Ernesto Paramo - Abbas’s Presidential Guard fighting opposition to Israeli occupation

Three people were injured on Tuesday, following the deployment to the Jenin governorship last Saturday of a large PA military force, which included the US trained Presidential Guard, to squelch any resistance to the brutal and murderous Israeli occupation, in what has been called “Operation Smile and Hope”, a military operation which will encompass some 50 villages and towns.

The government of George W Bush has so far spent $28 million in training and equipment to make sure that Mahmoud Abbas is able to deliver his country and his people before the end of the year, as promised. This effort is considered vital if the US is going to be able to finalize a pace agreement by the end of the year between the Palestinian Authority and Israel.

However, many international observers are still trying to fathom out what kind of agreement could be reached when Hamas and Gaza are not part of the equation. Another fundamental point is the future of the Jewish settlements, illegal under International Law, not to mention that both Abbas and Olmert [and Bush] are very week, tarnished leaders with very little time available to them.

During Tuesday’s clashes, a 20-year-old student was critically injured by a bullet to the head, according to medical and security officials. In a different incident, two other people were shot in the legs. Islamic Jihad said that two of its fighters were among the injured.

The operation began before dawn with hundreds of Abbas’s security officers swamping the town of Qabatiyeh, just south of Jenin against a stronghold of armed groups such as Islamic Jihad that have sworn to fight the Israeli occupation. Exchanges of fire could be heard all morning as Abbas’s forces tried to take control, but it is still not clear if they have managed to make any progress.

According to a Western security source “This is a clear indication of the resolve by Prime Minister [Salam] Fayyad and President Abbas to show Israel and the West that they are the people to do business with.”

On the other hand, General Thiyab al-Ali, the Commander of the Palestinian Security Forces in the West Bank, has complained that not all the equipment promised for the Presidential Guard by the US administration has been delivered. This equipment includes bulletproof jeeps and other combat vehicles, which at the moment are being blocked by the Israelis.

The Israelis want to first make sure that this kind of equipment is secure and that it will not be used against them in the future.

In another development in Israel on Tuesday, police and prosecutors submitted a request to hear testimony from a non-Israeli witness, who is thought to be at the centre of an ever-growing scandal involving Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

At the end of last week, police asked to question Olmert at short notice. Ever since, newspapers, television stations and radio networks have been full with speculation that the allegations will lead to indictment, and eventually to the Prime Minister’s resignation.

It is public knowledge that the case against Olmert involves allegations of bribery and that an American businessman is also involved. The courts have imposed a blanket ban that prevents the publication of any details.

Olmert, as many other Israeli politicians, has been investigated many times for alleged corruption, but this time, it could be the one where the prosecutors are successful. If Olmert is forced out, it could be yet another obstacle for the US-backed peace talks that were re-started in November but have produced no results.

Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni from Olmert’s Kadima Party, and the settlers' favourite, the hawkish former Prime Minister, Binyamin Netanyahu from the Likud Party, await expectant for the results of the corruption investigation hoping to succeed Olmert if he should be compelled to resign.

Adib S Kawar - The Lebanon Labor Strikes: Politicizing Public Demands

David Welch, the US Near East Affairs emissary with Fouad Siniora. Lebanese labor unions called for a strike on May 7th for adjusting the salaries of the public and private sector employees and workers, as salaries and wages had not been adjusted for the last ten years, although the cost of living had more the doubled or tripled since then, especially prices had escalated almost by 100% compared to what they were at a year ago. The rise is mainly due to unprecedented increase in costs of energy sources and the depreciation of the U.S. Dollar compared to the Euro, which equally affected prices, noting that the Lebanese currency is tied with the U.S. dollar.

