Our two-faced president - Obama secretly sold bunker-buster bombs to Israel

i can't believe there was yet ANOTHER republican debate last night and it's still more than 13 months until the election... supposedly romney bested perry but, ferchrissake, who the hell cares...? bachmann, romney, perry and, yes, obama... they're all out there, competing for our attention while our bought-and-paid-for media keep trying to get us to believe it all means something...

meanwhile, the current white house occupant has once again demonstrated that his constituency is by no means the american people but rather the defense industry, israel and anyone who can put the right amount of money on the table...

from the daily beast...

In an exclusive story to be published Monday on growing military cooperation between the two allies, U.S. and Israeli officials tell Newsweek that the GBU-28 Hard Target Penetrators—potentially useful in any future military strike against Iranian nuclear sites—were delivered to Israel in 2009, just several months after Obama took office.

The military sale was arranged behind the scenes as Obama’s demands for Israel to stop building settlements in disputed territories were fraying political relations between the two countries in public.

The Israelis first requested the bunker busters in 2005, only to be rebuffed by the Bush administration. At the time, the Pentagon had frozen almost all U.S.-Israeli joint defense projects out of concern that Israel was transferring advanced military technology to China.

In 2007, Bush informed Ehud Olmert, then prime minister, that he would order the bunker busters for delivery in 2009 or 2010. The Israelis wanted them in 2007. Obama finally released the weapons in 2009, according to officials familiar with the still-secret decision.

James Cartwright, the Marine Corps general who served until August as the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Newsweek the military chiefs had no objections to the sale. Rather, Cartwright said, there was a concern about “how the Iranians would perceive it,” and “how the Israelis might perceive it.” In other words, would the sale be seen as a green light for Israel to attack Iran’s secret nuclear sites one day?

do you think any of this will be a discussion topic over at barackobama.com...? me neither...

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The Israeli-occupied West Bank

they say a picture is worth a thousand words... well, this one is worth about a million...


(click on image for interactive version)

The map lays out the presence of thousands of Israeli settlers in the West Bank, each of which is connected to each other by Israeli-only roads guarded by numerous Israeli military battalions and many more checkpoints. In the [above] map, each blue house represents an Israeli settlement.

(thanks to americans for peace now - apn - via think progress...)

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Israel, Palestine and the Middle East - once again Professor Cole 'splains it all for you

insightful, informed, thoughtful and spot on...

a teaser... go read the whole thing...

The US-backed military dictatorship in Egypt has become, amusingly enough, a Bonapartist state. It exercises power on behalf of both a state elite and a new wealthy business class, some members of which gained their wealth from government connections and corruption. The Egypt of the Separate Peace, the Egypt of tourism and joint military exercises with the United States, is also an Egypt ruled by the few for the benefit of the few.

The whole system is rotten, deeply dependent on exploiting the little people, on taking bribes from the sole superpower to pursue self-defeating or greedy policies virtually no one wants or would vote for in the region.

[...]

As long as the president and the Congress are willing to lie down and serve as doormats for America’s supposed allies in the Middle East– out of a conviction of the usefulness of their clients and the inexpensiveness of putting them on retainer– there will be anti-Americanism and security threats that force us to subject ourselves to humiliating patdowns and scans at the airport and an erosion of our civil liberties every day. We are only one step away of being treated, with “protest zones” and “Patriot Acts” just as badly as the peaceful Egyptian protesters have been.

one step away... just one step away...

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Disgusting

over the top arrogance...

Israeli settlers building 544 new homes

Israeli settlers have begun building new homes at an extraordinary pace since the government lifted its moratorium on West Bank housing starts — almost 550 in three weeks, more than four times faster than the last two years.

And many homes are going up in areas that under practically any peace scenario would become part of a Palestinian state, a trend that could doom U.S.-brokered peace talks.

what is WRONG with these people...?

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I'm sorry but this is just plain disgusting

it's nothing more than flipping the finger to any idea of israeli-palestinian peace...

