Why Wiki leaks

Anisa Abd el Fattah





As a result of downloading and sharing with various news outlets, highly sensitive and sometimes classified information never made public before, an organization known as Wikileaks has been catapulted onto the front pages of every major newspaper in the world. As a result, people everywhere are asking who is behind the Wikileaks operation and why Wiki is leaking.


These are good questions considering that the organization seems to have access not only to extremely sensitive US government defense files, but also diplomatic cables between embassies and secret information belonging to banks and powerful corporations. Most government and bank employees don’t have access to this type of information, which makes it clear that Wikileaks activists are not simply disgruntled government or bank employees as some might suspect, just having a good time embarrassing and frustrating the US government and major banks. It’s also pretty clear that Wikileaks is not an organization that is being energized by a desire for publicity and or notoriety, since it seems that only its founder and leader, Julian Assange is recognizable.



Questions that seek to ascertain if indeed Wikileaks is a criminal enterprise seem to have taken a backseat to a more philosophical conversation that focuses mostly on the morality of what Wikileaks does. That conversation is saturated with somewhat esoteric idealism that pits the small and anonymous Wikileaks in opposition to a government and elite behemoth that is wrapped in unnecessary secrecy. In this respect, it is the secrecy itself that is the target and the details of what is actually being leaked, and its potentially negative impact is seen as merely collateral damage in a war being fought for greater transparency. Wikileaks describes itself in such terms saying on its website:



"Wikileaks is a non profit media organization dedicated to bringing important news and information to the public. We provide an innovative, secure and anonymous way for independent sources around the world to leak information to our journalists. We publish information of ethical, political and historical significance, while keeping the identity of our sources anonymous, thus providing a universal way for the revealing of suppressed and censored injustices."



Wikileaks heads one of its various websites with a banner saying, “Keep us strong, help Wikileaks keep governments open.”



On the other side of the conversation are those who say that Wikileaks is a criminal outfit that is carrying out cyber warfare against the United States. In a USA Today article, (Wikileaks actions: An act of cyber war?) former State Department official under the Bush administration, Christian Whiton said;

“Assaulting the company electronically is something worth trying…it buys you time to go after the organization in other ways.” According to the article, Whiton believes that Wikileaks is a “foreign organization trying to impede US policy.” [1]



US Attorney General Eric Holder has said that Wikileaks is the subject of an “active and ongoing criminal investigation.” This statement is contextualized by Holder’s earlier statement, where he said, “To the extent that we can find anybody involved in the breaking of America law, who put at risk the assets and the people I have described…” [2]



Between these two opinions of Wikileaks in respect to its motives, there still lies the question of Wikileaks criminality. To most observers it is obvious that Wikileaks is not an overtly criminal operation. There does not seem to be any statute that criminalizes publishing sensitive information that has been censored to protect the names of US assets and to censor other information that might be deemed harmful to US interests. According to The New York Times and other news outlets that actually published the information, all information deemed harmful to US interests and assets was redacted.



On December 8th, 2010 National Public Radio,(NPR) aired a program called Fresh Air, which is hosted by Terry Goss. Goss interviewed the New York Time’s Washington Correspondent David Sanger. Sanger makes it clear in the interview that the New York Times acted in cooperation with the US government to insure that no Wikileaks information was released that would harm US interests in any significant way.



An online journal known as Global Research.ca published a transcript of the Sanger interview. In the introduction to the transcript, Michael Chossodovsky, the sites founder and editor wrote the following observations:


"The following transcript points to the involvement of the corporate media including the New York Times in the Wikileaks project. How do we interpret this relationship? The corporate media is the source of disinformation and at the same time it is supporting "transparency" and truth in media. David E. Sanger, Washington Correspondent of the New York Times, worked closely with Wikileaks. He was involved in the distribution, editing and dissemination of the leaked documents. Sanger is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and the Aspen Strategy Group together with Madeleine K. Albright, Richard Hass, R Talbott, Robert.B. Zoellick (president of the World Bank), and Philip Zelikow (formerly executive director of the 9/11 Commission).

We have highlighted a number of important statements in the first part of this interview, which confirm that the NYT has not only been involved in the selection and redacting of the Wikileaks documents, it has undertaken these activities in consultation with the US government.

Unquestionably the released documents constitute an important data bank in their own right. The question is who controls and oversees the selection, distribution and editing of the released documents to the broader public. What interests are being served?"[3]



Along with those who don't feel that Wikileaks is a criminal enterprise, and that Wikileaks in fact works in cooperation with the US government, there are also those who feel that Wikileaks has been used by the Israeli government to leak information that actually facilitates Israel’s foreign policy objectives that include a US war with Iran.



In an article published by World Bulletin, (Wikileaks-The Tel Aviv Connection) author Jeff Gates wrote:



"Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. Con me consistently for six decades and the relationship is over, as is Israel’s credibility as a legitimate nation state. Tel Aviv knows this, but what can the Zionist state do about it? Answer: Wikileaks. Why now? Misdirection!" [4]



In Gate’s opinion, Wikileaks is possibly a Mossad operation. He said,”



"Any credible forensics would start by asking: “To what benefit?” Then look to the means, motive and opportunity plus the presence of stable nation-state intelligence inside the US. Other than Israel, who else is a credible candidate? Notice how quickly Israel’s role in the peace process vanished from the news. Now, its Iran, Iran, Iran. To whose benefit? Tel Aviv knows that the phony intelligence on Iraq leads to those skilled at waging war “by way of deception” the Mossad." [5]



Gates goes on to say: “Wikileaks are noteworthy for what’s missing: the absence of any material damaging to Israel goals. But still, Tel Aviv faces an unprecedented peril: transparency. Americans know they were duped. And Israel rightly fears that Americans will soon realize by whom.”



In the most recent development, US Senator Joseph Lieberman along with Senator Diane Feinstein, is seeking to have Wikileaks founder Julian Assange prosecuted under an antiquated and highly controversial law known as the Espionage Act. Sounding the alarm on this approach in an article published by the Huffington Post (Espionage Act: How the Government Can Engage in Serious Aggression Against the People of the United States, Dec.10, 2010) writer Naomi Wolf wrote,



"Presidential candidate Eugene Debs received a ten-year prison sentence in 1918 under the Espionage Act for daring to read the First Amendment in public. The roundup of ordinary citizens -- charged with the Espionage Act -- who were jailed for daring to criticize the government, was so effective in deterring others from speaking up that the Act silenced dissent in this country for a decade. In the wake of this traumatic history, it was left untouched -- until those who wish the same outcome began to try to reanimate it again starting five years ago, and once again, now. Seeing the Espionage Act rise up again is, for anyone who knows a thing about it, like seeing the end of a horror movie in which the zombie that has enslaved the village just won't die."[6]





It is no secret that for years Joseph Lieberman has sought some way to criminalize free speech in respect to a citizen’s right to criticize the government and government allies, most specifically Israel. There have also been rumors that one of the uses that Israel has for Wikileaks is to create a crisis and a cause for emergency measures to be put in place that would supposedly stop the leaks and the danger they allegedly represent to the US government and its interest requiring internet censorship. Now it seems that it might also be used to revive an ancient law, antiquated mostly due to its blatant violation of the US Constitution’s first amendment.



Also, none of us are likely to ever forget former White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel’s’ remark that no crisis should ever go unexploited. In respect to the Wikileaks leaks, it seems that for whatever reason Wiki leaks, its leaks have served more than the cause of transparency.

[1] USA Today, Wikileaks actions: An act of cyberwar? http:/www.usatoday.com/clearprint/?1292293292303

[2] Jonathan M. Seidl, “AG Holder says Wikileaks under criminal investigation” www.theblaze.com/ stories/holder-says-wikileaks-under-criminal-investigation/

[3] PBS Interview: “The Redacting and Selection of Wikileaks documents by the Corporate Media”, cited at Global Research; www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?content=viewArticles&codes=20101212articleID=22378

[4] http:/www.worldbulliten.net.news/_print .php?id=66903

[5] Ibid.

[6]http://www.huffingtonpost.com/naomi-wolf/post_1394_b_795001.html

NAMAW Muslim 2010 Voters Guide

"Change it with your hands...vote!"


As Salaamu Alaikum!

In our effort to ensure Muslim representation in the US political process, we are issuing this 2010 election voter's guide.

The purpose of this guide is simply to offer some advice as to which candidates, in the most important races should be considered by Muslims as worthy of our vote. We must all decide on our own, according to our own consciences which candidates we will vote for. Still, we must also keep in mind the criteria for judgment that God has taught us in the Qur'an and through the prophet Muhammad's sunnah or way of life.

Over the past months leading up to this election, Muslims as a community who exist within the larger community of American citizens, were subjected to a hellish campaign of hatred and demonization of our community, our religion and our beliefs. Gross misrepresentations of Islam, and horrible lies about Muslim attitudes towards the US and non Muslims were allowed to be aired across mainstream media airwaves with little or no concern for the dangerous climate that was being created, leading to acts of violence against Muslims and destruction and desecration of Mosques.

There are those who will look at these events and say that there is nothing that we can do to prevent ignorant and hate filled people from saying and doing such evil things, and desiring harm for Muslim. We disagree and feel that when Muslims speak the truth upon every opportunity, falsehood flees. The Qur'an teaches us that when truth arrives, falsehood flees, because it is the nature of falsehood to be weak and and when confronted with the truth, to run and hide its ugly face. We must always take every opportunity to speak the truth without ambiguity.

The political campaign season, which is now near its end, is a wonderful time and opportunity to speak out about the things that are important to our community, and also for our country. It is a great time for us to speak to our neighbors and colleagues, friends and associates about Islam and about the things we believe are best for our country. We cannot seclude ourselves. We are Americans, and we must live and coexist as part of the American society, even if we don't like everything about the society.

Having said that, it is important for us to also say that the only way to change the things we don't like about our government and society is to vote. In our representative republic, we make our voices heard at the ballot box. This is why it is essential that we vote and that we vote according to a set of priorities, and based upon what we believe.

We have seen and heard enough over the past two years since the Obama election to understand very clearly what is at stake for Muslims in the United States and for our country in this election cycle.

Our first priority is the survival of our community, our safety and our rights. Our 1st amendment right to choose our faith, to practice our faith openly without fear of government or any other type of reprisal are key issues for us. The safety of our children and the rights of Muslim women to wear the Islamic attire if they choose and to feel safe and secure in their person are also important priorities for us.

There are many candidates who are running for election under the guise of being strict Constitutionalists. They make this claim, yet they are a very dangerous threat to our Constitution and the rights of Muslims. Some are calling for the repeal of the 14th amendment, an amendment that guarantees equal protection under the law for every citizen, not just for some.

Many of us might remember that US Senator Joseph Lieberman suggested that US citizens should be stripped of citizenship and deported for criticizing Israel. The 14th amendment stood in his way. It says:

"Persons born or naturalized in the US and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States, and the states wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the US, nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty or property without due process of the law, nor deny to any person its jurisdiction equal protection under the law."