Just because those calling for the strike are in the opposition camp, the government and its so-called majority camp, took the opportunity to politicize the strike and hit against the opposition and the Lebanese resistance. The cabinet announced a rise of the minimum wage from LL 300,000 to LL 500,000. (U.S. $200 to $333) without announcing the mechanism of this increase for the minimum wage, noting that there are hardly any workers or employees whose wages or salaries are at the official minimum nor any mentioning of the adjustment of other salaries and wages which had been the case in all previous laws of adjustment of salaries.
On the occasion, the coalition of committees and popular unions issued a communiqué condemning the governmental and the majority party's actions to abort the strike saying:

While the Lebanese are preparing for celebrating the liberation day and resistance on 25/5/2008, and while all Arabs are commemorating the 60th anniversary of the Arabs Nakbah of Palestine caused by the Zionist aggressor, the ruling group issued a number of unprecedented and grave decisions:

1 - These decisions aim at depriving the resistance of its legitimacy and will consider its leaders and fighters and probably its martyrs as outlaws, which is certainly in the service of the Zionist enemy and its American masters and tallies with their logic.

2 - These decisions clearly contradict the essence of the basis on which the present government (considered by the opposition as illegal) gained parliamentary legitimacy, which legitimized the right, presence and role of the Lebanese resistance in liberating the land and defending the Lebanese and Lebanon against the continuous Zionist aggression.

3 – These decisions are a stab in the heart of the Lebanese patriotic accord, and hits the sentiments and feelings a large sector of the Lebanese people and the Arab Nation, which considers the resistance as a child to defend Lebanon and Arab pride.

4 – These decisions are a clear proof of the involvement of the ruling gang in the project of creating internal sedition in Lebanon to give a cover for the failure of the Zionist/American project and its extensions, and an arrangement for an internal sedition, which the Zionist enemy failed to do. They actually work for the fulfilment of the ‘prophecy’ of C. David Welch, U.S. Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs, in which he announced during his last visit to Lebanon of a ‘hot summer’ in Lebanon and the region".

5 – The decisions are in full contradiction of the head of the ruling gang, Fouad Siniora, at the end of President Lahoud's presidency on 24/5/2008 that he shall not take decisions that are of basic characteristics before electing a new president of the Republic.

6 – These decisions reflect a clear lack sense of responsibility, because they don't take into consideration the repercussions and results and their effects on the static patriotic options in relation to internal stability.

7 – These decisions reflect the ruling gang's total slipping to involve the security and military establishments in the political maneuvers, which is a game that the Lebanese paid a heavy price for in the past.

8 – These decisions go beyond the simplest rules and administrative principles, because they are taken without legal or legislative basis. And they are a result of known political intentions with well known sources.

9 – These decisions increase the fears of a large sector of the Lebanese public of the existence of a Zionist-American plan to internationalize Lebanon starting with internationalization of the airport and other public facilities.

(The so-called majority ruling gang claims that Hezbollah put monitoring cameras around the airport to control the airport).

10 – These decisions start with the airport and its security and remind us that all the wars that were waged against Lebanon started from the airport, since the 28/12/1968 aggression that inaugurated the continuing Zionist war on Lebanon 40 years ago, up to the July 2006 war that started with the bombardment of the airport and its closure for several weeks after the end of the aggression.

The comments about the ruling gang decisions call on those who care for the unity, security and stability of Lebanon to rise up to reject these dangerous decisions, and demand the immediate retreat from their implementation, and not be a starting point for the anti-Lebanon plans.

Some factions of the ruling gang, by direct orders from what they call their American ally, order the sabotaging of resistance efforts for defending Lebanon against Zionist aggressions, which are directly or indirectly in the service of the Zionist enemy, and the ‘American ally’ takes no action which is not for Zionist interest. Certain parties are ‘complaining’ about the special means of communication (special telephone system) of the resistance that is vital for its operations and security.

In the meantime, Condy consoles the same Siniora

Khalid Amayreh - Peres: The lying old man

Does Shimon Peres carry the genes of a pathological liar?

The question may sound facetious to many, but Peres’s apparent inability to distinguish between truth and falsehood makes the question quite valid.

At 84, Peres continues to dish out a daily staple of lies, including obscene lies.

This week, the “hero” of the Qana-1 massacre, told foreign correspondents based in Israel that “Hamas was standing in the way of Palestinian statehood.”

Well, this is, of course, a blatant lie, to say the least, because every honest person under the sun, Jew or gentile, knows well that the main obstacle impeding the realization of peace in the Middle East has been the intensive colonization of Palestinian land and unending expansion of Jewish settlements on occupied territories that belong to another people.

