From Counter Currents Org.

By Bill Van Auken

13 January, 2010
WSWS.org

Massoud Ali Mohammadi, one of Iran’s leading nuclear scientists, was assassinated in Tehran Tuesday, just two days after the top US military commander in the region announced that the Pentagon has drawn up plans to bomb Iranian nuclear sites.....

The assassination in Tehran came just two days after the senior—and highly political—US Army general, David Petraeus, announced in a television interview that Iran’s nuclear facilities “certainly can be bombed.” Petraeus heads the US Central Command, which oversees both the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. His statement signaled a significant escalation of US military threats against Iran.

In an interview with the CNN cable news network broadcast Sunday, Petraeus declared that “it would be almost literally irresponsible” if CENTCOM (Central Command) failed to draw up “plans for a whole variety of different contingencies” relating to a potential military attack on Iran......

In another indication of the military pressure that Washington is bringing to bear on Iran, President Obama has ordered a carrier strike group, led by the aircraft carrier USS Eisenhower, into the Persian Gulf for a six-month deployment. The flotilla, including 6,000 sailors and Marines, four squadrons of fighter bombers and several missile cruisers and destroyers, set sail for the region on January 2.

After Afghanistan and certainly Iraq - can any logical person support the efforts of the unholy US/Zionist alliance to "cry wolf" even again? And to use their terrorism to subjugate the rights of any nation on the planet to have nuclear power?  North Korea has withstood all attacks by the US - is that because they don't have natural resources to be plundered?

Assuming that the "rag heads" (as the invincible US Marines call them) have the damned cheek to read and learn about nuclear power and its assets - does the US/Zionist alliance have even OUR imprimatur to destroy Iran's efforts for cheap clean energy - as Howard would have had us believe?

It is surely logical to assume that if the US/Zionist alliance has the power (and they have) to pre-emptively attack a sovereign nation (yet again) on the contrived basis that the nuclear power stations which this "rag-head" nation wishes, could provide cheaper clean energy - as the terrorist US/Zionists have actively claimed?  Or could it be used to be the way to nuclear weapons? Fair dinkum. "The journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step".

If the genuine objective of the US Middle East criminals is peace - then why are they causing the wars?  To me the US is the terrorist monster of the modern age and more insidious than the Mongols or the Vandals. The ever-present Zionists are, as usual, taking advantage of the situation.

Why does Australia support the US/Zionist alliance in committing the Middle East crimes when Rudd himself wanted out of Iraq?  Does Rudd now bend to the powers of the extreme right press as did Howard before him?  Is that what politics is all about - genuflecting to the terrorists?

An old saying in the Trade Union movement is that you should not complain "until you are hurt".

The Zionist claim of “thought crime” only applies to gentiles?

God Bless Australia.  NE OUBLIE.

"The International Day Of Solidarity With The Palestinian People", Pretoria December 4th 1997 - Nelson Mandela:

I have come to join you today to add our own voice to the universal call for Palestinian self-determination and statehood. We would be beneath our own reason for existence as government and as a nation, if the resolution of the problems of the Middle East did not feature prominently on our agenda.

When in 1977, the United Nations passed the resolution inaugurating the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian people, it was asserting the recognition that injustice and gross human rights violations were being perpetrated in Palestine. In the same period, the UN took a strong stand against apartheid; and over the years, an international consensus was built, which helped to bring an end to this iniquitous system.

We know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.

End of quote.

All of us can read - all of us can think - all of us know right from wrong - but how many of us use this knowledge to make a profit?

The crimes being committed by the US and especially their alliance with the Zionist Occupation Forces in Palestine, are a scar on any future claims by the United States Of America to be the leader in the establisment of "freedom" - of any degree - in the entire world.

God Bless Australia.  NE OUBLIE.

The 85-year-old Jewish, anti-Zionist, Holocaust survivor Hedy Epstein is a sturdy looking woman. Her slightly hunched frame hides the determination to continue a life-long dedication to social justice.

This week in Cairo she joined close to 1,400 international delegates on the Gaza Freedom March (GFM), a project aimed at ending the suffocating blockade on Gaza. Epstein launched a hunger strike alongside about 50 others to highlight the human rights abuses in Palestine and Israeli and Egyptian collusion in the humanitarian crisis for the Strip's 1.5 million population.

GFM steering committee member Dr Haidar Eid, based in Gaza, said that the "deadly, hermitic siege" had only tightened after Israel's Operation Cast Lead in December 2008/January 2009.