This is only one example of how deceptive , devious and cunning Zionists in the US are, and to what extent they are willing to go to deprive US citizens of rights, hoping to cement their dominance in our society and to silence all dissent. Whereas it is only one example, it is not the only threat to our rights represented by the Tea Party and other so called Constitutionalists who are calling for amending the US Constitution to suit their extreme and fanatical religious and political views. Another so called Tea Party candidate competing for a seat in the US Senate representing the state of Delaware, said in a debate that the US Constitution does not prevent the establishment of a national religion, nor prohibit preferential treatement of any religion over others. Others want to curtail free speech rights hoping to criminalize dissent.

It is our opinion, and our advice to Muslims to avoid , and do not vote for any Tea Party candidates, and only those moderate Republicans that we endorse. It is not enough to merely "not" vote for a candidate. We must vote "for" those who are running against them. In some instances this will be a vote for the lesser of two evils. This is permissible in Islam, especially when the very survival of our community is at stake.

We also advise Muslims to not be distracted by the so called culture war issues such as gay marriage, abortion, prayer in schools, etc. Republicans are exploiting these issues hoping to get what they call the moral vote. We are moral voters. Muslims are moral voters with priorities. In this election cycle, culture war issues are not our priority. The survival of our community and our Constitutional rights are our priority. Issues like gay marriage and abortion, etc., will increasingly be resolved at the state level, so if you are interested in these issues, work in your local communities to educate, but do not throw away your important vote in this election, thinking your vote will help to resolve these issues, because it wont.

We also ask that you help us to circulate this guide to Muslims throughout the US via e-mail, or by printing and distributing at Muslim gatherings, family gatherings, etc.

The following endorsements represent our guidance in respect to a few key states where candidates are running that we feel threaten our community's rights, and who we feel are wrong for our country. If you live in the states and districts where these candidates are running, we suggest that you do not vote for any Tea Party candidate and that you vote for the candidates we have endorsed. May Allah help us, guide us and protect us, and forgive us for our sins and imperfections.



Candidates running for US Senate that we endorse
Alaska Senate race we endorse write in candidate Lisa Murkowski

Arizona Senate race we endorse Rodney Glassman

California Senate race we endorse Carly Fiorina

Colorado Senate race we endorse Michael Bennet

Delaware Senate race we endorse Chris Coons

Florida Senate race we endorse Charlie Crist

Kentucky Senate race we endorse Jack Conway

Nevada Senate race we endorse Harry Reid

Ohio Senate race we endorse Rob Portman

Pennsylvania Senate race we endorse Joe Sestak

Wisconsin Senate race we endorse Russ Feingold

Candidates running for US House of Representatives
Minnesota race for House of Representatives we endorse Michael Cavlan

North Carolina race for House of Representatives we endorse Mike McIntyre

Ohio race for House of Representatives we endorse Mary J. Kilroy

Pennsylvania race for House of Representatives we endorse Patrick Murphy and Paul Kanjorski

Candidates running for Governor
Arizona's gubernatorial race we endorse Terry Goddard

California gubernatorial race we endorse Jerry Brown

Colorado gubernatorial race we endorse John Hickenlooper

Illinois gubernatorial race we endorse Pat Quinn

New York gubernatorial race we endorse Andrew Cuomo

Ohio gubernatorial race we endorse Ted Strickland

Pennsylvania gubernatorial race we endorse Dan Oronato


Contact Us

namaw01@gmail.com

The Truth About Islamophobia in the United States

The sudden upsurge in hatred towards Muslims and Islam in the US, known as Islamophobia is not something that is happening by accident. It has been nine years since the horrible and criminal attacks of 9/11. Instead of feelings towards Muslims getting better as time goes by, according to US mainstream and alternative media, things are getting worse for Muslims in the US. This puzzling situation should cause us all to ask ourselves why? Is it strange that 9 years of war has not satisfied the desire for revenge, and that time has not healed the psychological wounds created by 9/11?

Is it possible that some special interest within the US does not want healing, and decreasing support for the so the called war on terrorism? We might also ask ourselves if there might be people in the US, who want the war on terrorism to include a war on US Muslims, hoping that such a war might lead to genocide here in the US similar to the genocide that took place in Nazi Germany.


The voices of those instigating hatred against Muslims in the US are harsh and hateful. One would never imagine that such words would ever be spoken publicly by Congressmen and women and other elected officials such as governors, and also political candidates. These are the people we would expect would be working hard to keep the country united and to demand that the US Constitution be upheld, and its rights extended to every citizen, and its principles preserved and protected. It would also seem that a government that sincerely felt that 8 or 9 million of its citizens were a threat to its existence, would not be acting in a way to incite anger and hatred, and especially not in a way that would provoke violence, unless violence is exactly what it hopes to provoke.

Just as things didn’t seem to add up in respect to the surge in anti-Muslim sentiment in Switzerland that led to a Minaret ban, when less than 1/3 of the population is Muslim, and those Muslims are mostly secular, the upsurge in fear and hatred of Muslims in the US is equally confusing. US Muslims represent one of the best educated and affluent religious communities within the United States and there is almost no crime committed by US Muslims. Can we avoid asking if these positive attributes might be the very reason that Muslims are the targets of what seems to be a very well orchestrated effort to demonize and dehumanize American Muslims? American history is ripe with examples of ethnic conflict that originated from feelings of envy, and fear of political and economic competition experienced by in-groups, in respect to newly arrived out groups.

The only way to truly understand what is creating Islamophobia in the US, is to look at what has been going on in the US from various perspectives since 9/11. Has the government acted to help its citizens recover from the trauma? Has the government and others worked to heal the society and bring the people together, or have they done the opposite? Is it possible that leaders of the US society are oblivious to what is needed to end or at least to curtail Islamophobia and are they doing enough? If not, why would a country allow hate speech to foment hatred and demonization of certain groups, knowing the documented relationship between hate speech and violence? These are some of the questions this article will seek to answer.


Professor Stevan E. Hobfoll, Ph.D., conducted a study hoping to determine how societies recover from traumatic events. He pulled together experts and clinicians from around the world, in the various fields of psychiatry that deal with stress, fear and anxiety. According to a review of the book written by Professor Hobfall and his colleagues on the topic, “the panel reviewed existing research, and then determined five key principles of effective mass trauma mental health care, which involves promoting a sense of safety, calm, a sense of being able to solve problems for oneself or as part of a group, and connectedness to social support and help.”

Looking at this list of five principles for recovery, it becomes extremely apparent that none of these government officials or candidates was employing the principles. In fact, based upon what they said, and the media sensationalism that resulted from their remarks, it might appear that the five principles were in fact being deliberately ignored, assuming that these officials and the media are familiar with these, or similar principles. Even if not familiar with these exact principles, it seems that any intelligent person would realize that hate speech incites hatred and violence.

In another important study on the relationship between hate speech and violence, findings were written by the authors, suggesting that hate speech is a very effective tool when used by governments and groups to incite ethnic tensions hoping to polarize societies and to cause genocides and violence. They wrote:

"The most drastic and well-known example of hate speech communicated through the media that has brought world-wide attention to the phenomenon in this region was disseminated by the radio station Radio T´el´evision Mille Collines (RTLM) during the genocide in Rwanda in 1994.The broadcasts of this government-owned station, which incited the Hutu majority to murder Tutsis and opponents of the regime, are commonly recognized as having played a major role in this genocide (des Forges 1999;Gourevitch 1998).

Furthermore, hate radio has continued to exist even after the genocide, and has resulted in further conflict across borders. After Rwandan Patriotic Front troops succeeded in driving the genocidal government forces out of the capital of Rwanda in July 1994, RTLM used mobile radio transmitters to broadcast disinformation from inside the French-controlled zone on the border between Rwanda and Zaire (now DRC). This caused millions of Hutus to flee toward refugee camps, where they could be recruited as freedom fighters. Hutu extremists then began to stage raids into Rwanda from Congolese territory. Thereby, the ground for future conflict and war between Rwanda and the DRC was created, which discord continues to have a negative impact on the relations between the two countries and the lives of people (Gourevitch 1999; Nzongola-Ntalaja 2003).

In sum, hate speech and hate media have a historical and symbolic meaning in the region, and have played a crucial role in violent conflicts both between and within states. Within the DRC, the effects of hate speech have not been as drastic as in its neighboring country Rwanda. Nevertheless, hate media has been and is very present here as well, and continues to play a destructive role in the political events of the country. During the civil war in the Congo, which took place in 1998-2003 and caused four million deaths due to fighting and disease, hate propaganda was used, for example, in the eastern part of the country. Here it fueled ethnic conflict, for example between Hema and Lendu, two ethnic groups in the Ituri region. Based on the classification of dehumanizing speech as one of eight stages leading to genocide (Genocide Watch a), the occurrence of hate speech was among the factors that led international NGOs to warn against a potential genocide in the region (Genocide Watch b). "

When we compare the hate speech being made public through US mainstream media and printed in US news papers across the country, it seems apparent that not only were the five principles for healing US society after 9/11 ignored, but a campaign of hate speech was carried out by US politicians and their supporters that could lead to polarization of US society, violence and even genocide.

Some observers have suggested that the anti-Muslim hate speech campaign was initiated with the cooperation of the US government and media, for the purpose of perpetuating more hatred of Muslims based upon accusations that Muslims attacked the US on 9/11. They argue that such hatred must be continuously incited to continue support for the so called war on terrorism, and for Congressional approval of billions of tax payer dollars needed to pay for the wars. One such observer, Diana Ralph, Ph.D., wrote in an article entitled; “Islamophobia and the War on Terror, the Continuing Pretext for US Imperial Conquest” the following:

"The 9-11 attacks were the pretext which sold the myth of evil Muslim terrorists imminently threatening Americans. That tale allowed the Cheney-led members of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) to implement their 1990 DPG plan for world control. The “war on terror” has nothing to do with protecting the U.S. and world’s people from “terrorists”, and everything to do with securing the American empire abroad and muzzling democracy and human rights at home. Designed to inspire popular support for U.S. wars of world conquest, it is modeled on Islamophobic stereotypes, policies, and political structures developed by the Israeli Likkud and Bush Sr. since 1979."