Jewish settlers released balloons and broke ground on a kindergarten in celebration Sunday as a 10-month construction slowdown expired, while U.S. and Israeli leaders tried to figure out how to keep Palestinians from walking out of peace talks over the end of the restrictions.

i've lost all patience with this bullshit...

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Of course... Israel goes over the top in reprisal with at least 13 air strikes in Gaza...

i believe it's israel's unwritten policy that at least 100 palestinians have to die for every israeli...

Israeli warplanes have carried out at least 13 air strikes on the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, Palestinian sources have told the BBC.

There were no immediate reports of casualties.

Four of the strikes took place near the town of Khan Younis, where two Israeli soldiers were killed in clashes with Palestinian fighters last week.

The Israeli strikes are the most serious for more than a year, says the BBC's Jon Donnison from Jerusalem.

Palestinian news agencies reported that Israeli aircraft dropped leaflets over parts of Gaza on Thursday warning residents of retaliation for last Friday's killings of the soldiers in Khan Younis.

They were the first Israeli soldiers to be killed in hostile fire in Gaza in over a year. The military wing of Hamas claim responsibility for those attacks.

Hamas said police stations and training facilities were among the targets of Israel's overnight raids.

Tensions in the region are running high after a recent Israeli government announcement of plans to build 1,600 new homes for Jewish people in East Jerusalem, which the Palestinians want as a capital of a future state.

the biblical eye-for-an-eye just doesn't cut it for israel...

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Netanyahu visits Obama while flipping off the U.S. yet again

you can't tell me israel's timing isn't carefully calculated...

Israel Approves Controversial New Building Plan As Netanyahu Visits Obama

The Jerusalem municipality has approved 20 new apartments for Jews in east Jerusalem, the city said Wednesday. The move could stir a new diplomatic crisis with the United States just as Israel's leader is in Washington on a fence-mending visit.

The Obama administration views Israeli building in east Jerusalem, the part of the city claimed by Palestinians as their future capital, as disruptive to Mideast peacemaking efforts. Israel, which captured east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war, insists the city cannot be divided and says it has the right to build anywhere.

The differences over east Jerusalem erupted into a crisis earlier this month when Israel announced during a visit by Vice President Joe Biden that it plans to build 1,600 new apartments for Jews in east Jerusalem.

Israel has apologized for the poor timing of the announcement but rejected calls to cancel the project. In Washington this week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told a pro-Israel audience that Israel was determined to keep building in all of Jerusalem -- a statement quickly rejected by the White House.

Netanyahu met twice with President Barack Obama on Tuesday in an attempt to defuse what has become the countries' worst spat in decades. But Wednesday's announcement by Jerusalem city officials threatened to derail any progress.

The new project -- funded by Jewish American millionaire Irving Moskowitz, a longtime patron of Jewish settler groups -- calls for tearing down part of an old hotel, the Shepherd, and building 20 apartments and a three-level underground parking lot instead.

Word of the approval was leaked to an Israeli Web site minutes before Netanyahu met with Obama at the White House on Tuesday.

a bit more on the settlements...

The building and populating of Jewish settlements within Palestinian inhabited areas of East Jerusalem, as well as the construction of the Separation Wall that divides Palestinians residing in Jerusalem from those living outside the city, in the West Bank, are integral elements of Israel's attempt to fragment the Palestinian population in Jerusalem.

Israeli non-profit associations, such as Elad and the Ateret Cohanim, have been responsible for the settlement construction on lands confiscated by the Israeli government, with the substantial financial support of foreign tycoons, including, most notably, American millionaire Irving Moskowitz.

a little bit more on irving moskowitz...

Dr. Irving I. Moskowitz (born 1928, New York City) is a Florida-based businessman and philanthropist, who built a fortune running hospitals and legal gambling in California. He is the founder of the eponymous "Moskowitz Foundation" which claims to help victims of natural disasters. The foundation raises funds for contentious Israeli settlements in the Arab neighborhoods of East Jerusalem projects through its "charity" bingo hall in Hawaiian Gardens, California.

