The United States will make an emergency contribution of 20.3 million U.S. dollars for humanitarian assistance in the Gaza Strip, the White House announced on Friday.

Consider:

WASHINGTON, September 9, 2008 – The Defense Security Cooperation Agency notified Congress of a possible Foreign Military Sale to Israel of GBU-39 Small Diameter Bombs as well as associated equipment and services. The total value, if all options are exercised, could be as high as $77 million.

In 2007, the United States increased its military aid to Israel by over 25%, to an average of $3 billion per year for the following ten year period (starting at $2.550 billion for 2008, growing by $150 million each year)

The Israel Air Force used a new bunker-buster missile that it received recently from the United States in strikes against Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip on Saturday, The Jerusalem Post learned on Sunday

Israel destroyed 41 mosques in Gaza, says ministry
According to official reports, Israel has also destroyed 35 UNRWA and governmental schools.
Israelis destroyed 25,000 homes in Gaza, Palestinians say
Estimates put Gaza damage at $1.5-2 billion.

On the 29th January the United Nations launched an appeal for $613 million to help people affected by Israel’s three-week military offensive in the Gaza Strip, which killed some 1,300 Palestinians, injured more than 5,300, 34 per cent of them children, and caused widespread damage and destruction

And the U.S. offers a pathetic $20 million.

Have they no shame?

There are lots of calls to nationalize the banks and a while ago I supported to do such along the  'Swedish Model'. But I am getting less fond of this by each day. With nationalization the taxpayer takes over the risk of losses of these entities and may get a possible, but unlikely, upside.

The Swedes could do so because their authorities knew that the losses were restricted to the amounts of normal loans made to consumers and companies during a bubble. Sum all loans up and you have the maximum risk. The upside was in the continuity of normal economic activities and the downside was calculable as fraction of the annual GDP.

But since the early 1990s the banking system 'innovated' quite a bit and the possible losses are now not restricted to normal consumer and commercial loans on overvalued assets, but result from very different financial beasts.

From the Comptroller of the Currency – Administrator of National Banks this third quarter 2008 report (pdf):

Cont. reading: Conditions For Nationalizing Banks

In the fourth quarter U.S. sunk more than 5% annualized. (The headline number is smaller because it counts build up of inventory as positive) Unemployment is increasing rapidly and house prices are still in free fall.

But there is also good news. Exxon Mobile made $45 billion in profits last year and Obama may give another $2 to $4 trillion to insolvent bank owners and a tax cut to Exxon share owners.

The stimulus bill will include too little stimulus but lots of useless tax cuts and pork. Obama "compromised" with the Republicans over it so well that no Republican voted for it. The few liberals who understand that they got played hate it.

As Sterling Newberry points out

Obama isn't a Democrat giving things up to get Republican votes, he's a conservative mugging liberals for a conservative agenda that includes:

1. War in Afghanistan
2. Paulson's version of TARP where taxpayers buy all bad assets.
3. Slash social security and Medicare
4. Tax Cuts
5. No Comprehensive Health Care, but huge subsidies for Health Insurance companies instead.

Taken as a whole, Obama is offering small concessions to the left, in return for trillions of dollars that are coming directly out of the pockets and veins, of ordinary people.

In France the people at least go on strike and take to the streets. What goes as the "left" in the U.S. seems to stay bent over just waiting to get screwed again.

It's amazing.

According to the German SPIEGEL, the Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) U.S. General John Craddock directed the troops in Afghanistan "to attack directly drug producers and facilities throughout Afghanistan."

He did not qualify that by saying only those drug producers where evidence proves that they are financing the resistance or the Taliban. If ISAF would follow the order that would be open warfare by its troops on the large part of the Afghan population that lives by farming opium.

Craddock's direct subordinate is the German army general Egon Ramms who commands the NATO’s Allied Joint Force Command Brunssum in The Netherlands and the ISAF forces in Afghanistan.

Ramms rejected the order, in writing, as illegal.

That alone would not be astonishing. Ramms recently gave an interview in the German magazine Stern (in German) about ISAF's mission (my translation):

Q: Where is what the U.S. military leadership refers to as the "kinetic aspect": the fighting and killing of the Taliban?

It can be no end in itself to bomb villages or to shoot at civilians. We shoot back when we are attacked. In essence, we only need to control the population centers were the people are concentrated. We do not need to cover the whole country side, but project security where the majority of the people live.