There are others who argue that in fact the purpose of the hate speech that has created the phenomenon known as Islamophobia is aimed at provoking US Muslims to carry out acts of violence that would ignite a Muslim genocide here in the US, similar the genocide carried out Hitler against what were deemed undesirables and internal threats to the Third Reich. In an article written by Paul Kivel a US blogger writing on the issue of Christian hegemony, Kivel opines that Islamophobia is in fact created by white Christians to demonize Muslims, because they want to incite hatred and possible violence against Muslims. Interestingly, he also wrote that Islamophobia also hurts the US. He wrote:

"Islamophobia justifies systemic and institutionalized discrimination and violence against Muslims in the United States and by the U.S. throughout the world. Just as with racial profiling and discrimination directed against other groups, Islamophobia threatens our collective safety when resources are selectively and inappropriately directed at specific communities. It threatens our civil and religious liberties when one group is singled out as not entitled to constitutionally guaranteed rights. It also curtails our freedom when surveillance and harassment are legally sanctioned under the justification that the danger of some group is so great that we must limit our civil rights in order to prevent attack. When we speak out and stand strong as allies to the Muslim community we challenge violence and injustice, increase our safety and freedom, and challenge age-old Christian stereotypes and myths. We also uphold our legal rights to freedom of religion, freedom of assembly, and freedom from discrimination and attack."

Whatever the cause or current purpose of the growing Islamophobia in the US might be, we can trace its beginning back before 9/11. We can trace the anti-Muslim hate speech to its beginnings with Steven Emerson, the anti Muslim polemicist who wrote his Master’s thesis at Brown University on the Nazi’s use of propaganda to foment hatred against Jews, which he argued led to the Holocaust.

We can trace it back to his colleague Daniel Pipes, who coined the term Islamism, and used that create to create something he called political Islam, and put in opposition, and in contrast to Islam the religion. We can also trace it back to people like Michael Horowitz who said that the Muslims must be pushed back to the Middle Ages and prevented from finding comfort and protection under the laws of the United States.

The truth about Islamophobia, is that it is aimed at dehumanizing and demonizing Muslims for many purposes, the most sinister of which is possibly to create a political climate in which the mass murder of Muslims, including Muslims in the US, is not only deemed a necessary evil, but is also justified as the only means by which to save what they claim is US Christian culture here in the US, and also the only way to insure that Jews can establish and life peacefully in a racist Jewish Only state in Palestine. While we know these claims are not true, we must also acknowledge that truth, treachery and evil never travel together. Chattel slavery was justified by believers in these same ideas in this same way, as were the Crusades, the Inquisition and also the Holocaust.

We must demand that our government and media end their collaboration in the creation of Islamophobia and we must not be silent and we must respond to the many lies, and anti-Muslim and also anti-Islam hate speech that is so prevalent in our media. If we fail to stop this now, we already know that it will not stop until homosexuals, the poor, the elderly, and the chronically ill and disabled will also become targets of public hatred and hysteria created by the likes of the present day Islamophobes and their enablers and supporters.

NAMAW calls for new 9/11 investigation

US Muslim women's Association says Muslims have been unjustly scapegoated and calls for new independent investigation of 9/11.


In an attempt to set the record straight and to end false and unproven allegations that it was Muslims who planned and carried out the devastating and criminal attacks on the World Trade Center in NY City, and the Pentagon in Washington DC, on September 11, 2001, a national Muslim Women's organization will provide proof during an international radio broadcast, that Muslims did not carry out those attacks.

On September 11, 2010 at 10:00am, EST, The National Association of Muslim American Women (NAMAW) will issue a statement via an international radio broadcast, where they will provide proof that Muslims did not attack the US on 9/11. The program can be accessed at poweroftruthradio.com.

"This is our humble effort to free Muslims from the unfair and unjust stigma that has been placed upon us by those who rushed to judgment after 9/11, and wrongly blamed Muslims and Islam for the attacks", says NAMAW founder and Chairwoman Anisa Abd el Fattah. "Since that time numerous experts in the fields of aviation, aeronautics, demolitions, architects, engineers and other scientists, and first responders have compiled an impressive body of proof, showing clearly that Muslims did not attack the US on 9/11, or at any other time. Abd el Fattah said further, that "We hope to provide some of that evidence for our listeners consideration, and also to read some of the testimonies presented by military experts, including a former NATO General and presidential candidate, calling for a new investigation based upon some of the same evidence we will present."

Along with declaring Muslim innocence based upon scientific proof that creates a reasonable doubt as to the truthfulness of the official 9/11 report, NAMAW will call for a new and independent investigation, and also for an apology and reparations to the families of the nearly 5 million Muslims killed in the so called war on terrorism launched in revenge for 9/11. To date 5 Muslim countries have been invaded, attacked and occupied as a result of 9/11 . NAMAW hopes that this action will end the violence and hatred against Muslims that resulted from the 9/11 attacks, the false charges and continued scapegoating of Muslims.

Radio Presentation: Reasonable Doubt: How we Know Muslims Did Not Attack the US on 9/11
When: September 11th, 2010
Time: 10:00am EST
Where: poweroftruthradio.com

For more information contact poweroftruthradio.com at www.poweroftruthradio.com
1-800-246-3038

-END-

Uniting Again For Peace: It's time to establish a war crimes tribunal in the United States

By Anisa Abd el Fattah


“Where the Security Council, because of lack of unanimity of the permanent members, fails to exercise its primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security, the General Assembly shall seize itself of the matter.” UN Resolution 377 (v).


Since the inception of the US led international war on terrorism in 2002, many questions have been raised in respect to the legality of the war, its motive, and also the tactics employed in the war. Perhaps one of the most controversial of these tactics has been the use of torture.

Arguably, one of the best definitions of torture for those interested in a legal, and not a political definition, is provided in the book, Torture, the United States and the Laws of War, written by Lionel Beehner.

In chapters 7 and 8 of the book, Beehner asks, “How is torture defined in international law?” and “Do US interrogation techniques qualify as torture?” He answers both questions saying:

Torture, as defined by Article 1 of the 1984 Convention Against Torture, is the “cruel, inhumane, or degrading” infliction of severe pain or suffering, physical or mental, on a prisoner to obtain information or a confession, or to mete out a punishment for a suspected crime. The United States ratified the treaty in 1994 but took a reservation to the convention’s addendum on the definition of torture, deferring to the U.S. Bill of Rights’ Eighth Amendment, which outlaws cruel and unusual punishment. However, the 1980 court case Filartiga v. Pena-Irala, in which a Paraguayan citizen won a suit in the U.S. Court of Appeals’ Second Circuit against a former Paraguayan police officer, established that torture falls under the realm of customary international law—thus, all countries, whether party to the Torture Convention or not, must abide. Further, the suit found that torturers become, “like the pirate and slave trader before him—hostis humani generis, an enemy of mankind.” Other agreements that outline similar definitions of torture include the Geneva Conventions and the 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
A leaked 2004 report by CIA inspector general John Helgerson found that several of the interrogation techniques approved by the agency may violate some of the provisions of the Convention on Torture. Human-rights groups charge the United States has tried to narrow the definition of torture to include only those interrogation techniques that result in severe harm to a bodily organ. Thus, they argue that the use of “waterboarding”—when a detainee is strapped down, forced underwater, and made to believe he is drowning—or the use of sleep deprivation would not legally fall under the definition of torture. What the Bush administration essentially did was “rip up the rulebook as far as military interrogators were concerned, telling them that the decades-old rules of the Army interrogation manual didn’t apply,” said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, in an April 14 Council event on the laws of war.

In USC: 18, Part I. Chapter 113C:2340 torture is defined somewhat differently. US law makes an exception for pain and suffering “incidental to lawful sanctions.” Other than this exception, the US law clearly incorporates the principles and meaning of torture explaining and defining exactly what torture is. !8 USC: 2340 says the following:

As used in this chapter—
(1) “torture” means an act committed by a person acting under the color of law specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions) upon another person within his custody or physical control;
(2) “severe mental pain or suffering” means the prolonged mental harm caused by or resulting from—
(A) the intentional infliction or threatened infliction of severe physical pain or suffering;
(B) the administration or application, or threatened administration or application, of mind-altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or the personality;
(C) the threat of imminent death; or
(D) the threat that another person will imminently be subjected to death, severe physical pain or suffering, or the administration or application of mind-altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or personality; and
(3) “United States” means the several States of the United States, the District of Columbia, and the commonwealths, territories, and possessions of the United States.


In 2005, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) provided its own definition of torture in a series of statements posted to its website. According to Boston Globe columnists, Jeffery Smith and Dan Eggen in the article, “US revises definition of torture” (Boston Globe, Jan. 1, 2005) “ the statements reject a previous statement that only ''organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death" constitute torture punishable by law.” They wrote that the DOJ definition, “also drops an attempt in the earlier version to rule that harmful acts not specifically intended to cause severe pain and suffering might be legal, and to define ''specific intent."

Without question, both domestic US law and international law prohibit the use of torture. Investigations conducted by the US military, and also statements made by various Bush administration officials, and testimony given in military courts by lower level military personnel who were charged and convicted of crimes associated with torture, make it clear that water boarding and other forms of torture have been employed by the United States, with the knowledge and approval of officials in our government. The challenge facing the international community in response to this situation is not how to determine whether or not torture took place, but how to bring those to justice who were in any way involved in these repeated violations.



Brief history of Ad Hoc Tribunals and Special Courts and the rules, laws and resolutions establishing such courts and tribunals.

In an essay entitled Courts and Tribunals, Professor Charles Garraway, a member of the faculty at the International Institute of International Law in San Remo Italy, and a contributor to The International Criminal Court: Elements of Crimes and Rules of Procedure and Evidence (Ed. Ray Lee), observed that “ad hoc tribunals have compulsory jurisdiction with primacy over domestic state courts that are the result of national legislation that gives domestic courts jurisdiction over the Rome Statute.” He said that “the ICC only has jurisdiction when state courts with jurisdiction are either unwilling or unable to act,” and “the onus is therefore placed upon national courts to take responsibility.”

Prior to the establishment of the International Criminal Court and the adoption of its Rome Statute, the UN Security Council (UNSC) was the primary international body charged with the responsibility to adjudicate alleged war crimes under international law.

The UN Security Council was the first to establish ad hoc tribunals to try those responsible for war crimes, and crimes against humanity, and did so based strongly on the precedent set in Nuremberg.
In 1993, prior to the establishment of the ICC, the UNSC set up tribunals in Yugoslavia and Rwanda. It asserted authority to set up the tribunals under UN Charter, Article 41, which says,

"The Security Council may decide what measures not involving the use of armed force, are to be employed to give effect to its decisions, and it may call upon the Members of the United Nations to apply such measures. These may include complete or partial interruption of economic relations and of rail, sea, air, postal, telegraphic, radio, and other means of communication, and the severance of diplomatic relations."

The UNSC has also established ad hoc tribunals through treaties with national governments. These tribunals are referred to as
Special Courts. An example of a Special Court established by treaty is the Court set up in 2002 to address crimes committed during the civil war in Sierra Leone. This court was distinguished by a unique arrangement of both international and domestic judges with jurisdiction over both international and domestic crimes.

This Special Court was also distinguished by its mandate, which granted the hybrid court legitimacy based upon a precedent created by the UN in Rwanda, which allowed the UN to assert jurisdiction jointly with a national government over crimes committed in non international armed conflicts. Similar hybrid courts have subsequently been set up in East Timor, Iraq and Kosovo.