So how can we possibly buy the argument that Hamas is responsible for the building on the West Bank of hundreds of Jewish settlements, inhabited by hundreds of thousands of fascist-minded “settlers” who view non-Jews as animals in the shape of humans who should be enslaved by the “master race” as water carriers and wood hewers?

To be sure, Hamas is not an organization of angels. However, blaming the Islamic movement for the liquidation of the two-state solution is noting short of a pornographic lie.

Indeed, from its very inception, Hamas entrusted “peace negotiations” to the PLO, and said on numerous occasions that it would live with a Palestinian state covering the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem.

Moreover, the movement, many of whose leaders have been brutally murdered by Israel, repeatedly voiced a willingness to reach a ceasefire with the Israeli occupation army on condition of parity and reciprocity.

Hence, it was Israel - not Hamas - that rejected peace, first by stealing Palestinian land from rightful proprietors at gunpoint and then, by pursuing a genocidal assault against the Palestinian people’s very existence. Needless to say, this ongoing onslaught has certain hair-raising commonalities with the Nazi onslaught against European Jewry during the Second World War.

Peres is not stupid, he knows the power of words and the magic of sound-bites. However, he often doesn’t say what he means, nor does he mean what he says, all for the purpose of eluding a world that dreads confronting Zionist lies.

Peres’s conception of “Palestinian state” is incompatible with the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinian people, as well as being incompatible with international law and human rights.

“Mr. Peace,” as he is occasionally deceptively dubbed, would like the Palestinians to “settle for” a deformed, truncated and territorially discontinuous entity on “parts” of the West Bank, without East Jerusalem and certainly without the repatriation of millions of Palestinian refugees who were uprooted from their homes and towns and villages around this time sixty years ago, in a drama of deportation and exile that continues to this date.

Hamas, like 99% of Palestinians, does reject such a scandalous sell-out of inalienable Palestinian rights. Indeed, even Mahmoud Abbas, the Chairman of the American puppet regime in Ramallah, whom Israel views as “moderate” and an “acceptable peace partner” openly rejects such a humiliating surrender to Zionism.

A classical example of the consummate Zionist leader, Peres may think that deceiving the world and frustrating the hapless Palestinian Authority regime into capitulating to the Zionist reality will be good for the Jews and for peace.

He is absolutely wrong. Palestinians may be in a state of weakness at the present as opposed to Israel, a powerful state that draws much of its military, economic and technological superiority from its tight domination of American politics and policies. However, this anomalous situation can’t be perpetuated forever. Nazi Germany (Israel is undoubtedly an updated version of the Third Reich despite all the fanfare and hasbara to the contrary) didn’t last forever. Nor did diabolical Stalinism, which had much in common with Zionism in certain respects. A fact that is well known to historians.

Coercing the Palestinians to surrender to Zionism, either through brute force as Israel has been doing, or economic inducements as Peres is trying to do, or both, would only keep the embers of injustice smoldering thinly beneath the surface.

So, what Peres and his ilk view as “Jewish ingenuity” will eventually be proven an expression of visionless arrogance and poor statesmanship.

In addition to uttering his usual quotable but mendacious sound-bites about the Palestinians and their enduring plight, Peres is spending time these days trying to convince the world that Iran is Nazi Germany number-2 and its President Ahmadinejad is Adolph Hitler.

Well, how could any person with an iota of honesty and rectitude compare Nazi Germany, which destroyed Europe and caused the death of tens of millions of people, with Iran, a third world country whose only “crime” is its refusal to be subservient to the American-Zionist hegemony?

Besides, it is amply clear that Peres, who played a key role in introducing nuclear weapons to the Middle East via the French connection several decades ago, is utterly unqualified to lecture the world about an alleged Iranian nuclear threat.

To be sure, Israel, which possesses a huge arsenal of hundreds of nuclear bombs and warheads that are trained toward Teheran, Cairo, Damascus and Beirut (and perhaps Berlin as well), has no right to incite the west against the Islamic Republic. In the final analysis, Iran has an inalienable right to develop nuclear technology and even nuclear weapons to deter the mad dogs of Zionism, both in Tel Aviv and in Washington, D.C.

