Easter echoes the eons old human festivity to celebrate the arrival of spring. The dark and cold days of winter are gone. The bright time of fertility has come.

Today's fertility symbols of Easter, the egg and the hare, relate to the old Germanic fertility goddess Eostre (Ostara). Another related goddess is Ishtar, a Mesopotamian representation of love, who stepped down into the underworld of death but was revived. The Christian resurrection of Jesus is probably a transformation of this older tale.

When the Christian message spread from its eastern Mediterranean origin its incorporation of old local gods and fables helped to convert the multi-theistic societies to the new monotheistic believe. The gods of the pre-Christian religions were not completely discarded but their tales were transformed to support the message the Christian preachers were spreading.

It is finally spring, the darkness has vanished and this is my favored holiday.

Happy Easter

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Please join me, Johann van Goethe and Dr. Faust on our traditional Easter Walk:

Cont. reading: Let’s Go For A Easter Walk

Yesterday the Biden administration 'declassified' laughable numbers about alleged Russian losses. It did not help. Zelenski's mission to get more money from Congress has failed:

Following a roughly 30-minute meeting with Zelensky – their first one-on-one encounter – House Speaker Mike Johnson said the Biden administration’s response to congressional Republicans’ demands has been “insufficient,” and reiterated his stance that a deal remains unlikely without a “transformative change” at the border.

The Republicans also asked the White House for its strategy in Ukraine. But as the New York Times reported yesterday, there is none.

U.S. and Ukraine Search for a New Strategy After Failed Counteroffensive

American and Ukrainian military leaders are searching for a new strategy that they can begin executing early next year to revive Kyiv’s fortunes and flagging support for the country’s war against Russia, according to U.S. and Ukrainian officials.
…
The United States is stepping up the face-to-face military advice it provides to Ukraine, dispatching a three-star general to Kyiv to spend considerable time on the ground. U.S. and Ukrainian military officers say they hope to work out the details of a new strategy next month in a series of war games scheduled to be held in Wiesbaden, Germany.

That the counter-offensive had failed has been obvious since mid of June. A reason for the failure were fake war-games during which the parameters were skewed until the games showed that Ukraine would win:

Cont. reading: U.S. Military Has More Unfeasible Plans For Ukraine

Another Ukrainian attack got bogged down in a minefield.

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Losses:

Cont. reading: Ukraine SitRep: Destruction Of Its Third Army – Issues To Negotiate

The Guardian wrote yesterday:

Australia joins global condemnation of China over Xinjiang amid deteriorating ties

Australia has stared down a potential backlash from China by joining with nearly 40 countries to voice grave concerns about “gross human rights violations” in the Xinjiang region and call for independent observers to be granted unfettered access.

The United Nations has 193 member states. "Global condemnation" and "nearly 40 countries" thereby do not seem to fit well.

Indeed. After 16 paragraphs of dubious allegations against China we learn:

[China’s ambassador to the UN, Zhang Jun,] pointed to counter-statements, including one made by Pakistan on behalf of 55 countries that opposed interference in China’s internal affairs under the pretext of Hong Kong.

Cuba also issued a joint statement on behalf of 45 countries backing the Chinese government’s position that its actions in Xinjiang were related to counter-terrorism and de-radicalisation efforts.

I have failed to find the two counter-statements and to check how many states signed both. But Ambassador Zhang has said that nearly 70 countries had backed either or both.

That is not a majority of UN member states but it shows that 'global affirmation" for China's Xinjiang policy is a more truthful expression than the "global condemnation" the Guardian has chosen.

For commenting on the 2020 presidential election use the 2020 Presidential Election Thread.

Other news & views can be posted here.