When the UNSC is unable, or unwilling to act in pursuit of justice and peace for any reason, the UN General Assembly (GA) is given authority to act to set up tribunals under a resolution known as “Uniting for Peace,” UN Resolution 377 (v). This resolution gives the UN General Assembly the right to act where there is no unanimity of the Security Council. In section “A” the resolutions states, “Where the Security Council, because of lack of unanimity of the permanent members, fails to exercise its primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security, the General Assembly shall seize itself of the matter.”

Article 11 (2) of the UN Charter allows the General Assembly to act on questions related to the maintenance of international peace and security, while Article 18 of the Charter allows the General Assembly to make recommendations with respect to maintenance of international peace and security by a 2/3rd majority vote.

Article 22 of the UN Chapter allows the General Assembly to set up subsidiary, or Special Courts, saying: “The General Assembly may establish such subsidiary organs as it deems necessary for the performance of its functions.”
In Ethiopia a newly elected government sought ways to bring charges for war crimes against a former regime for crimes it had allegedly committed against Ethiopians in Ethiopia. The government set up a Special Prosecutors Office to try the members of the former regime. In this instance, charges were based only on national laws.
State court assertion of jurisdiction to adjudicate alleged war crimes through the establishment of Ad Hoc Tribunals.

There appears to be sufficient applicable international and domestic law and precedent to support the establishment of ad hoc tribunals by state courts seeking to assert jurisdiction over alleged war crimes under the principles of universal jurisdiction.

In respect to domestic laws, the US Constitution in Article 6, “Debts, Supremacy, Oaths” states that “all treaties made, or which shall be made under authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any state to the contrary not withstanding.”

The 4th Geneva Conventions on the Protection of Civilians in Times of War Articles 146 and 147, commits all parties, “to enact any necessary legislation to provide effective penal sanctions for persons committing grave breeches,” and says,

Grave breaches to which the preceding Article relates shall be those involving any of the following acts, if committed against persons or property protected by the present Convention: willful killing, torture or inhuman treatment, including biological experiments, willfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health, unlawful deportation or transfer or unlawful confinement of a protected person, compelling a protected person to serve in the forces of a hostile Power, or willfully depriving a protected person of the rights of fair and regular trial prescribed in the present Convention, taking of hostages and extensive destruction and appropriation of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly.”

The United States is party to the Geneva Conventions.
18 USC 2331: US Code-Section 2331 (1) (a), which is a federal anti-terrorism statute says the term "international terrorism" means activities that (A) involve violent acts or acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State, or that would be a criminal violation if committed within the jurisdiction of the United States or of any State; the United States.

For our purposes, 18 USC 2331 implies that it is both an international law, reaching across domestic borders under the principal of universal jurisdiction, and a domestic law, the violation of which can be prosecuted in both state and federal courts, if such acts “would be a criminal violation if committed in the United States.”

The history of ad hoc war crimes tribunals and special courts and attempts to set up such courts and tribunals, as well as the various international, and domestic rules, laws and resolutions that have guided and given legitimacy and authority to such courts and tribunals, provide enough information and guidance that the establishment of such courts or tribunals in the United States is not only plausible, but might also be recommended in some instances to states interested in exerting jurisdiction over alleged war crimes under principles of universal jurisdiction.
State courts might be able to establish ad hoc tribunals hoping to assert jurisdiction to adjudicate alleged war crimes under universal jurisdiction principles established in international law. These special courts or tribunals can possibly be set up as independent courts or tribunals, or in cooperation with the United Nations Security Council, or the International Criminal Court.

In fact, it could be argued that when the ICC, the UNSC, or the UN General Assembly is unwilling or not able to act, or to assert jurisdiction in places like the United States, which has not ratified the ICC’s Rome Statute, state courts may have an obligation under the principles of universal jurisdiction to assert jurisdiction through the establishment of ad hoc tribunals and/or special courts. Ordinary courts can act on some issues such as torture, where there are US laws prohibiting torture, but in respect to other war crimes, there is legislation presently in place that gives US courts jurisdiction over war crimes, crimes against humanity, and other very serious violations of international law.

Former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson spoke to this issue in her Foreword to the Princeton Principles on Universal Jurisdiction. She wrote:

Through its cornerstone principle of complementarity, the ICC Statute highlights the fact that international prosecutions alone will never be sufficient to achieve justice and emphasizes the crucial role of national legal systems in bringing an end to impunity. The sad reality is that territorial states often fail to investigate and prosecute serious human rights abuses. The application of universal jurisdiction is therefore a crucial means of justice.

This statement, and others related to the challenge to achieve justice in case of war crimes gives rise to our question, which asks to what extent state courts might exert such universal jurisdiction.

In my opinion, the establishment of ad hoc state tribunals presents an opportunity for state courts to assert subject matter jurisdiction to adjudicate war crimes under principles of universal jurisdiction.

Fundamentals of Universal Jurisdiction

The Princeton Principles of Universal Jurisdiction

Steven W. Becker, J.D., Sullivan Fellow, International Human Rights Law Institute at De Paul University wrote in a commentary on the Princeton Principles of Universal Jurisdiction the Following:

The Princeton Principles on Universal Jurisdiction (Principles) are a progressive restatement of international law on the subject of universal jurisdiction. Leading scholars and jurists gathered twice at Princeton University to help clarify this important area of law.

The Principles contain elements of both lex lata (the law as it is) and de lege ferenda (the law as it ought to be), but they should not be understood to limit the future evolution of universal jurisdiction.

The Principles are intended to help guide national legislative bodies seeking to enact implementing legislation; judges who may be required to construe universal jurisdiction in applying domestic law or in making extradition decisions; governments that must decide whether to prosecute or extradite, or otherwise to assist in promoting international criminal accountability; and all those in civil society concerned with bringing to justice perpetrators of serious international crimes.

The Principles of Universal Jurisdiction, 1 and 2

1. For purposes of these Principles, universal jurisdiction is criminal jurisdiction based solely on the nature of the crime, without regard to where the crime was committed, the nationality of the alleged or convicted perpetrator, the nationality of the victim, or any other connection to the state exercising such jurisdiction.

2. Universal jurisdiction may be exercised by a competent and ordinary judicial body of any state in order to try a person duly accused of committing serious crimes under international law as specified in Principle 2(1), provided the person is present before such judicial body.

3. A state may rely on universal jurisdiction as a basis for seeking the extradition of a person accused or convicted of committing a serious crime under international law as specified in Principle 2(1), provided that it has established a prima facie case of the person’s guilt and that the person sought to be extradited will be tried or the punishment carried out in accordance with international norms and standards on the protection of human rights in the context of criminal proceedings.

4. In exercising universal jurisdiction or in relying upon universal jurisdiction as a basis for seeking extradition, a state and its judicial organs shall observe international due process norms including but not limited to those involving the rights of the accused and victims, the fairness of the proceedings, and the independence and impartiality of the judiciary (hereinafter referred to as “international due process norms”).

5. A state shall exercise universal jurisdiction in good faith and in accordance with its rights and obligations under international law.

Principle 2 — Serious Crimes under International Law

1. For purposes of these Principles, serious crimes under international law include: (1) piracy; (2) slavery; (3) war crimes; (4) crimes against peace; (5) crimes against humanity; (6) genocide; and (7) torture.

2. The application of universal jurisdiction to the crimes listed.


Funding for U.N. War Crimes Tribunals

The U.N. Security Council has created two war crimes tribunals to investigate
and prosecute those accused of serious crimes against humanity under specified
circumstances. The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Republic of
Yugoslavia (ICTY) was set up in 1993 to investigate and prosecute those accused of
genocide, crimes against humanity, or violations of international humanitarian law
on the territory of the former Yugoslavia since 1991. The International Criminal
Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) was created in November 1994 to investigate and
prosecute persons accused of genocide and other serious violations of international
humanitarian law in the territory of Rwanda between January 1 and December 31,
1994, and also Rwandan citizens suspected of such acts or violations in the territory
of neighboring states. Each tribunal is under the Council requirement and timetable
to complete its work by December 31, 2010.

The General Assembly decided that each tribunal would be financed through a
special assessed account and that U.N. member states would be assessed to contribute
to those accounts in a unique way. Half of the annual budget of each would be paid
on the basis of the scale of assessments used for contributions to the U.N. regular
budget, and half of each account would be funded on the basis of the scale of assessments used for contributions to U.N. peacekeeping operation accounts.


Conclusion

To date, not a single U.S. official has faced even a mere investigation for these breeches of international (and also domestic U.S.) law. Only very low level military personnel have been charged, and only for some of the acts of torture documented by the limited evidence that leaked. Further evidence of abuse and torture exists, but has been suppressed by the U.S. Department of Defense in an action authorized by the Congress and upheld by the Supreme Court.
In the wake of inaction by the federal government, a civil society movement across the United States is working to establish special courts or tribunals in the U.S. to bring to justice those officials involved in authorizing or conducting these illegal and heinous abuses.
Unfortunately, the US has not ratified the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. As a result, only domestic courts can viably assert jurisdiction to enforce international human rights standards. However, because our federal authorities have abdicated their commitments to investigate all credible allegations of torture, only our state courts remain.
For these reasons, and because it is important that we all work to end impunity, we propose the establishment of an ad hoc tribunal in the U.S. wielding authority under principles of universal jurisdiction to adjudicate international war crimes committed by U.S. defendants. To lend these ad hoc tribunals the greater legitimacy of special courts pursuing an international mandate, we seek the help of the UN General Assembly.




Appendix I.



