pay.

The direct aid ban has had “dramatic consequences, because… the salaries were not paid any more,” Michel said.

He also said an Arab peace proposal revived at a summit in Riyadh last month could “be a good opportunity to relaunch (peace) discussions.”

“This proposal can be useful if the Arab organisations can explain properly the content of the proposal and.. the aim of the proposal to the Israeli government,” he said.

Michel is due on Friday to continue a regional tour that will also take him to Jordan and Syria.

Source: Yahoo! News

U.K. May Borrow the U.S. 1st Amendment Because Americans Do Not Use It

Under the title of “U.S. media have lost the will to dig deep”, Greg Palast writes this article;

IN AN E-MAIL uncovered and released by the House Judiciary Committee last month, Tim Griffin, once Karl Rove’s right-hand man, gloated that “no [U.S.] national press picked up” a BBC Television story reporting that the Rove team had developed an elaborate scheme to challenge the votes of thousands of African Americans in the 2004 election.

Griffin wasn’t exactly right. The Los Angeles Times did run a follow-up article a few days later in which it reported the findings. But he was essentially right. Most of the major U.S. newspapers and the vast majority of television news programs ignored the story even though it came at a critical moment just weeks before the election.

According to Griffin (who has since been dispatched to Arkansas to replace one of the U.S. attorneys fired by the Justice Department), the mainstream media rejected the story because it was wrong.

“That guy is a British reporter who accepted some false allegations and made a story up,” he said.

Let’s get one fact straight, Mr. Griffin. “That guy” is not a British reporter. I am an American living abroad, putting investigative reports on the air from London for the British Broadcasting Corp.

I’m not going to argue with Rove’s minions about the validity of our reporting, which led the news in Britain. But I can tell you this: To the extent that it was ignored in the United States, it wasn’t because the report was false. It was because it was complicated and murky and because it required a lot of time and reporting to get to the bottom of it. In fact, not one U.S. newsperson even bothered to ask me or the BBC for the data and research we had painstakingly done in our effort to demonstrate the existence of the scheme.

The truth is, I knew that a story like this one would never be reported in my own country. Because investigative reporting — the kind Jack Anderson used to do regularly and which was carried in hundreds of papers across the country, the kind of muckraking, data-intensive work that takes time and money and ruffles feathers — is dying.

I’ve been through this before, too many times. Take this investigative report, also buried in the U.S.: Back in December 2000, I received two computer disks from the office of Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris. Analysis of the data, plus documents that fell my way, indicated that Harris’ office had purged thousands of African Americans from Florida’s voter rolls as “felons.” Florida now admits that many of these voters were not in fact felons. Nevertheless, the blacklisting helped cost Al Gore the White House.

I reported on the phony felon purge in Britain’s Guardian and Observer and on the BBC while Gore was still in the race, while the count was still on.

Yet the story of the Florida purge never appeared in the U.S. daily papers or on television. Until months later, that is, after the Supreme Court had decided the election, when it was picked up by the Washington Post and others.

U.S. papers delayed the story until the U.S. Civil Rights Commission issued a report saying our Guardian/BBC story was correct: Innocents lost their vote. At that point, protected by the official imprimatur, American editors felt it safe enough to venture out with the story. But by then, George W. Bush could read it from his chair in the Oval Office.

Again and again, I see this pattern repeated. Until there is some official investigation or allegation made by a politician, there is no story.

Or sometimes the media like to cover the controversy, not the substance, preferring an ambiguous and unsatisfying “he said, she said” report. Safe reporting, but not investigative.

I know some of the reasons why investigative reporting is on the decline. To begin with, investigations take time and money. A producer from “60 Minutes,” watching my team’s work on another voter purge list, said: “My God! You’d have to make hundreds of calls to make this case.” In America’s cash-short, instant-deadline world, there’s not much room for that.

Are there still aggressive, talented investigative reporters in the U.S.? There are hundreds. I’ll mention two: Seymour Hersh, formerly of the New York Times, and Robert Parry, formerly of the Associated Press, who uncovered the Iran-Contra scandal. The operative word here is “formerly.” Parry tells me that he can no longer do this kind of investigative work within the confines of a U.S. daily newsroom.

One of the biggest disincentives to doing investigative journalism is that it jeopardizes future access to politicians and corporate elite. During the I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby trial, the testimony of Judith Miller and other U.S. journalists about the confidences they were willing to keep in order to maintain access seemed to me sadly illuminating.

Expose the critters and the door is slammed. That’s not a price many American journalists are willing to pay.

It’s different in Britain. After the 2000 election, when Harris’ lawyer refused to respond to our evidence, my BBC producer made sure I chased him down the hall waving the damning documents. That’s one sure way to end “access.”

Reporters in Britain must adhere to extraordinarily strict standards of accuracy because there is no Bill of Rights, no “freedom of the press” to provide cover against lawsuits. Further, the British government fines reporters who make false accusations and jails others who reveal “official secrets.”

I’ve long argued that Britain needs a 1st Amendment right to press freedom. It could, of course, borrow ours. We don’t use it.

Source: LATimes.com

Olmert “hasty, faulty” in Lebanon war

An Israeli inquiry commission report to be presented on Monday says Ehud Olmert acted in a “hasty” manner during last summer’s war in Lebanon.