[...]

Among notable Zionist activities, is the foundation help to Shinlung immigration to Israel. The family also established the Moskowitz Prize for Zionism in 2008.

meanwhile, all the movers and shakers as well as the mover and shaker wannabes in the middle east both in and out of the region should really stop and consider how fortunes in that part of the world have shifted over the centuries...

here's a youtube clip, courtesy of juan cole, that shows the amazing number of empires that have come and gone in the middle east over the past 5,000 years...



let's hope that the pair obama seems to have grown over the health care debate carries over to netanyahu and israel...

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Britain decides to do a little Israel ass-kicking

good on the uk...

Britain is to expel an Israeli diplomat over the use of forged UK passports by the killers of a senior Hamas official in January.

The foreign secretary, David Miliband, will make a statement to the House of Commons this afternoon, blaming Israeli intelligence for the cloning of passports belonging to British citizens. The documents were carried by an assassination team that killed Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in a Dubai hotel.

British officials said Miliband would "request" the immediate departure of an Israeli diplomat. They said they "expect the request will be honoured".

"We think they mucked around with our passports, and we believe that requires consequences," an official said.

diplomat expulsion is a time-honored means to show serious displeasure between one country and another...

meanwhile, in the u.s...

Netanyahu: 'Jerusalem is not a Settlement; It’s Our Capital’

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu challenged U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s strong anti-united Jerusalem stand and told a cheering American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) crowd Monday night, “Jerusalem is not a settlement; it’s our capital.”

He pointed out that Israel has made constant to the concessions to the United States and Palestinian Authority but drew the red line at Jerusalem, reasoning that building houses for Jews in all of united Jerusalem “in no way precludes the possibility of a two-state solution.”

"constant concessions"...? oh, puh-l-e-e-e-eze... israel has done nothing of the kind... i just posted this map, courtesy of professor cole, a few days ago... it's obviously time to post it again...



just look at all those "concessions"...

professor cole also has a good post up about just how wrong netanyahu is to claim that israel has a many thousand year claim to jerusalem...

Netanyahu mixed together Romantic-nationalist cliches with a series of historically false assertions. But even more important was everything he left out of the history, and his citation of his warped and inaccurate history instead of considering laws, rights or common human decency toward others not of his ethnic group.

in his penchant for accurate historical reporting and careful consideration of the law, cole goes on to cite ten reasons why netanyahu is dead wrong...

when are we going to accept that, as far as the israeli government is concerned, the only policy that's acceptable is the total eradication of the palestinians...? when is the international community going to accept that, far from being the victim, israel is now the victimizer...?

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Now, watch this... Israel's going to say, "I told you so..." [UPDATE]

[UPDATE and BUMPED]

predicting an "i told you so" response from israel was a serious understatement on my part...

Israeli airplanes attacked targets in the Gaza Strip early Friday in response to a Palestinian rocket attack that killed a foreign worker in southern Israel, witnesses said.

At least four targets in Gaza were hit during the air strikes that started shortly after midnight, including a smuggling tunnel, two open areas and a metal foundry near Gaza City.

Israel believes that the metal workshop was used to produce rockets that Gaza factions fire on Israel.

There were no immediate reports about casualties during the strikes.

helpless, stateless, rights-less, jailed, starving, beaten, maimed, and wantonly murdered, promised a "two-state" solution for countless years, all the while watching israel gradually but very methodically eat up the rest of their land, destroy their houses, and commit war crimes with impunity, the palestinians and the residents of gaza can't do a damn thing to help themselves except fire the occasional smuggled rocket into israel just to remind the israelis that they're there and incredibly pissed off...

Palestinian militants fired a rocket at Israel from the Gaza Strip on Thursday, killing a Thai farm worker, Israeli medics said, in the first death from a rocket attack since Israel's Gaza offensive last year.

[...]