Ladies and Gentlemen, we present the Middle East columnist of the 'paper of record', Tom Friedman:

    Iran Is Crushing Freedom One Country at a Time

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Having covered the Middle East my entire adult life, I’m seeing some trends emerging there that I’ve never seen before.
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The Iranian ayatollahs even had to largely shut down their own internet to prevent the domestic rebellion from spreading. Ever since the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2002, Iran has never wanted to see a stable, multisectarian, secular democracy emerge in Baghdad, because then Iranian Shiites would be asking why Iraqi Shiites get to live freely and they don’t.

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For the record. The invasion of Iraq began on March 19 2003, not in 2002. Friedman should know that. He and his paper were major pro-war propagandists in the run up to it.

During the first three years of the war Friedman went on to predict 14 times that 'success' in Iraq would come within the "next six months", a period now known as a Friedman unit.

If the New York Times and its main Middle East columnist can not even get that date right what else do they get wrong?

A cursory read of Friedman's anti-Iranian column suggests that the answer is "everything".

I've got nothing …

The provider of the blog platform for Moon of Alabama announced a planned upgrade and maintenance of its systems starting tomorrow at 3:00am UTC. It is not know how long this will take. During the maintenance this site will not be available.

Update (Apr 10 11:30 UTC)

The maintenance is over and everything seems to back up and working. The necessary clean-up of the aftermath is ongoing. There may still be some glitches and small outages over the next few hours.

[Updated throughout – Feb 3, 2:30pm EST]
—

There is a special class of young, enterprising journalists and 'experts' who claim to have access to the inner thinking of the Lebanese resistance organization Hizbullah. Journalists with decades of on the ground experience in Lebanon like to mock them:

Elijah J. Magnier‏ @ejmalrai – 6:49 AM – 3 Feb 2018
"Hezbollah experts": "I was walking in "Hezbollah stronghold" & bumped into a man who turned out to be a "High commander". As a sign of courtesy of our 1st encounter, revealed to me Hezbollah will attack 7 countries. He delivers all plans to me & went off". U have to believe me.

The story below touches on that phenomenon. But there is more to it. Such journalists and experts are tools for planting Israel's propaganda into the minds of their readers. That is the real plot behind this curious story.

A few days ago the Columbia Journalism Review published a whiny piece about dwindling foreign reporting in U.S. media:

Freelancing abroad in a world obsessed with Trump

The story is build around one U.S. freelance reporter in Lebanon, Sulome Anderson, who laments that her work is no longer requested or published. Like all other miserable issue in this world Anderson's lack of income is caused by one Donald Trump:

Sulome blames a news cycle dominated by Donald Trump. Newspapers, magazines, and TV news programs simply have less space for freelance international stories than before—unless, of course, they directly involve Trump.

It that really the problem Anderson has?

Before the 2016 election cycle, Sulome would pitch a story once, maybe twice, before finding a home for it. Now she pitches anywhere from three to 10 editors before a story gets the green light, if it gets picked up at all.

Maybe it is not Trump but the crude propaganda, and abysmal sourcing Anderson tries to sell:

In October 2017, Sulome thought she had landed the story of her career. The US had just announced a $7 million reward for a Hezbollah operative believed to be scouting locations for terror attacks on American soil—something it had never done before. Having interviewed Hezbollah fighters for the last six years, Sulome had unique access to the upper echelons of its militants, including that specific operative’s family members. Over the course of her reporting, Hezbollah members told her they had contingency plans to strike government and military targets on US soil and that they had surface-to-air missiles, which had not been reported before.

Why didn't she offer that story to The Onion – they would have had fun with it. Consider:

Cont. reading: Freelancer Despairs: “My Lies About Hizbullah Can’t Compete With Trump” – (Updated)

We noted back in July that the only relevant "collusion with the Russians" during the 2016 election cycle was the Democratic Party and Hillary Clinton smear campaign against Donald Trump:

Hillary Clinton campaign cut-out hires the (former?) British intelligence agent Steele to pay money to (former?) Russian intelligence agents and high-level Kremlin employees for dirt about Donald Trump. They deliver some fairy tales. The resulting dossier is peddled far and wide throughout Washington DC with the intent of damaging Trump.

