Israeli Night of Broken Glass: Africans attacked in Tel Aviv anti-migrant demo

Hundreds of people demonstrate in the impoverished Hatikva neighborhood of the southern Mediterranean city of Tel Aviv on May 23, 2012 (AFP Photo / Roni Schutzer)Israel Out)

Source: Russia Today
http://www.rt.com/news/israel-anti-migrant-demo-061/

Thousands of Israelis, including high-profile politicians, attended an anti-African demonstration in Tel Aviv. The rally turned violent, with attacks on Africans and grocery shop windows being smashed.

The gathering, which took place in Tel Aviv’s Hatikva neighborhood, targeted the influx of African asylum seekers and was organized by Michael Ben Ari, a Knesset member from the National Union party, along with far-right activists Itamar Ben-Guir and Baruch Marzel, Israeli newspaper Haaretz reports.

Many protesters also blamed the government, and Benjamin Netanyahu specifically, for inaction.

But the rally was also attended by politicians from the ruling Likud party, including Knesset members Miri Regev and Danny Danon. While Regev described asylum seekers as a “cancer in our body,” Danon said the “infiltrators” had to be immediately expelled from Israel.

“We should not be afraid to say the words 'expulsion now,'” Danon was reported as saying.

The crowd carried signs proclaiming messages such as “This is not Africa” and “Stop talking, start expelling.”

But as the sun set the rally turned violent, with demonstrators attacking at least a dozen African men and women who were unfortunate enough to be near the scene. They also smashed the shop front of a grocery store that served the migrant workers, subsequently looting it. Demonstrators also broke the window of a cab driven by a suspected African migrant worker. A bonfire was also lit up in the street. Seventeen people were reportedly arrested.

The rage of those who attended the rally seems to reflect a growing intolerance of the incoming African asylum seekers and migrant workers, even among those in the highest ranks of power.

On Sunday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told his ministers that the phenomenon of “illegal work infiltrators” was “very grave,” and that it “threatened the social fabric of society,” Israel’s national security and national identity. He also warned that unless action is taken, the migrants could “inundate” the country and “cancel out its image as a Jewish and democratic state.”

Netanyahu’s words were strongly supported by Interior Minister Eli Yishai, who called for the deportation of asylum seekers.

Thousands of migrants from Eritrea and South Sudan came to Israel, saying they wanted to escape the poverty and political instability at home. Most of them are headed for Europe, but are unable to use their traditional path through Libya because of the ongoing post-civil war strife in the country. Once in Israel, they are looked after by local NGOs and the UN High Commission for Refugees. Most of them settle in Tel Aviv.

The government has been trying to deport refugees from South Sudan back to their homeland, but the motion was halted by the Jerusalem District Court. The court issued a temporary order prohibiting the deportation until it rules on a petition filed by five human rights organization against the state’s decision to deport the immigrants, arguing that their lives may be endangered if they return home. Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein is set to appear before the court next week to argue that there is no legal obstacle to the expulsion, as individual checks will show that none of the immigrants face any threats to their lives back South Sudan.

Tel Aviv spreads falsehood, deceptions against Iran: Israeli daily

Israeli Premier Benjamin Natziyahu

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/239981.html

An editorial in the Israeli daily Ha’aretz says Israeli Premier Benjamin Netanyahu and Minister for Military Affairs Ehud Barak are creating "falsehoods and deceptions on the Iranian issue.”

The article, published on Sunday, said while former Israeli premiers such as Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert did not allow war rhetoric against Iran “to reach apocalyptic proportions,” Netanyahu has baselessly turned the Iranian issue into the be-all and end-all.

According to the editorial, while there is a consensus among experts that Iran's nuclear energy program “is being conducted methodically” and does not pursue a military capability, Netanyahu and Barak are creating "falsehoods and deceptions" on the issue.

“Many people, among them [Israel’s] Chief of Staff [Lieutenant General] Benny Gantz” believe that Iran will not produce a nuclear weapon, the article adds.

Gantz said on April 25 that he does not believe Iran will pursue nuclear weapons after years of efforts made by Tel Aviv and its allies to convince the world otherwise. He described Iran's leadership as “very rational,” who would not make such a decision.

Tel Aviv has recently been subjected to harsh criticisms by the regime’s military-intelligence officials over its stance towards Iran.

On April 27, former Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) director Yuval Diskin said Netanyahu and Minister for Military Affairs Ehud Barak were not fit to stand at helm of the Israeli regime.

“I will tell you things that might be harsh. I cannot trust Netanyahu and Barak at the wheel in confronting Iran. They are infected with messianic feelings over Iran,” Diskin said.

Pointing to the recent wave of criticisms targeting the Israeli policies on Iran, senior Iranian author and Middle East expert Dr. Ismail Salami said, “A rift the size of a potential coup is taking shape between the Israeli government and the military-intelligence men over Iran, a fact which threatens the ruling Israeli political apparat on the one hand and exonerates Iran of all years-long groundless allegations on the other.”