Applicable Statutes


1). UN Charter, Chapter 4, “General Assembly”

Article 11 (2)

The General Assembly may discuss any questions relating to the maintenance of international peace and security brought before it by any Member of the United Nations, or by the Security Council, or by a state which is not a Member of the United Nations in accordance with Article 35, paragraph 2, and, except as provided in Article 12, may make recommendations with regard to any such questions to the state or states concerned or to the Security Council or to both. Any such question on which action is necessary shall be referred to the Security Council by the General Assembly either before or after discussion.

www.un.org/en/documents/charter/index.shtml

2). UN Charter, Chapter 4,”Voting”
Article 18 (1) and (2)
(1) Each member of the General Assembly shall have one vote. Decisions of the General Assembly on important questions shall be made by a two-thirds majority of the members present and voting. These questions shall include: recommendations with respect to the maintenance of international peace and security, the election of the non-permanent members of the Security Council, the election of the members of the Economic and Social Council, the election of members of the Trusteeship Council in accordance with paragraph 1 (c) of Article 86, the admission of new Members to the United Nations, the suspension of the rights and privileges of membership, the expulsion of Members, questions relating to the operation of the trusteeship system, and budgetary questions.
www.un.org/en/documents/charter/index.shtml

(2) Decisions on other questions, including the determination of additional categories of questions to be decided by a two-thirds majority, shall be made by a majority of the members present and voting.
www.un.org/en/documents/charter/index.shtml

Article 22
The General Assembly may establish such subsidiary organs as it deems necessary for the performance of its functions.
www.un.org/en/documents/charter/index.shtml
3). “Uniting for Peace,” Resolution of the UN General Assembly (Res.377 (v).
"Reaffirming the importance of the exercise by the Security Council of its primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security, and the duty of the permanent members to seek unanimity and to exercise restraint in the use of the veto," ...
"Recognizing in particular that such failure does not deprive the General Assembly of its rights or relieve it of its responsibilities under the Charter in regard to the maintenance of international peace and security," ...
"Resolves that if the Security Council, because of lack of unanimity of the permanent members, fails to exercise its primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security in any case where there appears to be a threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression, the General Assembly shall consider the matter immediately with a view to making appropriate recommendations to Members for collective measures, including in the case of a breach of the peace or act of aggression the use of armed force when necessary, to maintain or restore international peace and security."
http://untreaty.un.org/cod/avl/ha/ufp/ufp.html
4). Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, Part 3, General Principles of Criminal Law
Article 22, nullum crimen sine lege

A person shall not be criminally responsible under this statute unless the conduct in question constitutes, at the time it takes place, a crime within the jurisdiction of the court.

http://www.preventgenocide.org/law/icc/statute/part-a.htm

Article 23, nulla poena sine lege

A person convicted by the court may be punished only in accordance with this statute.

http://www.preventgenocide.org/law/icc/statute/part-a.htm

Article 24, non-retroactivity ratione personae

No person shall be criminally responsible under this statute prior to the entry into force of this statute.

http://www.preventgenocide.org/law/icc/statute/part-a.htm


5). US Constitution, Article 6, Debts, Supremacy, Oaths

All treaties made, or which shall be made, under authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of the state contrary, notwithstanding.

www.usconstitution.net/const.htmi#article6

6). 4th Geneva Conventions on the Protection of Civilians in Time of War

Article146.

The High Contracting Parties undertake to enact any legislation necessary to provide effective penal sanctions for persons committing, or ordering to be committed, any of the grave breaches of the present Convention defined in the following Article.

Article147.

Grave breeches to which the preceding Article relates shall be those involving any of the following acts, if committed against persons or property protected by the present Convention: willful killing, torture or inhuman treatment, including biological experiments, willfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health, unlawful deportation or transfer or unlawful confinement of a protected person, compelling a protected person to serve in the forces of a hostile Power, or willfully depriving a protected person of the rights of fair and regular trial prescribed in the present Convention, taking of hostages and extensive destruction and appropriation of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly.

http://www.tamilnation.org/humanrights/genevaconventions/geneva4d.htm#19


7). 18 USC 2331: US Code-Section 2331 (1) (a)

(1) the term "international terrorism" means activities that (A) involve violent acts or acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State, or that would be a criminal violation if committed within the jurisdiction of the United States or of any State; the United States.

http://codes.lp.findlaw.com/uscode/18/I/113B/2331

(NAMAW) National Association of Muslim American Women Founder and Chairwoman sues US government to remove Hamas from lists of terrorist organizations.

Press Release
For Immediate Release
August 11, 2010

On Monday, August 9, 2010, Founder and Chairwoman of (NAMAW), the National Association of Muslim American Women, Anisa Abd el Fattah, filed a lawsuit in a US District Court, suing the Office of the President, the US State Department and the US Treasury. The lawsuit alleges that these agencies violated Article 6 of the US Constitution, the 1st amendment to the US Constitution and the Geneva Conventions, when they designated Hamas, the Islamic Resistance Movement in Palestine, terrorists.

In the lawsuit, Abd el Fattah requests that the terrorist designation be removed from Hamas, and that Hamas’s name be removed from any and all government lists of foreign terrorist organizations, along with its members. She also requests that all public records be made to reflect the court’s order and the change in legal status.

The government has 60 days to respond to the allegations, at which time the court will decide whether the lawsuit should go forward, or be dismissed. Abd el Fattah has requested a jury trial for the Defendants.

-END-

America’s Zionist Ku Klux and the threat it poses to the future of our Constitutional Republic

Anisa Abd el Fattah

Americans born and raised in the United States during the 50s, 60s and 70s might have a unique perspective of our country’s progress from an apartheid state of Jim Crow segregation, to what we thought we were as a people just prior to 9/11. It seems like a long time ago that we viewed ourselves as a people who had defeated the forces of evil racial supremacism and the politics and culture of racial hatred and fear that had divided us for so long. It was hatred and fear that had been imposed upon us for so many years, and presented to us as American culture that had divided us. America had suffered ugly years, and the consequences included spiritual and social deformity resulting from centuries of brutal human bondage, slavery and genocide that had to be falsely justified.

The false justification was couched in an American narrative that implied the racial inferiority of one group, and the racial supremacy of another. America justified its crimes of slavery and genocide with a narrative that was both Biblical and secular in its insistence that it was either God or Darwin who had selected the White race to preserve God and nature’s intrinsic order and selection of the races. It was suggested by both scripture and science in America, that it was in fact the duty of the supposedly “superior race” to dominate all of the other supposedly “inferior races” of people. Sometimes this message was subtle, and sometimes it was not. The spiritual and social deformities resulting from such hoaxes, lies and evil would have certainly destroyed the United States, had we as a people not faced our demons in the streets of Selma and Montgomery Alabama and other racial hot spots that became the battle grounds between good and evil from where our country’s racist demons were seemingly driven out.

It would have been almost impossible to have been a teenager or young adult during that tumultuous period of 30 odd years in US history, and not have been touched in some way by these events as they transpired. The change was there, in our daily news and nightly in the streets of our cities. America was changing, and to some of us it seemed fast, hard, and beautiful. To others it was merely frightening. For all of us, it was necessary.

In African-American communities there were stark differences between the worlds of adults and teenagers, except when it came to civil rights. This melding of the Black, specifically the African-American mind that closed the traditional generational gap in our communities was due, for the most part, to the preachers in the Black Churches. They made it clear to all of us every Sunday, that Jesus had said “suffer the children to come unto me,” which meant that we were not excused from the struggle. It was ours, whether we liked it or not, and whether we understood it or not. We cried when our parents cried, we got angry when they got angry, we marched when they marched, and we sat still and quiet and stood back when they told us to. Their tears, along with all of the expressions of joy and anger, faith and hope that animated their strong faces were sometimes all we had to go by. So we learned to read their faces and to understand, what it all meant.

For our parents, the fight had been long and unyielding. For many of them memories of slavery, only a generation or so past, were fresh in their minds. They knew what was at stake, and what they were fighting for. They were authentic. They were heroes, and their legacy was left to everyone who considers themselves part of this experience and experiment called America. We held on to their moral coattails all the way from Alabama in the 60s, to New York City. We let go, and began our collective fall from grace on September 11th, 2001.

How many of us would be willing to say today, that we as a people and a country are at our best and that the state of our union today is strong and sound? The racial supremacism that we stared down and the demons we thought we had defeated half a century ago are back. They have taken on a new form, and they are threatening our country again, but this time as religious supremacism barely hidden in the language of scripture and science, draped in the US flag while claiming piety, just as racism and Jim Crow had before.

Those of us, who are heartbroken by what now parades itself as the United States of America, understand that 9/11 changed us in many ways that were not good. We can see it in the faces and hear it in the voices of our fellow citizens, the hatred, the fear, and the anger. We understand that what we see and hear is a response to what is being said and demonstrated by our so called leaders and politicians who, just as before, have created a narrative that is ripe with false justification for the deprivation of rights for some Americans and blatant favoritism for others.

Whereas in the past, the ideas that divided and deformed us were contrived for the sake of justifying the demonization and domination of supposedly inferior races, today‘s dangerous ideas are aimed at creating a new American identity. An identity that is being crafted by Zionists who want to convince us that White European Jews are God’s selected or chosen people and that gentiles are inferior. They want us to believe that they have access to God, while our souls are trapped inside husks, making us nearer to animals in our consciousness, while they are supposedly superior and nearer to God.

The identity they are crafting for our country suggests that the gentile was created to serve and to protect the so called “chosen ones” with our lives, blood, and treasure, while it is their supposed duty to God, to dominate and to subjugate us and to use us for the fulfillment of their destinies and desires, whether in Heaven or in Hell. They want to recreate the United States, not in God’s image, but in an ugly image of modern day slavery where our people, including our children, will work long hours for little pay, no pensions, no sick days, no social security, no affordable health care, and no retirement. The trade off is that they will set no limits to our immorality, pornography, and sexualization and exploitation of our children. They have nothing vested in our spiritual growth or salvation, since according to their Talmud; we were created only to serve them.

Today, the United States of America sends 7 million dollars per day to Israel in foreign aide. That does not count for the military aide, or the security aide, the weapons and other ways that we funnel money to Israel that cannot be detected. Meanwhile, we are also paying billions to finance two wars being fought to secure Israel’s geo-political dominance in the Middle East and to capture oil and natural resources, much of which was reserved for Israel, and not the United States.

The Zionist Ku Klux in the US wants to recreate us as a country where the children of the rich and elite go to college, while the children of the poor go to war. They want us to surrender our morality to their genocides being carried out in Palestine, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan. They want to shield themselves from the consequences of their immoral crimes. They want us to overlook and justify their immorality and lawlessness. They want us to return to our dark past, a past from which we thought we had broken free.

Once we understand that today, in our country there exists a Zionist Ku Klux, similar in every way to the racist white Ku Klux Klan of history, we will understand why we are fighting for Zionist Israel’s global dominance in Iraq and Afghanistan. We will understand why we are fighting Islam in a bogus so called War on Terrorism and killing Muslims throughout the world, hoping to eliminate any resistance, challengers, detractors and/or competitors against Zionism. This Klan fights to sustain its control over our government, and many of our churches, civic and political organizations, schools and labor unions. This is why whenever we begin, as an American people, to ask questions, to demand our freedom from increasing government invasion of our privacy and protection of our rights, and our money, we are taken back to 9/11, and reminded that we should be afraid. It is why we are threatened and silenced with the very so called Anti-Terrorism laws that we thought were passed to fight terrorism, while it is becoming increasingly clear that they were really passed to fight us. They were passed to deprive us of rights, and to silence us and to prevent us from ever again challenging and battling our demons in our streets. The Zionist Ku Klux in America learned the lessons of our past. They learned, and remembered the important lessons that we forgot.