Q: How does this relate with the American dispatches which take pride to present the figures of how many insurgents they killed?

That contradicts any humanitarian thinking. We kill insurgents not as an end in itself! The counting of fatalities or the dispatches about them are the wrong approach.

That allegedly had his boss, U.S. General Craddock, miffed. The recent order and its rejection could be seen as a fight in that context.

But the Craddock order was also rejected by U.S. General David McKiernan, the commander on the ground responsible for ISAF and the separate U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

Cont. reading: U.S. General Craddock Orders Illegal Killing

Who recently said this?

Although additional protectionism will prove inevitable during the crisis, all of us must display a sense of proportion.

Excessive intervention in economic activity and blind faith in the state's omnipotence is another possible mistake.

True, the state's increased role in times of crisis is a natural reaction to market setbacks. Instead of streamlining market mechanisms, some are tempted to expand state economic intervention to the greatest possible extent.

The concentration of surplus assets in the hands of the state is a negative aspect of anti-crisis measures in virtually every nation.

Cont. reading: A Remarkable Speech

The U.S. supported Ethiopian army has finally retreated from Somalia and the Al-Shabab group has taken the city of Baidoa, the seat of the U.S. installed provisional war-lord government.

Meanwhile a lot of military ships are cruising the Somali coast to prevent the Somali coast guard/pirates from taking cargo ships for ransom. Even the Japanese are joining the party.

Economically this does not make any sense. With more of 20,000 ships passing the Gulf of Aden each year, a few captured ships will slightly increase the insurance premium for passing the area. But that hardly justifies to have over 20 expensive navy ships with thousands of sailors protecting it. There were 293 acts of piracy worldwide last year. Only 111 of them took place at the Somali coast. Yes, the area is important for world trade, but others with even more pirate action are too without getting this much attention.

Is this just a show of force by everyone to impress competing nations? Maybe.

The U.S. has so far not taken any real action in the area. But that may well change. The John C. Stennis Carrier Strike Group is on its way to the area and it carries a very unusual number of helicopters.

The new wing configuration has two full squadrons for a total of about 19 aircraft, with their leadership aboard, all under the carrier air wing and strike group commander. These helicopters are heavily armed and will take over missions such as anti-submarine warfare, anti-surface warfare and supporting SEALs or other special operations troops.

I doubt that a carrier with so many helicopters is the best platform to fight piracy. A few smaller ships with one or two helos each could cover a much bigger area. But a carrier strike group may well be an asset for land attacks on targets in Somalia.

Steve Clemons muses about such an endeavor:

In the period between President Obama's November 2008 victory at the polls and his taking office on January 20, 2009, members of Obama's transition team began talking to military planners about various options that might be available for dealing with Somali pirates.
…
But the source recounted to me that those asking for the development of these option plans seemed more focused on whether a low-cost, low loss-of-American lives action could be quickly taken in a strike against pirates because of the need to demonstrate that Americans could still strike hard and achieve their military and political objectives.

The source worried that in my source's opinion, there was perhaps not
enough consideration of what it might be like to potentially open yet a
third active military front in that region.

military front."Kill some people to show the world Obama has balls? Sure, but patrolling against pirates is not an "active military front." Special operations on ground targets would constitute one.

So I expect the fighting piracy theme will now be used as a fig leaf to justify attacks on Al-Shabab and other groups that might take power in Somalia against the wishes of Washington DC.

For lack of intelligence such attacks by the U.S. will fail to hit these groups but kill a lot of innocent people. Nothing new here. Just another "crappy little country" again throw against the wall.

There was a lot of talk about a new Obama strategy in Afghanistan. But according to War Secretary Gates' yesterday testimony, there is none.

McClatchy:

Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Tuesday outlined a complicated and at times contradictory set of goals for the U.S. presence in Afghanistan, in a Capitol Hill appearance that highlighted the challenges the administration faces in devising a new U.S. strategy there.

Giving his first congressional testimony under his new boss, President Barack Obama, Gates called the Afghan army and police the "exit ticket for all of us," yet he conceded that the Afghan government is too poor to support those forces long term.

The envisioned Afghan army and police force will cost $4 billion a year while the total Afghan GDP is $800 million. That somehow does not look sustainable. 