There was never evidence that Steele indeed talked to any Russian, or really had contact with his claimed sources. He has been for years persona non grata in Moscow and could not visit the country.

Yesterday, our assertion that Clinton campaign cut-outs paid for the dossier, was finally confirmed: Clinton campaign, DNC paid for research that led to Russia dossier

Marc E. Elias, a lawyer representing the Clinton campaign and the DNC, retained Fusion GPS, a Washington firm, to conduct the research.
..,
After that, Fusion GPS hired dossier author Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence officer with ties to the FBI and the U.S. intelligence community, according to those people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Told ya so …

Michael Sussmann, a lawyer from the same firm that hired Fusion GPS on order of Democrats, hired the Crowdstrike cyber-outlet to investigate the leak of DNC emails. Crowdstrike and the DNC denied the FBI access to the relevant servers but asserted that "Russian hacking" was the source of the leak.

The "Trump dossier" was opposition research ordered up and paid for by the Clinton/DNC mafia. Most of its content was obviously fake or patched together from publicly known facts. But it took up to now for U.S. media to point that out. The fake dossier, paid for by the Democrats, was used by the FBI under Obama to get FISA warrants to spy on Republican party operatives.

We noted in January that the dossier was additionally used by the British and American deep state to sabotage Trump's plans for better relations with Russia (see  original for source quotes):

The "former" desk officer for Russia in the British MI6 Christopher Steele was the one who prepared the 35 pages of obviously false claims about Russian connections with and kompromat against Trump. There are so many inconsistencies in these pages that anyone knowledgeable about the workings in Moscow could immediately identify it as fake.
…
Steele spread the fakes throughout the press corps in Washington DC but no media published them because these were obviously false accusations.

Steele then decided to hand the papers to the FBI and to talk to its agents hoping they would start an official investigation. He cleared his move (or was ordered to proceed?) at the highest level of the British government:
…
When Steele's first move with the FBI in October did note deliver the hoped for results an attempt to stove pipe them through Senator John McCain was launched. A "former" British ambassador to Moscow arranged the hand over:
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The MI6 is well known for launching fakes on behalf of the British government.

Even the second, more official handover to the FBI still did not result in the hoped for publication of the allegations. But by that time Clinton was widely expect to win the election anyway so no further steps were taken.

After Trump unexpectedly won the election a new effort was launched to publish the smears. The Director of National Intelligence decided (or was ordered to) "brief" the President, the President elect and Congress on the obviously dubious accusations.

It was this decision that made sure that the papers would eventually be published. As the NYT noted:
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Only after Clapper or others leaked to CNN about the briefing of Obama, Trump and Congress, did CNN publish about the 35 pages:
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The attack was a deep state attempt to stage a coup against Trump:

After the election the Democrats stopped paying for new Steele reports. But by then efforts to make the fake Steele reports public and to thereby sabotage Trump policies turned into high gear. McCain had already been involved in distributing the report and it was he or the Brits who who paid for the last fake report Steele delivered:

Let me remind you of the basic facts about the Dossier–It consists of 13 separate reports. The first is dated 20 June 2016. That date is important because it shows that it took a little more than two months [after the Democrats started paying] for Fusion GPS to generate its first report on Trump's alleged Russian activities. If Fusion GPS already had something in the can then I would expect them to have put something out in early May. Eleven more reports were generated between 26 July and 19 October 2016. That tracks with the letter from Perkins Coie that the engagement by the Clinton Campaign ended at the end of October.

But there is a big problem and unanswered question–The Dossier includes a final report that is dated 13 December 2016. Who paid for this? Was it John McCain?

The purpose of the final fake report Steele added to the dossier was to provide "evidence" that Trump was involved in the "Russian hacking" of the DNC:

Cont. reading: British Involvement In “Trump Dossier” Needs Further Investigation

There are two new developments on the Syrian front. The Islamic State suddenly changed its tactic and the Turkish President Erdogan again changed his policy course.