Thousands of crude rockets launched from Gaza at Israel over a seven-year period sparked the Israeli military's three-week offensive in the Gaza Strip. The brief war devastated the Palestinian territory, killing 1,400 Palestinians, including hundreds of civilians. Thirteen Israelis were killed.

[...]

Thousands of homes were razed or damaged during Israel's offensive, but reconstruction is on hold because building supplies, including cement, cannot reach Gaza. International aid officials have offered to guarantee that the materials would be used only for civilian purposes, but Israel believes that cement and pipes could be diverted by Hamas to build rockets and bunkers.

[...]

Last year, the international community pledged some $4.5 billion for Gaza's reconstruction, but little has been spent because of the blockade, aid officials say.

a militant group has claimed responsibility but ya gotta stop and think... how much of the militancy is caused by israel's genocidal behavior...? how much attention does one person killed inside israel by a militant group in gaza get vs. one person killed in gaza by israelis...? the answers are a no-brainer...

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Yeah, I know, I've been a little obsessive over Israel lately [UPDATE: The situation is deteriorating]

[UPDATE and BUMPED]

we knew this was coming...

Hundreds of Palestinians in east Jerusalem set tires and garbage bins ablaze on Tuesday and hurled rocks at Israeli riot police, who responded with rubber bullets and tear gas. The heaviest clashes in months broke out as an American envoy abruptly canceled a visit, deepening a U.S.-Israeli diplomatic feud.

at least the u.s. is holding to its line in the sand...

Washington notified Israel that its special Mideast envoy, George Mitchell, had indefinitely put off his trip to the region.

now, if the u.s. doesn't suddenly develop a case of "where's my cojones?"...

but they've got it coming...

juan cole...

The far rightwing government of Binyamin Netanyahu in Israel majorly sandbagged Vice President Joe Biden on Tuesday, demonstrating once again that it has not the slightest interest in pursuing a just peace with the Palestinian people or in trading a cessation of its colonization of the Palestinian West Bank for a comprehensive peace with the Arab world.

[...]

The Netanyahu government had announced a settlement freeze in much of the West Bank for 8 months, but does not include the areas it unilaterally annexed to the district of Jerusalem as West Bank territory. Nor is the 'settlement freeze' really any such thing, since there are plans to expand housing in existing colonies on the West Bank.

This controversy comes on the heels of demonstrations in al-Khalil/ Hebron and Jerusalem by Palestinians outraged by the unilateral Israeli designation of the Tombs of the Patriarchs and the tomb of Rachel, in Palestinian West Bank territory, as Israeli heritage sites. In Palestinian experience, such Israeli claims often precede Israeli annexation. While US mass media did not cover the demonstrations in any detail (much reporting from Israel in US media is by dual citizens or by reporters who have served or have children serving in the Israeli army), they are a big story in the Middle East, and the creeping Israeli expulsion of Palestinians from East Jerusalem is guaranteed to enrage the world's 1.5 billion Muslims and result in violence.

The Obama administration came into office determined to restart the negotiations between Abbas and the Israelis, with the aim of achieving a two-state solution. After over a year of meetings and carrying messages and cajoling, the patient-as-Job special envoy George Mitchell finally convinced Mahmoud Abbas to agree to indirect negotiations with Israel. For the past year, Abbas had refused to talk, on the grounds that the Israelis were actively colonizing the West Bank and so taking away the very territory that was subject to negotiation. How do you parlay with someone who is stealing from you at that very moment?

professor cole has also posted a very informative map that shows exactly how much territory palestine has had taken away since 1946...



cole's post prompted andrew sullivan at the atlantic to put up some thoughts of his own...

The maps show what has happened since - in sixty years in terms of growing sovereignty and accelerating Israeli control. The Muslim population is expanding as the geographic extent of their political self-government keeps diminishing. While Jerusalem was once in the center of Palestinian territory - and the Israelis agreed to this, while the Arabs refused - it is now not only in Israel but all of it will soon be under sole Israeli control, as Netanyahu continues, despite pleas from his American benefactors and allies, merely to freeze them.