According to the NYT, Obama's administration now sees Karzai as the main problem:

Cont. reading: Obama Has No Afghanistan Strategy

In many of the Internet discussion I read throughout the recent war on Gaza, Zionist hasbara fighters claimed that it is impossible to talk with Hamas because its charter, written in 1988, calls for the destruction of the state of Israel. That charter is of course irrelevant and the use of the charter argument by pro-Zionists is nonsense.

Several times, last back in November, Hamas leader Haniyeh said publicly that Hamas is willing to accept a Palestinian state with 1967 borders and thereby will effectively recognize Israel. So from Hamas' site, a solution of the conflict is possible.

But there is another charter in play and I have not seen that mentioned in those Internet discussion.

The Likud charter from 1999 as available on www.knesset.gov.il says:

The Jewish communities in Judea, Samaria and Gaza are the realization of Zionist values. Settlement of the land is a clear expression of the unassailable right of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel and constitutes an important asset in the defense of the vital interests of the State of Israel. The Likud will continue to strengthen and develop these communities and will prevent their uprooting.

…
The Government of Israel flatly rejects the establishment of a Palestinian Arab state west of the Jordan river.

Judea and Samaria are the West Bank. I am not aware of any refutation of that charter.

Likud is likely to win next month' election in Israel. Its leader Netanjahu promisses to extend the Zionist settlements in the West Bank.

This against international law, the roadmap and other peace plans.

So while using Hamas charter in an argument as being an obstacle to peace is clearly bogus, it is obviously justified to point to Likud's charter as the real issue.

So why have I never seen this used as an argument in the discussion? Maybe people just do not know. If that is the case, please spread the word.

Earlier this month I suspected another try by Georgia's lunatic leader Saakashvili to regain South Ossetia and Abchasia. There were several reports of unexplained Georgian troop movements near the borders of those territories.

It seems that the EU military mission, which observes the ceasefire in Georgia, also sensed something, applied pressure and moved to restrict Saakashvili's capacity to incite new border skirmish adventures:

The Georgian Defense Ministry and EU Monitoring Mission (EUMM) signed a memorandum on January 26 stipulating “certain restrictions” to the movements of the Georgian armed forces in the vicinity of the Abkhaz and South Ossetian administrative borders, EUMM said.

The memorandum of understanding, signed by Defense Minister, Davit Sikharulidze and EUMM head, Hansjörg Haber, also stipulates the Georgian MoD to give advance information to EUMM.

Someone clearly said "stop that nonsense" and the Saakashvili government had to agree.

This could become interesting …

IRNA: Ex-German chancellor to embark on four-day Iran trip on Feb. 19

Former German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder is to embark on a visit to Iran from February 19 through 22, dpa cited Schroeder's office in Berlin as saying on Monday.

The trip is "closely coordinated with the (German) foreign ministry," the spokesperson of the foreign ministry Jens Ploetner told the press in Berlin.

One can be certain that this was also closely coordinated with the Obama administration. I find it unlikely that Schröder would sign on for this if there were not some hope for real talks.

Cont. reading: Moves To Iran Negotiations

On December 21 I wrote:

NATO is negotiating with Russia over opening a new supply route through Russia, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. The U.S. plans a different route through Georgia, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.
…
I doubt that the effort will succeed. Russia will have a say in this no matter how much bribes the U.S. is willing to pay the dictators of those countries.

An additional supply route to Afghanistan without Russia is not possible. Such a solution will have to be negotiated.

But astonishingly last Tuesday the NYT reported this:

Cont. reading: The Costly New Supply Route To Afghanistan

Afghan president: US forces killed 16 civilians

KABUL, Afghanistan – President Hamid Karzai condemned a U.S. operation he said killed 16 Afghan civilians, while hundreds of villagers denounced the American military during an angry demonstration Sunday.

U.S. raid kills Iraqi man, woman in their bed

BAGHDAD — An Iraqi couple was killed in their bed Saturday morning as their daughter slept between them when U.S. forces raided their home.

Obama endorses missile attacks

WASHINGTON, Jan 24: Hours after US missiles killed 22 people in Fata, President Barack Obama convened a meeting of his top national security advisers and endorsed the decision to continue drone strikes into Pakistan.

by Tangerine
lifted from a comment

Malooga had a long top post about the Zionist control of US policy here.

I wanted to add something.