In the last 24 hours news announcements about victories against the Islamic state (ISIS) rapidly followed each other:

• The Kurdish U.S. proxy forces in east Syria (SDF) announced that it had reached the northern bank of the Euphrates between Raqqa and Deir Ezzor. This cuts the ISIS communication line between the two cities.
• Turkish forces and their "Syrian rebel" mercenaries have been attacking Al-Bab east of Aleppo for nearly four month. They made little progress and incurred huge losses. Late yesterday they suddenly broke into the city and today took control of it. Various sources claim that a deal was made between the Turkish forces and ISIS for the later to evacuate Al-Bab unharmed and with its personal weapons. It is not yet known what price Turkey paid in that deal.
• South of Al-Bab the Syrian Army is moving further east towards the Euphrates and took several villages from ISIS. The Syrian move is largely designed to cut the roads between the Turkish forces around Al-Bab and the Islamic State forces in Raqqa. (This now might become a race.)
• Further south another Syrian Army group is moving east towards Palmyra.
• In the eastern city of Deir Ezzor the Syrian army garrison is under siege by Islamic State forces. A few weeks ago the situation there looked very dire. But with reinforcements coming in by helicopter and massive Russian air force interdiction the position held out quite well. In recent days the defenders took several hills from a retreating ISIS.
• In Iraq the army, police and the various government militia are pushing towards south Mosul. Today the airport south of the city fell into their hands with little fighting. Like everywhere else ISIS had stopped its resistance and pulled back. Only a few rearguards offered tepid resistance.

While ISIS was under pressure everywhere the sudden retreat on all fronts during the last 24 hours is astonishing and suggest some synchronicity. A central order must have been given to pull back to the buildup areas of Raqqa in Syria and south Mosul in Iraq.

But ISIS has nowhere to go from those areas. Mosul is completely surrounded and Raqqa is mostly cut off. After the massacres they committed everywhere ISIS fighters can not expect any mercy. They have made enemies everywhere and aside from a few (Saudi) radical clerics no friends are left to help them. The recent retreats are thereby likely not signs of surrender. ISIS will continue to fight until it is completely destroyed. But for now the ISIS leaders decided to preserve their forces. One wonders what they plan to stage as their last glorious show. A mass atrocity against the civilians in the cities it occupies?

When in late 2016 the defeat of the "Syrian rebels" proxy forces in east-Aleppo city was foreseeable the Turkish President Erdogan switched from supporting the radicals in north-west Syria to a more lenient stand towards Syria and its allies Russia and Iran. The move followed month of on and off prodding from Russia and after several attempts by Erdogan to get more U.S. support had failed. In late December peace talks started between Syria, Russia, Turkey and Iran with the U.S. and the EU excluded.

But after the Trump administration took over the Turkish position changed again. Erdogan is now back to betting on a stronger U.S. intervention in Syria that would favor his original plans of installing in Syria an Islamic government under Turkish control:

Cont. reading: Syria – A Confused Trump Strategy Lets Erdogan U-Turn Again

The Saudis continue their senseless war on Yemen. Next to bombing army troops and installation and thereby hindering it to go after AlQaeda they are systematically bombing electricity plants, water supplies and food centers:

Yemen Economic Corporation, one of Yemen’s largest food storage centres, was destroyed by three coalition missile strikes in Hodeidah last Tuesday, according to the Houthi-controlled defence ministry. The corporation had enough food for the entire country.

The government’s military food storage centre in Hodeidah was also targeted and destroyed on Tuesday, according to the defence ministry.

Also in Hodeidah, country’s second largest dairy plant was hit by five Saudi missiles on Wednesday, killing at least 29 people, mostly employees, and injuring dozens of others.

Unsurprisingly even those Yemenis who do not support the Zaydi Houthi rebellion are against the Saudi attacks. They will take revenge.