Nuclear weapons, like all weapons of mass destruction, are ugly and evil. However, America and Israel are first and foremost to blame for transforming our world into a jungle where one must be a fox, or a tiger or a venomous cunning snake in order to survive.

Israel claims that it has never threatened to decimate any country or any people and that its nuclear stockpile is for “peaceful purposes.”

But Israel has been decimating the Palestinian people for sixty years and some of its leaders who have a Hitlerian mentality are already threatening to inflict a holocaust on their victims.

For sure, had the Palestinians been strong, Israel would not have destroyed their towns, demolished their homes, bulldozed their farms before expelling them to the four corners of the globe.

In conclusion, Peres and other Zionist leaders can’t be trusted to tell the truth since Zionism and truth are inherently incompatible.

During his stint as Prime Minister in 1996, flowing the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, Peres oversaw the Qana-1 massacre in Southern Lebanon when the Israeli Wehrmacht knowingly and deliberately murdered more than a hundred Lebanese civilians, including numerous children who had sought refuge at the UN peace-keeping forces’ headquarters at the village of Qana.

For those who have forgotten or don’t know, neither Peres nor Israel has had the moral courage to say “sorry.”

Obviously they both lack the moral caliber to do so. And their crimes are too colossal and too numerous to be atoned for.

Exiling Palestinians to Chile!!

Written by Adib S Kawar
We cannot but thank those who arranged for Palestinian Arab refugees who were chased out of Iraq for finding for them a path out of the hell they found themselves in, namely a desert no man's land between Iraq and Syria. I am not sure for how long they spent of their lives suffering the freezing winters and baking in the heat of long summers? The only place they found to take refuge in, Chile is the furthest away point in the world away from their homeland, Palestine.

Palestinian Arab refugees are fighting to exercise their Right of Return to their Palestinian homes and land, while Arab regimes pay them lip service by echoing this demand just like parrots, and at the same time did all possible to help in re-uproot them from their refuge in Iraq, to find themselves in this no man's land.

Is there is no place in this fourteen million square kms wide Arab homeland that was wide enough to be able to give them temporary refuge, up till a time when their problem is solved and return to Palestine!!!

Who shall we blame? The U.S., the strategic ally of the Zionist entity, (the president of which, Shimon Peres, who shall inaugurate the celebrations for the so-called 60th anniversary of the "independence" of Israel by shouting once, twice and thrice: "Thank you America", thank you America for helping in achieving the Palestinian Arab Nakbah), and thus helping more and more Palestinian Arabs to get as far away as possible from their land by expelling them from a place of refuge that is not too far away from occupied Palestine. Palestinian refugees in Arab states shall always be thinking of practicing their Right of Return, but in…………….. Chile!!! The U.S.? Which certainly had a saying in ordering its agents in Iraq to expel their Arab brethren to the far end of the world, to pay back for Israel's role in the occupation of Iraq.

Who shall we blame? Arab regimes/rulers that wants to get rid of the ever lasting Palestinian headache???

This all in spite of the warm welcome that was extended to those suffering Palestinian refugees, by the 500,000 "Chilean" Palestinian Arabs, and the Chilean officials. But out of curiosity can we ask these officials who has the strongest ties with the Zionist entity; were they also extending a service to our enemy state?

Adib S. Kawar
A Palestinian Arab still living as near as possible to his homeland…

http://www.adnkronos.com/AKI/English/CultureAndMedia/?id=1.0.2050534508

Chile: Palestinian refugees arrive to warm welcome

The first group of 38 refugees - 23 of them children - have arrived in the Chilean capital Santiago. They were greeted by government leaders and members of the 500,000-strong Palestinian community.

Santiago, 8 April (AKI) - Chile has given a warm welcome to the first group of Palestinian refugees to arrive in the country.Thirty-eight Palestinians, previously stuck in no-man's land between Syria and Iraq, arrived in the country's capital, Santiago, after a 40-hour journey on Sunday.