Outside, or rather around, the actions and methods described in the
post, there is a potent fear of standing up to Israel, of offending
Jews, or even daring to imagine that one could treat ‘them’ like
everyone else, or argue against their demands, or tell them get over it already etc. Israeli / Jewish exceptionalism is accepted, it is part of the culture.

That is the reason why it is so important for Israel to maintain the
very particular status of the Holocaust, to render it holy and
other-worldly; to enforce a view of Jews as victims of continuing,
grave, overt or subterranean anti-semitism (this acts on Jews
themselves, particularly the expats who then may adhere to the ‘safe
haven’ idea, even if they don’t consider that relevant to themselves
personally.) Israel and its lobbies, clout, have accomplished this by
forcing others to adopt anti-racist, anti-anti-semitic,
anti-revisionist, anti-negationist, etc. laws, stances, opinions,
views, etc., and generally obliging others to treat Jews as special,
thus separate.

Israel fears attacks on this dimension perhaps more than anything else.

It also is apprehensive of any movement, any shift, in any direction
because it finds itself in the paradoxical position of having to
defend, uphold, exaggerate the existence of anti-semitism, while
ostensibly objecting to it and acting to eliminate it. Jews are at the
same time exceptional people with a unique past, but must be treated like
everyone else. A similar double image exists for Israel itself: an
extraordinary country with status or privileges like no other, yet, the
only normal ‘capitalist democracy’ in the Middle East.

Example. One occasion, public and typical: Saturday is traditionally
(and still by law) a working day in Switzerland. Schools and all educational
institutions ran activities on Saturday morning. In 1993 (iirc, my son was
7 I think) Saturday morning school, to 16 years, was dropped, but all
higher education, apprenticeship to doctoral level, continued, on
occasion, to run ‘obligatory’ activities on Saturday, for practical reasons.

In 1995, the anti-racist laws were voted in. A few years later, the
Jewish lobby woke up and …oh yes… tried to get Saturday school
banned. The Swiss law contains a provision that states refusing public service to someone because of their ethnicity, religion, provenance (etc.) is punishable by…
– the idea was that Jewish students were being refused the opportunity
to take exams (typically often scheduled on a Saturday) because they were
not allowed to accept the service offered.. that Saturday school was
racist, anti-semitic, that Jewish students required special treatment
(in fact forbidden by the same laws)…and on and on it went.

I was
amazed to see high officials, figures of authority, politicians, on the
ground teachers, students, secretaries, my neighbor, take this crackpot
proposal seriously and argue clumsily for a Jewish exception. Passions
ran high … finally the demand died mysteriously and was never
mentioned again. Everyone breathed a exhausted sigh of relief. All
through this nothing was heard from the Jewish students themselves.
(The very few orthodox ones were accommodated anyway.)

By the way, the Swiss Commission that votes on suspending military sales to
foreign countries voted during the Gaza invasion NOT to suspend
delivery to Israel, to my astonishment – they have done it often in the
past.

The last open thread filled up pretty fast …

New & views …

Cruiseship Balmoral leaving the Spanish port La Coruna on January 20.

Photo by José Ricardo Rodriguez Montero – bigger

Cont. reading: Down And Up – Rough Seas

The Economist via Paul Kedrosky is discussing the imbalance of the global economy and includes this tale of a miracle:

In 1996, the year before the Asian financial crisis began, economies designated by the IMF as emerging, developing and newly industrialised ran a collective current-account deficit of $78 billion. Over the next decade this turned into a surplus of several hundred billion dollars (see chart 1), with China and oil exporters accounting for almost all of the increase in the past three or four years. Much of the turnaround is mirrored in a widening American deficit. (The world’s sums do not add up. Statisticians are unable to offset the recent burgeoning surpluses with deficits elsewhere: according to the IMF, in 2007 the surpluses exceeded the deficits by $265 billion.)

So in one year alone $265 billiones surplus were somehow created out of nowhere?

If anyone has an idea how that works please let me know. It certainly would help to pay the rent.

The Saudi Prince Turki al-Faisal is pretty high up in pecking order of Saudi Arabia. He was chief of Saudi intelligence, ambassador to the UK and Ireland and ambassador to the US. He left that job when he learned that Prince Bandar was talking policy with Cheney behind his back. Even though he is no longer in a official foreign policy role, I doubt that he would publish this op-ed in the Financial Times without the nod from the very top:

Unless the new US administration takes forceful steps to prevent any further suffering and slaughter of Palestinians, the peace process, the US-Saudi relationship and the stability of the region are at risk.
…
If the US wants to continue playing a leadership role in the Middle East and keep its strategic alliances intact – especially its “special relationship” with Saudi Arabia – it will have to drastically revise its policies vis a vis Israel and Palestine.