The Saudis continue to get favorable press coverage in the "western" media. No one seems to speak out against their war of aggression. Obama, who ordered the U.S. military to support the Saudi campaign, is only concerned with selling more weapons to them.

The Saudis want to invade Yemen but they need foot soldiers to do the bleeding. As their own people will no appreciate Saudi casualties they asked the Pakistani government to send them three divisions of cannon fodder. They specified that those division are to be purely Sunni. The Pakistani army, in a fight with Saudi supported radical Sunnis in its own country, was not amused. Some 30% of the army personal is not Sunni and the Pakistanis certainly want to keep sectarianism out of its rows. The conflict is Yemen is not about sects or religion but the Saudis, and most "western" media, do their best to turn it into one.

The Saudis have given Pakistan several "gifts" of billions of dollars and the current prime minister Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is a Saudi protege. But all parties in the parliament are against sending their troops to Yemen and Nawaz Sharif is therefore struggling to do his sponsor's bidding:

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said Pakistan is “not in a hurry” to decide whether to join the Saudi-led coalition against rebels in Yemen as Parliament resumed discussion on the issue.

The premier addressed a joint session of the Parliament a day after Defence Minister Khawaja Asif revealed Saudi Arabia wanted Pakistani warplanes, warships and soldiers. Not a single lawmaker has spoken in favour of sending troops.
…
The premier has repeatedly said he will defend any threat to Saudi Arabia's “territorial integrity” without defining what threat that could be, or what action he would take.

Pakistan, as well as Turkey and Iran, wants to stop the war before it gets out of hands. On Friday the Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu met his Pakistani counterpart, Nawaz Sharif, in Ankara.

That meeting is being followed by a flurry of diplomatic get-togethers: a visit to Ankara Monday for consultations by the Saudi deputy crown prince and interior minister, Mohammed bin Nayef; a visit by Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to Tehran on Tuesday, where he’ll meeting with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei; and a visit Wednesday by Iran’s foreign minister, Javad Zarif, to Islamabad. Later in the week, the Turkish foreign minister is expected in Islamabad.

The Saudis, Turks and Pakistanis want Iran involved because they believe that Tehran has control over the Houthis. I very much doubt that. Besides some minor money donations no serious material help has come from the Iranian site. The religious connections between the 12er Shia Persians and the 5er Shia Zaydis are less than those between the Zayhdis and mainstream Sunnis.

Iran did not instigate the Houthi revolt which originally started over lower fuel subsidies. It did not instigate the Saudis to bomb Yemen. But now everyone seems to want an Iranian role in a political process to end the war. While the Saudis criticize a greater role of Iran in the Middle East they themselves create the chaos that enlarges Tehran's influence.

The Saudi position reflects in the anti-Shia position of "western" media. Over the last days there were many "concerns" and hearsay reports about Shia paramilitaries looting Tikrit after liberating it from the Islamic State. It now turns out that Sunni tribes opposed to the Islamic State did the looting and that those effected were from Sunni tribes supporting the Islamic State.

U.S. media obviously believe in the immaculate conception of the current sectarian Middle East strife. It can have nothing to do with decades of U.S. wars in the Middle East or the instigation of fervent radical Saudi/Wahhabi believes. No. When in doubt, just blame Iran and who ever seems to have Iranian support. Will that ever change?

Happy fertile springtime:

Similar customs:

• Easter eggs in Germany (Xinhua)
• Nowruz eggs in Iran (Flickr)

Economy:

• Serious satire: Letter to FDIC on Geithner's PPIP (FDIC) pdf
• Top talent? Then how did we get into this mess?
  Crisis Altering Wall Street as Big Banks Lose Top Talent – (NYT)
• The real numbers are even higher
  China's foreign reserves hit $1.95 trillion at end of March – (Xinhua)

Middle East:

• Depressing – Wall: A Monologue (NYRB)
• Gideon Levy – The dark religious side of Israel – (Haaretz)
• Simple question – simple answer: Yes. – Is the west thwarting Arab plans for reform? – (FT)

Afghanistan supply watch:

• The Karachi-Peshawar-Kabul route – Ten Nato supply containers torched in Peshawar – (The News)
• The Karachi-Quetta-Kandahar route – 16 killed on second day of strike in Balochistan – (Dawn)

Please add your news and views in the comments.