The point of the illustration was to provide some background to the now-unavoidable fact that Israel has every intention of expanding its sovereignty to the Jordan river for ever, to segregate Palestinians into walled enclaves within, and to station large numbers of Israeli troops on the Eastern border.

even lula da silva, brazil's president, in israel on a state visit, felt compelled to comment...

“We came here to talk about peace, but we also came here to strengthen our ties with Israel” Lula da Silva said at a welcoming ceremony in the Jerusalem residence of Israeli President Shimon Peres. “We are interested in pushing forward the peace process.”

Lula da Silva later called for the establishment of a Palestinian state and said Israeli settlements were hurting the peace process. “The time has now come to open a circle of negotiations and to overcome mistrust,” he said in a speech to the Israeli parliament.

israel is losing friends faster than i'm losing my hair... do ya s'pose it might be time for israel to re-think its genocidal policies...?

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Personally, I am really liking the way that Israel is starting to take real heat over its unparalleled arrogance

just check out the stories just from today alone...

item: the u.s. decides to draw a line in the sand, and about freakin' time too...

The Obama administration is demanding that Israel call off a contentious building project in east Jerusalem and make a public gesture toward the Palestinians to help defuse one of the worst U.S.-Israeli feuds in memory, officials on both sides said Monday.

item: once again, we get netanyahu's BIG BUT...

But [emphasis added] Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu showed little sign of yielding, saying Jewish construction in east Jerusalem "in no way" hurts Palestinians. A Jerusalem city spokesman suggested Jewish building there would continue.

item: the israeli ambassador to the u.s. weighs in...

Israel's ambassador to the US [Michael Oren] has said relations between the two are at their lowest for 35 years, Israeli media say.

and, once again, israel calls the bluff...

item: netanyahu...

"No government in the past 40 years has limited construction in neighbourhoods of Jerusalem," he said.

"Building these Jewish neighbourhoods in Jerusalem does not hurt the Arabs of East Jerusalem or come at their expense."

no, it may not "hurt" them, it just insures that they will continue to be dispossessed of their homeland, their property, their culture, their identity, and everything that human beings should be able to take for granted...

item: what cockroach comes crawling out of the woodwork...? why, none other than joe lieberman...

"It was a dust-up, a misunderstanding. (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu has apologized, and the timing was unfortunate. But the second round of criticism is unproductive. I make one appeal - sometimes silence really is golden.

"Our enemies are common; let's not let a mistake grow into a divisive dispute between members of the same family."

item: when even aipac starts making public statements, you know the pot has REALLY been stirred right briskly...

"The Obama Administration's recent statements regarding the U.S. relationship with Israel are a matter of serious concern," AIPAC said in a statement Sunday. "...The Administration should make a conscious effort to move away from public demands and unilateral deadlines directed at Israel, with whom the United States shares basic, fundamental, and strategic interests.

"The escalated rhetoric of recent days only serves as a distraction from the substantive work that needs to be done with regard to the urgent issue of Iran's rapid pursuit of nuclear weapons, and the pursuit of peace between Israel and all her Arab neighbors."

all i'm hoping for is that the u.s. won't get intimidated into backing off... israel is seriously overdue for an accounting, and the list is very, very long...

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Israel's call for calm in crisis with the U.S. followed by Netanyahu's "BIG BUT"

oh, yes, by all means, let's not get carried away... just because we stuck a finger in joe biden's eye, gave the dirty digit to obama AND took a crap all over the peace process is no reason to go and get your knickers in a twist... relax... chill...

Netanyahu has been trying to dispel the impression that relations with the U.S. have degenerated into a crisis. His attempt Sunday to ease concerns were his first public comments since the feud erupted.

"We opened the newspapers this morning and read all kinds of commentary and assumptions regarding the crisis with the U.S. I recommend not to get carried away and to calm down," Netanyahu told his Cabinet.