The US, Israel and some of their allies have repeatedly accused Iran of pursuing military objectives in its nuclear energy program.

Washington and Tel Aviv have time and again threatened Tehran with a military strike against its civilian nuclear facilities.

Iran argues that as a signatory to the Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) and a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), it has the right to develop and acquire nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.

Israel revokes 140k Palestinian ID cards

An Israeli soldier checks Palestinians' identification at at Huwwara checkpoint. (file photo)

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/179336.html

Thousands of Palestinians traveling abroad have reportedly been stripped of residency status after the Tel Aviv regime executed the plan without warning.

Documents from Israel's justice ministry reveal that Israel used a covert procedure to cancel the residency status of 140,000 West Bank Palestinians between 1967 and 1994, Ha'artz newspaper reported Wednesday.

The report added that the procedure was used on Palestinian residents of the occupied West Bank who wished to travel abroad via Jordan. They were ordered at the Allenby Bridge border crossing to exchange their ID cards for a card allowing them to cross.

Palestinians who found themselves "no longer residents" include students who graduated from foreign universities, businessmen, and laborers who left for work in the Persian Gulf states.

An Israeli human rights organization, the Center for the Defense of the Individual, has criticized the move and called it an illegitimate demographic policy and a grave violation of international law.

"Mass withdrawal of residency rights from tens of thousands of West Bank residents, tantamount to permanent exile from their homeland, remains an illegitimate demographic policy and a grave violation of international law," the center said.

The rights group noted that an unknown number of Gaza residents had lost residency rights in a similar manner.

The center called on Tel Aviv to fix the ongoing wrong at once, restore residency rights to all affected Palestinians and allow them and their families to return to their homeland.

Iran to send two satellites into space

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/179136.html

A senior Iranian aerospace official has said the country will soon launch two satellites to take high resolution wall maps and aerial photos of locations around the globe as seen from space.

Head of Aerospace Industries of Iran's Electronics Industries Co., Asghar Ebrahimi, told ISNA news agency on Monday that Iran will send the Fajr (Dawn) satellite into space by September, while the Tolou (Sunrise) satellite will be launched in February 2012.

Ebrahimi noted that the national Fajr satellite has been developed and produced by Iranian aerospace experts in less than a year. It weighs 50 kilograms and is technically characterized by an orbit which could promote from 250 to 400 kilometers through a thruster or an engine.

The Iranian aerospace official added the Tolou satellite weighs less than 80 kilograms and will be placed in elliptical orbit of 400 kilometers in radius.

Tolou will have a lifespan of one and a half years and will capture images with a resolution of 50 meters and then transmit them to stations on earth.

Iran launched its first domestically manufactured satellite, Omid (Hope), on a home-built Safir-2 rocket on February 2, 2009.

Israelis kill American – Joe Biden says: "What's the big deal?"

By: Justin Raimondo, June 04, 2010

Source: Anti War
http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2010/06/03/this-says-it-all/

What is US foreign policy in the Middle East all about – and for whose benefit is it being conducted? In two short paragraphs, this news story says it all:

"The U.S. confirmed that an American citizen, identified as 19-year-old Furkan Dogan, was killed by multiple gunshots during the Israeli raid on a flotilla carrying activists attempting to run a blockade of the Gaza Strip.

State Department spokesman Philip J. Crowley said the U.S. has made no decision on a response to Dogan’s death."

Apparently official Washington is torn between issuing a mild protest, and thanking them.

"Protecting the welfare of American citizens is a fundamental responsibility of our government," Hillary Clinton assured the media, "and one that we take very seriously" – but not seriously enough to issue an official protest. "We are in constant contact with the Israeli government attempting to obtain more information about our citizens." Do they want to know how many holes the IDF put in Furkan Dogan’s head before they make a decision on a response?

In reality, the US already made a response in the form of Vice President Joe "Loose Cannon" Biden, who, when asked about the attack on the flotilla, said: "So what’s the big deal here?"

At the time he said it, the odds were fair that an American citizen – out of nine with the flotilla — was among the dead. Now that it’s been confirmed, I wonder if it’s dawned on our dim-witted Vice President that it is indeed a very big deal.

In a brazen act of international piracy, the Israelis boarded a ship in international waters and killed an American citizen – so what is the American government going to do about it?

The answer is: nothing, zero, nada, zilch. Israel refuses to let an international investigation look into the matter, and Biden is cool with that, as he told Charlie Rose:

"Biden: We passed a resolution in the UN saying we need a transparent and open investigation of what happened. It looks like things are…

"Rose: International investigation?

"Biden: Well, an investigation run by the Israelis, but we’re open to international participation."

That’s certainly impartial, fair, and transparent – let the Israelis investigate themselves! No, Biden isn’t stupid: he’s smart enough to know the Israelis will never be held accountable by our government, and that any attempt to do so would be aborted before it ever became known.