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.

(RBN) – Hamas is smuggling ballistic missiles of possibly intercontinental range into Gaza.

Through tunnels under the Gaza-Egypt border high capacity missiles are entering Gaza and are now readied to hit targets in central Europe and possibly even the United States. Due to high tech developments, stolen by Chinese spies from defense laboratories in western countries, these missile – while small – are capable of reaching extraordinary distances.

Additionally photographic evidence (below the fold) was acquired in dangerous clandestine operation by our resident journalists.

It shows highly capable Hezbollah trained engineers and fighters of likely Iranian origin now entering the Gaza strip.

Officials expect that these radical-Islamists will infiltrate from Gaza into European countries and from there into the United States with the ultimate aim of hitting local civilian and government areas like public parks, libraries and recreation establishments near you with devastating improvised weapons.

We advise every citizen to stay at home until your local officials announce that the have cleared your local area from any suspect. 

Cont. reading: Weapons And Iran Trained Fighters Smuggled Into Gaza

Sarkozy is coming forward with some ceasefire proposal that is supposed to be between the Egyptian side, Israel and the Palestinian Authority of Mahmud Abbas. His main success which follows an Israeli demand is some initiative or scheme against smuggling through the tunnels between Gaza and Egypt.

The people in Gaza are hungry. In the last months Israel shut off the most basic supplies through the normal borders and the tunnels were all that kept Gaza alive.

The proposal will go nowhere. No one will agree to the various conditions the other sides will attached to it. And what about Hamas? Did Sarkozy talk to them at all? It does not seem so:

"This aggression must cease. The blockade must be lifted. The crossings must be unconditionally open. The oppression of our people must end. After that, we can talk," Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said. He said Wednesday's lull was an Israeli "ruse."

Israel stopped some fighting for three hours today for 'humanitarian reasons.'
I agree with the Hamas spokesperson, the lull was a ruse and a public relation stunt.

The three Israeli brigades in Gaza have now been fighting for some 72 hours and it is time to replace them and give them some rest. Israel has called up reserve troops and is moving them into position. That is easier to do when the shooting stops for a few hours.

The shift change It is also a game changer. Instead of young elite professionals now some middle age reservists from some suburb will have to fight the Palestinian resistance.

That will likely increase the toll Israel has to pay for its outrages operation.

The Chinese take a neutral stand on foreign internal issues. Like on Sudan, where China buys oil and does not loudmouth much about remote struggles in Darfur, liberal interventionists and their neocon brethren damn them for such behavior whenever it suits their goals.

There are some basic issues where all nations agree upon, like the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights. But even there the interpretation of these rights already varies, and this not only between the 'west' and others, but between each pair of societies. 'Everyone has the right to life,' says the declaration. How does that fit with the death penalty and opinions thereon in Europe and the U.S.?

Then there is the UN's International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights which most parties have signed with the notable exception of a bunch of Arab countries at the Persian Gulf, most of whom are allies to the 'western' countries that ratified the treaty. How can that be?

The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights includes the 'right to work' and the 'right to social security'. It has 159 full parties. The U.S. signed the treaty in 1977 but is one of the very few countries that never ratified it.

Which is to show only that such rights are never really universal, especially when it comes to interpretation of internal issues in other countries.

The French President Sarkozy recently received the Dalai Lama in official capacity. When China expressed concern, Sarcozy cited 'European values'. The Chinese remember those very well.

I like the Chinese stand on this:

China on Tuesday said it doesn't accept the French leader Nicholas Sarkozy using "European values" as a pretext to defend its act that hurts fundamental interests of other countries.