Netanyahu, however, gave no indication that he would cancel the east Jerusalem construction plan, despite warnings from Washington that it could undermine the negotiating climate as indirect peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians are about to begin under U.S. mediation.

and, just so's ya know, i have a really BIG BUT - don't think for one goddam minute we're going to even CONSIDER reconsidering our settlements decision... in your dreams, my good friends... in your dreams...

seriously, the most appropriate response to israel's recent actions as well as netanyahu's supremely condescending apology and call for calm is outrage, and it's an outrage that should have been given full expression a long, long time ago...

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Israel claims national heritage status for 2 West Bank sites, announces new settlements, kills off the peace talks, and then...?

and then seals off the west bank for fear of unrest...? WTF...???

Israel has sealed off the West Bank for 48 hours, preventing Palestinians from entering Israel because of fears of unrest.

first the announcement of the national heritage sites on 3 march... then the approval of new settlements in east jerusalem... then the phony apology to joe biden for taking a crap on his visit to promote the peace process... then, no big surprise, palestine pulls out of the peace talks... and now that israel has once again shown its true colors, it seals off the west bank because the palestinians might be upset... might be...? MIGHT BE...??? lordy lord...

and almost as bad is watching the vice president of my psychopathic country, after a momentary lapse into sanity, re-join and appallingly celebrate the psychopathology of israel

'US has no better friend than Israel'

US Vice President Joe Biden tried to put the furor over announcement of plans to build 1,600 units in Ramat Shlomo behind him, saying during a speech Thursday at Tel Aviv University that he condemned the move because as a friend he was compelled to "deliver the hardest truth," but adding that he appreciated the clarifications he received on the matter from Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.

He opened the speech by stressing the importance of US-Israel friendship and Washington's commitment to the security of the Jewish state, saying that "US President Barack Obama and myself know that the US has no better friend in the community of nations than Israel."

i'd sure like to know what israel has on our u.s. leaders that they can so slavishly serve the genocidal interests of another country...

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Israel is committed to eradicating Palestine and Palestinians from the face of the earth [UPDATE: Israel apologizes for bad timing]

[UPDATE]

aw geez... it's just bad timing, eh...? nothing wrong with the decision itself, eh...? how is it that the very people who have suffered the most hatred and persecution over the centuries can turn around and be such monsters...? oh, wait... the victim becomes the victimizer... silly me... i forgot...

Israel apologized Wednesday for disrupting the visit of Vice President Joe Biden with its announcement of 1,600 new homes in disputed east Jerusalem, but made clear it had no intention of reversing the order that has cast a shadow over the latest U.S. push for Mideast peace.

As Biden held talks with top Palestinian leaders in the West Bank, Israeli Interior Minister Eli Yishai, whose office announced the new construction on lands Palestinians claim for a future state, said the problem was about timing, not substance [emphasis added].

"We had no intention, no desire, to offend or taunt an important man like the vice president during his visit," Yishai told Israel Radio. "I am very sorry for the embarrassment. We need to remember that approvals are done according to law even if the timing was wrong. ... Next time we need to take timing into account."

the world community of nations should stop pussyfooting around, step up and put a halt to israel's slow, incremental, deliberate genocide... it's gone on for much too long...

Israel approved the construction of 1,600 new homes for Jews in disputed east Jerusalem on Tuesday — a move that immediately clouded a visit by Vice President Joe Biden aimed at repairing strained ties and kickstarting Mideast peace talks.

The Interior Ministry announced the construction plans just as Biden was wrapping up a series of warm meetings with Israeli leaders. There was no immediate reaction from the vice president.

Relations between Israel and the Obama administration have been chilly precisely because of the settlement issue.

The U.S., like the Palestinians and the rest of the international community, believes that Israeli settlements built on lands claimed by the Palestinians, including east Jerusalem, undermine peace prospects. President Obama has been more outspoken on the issue than his predecessors.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rebuffed calls from the White House to halt all settlement activity, agreeing only to a limited freeze that does not include east Jerusalem.

israel has set itself above all rule of law, any accountability and has completely forfeited any good will and credibility it might have had by pursuing a sincere course for peace...

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