That is a strong shot across the bow for Obama. There follows some advice what Obama should do and then this part which I wonder about:

Last week, President Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad of Iran wrote a letter to King Abdullah, explicitly recognising Saudi Arabia as the leader of the Arab and Muslim worlds and calling on him to take a more confrontational role over “this obvious atrocity and killing of your own children” in Gaza. The communiqué is significant because the de facto recognition of the kingdom’s primacy from one of its most ardent foes reveals the extent that the war has united an entire region, both Shia and Sunni. Further, Mr Ahmadi-Nejad’s call for Saudi Arabia to lead a jihad against Israel would, if pursued, create unprecedented chaos and bloodshed in the region.

So far, the kingdom has resisted these calls, but every day this restraint becomes more difficult to maintain. When Israel deliberately kills Palestinians, appropriates their lands, destroys their homes, uproots their farms and imposes an inhuman blockade on them; and as the world laments once again the suffering of the Palestinians, people of conscience from every corner of the world are clamouring for action. Eventually, the kingdom will not be able to prevent its citizens from joining the worldwide revolt against Israel.

As I read it there are three threats contained therein:

1. That Saudi Arabia could leave the alliance with the U.S.
2. The possibility of an alliance with Iran
3. Unleashing the mob in form of another Al Qaida

But how real are these threats? Yes, the Saudis could unleash some Jihadis and finance their adventure in some foreign country. But would the Saudis ever leave the U.S. alliance camp? Would they ever really cooperate with Iran?

The Nazis took great care to justify their measures by law and other legal means.

In April 1933 a law for "reorganization of the civil service” cleansed the civil services from socialists and communists as well as Jews. In late 1933 a law on “criminals by habit” introduced a legal framework for concentration camps. The "Blood Protection Law" of 1935 legalized race discrimination against Jews and gypsies. Later laws and legal decrees legalized the outright extermination of people based on race, belief, sexual preference and other categories
(chronological index).

In all of these cases first the policy was thought up, then legal opinions were established to justify the policies. Laws were created to have a legal basis for the policy implementation.
These where needed because some people would not follow the policies without better justifications and legal protection.

Defendants at the Nuremberg court said they acted within those laws or followed legal orders. The judges did not swallow those justifications as the laws and orders clearly contradicted basic humanitarian ethics.

The Bush administration acted in similar ways. A policy was thought up and then a bogus legal opinion was written to justify even a obviously illegal policy. When someone made a stink, Congress was pressed to implement a law that would legalize the deeds. Thus when the policy intention was to torture, Yoo wrote a memo justifying torture and Congress later mangled that into a law that gave the CIA legal backing to continue to torture. The pattern was also followed with FISA. The intention was to listen to any communication. Then legal justifications were written to allow for that. When some folks blew a whistle, and the policy became public knowledge and outrage followed, Congress was pressed to establish the illegal stuff as legal through a law and to even give the telcos retroactive immunity. When no one in the U.S. made a stink, like over renditions, the step of introducing a justifying law was not deemed necessary.

The Israeli Defense Forces seem to follow the same pattern. Establish an intention and a policy, than have someone come up with a legal justification:

Cont. reading: From Policy Intention To Legal Justification

NOTE: This is the first version of this piece as it was originally posted on Hintergrund and in English on Moon of Alabama on January 21, 2009.

Rolf Verleger asked me to post a revised version which I did here in the 22nd.

End NOTE
—

In comments here Parviz pointed to this piece written in German and Sabine
kindly translated it to English. It is by Rolf Verleger, a German
psychology professor and Jewish activist. The original was published on
January 5 in the German magazine Hintergrund.
—

Gaza: The bad, bad neighbor

By Rolf Verleger, January 5 2009

What would you do – such wrote on Dec. 31 the Israeli historian Prof.
Fania Oz-Salzberger in the FAZ – if your neighbor would continuously
threw stones and Molotov cocktails at your apartment. Would you not at
some stage grab a rifle and try to put an end to this? And if your
neighbor would crowed himself with his kids, so that you could not hit
him, would you not get a rifle with telescopic sight?
Just as this presumed neighbor, Hamas is acting in Gaza, when they shot
at Israeli cities with rockets. Therefore the current Israeli war
against Gaza is a just war.