"We will not interfere in the values adopted by other countries. At the same time we cannot accept using these values as an excuse for act that hurts the fundamental interests of other nations and peoples," Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao told the regular Tuesday press briefing.
…
Liu's said this when asked to comment on French President Sarkozy's recent remarks that the French side would like to restart dialogue with China, but "not at the price of renouncing our own European values."

The Chinese spokesman took a traditional stand on Westphalian sovereignty which is some time tested  real European valuable consideration. 

My personal stand on 'rights' and 'values' discussions between nations was well expressed in a recent interview (in German, my translation) with the former German chancellor Schmidt:

I have great sympathies for human rights, but I am very concerned when, in the name of human rights, political aims, or even strategic aims, are pursued.

Over the last years the U.S. neocons used 'human rights' as a sales argument for their destructive policy aims. The incoming Obama administration will use the argument even more. Whether that will be from genuine conviction or as a tactical argument will be difficult to decipher in the onslaught of propaganda that will accompany it in this or that case of 'needed' military intervention.

I for one will adhere to Schmidt's warning and take the Chinese standpoint. You may not like the 'values' of others. But that is not an argument to force your 'values' onto them, especially not with force.

What started as student protests now seems to develop into a general revolution against the unloved conservative government. The unions joined today with a general strike. A $28 billion bailout for banks who do not seem to need it versus half a billion for anti-poverty measures when 20% of the population lives below the poverty line did not go down well with the people.

Talos at EuroTrib summarizes the real social reasons behind the protests:

ubiquitous police brutality against youth, immigrants, the weak – brutality that routinely goes unpunished as it is swept under the rug; deep systemic corruption and perception of corruption; increasing income gaps; entry level monthly wages in specialized jobs < 700 euro that don't visibly lead to something better; precarity for the under 35s; a life suppressing yet utterly ineffective educational system; the death of hope; the break-up of existing social patterns; the decay of public services; a justice system plagued with scandal itself; massive bailouts for the bankers – the same bankers who simply refuse to enact laws that they don't like (no, really). And on top of that the Crisis promising even more immiseration and discomfort… Now that I look at the list, the question really is: why didn't this explosion happen sooner?

There are rumors of a possible declaration of emergency rule. If that comes, this will explode into something bigger than street riots.

There some blogging from Greece at OccupiedLondon (h/t drunkasarule). Please add reliable sources/news in the comments.

9/11 – seven years later.

No rebuild on the Twin Towers site yet. At current economic U.S. trends, we will not see any in the next seven years. China and the Gulf states take less than three years to build higher, bigger and better.

No memorial for the casualties yet. Anyone cares?

How are the U.S flight schools doing that trained the pilots involved in this? Did U.S. Special Operation forces kill the ‘senior militants’ that trained the 9/11 pilots?

My Alma Mater, the Tech University of Hamburg trained Mohamed Atta in urban planing. I am still waiting for the bombs to fall.

And yes, thanks for Ms. Perino to clean up that Osama nonsense:

Q    But Osama bin Laden is the one that — you keep talking about his
lieutenants, and, yes, they are very important, but Osama bin Laden was the
mastermind of 9/11 —

MS. PERINO:  No, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was the mastermind of 9/11, and
he’s sitting in jail right now.

Well then again –  what was the reason to invade Afghanistan again? We know the reason for Iraq. It was oil, the greed of the imperial power for control of the energy sources it falsely believes will sustain its position. But why then Afghanistan?

9/11 – More questions than answers. And more dead following it then anyone is willing to contemplate. The war on Afghanistan, the war on Iraq, the war on Somalia, all ‘justified’ by 9/11,  will tally a thousand times more killed than the number killed by a few U.S. trained pilots and some fifteen U.S. sponsored Saudi thugs.

I do not want another one.

Anyone who is long oil, i.e. is betting on higher crude prices, has a financial interest to push the impression of imminent War on Iran.