The refugees, which include 23 children, were greeted at Santiago's airport by around 500 Chileans, many of them of Palestinian descent who waved Palestinian flags in their honour. The group is the first of 117 refugees to be accepted by the Chilean government after a plea from the United Nations High Commission of Refugees (UNHCR) last year. Fabio Varoli, head of the regional office of the UNHCR's Latin America Programme told Adnkronos International (AKI) the refugees had lived in the refugee camp of al-Tanf, after surviving violence and hardship in war-torn Iraq.

"They lived in a desert area, about 400 metres long, inside tents, where temperatures reached minus 10 to minus 15 degrees celsius in the winter, or 40 to 50 degrees celsius in the summer," Varoli told AKI. The al-Tanf camp, located on a strip of land between Syria and Iraq, held 300 people in 2006 and now has 700 refugees.

Varoli, an Italian from the historic city of Pisa, travelled to the camp last year to help select who would be eligible for the programme."When they arrived to Chile, I was waiting at the door of the airplane to greet them, many of them remembered me, it was very moving," he told AKI.

"They were smiling and very happy. "There is a profound sense of gratitude to Chile for their solidarity with the refugees."

Upon their arrival, the refugees were transferred to the city of La Calera, 118 kilometres north of Santiago, where mayor Roberto Chahuan, himself the grandchild of Palestinian immigrants, welcomed them in front of 1,000 cheering supporters. The mayor organised a lunch while a band played typical Chilean music and performed the country's national dance, the Cueca. The Palestinian Authority's ambassador in Chile, Mai al-Kaila, and Chile's interior minister, Felipe Harboe, were also there to greet the newcomers.

"It was like a Latin-American postcard," spokesman for the Vicaria de Pastoral Social (VPS), Alberto Pando, told AKI.VPS is a Catholic aid agency based in the capital Santiago that works with UNHCR to help refugees.-

"It has been so exciting for them (the Palestinians), there has been so much love, so much joy," said Pando. The Palestinians travelled from the Syrian capital, Damascus, to Paris in a commercial airline, and after an eight hour layover they flew to Chile. "Kids could be seen playing in the escalators at the airports, because many of them were born in refugee camps and thus had never seen one," Pando told AKI. All of the refugees are Sunni Muslims and were received at the airport by an imam from a local mosque. He prayed with the refugees and also offered them advice.

Chilean president, Michelle Bachelet, is reportedly sympathetic to refugees because she was one herself. She and her family sought asylum in Australia during the regime of former dictator Augusto Pinochet from 1973 until 1990. According to Pando, when Bachelet studied in the German capital of Berlin, a Palestinian taught her how to say "refugee" in German. A second group of Palestinian refugees is expected to arrive in Chile in two weeks.

Censorship and Freedom of the Press: at home and away

Today marks the celebration of International Day of Press Freedom. Like many celebrations that we are called to recognise, rather than feel joy at how wonderful things are, we are reminded of just how much goes haywire. Reporters Without Borders lists those killed in 2007. They write that there has been: 129 journalists, 7 media assistants and 63 cyberdissidents jailed, 8 journalists killed since the beginning of the year, the latest in the list of horrors, Fadel Shanaa.

While all normal people with conscience recognise that it is essential to insist upon obtaining justice for the operators of information who are killed while doing their work in areas where violence is manifest, we notice that there are other ways to prevent the dissemination of information, and this restriction of freedom is nothing less than censorship.

I remember thinking that censorship was something done in the 40s by priests who had to approve the films that the Italian public was allowed to watch. When I was young and naïve, I thought it was something that only totalitarian or ultra-repressed societies would dare to use. I now know much better, and it’s not only the Big Media that simply does not allow content in that they disapprove of, it is far more sinister. It seems as though the journalists are aware of what is expected of them and they produce it without needing to be steered. In 2004, I translated portions of a book by Giulietto Chiesa that I consider to be fundamental reading. An excerpt of it states:

It is very evident that these dutiful defenders of America will not allow the powerful, or should we say “the Power”, to be criticised in any way whatsoever. These are people already well versed in the art of bowing and scraping to “the Power”, wherever it may be, so just think what they’ll be like when “the Power” actually becomes “the Empire”! So, quite often, they find themselves in the inglorious position of defending those who already have ample defensive (and offensive) capabilities of their own. And there are lots of these defenders: the majority of political commentators, for example, would never have got where they are without giving cast iron proof of their absolute loyalty to “the Power”.