The reason for this peculiar passivity is because, contra Hillary, protecting the welfare of American citizens is not considered a fundamental responsibility of our government insofar as it means protecting their welfare against the government of Israel. In any conflict between American and Israeli interests, Washington’s instinctive response is to uphold the latter and ignore the former. Under the Bush administration, such a conflict of interests was considered impossible: the very idea that there could be daylight between Washington and Tel Aviv on any given issue was considered heretical. Even under the Bushies, however, there was still some vague stirrings of American independence, especially toward the end of the second term. And they never had to face a situation like this, in which an American citizen in transit was murdered by our faithful "allies." That kind of thing hasn’t happened since the sinking of the USS Liberty – and it may be a sign of what’s to come that a survivor of that heinous assault was traveling with the flotilla, too.

In the case of the USS Liberty, the whole thing was covered up in a shameful act of official suppression: against the testimony of the sailors on that ship, 34 of whom were killed, the US government ruled that the savage Israeli assault was a tragic "accident." Yet US government officials knew the truth. As then secretary of state Dean Rusk later put it:

"I was never satisfied with the Israeli explanation. Their sustained attack to disable and sink Liberty precluded an assault by accident or some trigger-happy local commander. Through diplomatic channels we refused to accept their explanations. I didn’t believe them then, and I don’t believe them to this day. The attack was outrageous."

So is this attack outrageous, but if the US government can whitewash the Israeli murder of 34 American sailors, it can overlook the murder of a single American in nearly identical circumstances.

Of course, this is not 1967: the news of an American’s death at the hands of the IDF is being transmitted around the world, even as I write this, and all the details are coming out: the pitilessness of the Israelis, young Furkan’s idealism, and the horrific circumstances of his death.

What is being transmitted, above all, is the braying arrogance of the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and his media shills, as they deride the dead as "terrorists looking for trouble." Bizarrely, the Vice President of the United States is joining right in, declaring that Israel had a "right" to board the ships and detain the passengers because it has a "right" to ensure its own "security" – yet the ships were inspected by the Turkish government in Cyprus before they left, and found to contain only items such as building material and children’s toys. The Israelis, as part of their serio-comic propaganda offensive, are triumphantly showing off a cache of "weapons" found on the ship – which looks like nothing more than a collection of old kitchen knives and a couple of metal poles.

An American is killed as heavily armed soldiers of a foreign nation board a ship in international waters, firing live ammunition at the passengers as they rappel onto the deck. Among those passengers: a former US ambassador, a former US colonel and Pentagon official, several members of the European parliament, a member of the Israeli Knesset, and members of parliament from several Arab countries.

Imagine if Iran had done this. Washington would have reverberated with the sound of thunder emanating from the White House, and the attack fleet would already be steaming toward the Gulf, taking up position. That the culprit was Israel, however, puts a whole different face on the matter, at least as far as our government is concerned: they’re content to let the Israelis "investigate," and let the matter drop.

For years, some of us have been saying that the government of Israel and its partisans in this country exercise a decisive – and unhealthy – influence on the making and execution of US foreign policy. We’ve been accused of everything from anti-Semitism to pushing "conspiracy theories," and yet the Mediterranean Massacre – and our government’s non-response – underscores that, if anything, we’ve been underestimating the extent to which the US takes its orders directly from Tel Aviv.

The Israel Lobby controls official Washington: Congress is, as Pat Buchanan trenchantly observed, "Israeli-occupied territory." Yet one would think that, in spite of these circumtances, the wanton murder of an American on the high seas by Israeli commandos would provoke an angry response from Washington. Unfortunately, one would be wrong.

Instead, what we have is the grotesque spectacle of our Vice President commending the Israelis, and the US and Israel scrambling to come up with a "joint response." What more proof do we need that the US government is the political equivalent of occupied Palestine, where truth and justice are under blockade?

For years, they’ve been spying on us, collaborating with our enemies, stealing our secrets, manipulating our politicians, and now they’ve gone so far as to murder one of our citizens on neutral ground – and still our government cannot manage even a peep of protest. A more disgusting display of cowardice would be hard to imagine.

We attacked Iraq in large part due to the influence of the Lobby, and we are gearing up for an armed conflict with Iran in response to the same sort of pressure: will we now countenance the execution of one of our own citizens in order to appease Tel Aviv?

This was no "accident." The Israeli government knew precisely what it was doing, it knew there were Americans on those ships, and chose to go in guns blazing: it was the equivalent of spitting in Uncle Sam’s face.

After all, how dare those Americans try to freeze the building of settlements in what is "Greater Israel"? How dare Obama tell us what we can and cannot do?! We’ll show them! Let’s kill a few. Don’t worry – they won’t retaliate. We own them: and they know it.

In view of the Obama administration’s shameful crawling, one can hardly disagree. Which raises a question: how many American lives are to be sacrificed on the altar of the "special relationship"? It’s a question to which one doesn’t really want to know the answer.