I am very thankful to Mrs. Oz-Salzberger for this example with
the neighbor. A lot can be visually explained with it. For simplicities
sake, let’s call you and your family, so terrorized by your bad
neighbor, the house owners and let’s have a look at the curious
circumstances in your housing block. The apartment of you neighbor is
Gaza.

1. Three years ago you took the neighbors keys away.

Without your agreement as landlord the neighbors family can not
leave there apartment, neither to go to work, nor to study, nor to
travel, nor to shop. Without your agreement, the neighbor will not
receive their mail, no food, no electricity, no gas or visits: The
apartment is locked, and you as the landlord have the keys, and the
bad, bad neighbor is locked in. And this since 2006, almost three
years.

That’s when the bad, bad neighbor got furious.

The mistake of the bad, bad neighbor and his friends in the other apartment block: These people voted for the wrong party.

Although you having been so kind to the neighbor, as to move
freely, four years ago – 2005, out of his balcony with sea views, which
you took over earlier on. Of course without paying him a look or word,
and the balconies furniture got trashed when you left. Where would life
come to, if we would be speaking with our neighbors?

That’s when the bad, bad neighbor got furious.

2. Two years ago you send a gang of rowdies to your neighbor

You and your north american friends from the house owner society
send a hit gang ro squat in the apartment of the neighbor, the
Mohamed-Dahlan-Gang. They were supposed to take the apartment away from
the bad, bad neighbor. Unfortunately the neighbor defended himself
against this coup, and that got you really angry. Thereafter you tried
to tell everyone, that the bad, bad neighbor has forcefully taken over
power in his apartment, that he was not legitimized to do so. You
yourself have been surprised by how many journalists have spread this
lie. From Silke Mertins of the TAZ it was kind of expected, but that
even Torsten Schmitz of the Sueddeutsche would write this nonsense was
surprising.

That’s when the bad, bad Neighbor got furious.

3. You have not charged the running costs of the apartment correctly.

For years have the taxes and fees owned to the department of apartment autonomy not been paid in time and completely.

4. You have already killed many people from the neighbors apartment.

That was in the year 2006. Those were hundreds of dead. This was
also a reason for the war in Lebanon, as the Hezbollah wanted to
revenge the deeds of Israel.

5. You took away the bad, bad neighbors car.

The bad, bad Neighbor once had an airport – build with money
from the EU. You have destroyed that airport: Bad Neighbors don’t need
an airport.

6. You took away the neighbors work.

At times the neighbor went fishing. You don’t allow that
anymore. The neighbor used to have factories. You bombed them in 2006.
He used to have agriculture. You have ruined that, by not allowing
export. The bad neighbors, who only want to shoot, are not supposed to
go fishing, to work in factories or to work the soil.

The bad, bad neighbor is supposed to shoot at you, so that you can shoot back. And this is what the neighbor did.

7. The courts rule in the favor of the bad neighbor.

Many experts of neighborhood law, like Amnesty International,
experts of the UN, winner of the Nobel Peace Prices have stated clearly
that your doing as house owner against your neighbors throughout the
years is breaking the law . Luckily that these people don’t have a
police to enforce law and order. “How many divisions has the pope?”
joked Stalin.

That’s when the bad, bad Neighbor got furious.

8. You have been chasing the friends of the neighbors out of their apartments for years.

Unfortunately the bad neighbor still has mobile phones and
landlines. That’s how he gets to know daily, how friends and relatives
of the bad neighbor, who live in the apartment block West Bank get
chased out of their houses. A very important tool for this is the large
wall, that you have build in the middle of the apartment block. Because
you have build this wall, which is to serve your security, not around
your house, but straight through the apartments of these friends. What
do need these friends two living rooms for. One suffices enough, and in
the other you can have your friends living. And that those within their
smaller apartment must pass a security check, before going from the
living room to the bathroom, that’s nothing: The whole live is a
waiting room! And who peacefully demonstrates against these measures
will get in Germany the Ossietzky Price, but will be shot at with
teargas at home, and if out of luck be shot in legal self-defense. Of
course the friends of the bad neighbor went to complain against the
wall in front of a court of law, the German foreign minister of the
time, a loud man named Fischer, called this “not helpful”, they of
course were given right by the law, but again there is no police there,
who would enforce their right.