The Winograd Commission’s interim report which was broadcast by Israel’s Channel 10 Friday night said Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s decision-making was “faulty”, Defense Minister Amir Peretz lacked military knowledge and then Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Dan Halutz forced his decisions on the government. Despite the harsh nature of the long-awaited report, the Winograd Commission nevertheless reportedly refrains from calling on Olmert and Peretz to resign. Halutz resigned from his post in January. In regard to Olmert’s “hasty” and “faulty” decision-making process, the report also concludes that the prime minister was led by the army. Olmert, says the report, did not ask the Israeli Occupying Force (IOF) for alternatives and did not ask the questions expected of him. In addition, Olmert was unable to plan an end for the conflict.Halutz was especially singled out by the Commission, which reportedly states that he did not treat Hezbollah’s Katyusha (rocket) threat seriously. He not only forced his views on the government, but also silenced opposing views from within the general staff.According to Channel 10, Peretz’s lack of military and security experience were highlighted in the report. With that, the defense minister did not attempt to force his lack of military knowledge on the decision-making process.Source: Press TV.

I started another blog because this one Was down more than once

Due to the problems I am having in even entering my own blog, I am going to start a new blog to keep posting all the time and to keep revealing some truths that matter to all of us. From today on, I am going to double post my articles. I will post them in this blog and at the other one too. So if anytime you have a problem logging into this blog, try the other one. My new blog address is:

http://ahmedismailibrahim.blogspot.com/

Thank you for your time.

Division widening in US military

An army officer has published a report blaming US generals for botching the Iraq war and misleading the US congress about the situation there. “America’s generals have repeated the mistakes of Vietnam in Iraq. The intellectual and moral failures . . . constitute a crisis in American generals, “stated Lt. Col. Paul Yingling, Iraq veteran and deputy commander of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment.

His article, “General Failure”, featured in the US publication Armed Forces Journal, reflects conflicts of interest and divisions within the US military across the board.

This is the first time that charges of this magnitude have been made public by a US officer.

Most significant is his criticism aimed towards Generals and Lieutenants, charging the top brass of being incompetent in their leadership and executing war strategies.

“After going into Iraq with too few troops and no coherent plan for postwar stabilization, America’s general officer corps did not accurately portray the intensity of the insurgency to the American public,” he writes.

“For reasons that are not yet clear, America’s general officer corps underestimated the strength of the enemy, overestimated the capabilities of Iraq’s government and security forces and failed to provide Congress with an accurate assessment of security conditions in Iraq.”

Lt. Yingling did not get permission to publish this article, though he had made his superiors aware of it.

The article read by about 30 of his peers at the level of lieutenant colonel and below, has received unanimous approval.

His article is available at http://www.armedforcesjournal.com

HKT/KB

Source: Press TV.

Wolfowitz scandal harmed World Bank

World Bank officials have voiced deep concern over the impact to their work from the crisis surrounding the bank’s embattled chief Paul Wolfowitz. In a letter to Wolfowitz and the bank’s executive board, a group of 32 officials said they could no longer credibly implement the bank’s anti-corruption strategy.

The letter also called for a clear and decisive action to be taken.

It was the clearest sign yet that the controversy sparked by Wolfowitz’s approval of a promotion and a large pay increase for his female friend was affecting the bank’s operations around the globe.

“The credibility of our front line staff is eroding in the face of legitimate questions from our clients about the bank’s ability to ‘practice what it preaches’ on governance,” the letter said.

The letter follows calls by the bank’s staff association for Wolfowitz to step down over his handling of the promotion for Shaha Riza, before she was posted by the bank to the State Department because of their relationship.

In their letter, the group said the crisis was a critical test of the bank’s own commitment to good governance.

DB/DB

Source: Press TV.

Weekly Report on Human Rights Violations in The Occupied Palestinian Territory

Report, Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, 26 April 2007

Palestinian students hold a memorial for their classmate, Bushra Bargheesh who was killed the day before by Israeli special forces at her home in the Jenin Refugee Camp in the West Bank, April 23, 2007. (Raed Abu Baker/MaanImages)

Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) Continue Systematic Attacks on Palestinian Civilians and Property in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT)

Nine Palestinians, including two children, were killed by IOF in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

Four of the victims were extrajudicially executed by IOF.

Eighteen civilians were wounded by IOF gunfire in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

Thirteen of these civilians, including a journalist, four women and four international human rights defenders, were wounded when IOF used force to disperse a peaceful demonstration against the construction of the Annexation Wall in Bal’ein village near Ramallah.

Two children were wounded as a result of the explosion of a mysterious object of the remainders of IOF.

IOF conducted 30 incursions into Palestinian communities in the West Bank.

IOF arrested 44 Palestinian civilians, including eight children and a girl.

IOF transformed a Palestinian house into a military site.

IOF have continued to impose a total siege on the OPT.

IOF positioned at various checkpoints and border crossings in the West Bank arrested six Palestinian civilians.

IOF have continued settlement activities in the West Bank.

IOF demolished a house in occupied Jerusalem.

IOF demolished seven houses to the south of Hebron, rendering 48 Palestinians homeless.

Israeli settlers moved back to the evacuated “Homseh” settlement near Nablus.

Israeli settlers have continued to occupy a house in Hebron for the fifth consecutive week.

Read the full report: ElectronicIntifada.net