All this needed time to come about. It was a long, complex and contradictory gestation. It didn’t all go smoothly, as always happens when the forces in play are real and not the abstract schemes of utopians that just happen to be in power. You make your plans as you go along, on the spur of the moment, but then you need intellectuals to give them form, glorify them in the eyes of the public, ennoble them and explain them. These propagandists have to be trained, convinced and, if necessary, bribed and corrupted. And then all obstacles, doubters, non-believers and wise guys have to be got out of the way. Playing it clean if possible, but dirty if necessary. For those of you who’ve forgotten, an instructions manual has already been written for this and it’s enough to follow it. It’s called The Prince by Nicholas Macchiavelli and it’s free, because it’s out of copyright.

The aim, therefore, is to stifle the discussion and silence the adversaries, an aim that is much more ideological than you would care to think. It also explains perfectly, for example, why the whole of the Italian press (and not only the Italian press) often say the same things. The rule is that the people controlling the media have to be totally reliable: they don’t even have to be told what to say. They already know it by heart. They have already internalised the rules of the game. Being reliable is something that requires lengthy training and considerable single-mindedness. On every level of the information hierarchy you have to prove that you have a total disregard for the truth, a complete readiness to deceive and an absolutely impenetrable cynicism. This, as a rule, is the only way of getting up to the next level.”

Yes, absolutely impenetrable cynicism is the key to containing any adversaries to “the Power”. And, what is quite interesting is that in our day and age, anyone with access to a computer is allowed to enter at some level of the information hierarchy by contributing to forums, leaving comments to articles, writing letters, and the latest and most popular form of this is to create a weblog that reflects one’s own musings and at times the information one finds and would like to share.

Weblogs are the ideal for the technically inept as well as being cost free or with very limited costs. This is why there are millions of them. A social network has grown out of these weblogs, and that is the blogging community. Most of us with a blog have a blogroll, listing blogs that are about topics that we or our readers are interested in, blogs by our friends and links that we would like to share with someone else in a public way. Sometimes we add the links with distraction (and putting them up doesn’t mean endorsing all content or even knowing who the owner is, as some try to use as an excuse to attack bloggers whose own content stands up to attacks by critics who would love to see the blogs shut down), sometimes because we read an article on the blog that we liked and add to the blogroll so that we can check out the rest later. At any rate, the blogging community has grown into a unit where we are dedicated supporters of other bloggers and we stand united in moments of difficulty.

The Palestine – Iraq blogging world has been recently under severe attack. Our blogs are being targeted for destruction. In the past few weeks, many of us have seen a spam note from Blogger. Machetera wrote about the censorship in a series of articles (also here). This spam note has driven Desert Peace’s Steve away (and his contribution to this post follows), and I shortly followed suit, not without having undergone the violence against the principle of Voltaire brought upon me by Tony Greenstein.

In fact, there are many who call themselves progressives or leftists who love censorship. In the very words of Tony Greenstein, in an article he wrote, bragging that my blog was “dead”, he stated that he had worked to exercise the power of censorship. He decides what is appropriate. He is the arbiter of the truth and the judge of the limits of discourse. He determines single-handedly who has got to be flushed down the wastewater system. But, he is wise enough to recognise his limits. He can’t do it alone. No one listens to him, so he has to enlist the help of “the Power”.

“It is gratifying to announce that the anti-Semitic sewer, going by the name of 'PeacePalestine' has now died a death. After I had it taken down for a day or so, because of its libellous comment, Google decided in any case it was a 'spam' blog. Who are we to disagree?!!!”

Apparently, he doesn’t know not only did Google not find it anti-Semitic OR libelous, which were his claims, resulting in its immediate reinstatement, but Tony doesn’t know that Spam Blogs are computer generated blogs to sell things or increase profit in some way.

Yet, Tony himself claims that he too received the spam notice, bringing him into that honourable category of the enemy of the Zionists who are operating to close their opponents down.

“But I'll let fartypants into what I think is the story and it's not one of censorship. I wrote to Google not so long ago saying that there was stuff that was personally libellous and yes they should take the whole of the cesspit down. However they decided not to and Rizzo was the one who crowed over that.