Even prior to 9/11 this Zionist Klan began their war of terror on the United States. It began as a very subtle suggestion that if we hoped to be safe from terrorism, we must change our laws, including our Constitution which our Congress was told presented a barrier to fighting terrorism. Now we know that the real message was that unless we changed our laws and got rid of our Constitution we would be the victims of an act of terrorism that would reach so deep into our collective psyche with fear, that we would forget all of our lofty ideas and past struggles, and surrender our rights anyway. What we didn’t known then, were that our own attempts to speak the truth and to exert our rights as a self-governing and sovereign people, to demand justice in our courts, and an end to wars and a balanced budget, would be called acts of terrorism. While Zionists and their political flunkies in our Congress stoked the flames of hatred against Muslims, Islam, and Middle Easterners after 9/11, falsely claiming that it was Muslims, led by an extremist Islamic idea, who attacked us on 9/11. AIPAC, the Israeli organization that overseas and manages Zionist power in the US, was busy buying and blackmailing our Congress, stealing our state secrets and passing laws to be used against all of us, but only after being tested successfully on our Muslim and Middle Eastern citizens first.

In May of this year 2010, a ship filled with medicines, food, and cement set sail for a place in Palestine called Gaza. For three years Gaza has suffered under an illegal economic embargo imposed by Israel in a failed attempt to overthrow the elected Palestinian government. While this ship was in international waters, headed for the coast of Gaza, Israeli commandos illegally boarded the ship and murdered 9 of the humanitarian activists aboard the ship, including a 19 year old American student. His autopsy shows that he was killed due to being shot 4 times in his brain at close range. There were other Americans on that ship the Mavi Marmara, and also on other ships that made up what was called the Gaza Freedom Flotilla.

Thinking that they still enjoyed Constitutional rights in their country, some of the survivors upon their return home to the US, have sought to speak out, and to tell their fellow countrymen and women what happened to them and also what happened to that young American who was executed by the Israeli commandos. Rather than to be greeted with sympathy, and solidarity, or to be received by our government as heroes and citizens to be proud of for their humanitarian efforts, they were met with hatred, not by the people, but by Zionist politicians and their AIPAC cronies and operatives. There was no grief expressed by our government to the family of the fallen. No resolution passed in his honor by our Zionist Congress. No memorial held by our Zionist churches and synagogues, and not a tear shed for our country’s loss, suffered in the death of that brave young 19 year old American who was killed for carrying food to hungry Palestinians.

California Congressman Brad Sherman, along with others including New York City Councilwoman Christine Quinn, Representatives Jerry Nadler, Anthony Weiner, Carolyn Mahoney, Charles Rangel, and Scott Stringer issued threats to have the survivors arrested using anti-terrorism statutes, and to have them silenced with threats of government investigations into their private lives to supposedly determine if they have ties to terrorists. All actions aimed purely at depriving these citizens their constitutional rights.

The Zionist Ku Klux in America has shown its ugly face, and they have demonstrated for us in a most dramatic way, how they will use the so called anti-terrorism laws that our Zionist Congress passed without ever reading, to silence us and to deprive us of our Constitutional rights. One of the Zionist leaders of this cabal, Joseph Lieberman even threatened to pass a law stripping US citizens of citizenship if we dare criticize Israel, or take political positions opposed to those of our Zionist masters. They have proven by their own words and actions, that they will not honor the social contract between the governed and the governing known as the Bill of Rights. In their minds, they have already changed and remade America in a Zionist image, and all that is left is for us to either submit, or be treated as terrorists by our own government and elected officials whose purpose is no longer to serve, protect and represent the interests of the American citizen, but rather to serve, protect, defend and finance their false god and idol Israel, and to shield Israel from any accountability for its numerous crimes against gentiles, and violations of international law. Unless we are willing as a people to reject what is happening to our country, and to organize and to stand against it, we should expect to return to the days of the ugly and grossly deformed America. The old America from where we thought we had been liberated, and transformed. Together we stand, divided we fall.

On June 17th, Flotilla survivors Lara Lee, Ahonet Unsal, and Kevin Overdon will speak at the House of the Lord Church in New York City. They will speak about the Gaza Freedom Flotilla and what happened to them and other human rights activists on board flotilla ships, including those who were killed. We should turn out in huge numbers to support them, and other flotilla survivors and their right to speak, and to dissent.

Sherman’s interpretation of 1996 Anti-Terrorism Act seems to defy true intent of the law, while attacking US Constitutional Rights to appease a foreig

Anisa Abd el Fattah


When the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 was passed following the Oklahoma City bombing, many Muslim and Arab Americans charged that the Act is unconstitutional, and that it was unfairly aimed at Muslims and Arabs, even though it was proven that Muslims and Arabs had nothing to do with the Oklahoma City Bombing. Of course the Department of Justice and other US law enforcement officials countered such charges, saying that the Act was not intended for anything except to effectively fight terrorism, no matter the race, religion, ethnicity or nationality of an individual perpetrator, group or foreign country.

Listening to California Congressman Brad Sherman, who is one of the many Zionist and Jewish politicians who found it politically expedient to congratulate Israel for its May 2010 massacre of 9 unarmed humanitarian aide activists on a Turkish ship bound for Gaza, one would think that Muslim and Arab suspicions were true. According to Sherman, the Act says it is “illegal for US citizens to give food, money, school supplies, paper clips, concrete or weapons to Hamas and Gaza’s civilian population.” As it turns out, this is merely Sherman’s interpretation of the Act. The Act never mentions, Gaza, or Hamas and is aimed exclusively at foreign terrorists and foreign governments that support or commit acts of terrorism. The aim of the Act is to prevent US citizens from fundraising and providing material support to terrorist organizations, states, and individuals that commit acts of terrorism and that provide material support for terrorism. Taking into consideration that Israel is accused of committing war crimes and crimes of aggression as well as crimes against humanity in an illegal assault on Gaza that left 1500 Palestinians, mostly woman and children dead, the Act could very easily be interpreted to also include Israel, the Israeli army and the illegal Jewish settlers among those targeted for prosecution by the Act.

Of course Sherman did not mention that fact. His objective was to use the law exactly in the way that US Muslims and Arabs had said it would be used, namely to target Muslims and Arabs. It appears that Sherman had hoped to create a novel interpretation of the Act that would be used to chill Muslim and Arab Constitutional rights to free speech and also dissent, and that would reinforce the wrong idea that Hamas is a terrorist organization and is therefore subject to the Act, along with any US citizen that would fundraise or send money to Gaza in an attempt to provide humanitarian aide to a people suffering, what the UN has designated a humanitarian crisis. In fact, following Israel’s flotilla massacre, the Obama administration pledged 400 million dollars to Gaza in humanitarian aide. Sherman did not call for the arrest of President Obama, nor of secretary of State Hilary Clinton.

In Sherman’s highly politicized interpretation of the Act, Sherman failed to mention the fact that the US Constitution protects the rights of US Citizens to protest and also to use our speech, which the Supreme Court has said includes our money and fundraising, to support our political positions and also to oppose and dissent from our government’s official positions. Along with that, Article 6 of the US Constitution says, “This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding” which means that provisions within the Act must be reconciled with the Geneva Conventions, to which the US is a signor. According to both the Bush and Obama administrations, the US stands by and abides by the Geneva Conventions. The Geneva Conventions protects, rather than criminalizes the Palestinian resistance militias and the resistance movement.

According to the Joint Publication 1-02, the United States Department of Defense defines a resistance movement as "an organized effort by some portion of the civil population of a country to resist the legally established government or an occupying power and to disrupt civil order and stability". It says: “In strict military terminology, a resistance movement is simply that; it seeks to resist (change) the policies of a government or occupying power. This may be accomplished though violent or non-violent means. A resistance movement is specifically limited to changing the nature of current power, not to overthrow it.” The correct military term for removing or overthrowing a government is an insurgency. Also, Article 4 of the Geneva Conventions defines legal combatants as:

1. Members of the armed forces of a Party to the conflict as well as members of militias or volunteer corps forming part of such armed forces.
2. Members of other militias and members of other volunteer corps, including those of organized resistance movements, belonging to a Party to the conflict and operating in or outside their own territory, even if this territory is occupied, provided that such militias or volunteer corps, including such organized resistance movements, fulfill the following conditions:
(a) That of being commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates;
(b) That of having a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance;
(c) That of carrying arms openly;
(d) That of conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war.


In its 49th session, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights as recently as 1993, adopted resolution E/CN.4/ RES/1993/2 (A & B), recognizing and affirming the right of the Palestinian people to resistance against the illegal occupation by all means.” It states the following:

The Commission on Human Rights,

Guided by the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations, as well as by the provisions of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,

Guided also by the provisions of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights,

2. Affirms the right of the Palestinian people to resist the Israeli occupation by all means, in accordance with the relevant United Nations resolutions, consistent with the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations, as has been expressed by the Palestinian people in their brave intifada since December 1987, in legitimate resistance against the Israeli military occupation;


Israel’s bogus claim that Gaza is no longer under military occupation is undermined by Israel’s simultaneous claim to a right to control Gaza’s borders, airspace and waterways. Its routine invasions, detainments of Gazans and other acts intended to maintain illegal control and authority over Gaza, further undermines Israel’s erroneous claim that Gaza is not under Israeli military occupation.

Article 6 of the US Constitutions says clearly that our treaties are the Supreme law of the land, and our military code recognizes by definition that the Palestinian resistance fighters are lawful combatants. Since statutory law overrides Executive orders , Bill Clinton’s attempt to criminalize the Palestinian resistance is merely a political ploy that was designed to create a legal context for Israel’s brutal violence in Gaza and the West Bank, and its illegal targeted assassinations of resistance leaders and activists. Clinton’s executive order which attempts to reduce the Palestinian resistance to mere terrorism is the pretext within which many of the worst criminal acts carried out by Israel against the people of Palestine have claimed legality. It is also the legal framework within which Sherman is emboldened to call for the arrests of US citizens for attempting to travel to Gaza, and to deliver humanitarian aide.

While seemingly anxious to please his AIPAC cronies and Zionist financial backers, Sherman seems to have lost sight of the fact that according to the Act, there may be some arrests to be made within his own circle of pro-Israel Zionists. He said in his highly publicized press release that he “will be asking the Attorney General to prosecute any American involved in what is clearly an effort to give items of value to terrorists.” That might include the California branch of the JDL that have been linked to the US State Department designated terrorist organization known as Kahane Chai, whose members were convicted of attempting to carry out terrorists attacks here in the US against an elected official. It might also include leaders of an entire network of synagogues, churches and Christian and Jewish charitable organizations that routinely raise money and transfer funds to Israel in support of the radical extremist settlers, many of whom are US citizens, and who routinely shoot, kill, harass and illegally confiscate the property of Palestinian citizens. Most of these illegal settlers are self confessed members of the Kahane movement, which is linked to Kahane Chai in ideology if not by card carrying memberships. In a New York Times article written by Neil Lewis, he states that Kahane Chai “advocates the restoration of the Biblical state of Israel and the expulsion of Arabs from Israel.” This is also the mantra of nearly every illegal Jewish settler in Palestine.