Epstein told The Age that she refused to remain silent as a Jew when, "Israel was committing crimes against the Palestinian people. I often receive hate-mail from Jews over my public stance, being called a self-hating Jew and worse, but I ignore them."

Citizens from 42 countries, including America, Venezuela, Cameroon, Ireland, Australia, Britain, Japan and Libya descended on Cairo on December 27 with the hope of leaving for the Egyptian/Gaza border the following day. Organised by American peace group Code Pink, prominent delegates included leading American legal advocate Michael Ratner, European members of parliament and co-founder of the Electronic Intifada website Ali Abunimah.

The Egyptian regime blocked access for the mission, citing "security" concerns, and refused to grant entry visas to the assembled group. Cairo's position, undoubtedly backed by its masters the US and Israel, condemned most of the marchers as "hoodlums" and "criminals". In fact, many participants were the elderly and the religious and non-violent, Gandhian tactics were the central ideology.

I attended the week-long event, as a Jew, human being and journalist, and never heard any mention of incitement from the delegates. Instead, it was clear that Palestine had become a key concern for citizens across the globe, dismayed that the Western political elites continued to support Israeli aggression. The Jewish state's very legitimacy is being challenged like never before.

http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=9920&page=0

G'day Gus,

Since the illegal and un-democratic state, euphemistically called "Israel", which currently occupies Palestinian land, does NOT exist legally; morally or historically, then continued discussion on whether they can have this or that is irrelevant since it creates a false image of something that is like the "tooth fairy" and doesn’t exist.

But let’s be reasonable and adopt a civilized explanation.

For reasons which are now evident, the Zionist's "Jewish People’s Council” unilaterally declared the “State of Israel” at the same time as the British government’s League of Nation’s mandate expired.  So, did the Jewish citizens of the Palestine nation take over that mandate? And if so, by what authority?

Prior to then, the activities of the Jewish People’s Council was condemned as terrorism since it was totally, illegal subversive violence against the mandated authority and therefore opposed to the principles of the “United Nations” predecessor.

Bearing in mind that a significant number of these Jewish/Palestine citizens were welcomed immigrants from Russia subsequent to that country’s  revolution and on, one would not be surprised that Russia “recognized” this “declaration of independence” (from whom?) as indeed did the US - their ultimate guardian.  Palestine existed before and after the expiry of the mandate.

So let’s not mince words, in any civilized situation, that act would be so ridiculous that it would not be allowed to survive since it was in fact, an example of the inexcusable stupidity that caused and exacerbated WW’s 1 and 2.

Universal acceptance of that “rebellion” by immigrants of a certain culture to Palestine was not and should not have been accepted for any logical; legal or moral reason. Even the Palestinians who had accepted these “new citizens” were not allowed to vote on the rebellion’s acceptability.

So, what I have written is as true as general knowledge will allow and therefore, the “declaration of independence” by a certain culture in a host nation, who have become citizens of thousands of years civilization, should not be allowed to take over the land that they have been so fortunate to have been welcomed into with open arms – or even without.

Will the rest of the world take notice of this?

I just cannot stand the hypocrisy of the “powers that be”.  If the “swine flu” epidemic of the US interference in the freedom of established civilizations does not meet its “waterloo”, then climate change can be ignored.

The number of nations to whom the US owes a sincere apology builds by the year.

Think and reason – read between the lines.  While I have no axe to grind with Muslims, in fact I respect their resistance to the US/Zionist oppression; I would nevertheless vigorously oppose them if they dared to try a “Zionist unilateral declaration of independence” in my Australia.

God Bless Australia.  NE OUBLIE.

Israel's leader declared his country's permanent claim to parts of the West Bank on Sunday, angering Palestinians again and complicating efforts by President Barack Obama's Mideast envoy - though the same claim was also made by previous, more moderate premiers.

Timing and context lent weight to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's visit to two Jewish settlements and his declaration that they would remain in Israel forever. He planted a tree at one of them - Maaleh Adumim, home to about 30,000 Israelis about two miles (three kilometers) from Jerusalem - a symbolic act of ownership.

"Our message is clear: We are planting here, we will stay here, we will build here. This place will be an inseparable part of the state of Israel for eternity," Netanyahu proclaimed, just as envoy George Mitchell was trying to restart peace talks after a yearlong stalemate.

http://www.timesonline.com/bct_news/news_details/article/1373/2010/january/24/premier-israel-to-keep-parts-of-west-bank-forever.html