That’s when the bad, bad neighbor got furious.

9. You took away ownership of the houses from your neighbor 60 years ago.

Long, long time ago, the grandfather of the neighbor was the
owner of the whole house. At that time your grandparents came into the
house, desperate, hunted, it was a good shelter from the storm. Soon
you build a house in the yard, after all the yard belonged to no one.
Of course, the others could now not go from one house to the other
anymore, oh well, they are only Arabs. From time to time some
humanitarian do gooders passed by, they were named Achad ha’AM, Martin
Buber, Hannah Arendt, plus a couple of others, who said, it would be
good to live in peace with the house owners, but by Marx’s will, these
Arabs are to primitive for the creation of socialism, with these
country folks one can not be friend. And later when Marx was out of
fashion, it was Gods will, these Arabs have the wrong religion, what do
they want in the holy house. There plenty of other houses around, they
should go there.
And then, since 1947, your parents took most of the apartments and the
whole house of the parents of the bad, bad neighbor, as they fled, in
panic from the armed terror of your parents. And now, the descendants
of the neighbors of these people live in the one apartment, in the most
populated stretch of the world, in Gaza. Yes, why is now so densely
populated?

That’s when the bad, bad neighbor got furious.

And so said the German chancellor and Mrs. Prof. Oz-Salzberger: The fault for the war falls on the bad, bad neighbor.

10. Last words

As the first Jewish Zionist, around 1890, came to today’s
Israel, they were fleeing the discrimination in the land of the Tsar,
from burnings and killings in the search of a free, self controlled
life, which was not possible in their old country. This was not a
conflict of good versus evil, but a fight about a piece of land, that
was home to Palestinian Arabs, and that seemed to be the only possible
home to the migrants.

The Jewish side has won that war, for the price of constant
war. But a peace plan is since long ago on the table. The two state
solution based on the frontier of 1967, with a solution on the problems
of the Palestinian refugees, with solutions in regards to Jerusalem.
This was proposed by the States of the Arab League in 2002 and again
confirmed just a short time ago. Israel will not agree to this plan, as
Israel can not decide if they do not rather want to keep the illegally
gained land in the West Bank and even expand on it. As long as Israel
does not say yes we would rather have peace, we will stop the
occupation regime, there will be no peace.

The position of Germany in this conflict is split. But can the
fact, that we European Jews, victims of Germany’s injustice, give the
Jewish state now the rights to commit injustice against others. Do
German politicians really believe, it is reparation of the killing of
my Jewish relatives, that Israel can, without stops and binds, do what
it pleases?

On the contrary, it would do Israel good, if it were taken out of its
fantasized position of the eternal victim, if it were let away and as
any other state be embedded into the international system of rules and
regulations. That means, that the wrongful occupation of the West Bank,
and the long lasting and illegal occupation of Gaza must be sanctioned
and boycotted. The EU should measure Israel’s advances on state rights
and human rights as they measure Serbia and Turkey. The legal
evaluation of the case Olmert should as the case Milosevic take place
in Den Haag.

Back in December 2005 I tried to explain how the NSA spying program likely functioned:

The system taps into general communication lines like international telecommunication satellite links and analyzes all traffic going through such lines.

The system listens to and processes communication in realtime. It is
preconfigured with specific phone numbers, email addresses and/or
keywords. An evolved Echelon may include speaker recognition.   

If a specific communication matches one of the preconfigured
criteria, i.e. includes a specific number, keyword or voice, it is
recorded in a large storage facility.

Database mining technologies and automated statistic methods are
used to find patterns within and between the recorded communications.
The discovery of such patterns may lead to further investigation or may
modify the system's sensitivities.

If what Russ Tice asserts on yesterday's Keith Olberman's show is correct, as I believe it is, my piece three years ago was aiming far too low.

I believed that all international communication meta-data was sniffed at to weave out calls and network connections that were than monitored and analyzed content wise.

According to Tice that was done to all U.S. domestic communication too.

Also according to Tice this was used to spy on special groups like journalists.

I am sure that an investigation will find that other special group includes politician and organized groups like ACLU and that such surveillance was used to blackmail.

The surprise is that despite these efforts some kind of regime change was still able to happen.

What is going to happen now?