Now she has moved the blog anyway because it was deemed a 'spam' blog. The secret is that this blog was also blocked for the same reasons. What that meant was that nothing could be posted here for a day or two. It was an automatic process triggered by the software Google use, nothing to do with censorship. Clearly Rizzo had had enough and maybe wanted to put the past, including all the racist rubbish behind her (here's hoping) and make a fresh start. let's hope so.

I don't know whether Google is particularly pro-Zionist, after all when I tried to get the blog taken down they refused. However I'm indifferent as to whether or not they take an anti-Semitic blog down because it's libellous.To be blunt I couldn't care less if one section of the Right censors another section. I regard Rizzo's blog and the activities of those like Atzmon around it as doing nothing but a service for Zionism. It is no accident that when it comes to the historica division in diaspora Jewry between the anti-Zionist Bund and the Zionists, that Atzmon clearly and explicitly takes the side of the latter. If this is pro-Palestinian then fine.”

Now, let’s look carefully at what’s behind his claims.

First of all, he admits that he acted to get me shut down, and it is because of the content, deeming at any rate (falsely) that it is in the Right, as if that alone were reason enough to have it shut down: Hmmm, take a look at this quote by Noam Chomsky-

"If you believe in freedom of speech, you believe in freedom of speech for views you don't like. Goebbels was in favor of freedom of speech for views he liked. So was Stalin. If you're in favor of freedom of speech, that means you're in favor of freedom of speech precisely for views you despise."

And John Pilger writes:
"If we don't believe in free expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all."

Obviously, Tony hides behind the white flag of it being libelous, which was deemed untrue by Google. Then he claimed it was anti-Semitic, and there again, they ran it through their machines and they disagreed. So, it comes down to the matter of it being “on the Right”, which to him is good enough reason to have it closed, and I do dare him to show even ONE post that is on the Right, we remain with the real reason. It’s just his personal despising of me and of those whose right to free speech I ardently defend and support. Tony does not believe in my right of expression, nor in that right being allowed for a long list of people. If he were in a totalitarian State, what would his actions be? He would be the censorship boss of the Minculpop at the very least, which is the activity he engages in more than any other and it has been widely documented on my blog. In fact, he would be just another weird figure in the cyberspace if he were not so hellbent on censorship, which is what my blog community fights against. Those who do not believe in freedom of expression don’t even know when they are acting as censors or even that they do so. They find an ideological and “progressive” reasoning for it, without ever having to support that there is any truth behind their gagging. If he can’t shut them down or have them kicked out of town, he writes articles against all of his critics and at times, we even have to waste precious time to correct his myriad errors.

Yet, it is interesting to note, that while he thinks Blogger and Google are not particularly pro-Zionist, why is it that when he claims he has gotten the same spam note, and it was resolved in a jiffy, Steve’s blog, my blog, Layla Anwar’s blog, Crimes and Corruption of the New World Order have all together found this “robot” so unkind and deliberately rude. It doesn’t respond to our letters, it lies that in 4 days it will take care of everything. Tony is certain it’s all bona fide… What more proof do we need that it’s a pro-Zionist for real?

Google has some more to answer for as well. Google has stopped indexing Uruknet as a news source. This is not the first time. I must have at least 10 letters in my archives to them regarding this matter, none of them had received any kind of feedback, although I encourage all to write to them (Uruknet has a form prepared on this link so that you can easily let Google know you are on to what they are doing to the most important source of information on Iraq). The webmaster of Uruknet is of an intelligence and dedication that are not rare, they are unique. She has indicated some interesting statistics to me about the indexing:

Google news has not only stopped indexing Uruknet, but it has blacklisted articles of other sites that cite Uruknet. For example, it indexes UN Observer, but it has not put in this article: http://www.unobserver.com/layout4.php?id=4725&blz=1 because, obviously, it cites Uruknet. http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&tab=bn&scoring=n&q=site%3Awww.unobserver.com&btnG=Search. If an article of any site cites a word of Uruknet, it is immediately pushed off by google.new. (Now I see why my stuff has vanished from there! Not only is Uruknet my favourite site, I think we would all be lost without it).