Among the list of US Jews arrested for acts of terrorism against Palestinians in Palestine are the confessed terrorists Jack Teity who murdered two Palestinians and wounded at least three. His murder victims included a 57 year old Palestinian shepherd murdered simply because he was not Jewish. Teity traveled between the US and Israel for 12 years carrying out his terrorist acts without ever being stopped and questioned or arrested. Teity, in his confession, stated that he smuggled the sub machine gun used in his killings, past a British airline’s security. Another US Jew who carried out an act of terrorism against Palestinians inside Palestine is Barak Goldstein who slaughtered 20 Palestinians in Hebron mosque. He is called a Jewish martyr, even though he shot his unarmed victims from behind with a fully automatic machine gun as they prostrated in prayer.

In the article, “Israel arrests settlers it says tried to bomb Palestinians” by New York Times columnist John Kifner, Kifner wrote: “Shin Bet uncovered a suspected Jewish network that apparently planned to bomb two or more Palestinian schools.” According to Kifner, “Israeli police confiscated sub machine guns, and Israeli military issued explosives.” He said the bombs were set to go off at 7:35 am, the time when most Palestinian students would arrive at the schools.” Kifner identified the leader of the network as Noam Federman, a leader of the Kach movement.

There is another interpretation of the Act, contrary to Sherman’s which suggests that Sherman himself could possibly be designated a supporter of international terrorism, since it appears that he might be abusing the power of his office and US taxpayer money in an attempt to provide political and legal cover for Israel’s terrorist act of piracy and murder of 9 human rights activists, carried out in international waters, and without provocation. A Congressional Research Service summary of the Act states that:

“Title I of the Act ‘enlarges proscriptions against assisting in the commission of acts of terrorism. It adjusts the Foreign Assistance Act to help isolate countries who support terrorists. “

Ironically the activists targeted by Sherman’s threats of arrest for exercising their Constitutional rights might actually be assisted against Israel by the Act which, according to the same summary, “expands the circumstances under which foreign governments that support terrorism may be sued for resulting injuries, and increases the assistance and compensation available to victims of terrorism.” The family of the US citizen killed by Israel on one of the flotilla boats with 4 shots through his brain and one through his heart might also look into the provisions of the Act seeking legal relief.

Why Congressman Brad Sherman felt compelled to attack the US members of the flotilla with an Anti-Terrorism statute is anyone’s guess. What we can be sure of is that US law is aimed at protecting the rights of citizens, their property and their persons, and not foreign governments. In his haste to arrest these citizens he obviously forgot the spirit, or intent of the Act, and depended too heavily upon his own misguided and highly politicized interpretation.





1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resistance_movement
2.http://usmilitary.about.com/library/milinfo/genevacon/blart-4.htm
3. http://unispal.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/0/EF7E1F52C06A9CB885256AD2004B1194
4. Cited in the article “Rep. Sherman” Prosecute US Citizens involved with Freedom Flotilla” Modoweiss.com
5. http://www.answers.com/topic/executive-order-1
6. Summary of the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, Charles Doyle, Senior Specialist, American Law Division of the Congressional Research Service
www.fas.org/irp/crs/96-499
7. Appeals Court Upholds Terrorist Label for a Jewish Group, New York Times, 10/06.
8. Israel Arrests Settlers It says Tried to Bomb Palestinians” New York Times, 5/19/2002
FBI Raided a Brooklyn Community Center led by Member of Kahane Chai, New York Times,

Rogue Israel Shocks, but does not Surprise Civilzed world with its Flotilla Massacre

Anisa Abd el Fattah


When the news first came in that Israel had attacked the Gaza Freedom Flotilla and killed 20 of the human rights activists on board the ship, most people were shocked. The degree of shock perhaps varied depending upon one’s overall impression of Israel.

Those in the United States and Europe who generally support Israel, and who have overlooked all of Israel’s historic crimes, including the routine murder of innocents, were perhaps a bit disappointed and shocked that Israel would rather execute 20 activists than to allow medicines and cement into Gaza. No one imagined that Israel’s hatred of the Palestinians, and the desire to see them continue to suffer without end, was so passionate. Israel has always been very careful to make it appear as if its war against Gaza is based purely upon its desire to eliminate Hamas, who Israel claims is an existential threat. This, along with the insistence by the US that every act of violence committed by Israel is an act of self defense, has created enough intellectual reasoning and argumentation to cloud any attempt at moral or legal judgment in respect to Israel’s addiction to over the top acts of violence and crime.

Many others, people throughout the world, who don’t support Israel unconditionally and who have watched over the years as Israel has been allowed by the US, EU and UN to slaughter Palestinians and their supporters with impunity, even with our own US government’s assistance and support in some instances, saw the flotilla massacre as just another of Israel’s numerous atrocities. The gut wrenching reality that 20 innocent people had been executed; shot at close range in the head and heart may have seemed surreal, and was shocking, yet, it was still par for the course for Israel and no surprise.

In respect to Israel’s repeated atrocities against the Palestinian people, and in fact the entire world, it is important to distinguish shock from surprise. It might be accurate to say that everyone, including Israel’s supporters was shocked by this most recent of Israel’s crimes against humanity, while sadly, almost no one was surprised.

Since Israel’s first attempts to establish itself in Palestine in 1948, it has carried out mind boggling acts of violence that go even further than the type of violence and murder blamed on Adolf Hitler himself who is accused of killing nearly 12,000,000 people from 1939-1945. Even Stalin, who murdered approximately 23,000,000 people from 1932-1939 cannot be condemned for any worse acts of ethnic cleansing and genocide than can Israel, even though Stalin killed millions of more people.

So large is the number of Palestinians murdered by Israel since 1948, that not only can we not find a total number of Palestinians killed by Israel since 1948 published anywhere, it is almost impossible to even find the number of Palestinians that existed in Palestine in 1948. Unfortunately history does not convey accurately the extent of Israel’s ethnic cleansing and genocide in Palestine. History does not even provide the numbers necessary for us to do our own math. What we do know is that between 650 and 750 million Palestinians escaped Palestine during the Nakba , or catastrophe resulting from Israel’s so called war of independence in Palestine.

If we consider the numbers of Palestinians possibly murdered during the Nakba and later through various massacres, including Deir Yassin where pregnant women literally had their unborn babies ripped from their bodies and killed and also the massacre in Jenin and most recently in Gaza, the numbers of Palestinian murdered by Israel in its genocide, could well be in the millions.

It is reasonable to suggest that the numbers of Palestinian murdered during and immediately after the Nakba could at least be as many as were killed by Pol Pot from 1975-79, which totaled 1,700,000. This estimation is based purely on the more comparable sizes of Palestine and Cambodia, which is more reasonable than attempting to compare Palestine’s population to either Russia or China's in respect to the percentage of those populations that were killed. Please note than none of the genocides carried out by the world’s most notorious mass murders lasted for more than 10 years, and they are accused of murdering tremendous numbers of people, reaching totals as high as 78,000,000 supposedly killed by Mao Ze Dong from 1949-50 in Tibet and later from 1958-61, and then from 66-69 in China, equaling only 7 years of genocide. By comparison, Israel’s genocide in Palestine has been ongoing for approximately 60 years with hardly a day that goes by without at least 4 to 5 Palestinians being killed by Israel’s so called Defense forces.

In the book Searching Jenin, Editor Ramzy Baroud, himself a Palestinian, wrote the following,

A question that this book cannot answer is “How many Palestinians were killed in Jenin in two weeks of fighting, bombardment and home demolitions?” He attributed this inability to answer the question to Israel’s purposeful destruction of records. He said,” Israeli soldiers vandalized and destroyed Palestinian records in hospitals, schools and government buildings...this question may never be answered.”


The eyewitness accounts of the Jenin massacre chronicled within the book Searching Jenin are enough to demonstrate Israeli brutality and the shocking lack of humanness that Israel shows in respect to the Palestinians and their supporters. There is nothing within the pages of the book that compels us to imagine that Israel was ever any less brutal or any less interested in hiding the numbers associated with its genocide. A good example of this is the story of Um Siri a 45 year old Palestinian woman. She relayed the following concerning her family’s experience during the Jenin massacre. She said,

The soldiers took the owner of the house (where her family had fled) and started punching him in the mouth. They asked him, “Where are the fighters/” He said “I don’t know.” His denial only made them angrier, and so they forced him to the ground and they stepped on his face. The soldiers had him stand up against a wall and they started firing their guns between his legs. Then they took my son, they had him strip naked and they also stared firing between his legs to terrorize him. I held my mother, she was ninety. The Israeli soldiers started rounding up women and they forced me and my mother outside the house. My mother was barefoot and there was so much shattered glass outside the door. They forced her to walk on the glass. Her feet started to bleed. They also rounded up the men and children. They gathered them in Abu Nizar’s half destroyed home. They hand cuffed and blind folded them and took them to the second floor. They rounded up more men and boys and interrogated them for the rest of the day and the whole night. They were beating them up constantly.

Even worse atrocities were reported following Israel’s most recent massacre which took place in Gaza, in an Operation they called Cast Lead, which took place over a three week period, December 28, 2008 until January 29, 2009. Writing on this incident, Michel Chossudovsky, from the Center for Research on Globalization said,

The aerial bombings and the ongoing ground invasion of Gaza by Israeli ground forces must be analyzed in a historical context. Operation "Cast Lead" is a carefully planned undertaking, which is part of a broader military-intelligence agenda first formulated by the government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in 2001:
"Sources in the defense establishment said Defense Minister Ehud Barak instructed the Israel Defense Forces to prepare for the operation over six months ago, even as Israel was beginning to negotiate a ceasefire agreement with Hamas."(Barak Ravid, Operation "Cast Lead": Israeli Air Force strike followed months of planning, Haaretz, December 27, 2008)

It was Israel which broke the truce on the day of the US presidential elections, November 4: "Israel used this distraction to break the ceasefire between itself and Hamas by bombing the Gaza strip. Israel claimed this violation of the ceasefire was to prevent Hamas from digging tunnels into Israeli territory.

The very next day, Israel launched a terrorizing siege of Gaza, cutting off food, fuel, medical supplies and other necessities in an attempt to “subdue” the Palestinians while at the same time engaging in armed incursions.

In response, Hamas and others in Gaza again resorted to firing crude, homemade, and mainly inaccurate rockets into Israel. During the past seven years, these rockets have been responsible for the deaths of 17 Israelis. Over the same time span, Israeli Blitzkrieg assaults have killed thousands of Palestinians, drawing worldwide protest but falling on deaf ears at the UN." (Shamus Cooke, The Massacre in Palestine and the Threat of a Wider War, Global Research, December 2008).
Chossudovsky’s remarks make the case that Israel’s persistent and never ending violence and massacres in Palestine are not acts of self defense, and neither are they spontaneous actions in response or reaction to the actions of Palestinians. Chossudovsky makes it clear that Operation Cast Lead, known more famously as the Gaza massacre was part of a larger military /intelligence strategy adopted by former Israeli PM Ariel Sharon. Chossodovsky calls it, “Part of a broader Israeli Military-Intelligence agenda.”