Google.com censors not only 90% of Uruknet, but also the sites that cite it as can be detected by the results of google.com search for the word “uruknet”: 188,000. The same search by yahoo.com 1,240,000.

Do we need any more proof? But, don’t go thinking that they don’t want any news about Iraq to get out. The webmaster of Uruknet tells me that a US-Friendly blog about Iraq was initially given the ‘spam’ treatment, but, like Tony’s site, it was quickly reinstated once the content was judged as being just fine with “the Power”.

Following the contribution of Steve, who, as another victim of this campaign, I will list a few things that I consider advice for other bloggers.

Steve writes:

Musings from one whose freedom was denied....

How dare I, a Jew living in Israel criticise the injustices practiced in my country. How dare I speak out against the genocide of my brothers on the other side of the wall of apartheid.

Try to censor me if you must, but I assure you I will not be silenced.

Daily Kos was the first to cut me off with a ban.... I dared to defend my brother and friend Benjamin Heine. He too dared to criticise the inhumane policies of zionism.... he too was banned from Daily Kos. The post that got me banned can be seen HERE.

Just what is Daily Kos afraid of?

Blogspot was the next culprit that attempted to silence me. Early in January I logged in as usual only to find that 'Robots have determined that my Blog is a Spam Blog'. I was given the opportunity to challenge this 'charge' via an automated response. I was assured that I would receive an answer with 4 days. In 4 days I received another automated answer with the same 'charges'. This 'game' continued for FOUR months until finally, without notice, my Blog was unlocked. By then, I had moved on to greener pastures and choose not to use Blogger any longer, feeling that their censorship game was not worth the hassle and I would rather Blog than engage in a fight with closed minded Websites.

Attempts to silence others continues. The Zionists actively engage in desperate ways to have Blogs closed down. Most notable among these is one Tony Greenstein, a resident Zionist in Britain. He has made it a full time job writing letters, falsely accusing pro Palestinian bloggers of anti Semitism, among other things. His prime targets are Mary Rizzo of PeacePalestine, and Gilad Aztmon, an ex Israeli also living in Britain. He claims to be an anti zionist himself, but I have yet to see him attempt to close down their vicious sites or attack them. His actions are contemptible, as he himself is.

The censorship continues; Google not only owns and controls Blogger, it also owns YouTube. A video depicting the crimes against the people of Palestine and five minutes later it is removed from YouTube. Again I ask, what are they afraid of?

As I mentioned earlier, 'try to censor me if you must, but I assure you I will not be silenced!'
I say this on behalf of all of my Brothers and Sisters who went through the same hastles as I did. We will all continue to spread the truth and the truth will make us free!

HASTA LA VICTORIA SIEMPRE!

Mary’s tips for bloggers:
1) Back up all your material. I learned this the hard way, and if not for my faithful group of friends, I don’t know how I would have salvaged almost 4 years of material.
2) Create a mirror blog. It takes moments to open a new blog, so register your name and convert your content. You never know when you may need it.
3) You CAN still work with your Blogger template, so leave a message for your readers that you have moved. I found this out weeks later, and in the meantime, many readers were disoriented. Two had done an international phone search (unsuccessfully) and in the end reached someone close to me to get the number, because they thought I was dead. Now how is THAT for readership loyalty!
4) If possible, go for private hosting options. This week, Haitham, Gilad and I are going to unveil our newest creation. Not that private hosts are failsafe, but they are certainly not going to be arbitrarily censored by the provider or those who the provider serves.
5) Build and maintain a network community. They will come to your aid when you need it, they will inform others of your tribulations. This means not only that you share readership and exchange tips and material, but you can depend upon them when push comes to shove. I have not been let down by these people, and their generosity and kindness is only equalled by their intelligence. Not only bloggers are part of the community, but commenters and readers.
6) Open a blog or site yourself. The more voices we have out there, the harder it will be to censor us all.
7) Defend the sites under attack, and don’t be afraid of not being “indexed” if you link to a good site. If and when Google dies, another site will come to replace it. There is an alternative to everything, but there is no alternative to the right of freedom of expression of an individual, of the unique character of his or her site, and that is what we MUST defend, in order to support the causes we care about.