Since Israel’s so called war of independence, it has been the focus of at least 114 UNSC resolutions. They include;

Resolution 42: The Palestine Question (5 March 1948) Requests recommendations for the Palestine Commission, Resolution 43: The Palestine Question (1 Apr 1948) Recognizes "increasing violence and disorder in Palestine" and requests that representatives of "the Jewish Agency for Palestine and the Arab Higher Committee" arrange, with the Security Council, "a truce between the Arab and Jewish Communities of Palestine...Calls upon Arab and Jewish armed groups in Palestine to cease acts of violence immediately."
Resolution 44: The Palestine Question (1 Apr 1948) Requests convocation of special session of the General Assembly, Resolution 46: The Palestine Question (17 Apr 1948) As the United Kingdom is the Mandatory Power, "it is responsible for the maintenance of peace and order in Palestine." The Resolutions also "Calls upon all persons and organizations in Palestine" to stop importing "armed bands and fighting personnel...whatever their origin;...weapons and war materials;...Refrain, pending the future government of Palestine...from any political activity which might prejudice the rights, claims, or position of either community;...refrain from any action which will endanger the safety of the Holy Places in Palestine." Resolution 106: The Palestine Question (29 Mar 1955) 'condemns' Israel for Gaza raid. Resolution 111: The Palestine Question (January 19, 1956) " ... 'condemns' Israel for raid on Syria that killed fifty-six people".
Resolution 138: (June 23, 1960) Question relating to the case of Adolf Eichmann, concerning Argentine complaint that Israel breached its sovereignty.
Resolution 162: The Palestine Question (April 11, 1961) " ... 'urges' Israel to comply with UN decisions". Resolution 171: The Palestine Question (April 9, 1962) " ... determines flagrant violations' by Israel in its attack on Syria".
Resolution 228: The Palestine Question (November 25, 1966) " ... 'censures' Israel for its attack on Samu in the West Bank, then under Jordanian control".
Resolution 237: Six Day War June 14, 1967) " ... 'urges' Israel to allow return of new 1967 Palestinian refugees". Resolution 240 (October 25, 1967): concerning violations of the cease-fire. Resolution 248: (March 24, 1968) " ... 'condemns' Israel for its massive attack on Karameh in Jordan".
Resolution 252: (May 21) " ... 'declares invalid' Israel's acts to unify Jerusalem as Jewish capital".Resolution 256: (August 16) " ... 'condemns' Israeli raids on Jordan as 'flagrant violation". Resolution 259: (September 27) " ... 'deplores' Israel's refusal to accept UN mission to probe occupation".
Resolution 262: (December 31) " ... 'condemns' Israel for attack on Beirut airport".Resolution 265: (April 1, 1969) " ... 'condemns' Israel for air attacks on Salt, Jordan".Resolution 267: (July 3) " ... 'censures' Israel for administrative acts to change the status of Jerusalem".Resolution 270: (August 26) " ... 'condemns' Israel for air attacks on villages in southern Lebanon".
Resolution 271: (September 15) " ... 'condemns' Israel's failure to obey UN resolutions on Jerusalem".Resolution 279: (May 12, 1970) "Demands the immediate withdrawal of all Israeli armed forces from Lebanese territory."(full text)Resolution 280: (May 19) " ... 'condemns' Israeli's attacks against Lebanon".
Resolution 285: (September 5) " ... 'demands' immediate Israeli withdrawal form Lebanon".Resolution 298: (September 25, 1971) " ... 'deplores' Israel's changing of the status of Jerusalem".Resolution 313: (February 28, 1972) " ... 'demands' that Israel stop attacks against Lebanon".Resolution 316: (June 26) " ... 'condemns' Israel for repeated attacks on Lebanon".
Resolution 317: (July 21) " ... 'deplores' Israel's refusal to release Arabs abducted in Lebanon".Resolution 331: (April 20, 1973)
Resolution 332: (April 21) " ... 'condemns' Israel's repeated attacks against Lebanon".Resolution 337: (August 15) " ... 'condemns' Israel for violating Lebanon's sovereignty".Resolution 338 (22 October 1973): cease fire in Yom Kippur War. Resolution 339 (23 October 1973): Confirms Res. 338, dispatch UN observers. Resolution 347: " ... 'condemns' Israeli attacks on Lebanon".
Resolution 350 (31 May 1974) established the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force, to monitor the ceasefire between Israel and Syria in the wake of the Yom Kippur War.Resolution 425 (1978): " ... 'calls' on Israel to withdraw its forces from Lebanon". Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon was completed by 16 June 2000. Resolution 427: " ... 'calls' on Israel to complete its withdrawal from Lebanon". Resolution 444: " ... 'deplores' Israel's lack of cooperation with UN peacekeeping forces".Resolution 446 (1979): 'determines' that Israeli settlements are a 'serious obstruction' to peace and calls on Israel to abide by the Fourth Geneva Convention".Resolution 450: " ... 'calls' on Israel to stop attacking Lebanon". Resolution 452: " ... 'calls' on Israel to cease building settlements in occupied territories". Resolution 465: " ... 'deplores' Israel's settlements and asks all member states not to assist Israel's settlements program".
Resolution 467: " ... 'strongly deplores' Israel's military intervention in Lebanon". Resolution 468: " ... 'calls' on Israel to rescind illegal expulsions of two Palestinian mayors and a judge and to facilitate their return".
Resolution 469: " ... 'strongly deplores' Israel's failure to observe the council's order not to deport Palestinians".Resolution 471: " ... 'expresses deep concern' at Israel's failure to abide by the Fourth Geneva Convention". Resolution 476: " ... 'reiterates' that Israel's claim to Jerusalem are 'null and void'".
Resolution 478 (20 August 1980): 'censures (Israel) in the strongest terms' for its claim to Jerusalem in its 'Basic Law'. Resolution 485Resolution 487: " ... 'strongly condemns' Israel for its attack on Iraq's nuclear facility".Resolution 497 (17 December 1981) decides that Israel's annexation of Syria's Golan Heights is 'null and void' and demands that Israel rescinds its decision forthwith. Resolution 498: " ... 'calls' on Israel to withdraw from Lebanon". Resolution 501: " ... 'calls' on Israel to stop attacks against Lebanon and withdraw its troops". Resolution 509: " ... 'demands' that Israel withdraw its forces forthwith and unconditionally from Lebanon".
Resolution 515: " ... 'demands' that Israel lift its siege of Beirut and allow food supplies to be brought in". Resolution 517: " ... 'censures' Israel for failing to obey UN resolutions and demands that Israel withdraw its forces from Lebanon". Resolution 518: " ... 'demands' that Israel cooperate fully with UN forces in Lebanon". ... 'condemns' Israel's attack into West Beirut".
Resolution 573: " ... 'condemns' Israel 'vigorously' for bombing Tunisia in attack on PLO headquarters. Resolution 587 " ... 'takes note' of previous calls on Israel to withdraw its forces from Lebanon and urges all parties to withdraw".
Resolution 592: " ... 'strongly deplores' the killing of Palestinian students at Bir Zeit University by Israeli troops". Resolution 605: " ... 'strongly deplores' Israel's policies and practices denying the human rights of Palestinians.
Resolution 607: " ... 'calls' on Israel not to deport Palestinians and strongly requests it to abide by the Fourth Geneva Convention. Resolution 608: " ... 'deeply regrets' that Israel has defied the United Nations and deported Palestinian civilians". Resolution 636: " ... 'deeply regrets' Israeli deportation of Palestinian civilians. Resolution 639 (31 Jul 1989)
Resolution 641 (30 Aug 1989): " ... 'deplores' Israel's continuing deportation of Palestinians. Resolution 648 (31 Jan 1990)[1] The Security Council extends the mandate of the UN Interim Force in Lebanon until July 31, 1990.
Resolution 672 (12 Oct 1990): " ... 'condemns' Israel for "violence against Palestinians" at the Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount.
Resolution 673 (24 Oct 1990): " ... 'deplores' Israel's refusal to cooperate with the United Nations. Resolution 681 (20 Dec 1990): " ... 'deplores' Israel's resumption of the deportation of Palestinians. Resolution 694 (24 May 1991): " ... 'deplores' Israel's deportation of Palestinians and calls on it to ensure their safe and immediate return. Resolution 726 (06 Jan 1992): " ... 'strongly condemns' Israel's deportation of Palestinians. Resolution 799 (18 Dec 1992): ". . . 'strongly condemns' Israel's deportation of 413 Palestinians and calls for their immediate return. Resolution 904 (18 Mar 1994): Cave of the Patriarchs massacre.
Resolution 938 (28 Jul 1994): extends mandate of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon until January 31, 1995. Resolution 1351 (30 May 2001)
Resolution 1559 (2 September 2004) called upon Lebanon to establish its sovereignty over all of its land and called upon Syria to end their military presence in Lebanon by withdrawing its forces and to cease intervening in internal Lebanese politics. The resolution also called on all Lebanese militias to disband.
Resolution 1583 (28 January 2005) calls on Lebanon to assert full control over its border with Israel. It also states that "the Council has recognized the Blue Line as valid for the purpose of confirming Israel's withdrawal pursuant to resolution 425.
Resolution 1648 (21 December 2005) renewed the mandate of United Nations Disengagement Observer Force until 30 June 2006. Resolution 1701 (11 August 2006) called for the full cessation of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah.
Resolution 1860 (9 January 2009) called for the full cessation of war between Israel and Hamas.

This list of resolutions, few of which have ever been abided by, demonstrates to what extent Israel has become a rouge nation. What they don’t explain is why the civilized world has ignored Israel’s lawlessness and violence for more than 60 years. Why have we allowed genocide and ethnic cleansing in Gaza and all of Palestine?

The very obvious, and unfortunate result of the world’s unwillingness to bring Israel into compliance with the law, by merely enforcing international law, are the June 4th, 2010 executions of 20 humanitarian aid activists who were killed by being shot in the head and chest repeatedly and at a close range by Israel’s commandos. This is a crime of such tremendous proportion, that it will be interesting to see how Israel’s even most diehard supporters will avoid condemnation of this act without being stained by a lack of condemnation and considered complicit.

Whereas the world is not surprised by Israel’s lawlessness and disregard for the sacredness of human life, we continue to be shocked by its inability to understand that sooner or later it must be called to account for its genocide and other war crimes and crimes against humanity. We can only hope that this most recent Israeli atrocity will be the final straw in a 60 year history of Israeli aggression and mass murder and that it will compel a day of reckoning for Israel and justice for the Palestinian people.